Current challenges facing participatory rural appraisal

This article provides a summary of the major challenges currently facing participatory rural appraisal (PRA), as well as the changes implied by some of these challenges. These challenges are considered at six different levels, namely the individual, community, organizational, project and programme, donor and policy levels. The challenges identified are drawn from the literature on PRA, as well as from a recent series of workshops held by the author with the staff of six NGOs that are promoting PRA in South Asia. The article concludes by attributing these challenges to five cross-cutting factors: differences in power, culture, knowledge, money and time. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rural Development Policy: Rationale and Reality

America's rural communities have fared poorly in economic termscompared to metropolitan areas. After a spurt of growth in the1970s that seemed to be closing the gap, rural areas are againlosing ground. Rural communities have argued for special helpfrom the national government. Such help can be justified tofacilitate balanced economic growth, create "more equal" standardsof living, and benefit small farmers, a group for whom the nationhas a special regard. The counter-arguments are that specialhelp to rural areas postpones adjustments to an increasinglyurban world and that federal rural programs subsidize a favoredlife-style. In fact, several federal development programs serverural areas. President Carter announced a rural policy in 1979.In 1980 the Congress enacted legislation requiring future administrationsto address rural concerns systematically. The Reagan administrationhas sent Congress the rural development strategy required bythe law, and two annual updates. However, if having a policymeans having a systematic approach to reaching defined objectives,the U.S. has had no rural policy. The objectives of federalrural efforts have never been settled on, and approaches torural problems continue to be unsystematic.     

Socialism in France: An appraisal

The Mitterrand Era. Edited by A. DALEY. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Pp.xiv + 285, index, £45.00 (cloth). ISBN 0–333–63265–6.

France during the Socialist Years. Edited by G. RAYMOND. Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1994. Pp.xi + 278, £41.50 (cloth). ISBN 185521–5187.

The Politics of Fun: Cultural Policy and Debate in Contemporary France. Edited by D. LOOSELEY. Oxford: Berg, 1997. Pp.xv + 279, biblio, index. £34.95 (cloth); £14.95 (paper). ISBN 1–85973013–2 and ‐153–8.     

浅析宋诗的"理"与"趣"

宋诗的一个最突出的特点,就是重视思理,在立意上创新,在内容上偏重于哲理思辨。宋诗之＂理＂引人思索,给人智慧。同时,宋诗表现出一种＂乐＂的时代主题,对诗之＂趣＂的追求和表现更成为宋诗的一种普遍风尚。文章分别从＂理＂和＂趣＂两个方面来分析宋诗的特点,研究宋诗的审美倾向。     

Contested governance: The new repertoire of the Eurozone crisis

The austerity policies that EU policymakers adopted in response to the Eurozone crisis are often criticized as the product of institutionalized neoliberal ideas. This critique has merits, but tends to overlook institutional changes that do not neatly conform to well demarcated neoliberal ideas considered as “switchmen,” “paradigms,” or “blueprints.” This article offers an alternative reading of the Eurozone's institutional evolution that bridges pragmatist scholarship with cognitive and social psychology. The Eurozone crisis saw the emergence of a new and contested repertoire of governance. Policymakers agreed that “stronger governance” was necessary, but they struggled over how to perform that repertoire. This contest ultimately produced institutional changes that typically mixed austerity and unconventional policies. The advantage of thinking about ideas in terms of repertoires that actors perform is to afford a more granular view of institutions as sites of individual cognition, collective innovation, and political contestation.     

Resilience and robustness in policy design: a critical appraisal

Resilience and robustness are exciting concepts for policy researchers. Their broad use in other disciplines has motivated social scientists and policy researchers to adopt them in analyses. In the present paper, we review definitions of these concepts and the primary theoretical and empirical challenges presented by resilience and robustness as lenses for improving the understanding of policy process and policy design. The results reveal that the two concepts differ in their potential value for public policy analysis. Despite its diffusion and ‘charme’, resilience does not appear to be useful and may be misleading, whereas robustness exhibits great potential with respect to both analysis and design.     

