Moral dilemmas

She is a licensed family therapist. She is co-author of Sociology;and Growing Old in America (the latter published by Transaction).She is also author of Older Women.Her current research focuses on gender-specific predictors of nursing home placement, health correlates of depression in old age, and the portrayal of older women in film.     

Antipodean dilemmas

Nicky Hager, Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network (Nelson, New Zealand: Craig Potten, 1996). Pp.299, index. NP. ISBN 908802–35–8.     

Brunei's strategic dilemmas

Abstract

This paper compares health policy trends in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand with the purpose of drawing usable lessons in reform. The study finds that governments in the region are rapidly privatizing the provision of healthcare at the same time as they are expanding the government's role in financing. The paper argues that expansion of public financing at the same time as private provision is misconceived as the combination would aggravate instances and severity of market failures peculiar to the sector. The dysfunctional trend is particularly evident in Indonesia and the Philippines. In Thailand, in contrast, the expansion of public financing has occurred in the context of a health system dominated by public providers, which has had the effect of restraining healthcare costs. Malaysia occupies a mid position between Indonesia and the Philippines on the one hand and Thailand on the other. All four cases underline the value of state capacity in designing optimal policies and implementing them effectively.     

当代湖北社会矛盾解决机制的诉权解读

当代湖北社会矛盾根源是经济发展落后和封建残余思想和资产阶级腐朽思潮以及内部一些错误都有关联。从统计数据来看,民事纠纷仍然占据主导地位,其极易演化为刑事纠纷甚至群体性事件。诉权作为社会矛盾和冲突的最后解决机制,并不是最佳的解决机制。在非诉解决机制方面,湖北省已经摸索出若干有益的经验。     

Moral dilemmas and pedagogical challenges in teaching about genocide

Human Rights Review -     

Favoritism and cooperation

Public Choice - In a series of laboratory experiments, two types of players were created randomly. Participants of one type were selected for a group based on performance on a task, whereas...     

Governance dilemmas in an age of ambiguous authority

A convergence of functions, financing and governance arrangements between public and private sectors of society cloud the study and understanding of policy making, implementation and evaluation. Forces creating and shaping the interpenetrated society are trends toward professionalism and corporatism. The health industry provides an example. Increasingly, but with little formal guidance from political theory, the American system has authorized privately constituted citizen governing boards to spend tax dollars, make and implement policy choices, and evaluate outcomes. This essay argues for closer examination of the nature of representation and accountability in these little studied creatures of governance and introduces the subsequent articles addressed to the subject.     

Chinese dilemmas in thinking about regional security architecture

From about the middle of the 1990s China's leaders began to articulate a new concept of security that they called ‘cooperative security’, which was seen as more appropriate to the post-Cold War era than the more traditional military alliance systems. It sought to promote mutual trust and consultation as a means of addressing security problems between states that were neither adversaries nor friends. The new approach was better suited to a China that felt more comfortable about itself and its growing integration into international society. It involved a more proactive approach that was ready to take initiatives for the first time in multilateral settings. It also reflected current Chinese interests by seeking to reassure neighbours that they had little to fear and much to gain by the rising China in their midst and by implicitly dissuading them from participating in any significant attempt to contain China. But the new approach is not without its problems. It will need to show a greater readiness to pay attention to the concerns of others, it will require greater transparency in the conduct of foreign policy and it will need to find a way of accommodating the American approach. But in itself most of the countries of the Asia-Pacific will find this a welcome development even though it does not as yet provide a satisfactory basis for erecting a new security architecture to supplant that established under the aegis of the United States.     

The rule of law and citizenship in central India: post-colonial dilemmas

This article argues that the ‘rule of law’ has become a central goal in popular struggles the world over, and it is citizenship struggles which infuse the rule of law with substantive, as against a thin procedural, meaning. This is especially true in post-colonial societies like India, with a tradition of inherited colonial law designed for subject-hood rather than citizenship, growing inequality which affects both the enactment and interpretation of law, and the violation of law by those who are meant to protect it. Demanding implementation of existing laws, breaking laws that are patently unjust whether through armed struggle or non-violent social movements, or seeking to change laws in favour of new and more democratic laws, are all major avenues by means of which people express their aspirations as citizens. However, law's mutually constitutive relation with social practice means that people enter into political and legal negotiations already constituted as certain kinds of legal subjects, which constrains their imagination in certain ways.     

Understanding multi-