The ethos of sovereignty: A critical appraisal

Taking as its starting point the commonly held claim about the obscurity of the concept of sovereignty, the article first identifies a fundamental paradox between the classical Westphalian notion of state sovereignty and human rights. In the rhetoric of international politics, attempts to establish the responsibility of states to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms within their jurisdictions are often countered with claims referring to the “sovereign equality” of all states and the subsequent principle of non-intervention. The article suggests that in a more contemporary understanding of sovereignty the responsibility of a state to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms is seen as a constituent ingredient of the state itself. The chapter continues to elaborate how this change has come about. The classical notion of sovereignty is illustrated through a reading of Bodin’s Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576). In Bodin’s world, sovereignty is a constitutive element of the state, and the possibility of a multitude of sovereign entities in a global world logically denying the possibility of any “supra-national” normative framework is still a minor consideration. This possibility is only worked out with the emergence of international law. In both classics such as Emmerich de Vattel’s The Law of Nations (1758) and more contemporary treatises such as Lassa Oppenheim’s International Law (1905), state sovereignty has become conditional to recognition by other sovereign states and a subsequent membership in the “family of nations.” The conditional membership in the “family of nations” involves a contradiction: a sovereign state must act in a “dignified” manner, it must use its sovereignty with “restraint” by respecting the human rights and fundamental freedoms of its citizens, i.e., it must employ its sovereignty in a non-sovereign way. This restriction of sovereignty, addressed as “ethical sovereignty,” becomes a constitutive element in a post-Westphalian state and a central ingredient in the contemporary doctrine of humanitarian intervention. The article further criticizes the various uses (and abuses) of “ethical sovereignty” in the regulation of “failing” and “rogue” states and concludes by identifying its general political dangers. Finally, with reference to Jacques Derrida’s Rogues (2003), the article suggests a more radical reappraisal of the concept of sovereignty. It is a fact that sovereignty is a term used without any well-recognised meaning except that of supreme authority. Under these circumstances those who do not want to interfere in a mere scholastic controversy must cling to the facts of life and the practical, though abnormal and illogical, condition of affairs.¹ —Lassa Oppenheim But to invoke the concept of national sovereignty as in itself a decisional factor is to fall back on a word which has an emotive quality lacking meaningful specific content. It is to substitute pride for reason.² —Eli Lauterpacht     

酌定情节法定化的理据与路径

酌定情节作为刑事自由裁量权的核心内容,其法定化的基本法理依据是:绝对理性的幻灭与自由裁量的无可规避性,刑事自由裁量权的权限导向。其法定化的现实依据是基于对我国现阶段司法现状的考察,对我国刑法学界重定罪轻量刑、重法定情节轻酌定情节错误导向的纠正,以及对域外立法成功经验的借鉴。酌定情节在刑事立法上的路径抉择为:刑法总则在规定量刑的基本原则时尽可能详尽地标举出量刑应当考虑的基本因素;以立法的形式标举出现实中较为常见、司法实践和理论总结较为成熟、含义相对确定的酌定情节。     

Performance appraisal in the Maldives public service: challenges and issues

A structured method of evaluating and rewarding the performance of employees in the Maldives public service did not exist before 1996. Personnel decisions, such as employee promotions, were subjective and based merely on the recommendation of the heads of departments. Hence, in 1996, the Government of Maldives introduced a performance appraisal system, based on rewarding employees through the assessment of several factors such as quality of work, job knowledge and performance. The reward came in the form of annual salary increments. In reviewing this system, the article finds that human resource units or divisions within departments now need to be strengthened for the effective implementation of the system; more training has to be provided to public service employees in terms of raising their awareness as to the objectives of the performance appraisal exercise; and the performance appraisal framework needs to be more flexible in differentiating very high performers, at the same time devising a strategy for the improvement of employees who slack in performance. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shared Services in Australian Local Government: Rationale, Alternative Models and Empirical Evidence

Widespread enthusiasm amongst Australian policy elites for structural reform in local government has evaporated as disappointing outcomes of council amalgamation programs became evident. As a consequence, emphasis has now shifted towards shared serviced models as a means of enhancing service provision and reducing costs. However, a disturbing feature of the current debate on shared services has been the absence of a well-articulated economic and political rationale for this form of service delivery, a lack of analysis of alternative models of shared service provision and a neglect of available empirical evidence. This article seeks to remedy these deficiencies by considering the analytical foundations of shared local services, conducting a review of alternative models as vehicles for shared services and evaluating available empirical evidence.     

Analyzing welfare effort: An appraisal of comparative methods

How do we measure and rate the social welfare efforts of nations? Most people consider the U.S. and Japan welfare laggards when compared with European countries. This view derives from a widely used measure of “welfare effort”—direct government outlays for social programs as the percentage of a nation's gross domestic product (GDP). This article challenges several assumptions implicit in the conventional measure and suggests an alternative approach in assessing “welfare effort.” By incorporating indirect tax expenditures and controlling for the differences in tax burdens and social need for welfare spending among countries, the alternative measure (the NET index) not only broadens the conceptual boundaries of welfare effort, but also affords a more meaningful standard for comparative analysis. To illustrate, this study compares the welfare effort levels of ten developed nations measured under several versions of the NET index.     

Performance appraisal: if only people were not involved

While performance appraisal systems which emphasize work objectives and behavioral rating scales hold considerable promise for improving the evaluation process, an incomplete understanding of the human dynamics underlying the appraisal process blunts their attraction. For a technically sound appraisal system to work, four behavioral elements are necessary: trust, acceptance of the appraisal function by those who must do the evaluation, sensitivity to the inner world of performance evaluation, and training designs which recognize the human dynamics of appraisal.     

The interpersonal voice: applying appraisal to the rap and sung voice

Following in the traditions of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and social semiotics, this paper applies the linguistic system of appraisal to the mode of sound. More specifically, it aims to describe and compare the interpersonal properties of the rap and sung performance voices. In doing so, this paper also aims to provide analysts with a systematic, principled method by which to identifying interpersonal meanings in sound. Drawing on various aspects of the appraisal framework, and the respective sound features of the rap and sung voice, this paper offers three approaches. The first approach employs the grammatical frames used to classify the attitude sub-systems of affect, judgment, and appreciation. The second approach is more general in scope and analogizes from the sound systems of melody, time, and voice quality to the appraisal systems of attitude, engagement, and graduation, respectively. The third approach applies the concept of binding to the distinctive sounds of the rap and sung voice. The paper concludes by considering some future directions for this research.     

Decentralization and the implementation of rural development in Senegal: The role of rural councils

Decentralization efforts in Francophone African countries are both rarer and far less ambitious than those in Anglophone states. The decentralization programme launched by Senegal over a decade ago is an important exception. Since 1972, when the administrative reform law took effect, Senegal has been engaged in an effort to decentralize its administrative structures in order to promote rural development, to escape from the burdens of the remnants of an overly centralized colonial system and to stem the rising tide of rural opposition (malaise paysan). This new initiative, which led to the creation of local elected councils in rural communities (communautés rurales). has thus far achieved only marginal success. The 319 rural councils suffer from serious under-financing, and often from domination by administrative authorities, especially the sous-préféts. Based on an examination of the attitudes. perceptions and behaviour of a sample of rural councillors (n = 144), particularly regarding budgetary matters, it appears that the rural communities in fact provide the possibility for some popular input into local and regional planning.     

Social Security: a financial appraisal for the median voter

Several explanations have been proposed for why voters continue to support unfunded social security systems. Browning (1975) suggests that the extremely large unfunded pension systems of most democracies depend on the existence of a voting majority composed of middle-aged and older people who fail to fully internalize the cost of financing the system. In fact, when voting, economically rational workers consider only their current and future contributions to the system and their expected pension benefits--not their past contributions, which they regard as sunk costs. If, for a majority of voters, the expected continuation return from social security exceeds the return from alternative assets, an unfunded social security system is politically sustainable. This article explores the validity of Browning's proposition by quantifying the returns that U.S. voters in presidential elections from 1964 to 1996 have obtained, or expect to obtain, from Social Security. Did "investments" in Social Security outperform alternative forms of investment, such as mutual funds or pension funds, for a majority of the voters? What can be expected for the future? The U.S. Social Security system redistributes income within age cohorts on the basis of sex, income, and marital status. To account for some of these features, the median voter is represented by a family unit whose members--a husband who accounts for 70 percent of household earnings and a wife who accounts for 30 percent--make joint economic and voting decisions. Thus, retirement and survival benefits paid out to the spouse of an insured worker can be included in the calculation of Social Security returns. Interval estimates of voters' family incomes from the U.S. Census Bureau were used to obtain the median voter's household earnings. The median voter's age is derived from the ages of those who voted in presidential elections, not from the ages of the entire electorate. The median voter's contributions to Social Security are the product of the joint employer/employee Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) tax rate and employee earnings. Data on actual contributions are available for median voters in the 1964 to 1976 elections; Social Security Administration (SSA) estimates are used for future tax rates and average wage growth rates. Data on actual old-age, retirement, and survivor benefits, as well as estimates of future benefits, are also available from SSA. Analysis of ex-post returns from "investing" in Social Security and from a buy-and-hold strategy applied to three alternative assets--the Standard & Poor's Composite Index (S&P), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), and U.S. government bonds--shows surprising results. In 1964 and 1968, Social Security largely outperformed the other three assets. In 1972, Social Security and the stock market performed almost equally. In 1976, however, the median voter would have been better off in the stock market. The expected returns for median voters in later elections cannot be directly compared with realized returns from alternative assets. However, estimates range from 5.7 percent in 1984 to 7.0 percent in 1996 and thus compare favorably with average returns of 5.6 percent for S&P, 5.3 percent for DJIA, and 2.1 percent for government bonds over the 1964-1996 period. Although these findings must be taken with caution since they compare ex-post returns, they show that, despite a continuous reduction in profitability, Social Security still represents a safe, high-return asset for a majority of families.     

Globalization,state, and innovation: An appraisal of networked industrial policy

One of the most pressing questions in comparative social science is whether, and to what extent, the rapid advance of globalization has negatively affected states’ capacity to initiate successful economic and social policies. This paper puts forward the notion that states continue to be relevant because they have the potential to build and sustain networks of production and learning, which are sorely needed in the current era of globalization when productive arrangements are dominated by decentralized production networks. The paper argues that government efforts aimed at building and sustaining such networks, labeled as “networked industrial policy,” have become predominant. The study features a series of fixed‐effects time series cross‐section (TSCS) regressions linking innovation performance to several networked industrial policies in 17 countries from western and central Europe. The study finds that several of the policies have a robust effect on innovation performance and technology competitiveness, even after controls are included. These findings constitute considerable support for the notion of networked industrial policy. However, the results of the present study must be treated less as a definitive answer to the research question and more as a first step in an ongoing research process.     

Technology and rural development strategies in a small farmer organization: lessons from Bolivia for rural policy and practice

At a time when public sector agricultural and rural development administration is changing quite profoundly, and when farmer organizations are being asked to assume more significant roles in rural and agricultural development, in-depth analysis of these organizations is an important input into policy and programmatic discussions. This article is an analysis of one type of small farmer organization, a regional economic organization called El Ceibo in Bolivia. It is one of the most successful cases of small farmer organization around technology generation and product transformation and marketing in the Andes. El Ceibo has been able to open new markets for its products, adapt product transformation techniques appropriate for these markets, and develop technology in support of its marketing strategy. Factors favouring Ceibo's success include long-term financial and technical support from external agencies, isolated location, and a cash/export crop specialization. The impacts of Ceibo are significant, although it is not clear how far Ceibo's activities foster a more broadly based regional development in the Alto Beni area. The article also compares the strategies and impacts of economically based organizations such as El Ceibo with those of more traditional, representative and politically oriented small farmer organizations.     

Appropriating Nature in Crisis-ridden Greece: The Rationale of Capitalist Restructuring,Part 1

The ongoing crisis in Greece constitutes an emblematic case of repressive capitalist restructuring. In this first part of a two-paper series, we argue that public debt is used as a vehicle for furthering the neoliberal transformation of Greek society with serious implications for the appropriation of nature. We present theoretical considerations about nature in capitalism, the rationale of neoliberal capitalist restructuring, as well as the relation between nature and neoliberalism. We finally present the timeline of the Greek crisis, as well as how the three structural adjustment programs wrought a severe capitalist restructuring upon Greece.     

Rationale,Strategies, and Economics for Exploration and Mining of Asteroids

The development of off-world sources of critical minerals is creating an opportunity to transform space activity from a consumer of resources into sources of value. This article provides an overview of the rationale for and the feasibility of asteroid mining, based on current technology and information. It concludes that the mining of asteroids is a medium-term to long-term project (20 to 30 years) that requires a stepwise approach. An important step in the development of asteroid mining is the confirmation, through exploration, of the minerals’ abundance on the asteroids. A mission capturing and returning to lunar orbit a single 10-meter-diameter asteroid or a rock off the surface of a larger asteroid accomplishes this goal. This mission would also allow the testing of automated mining and processing equipment, reducing the risks of future large-scale asteroid mining operations. Suggested herein is that asteroids’ exploration be carried out through a partnership between space agencies and private space companies, whereby the two partners can achieve their strategic interests.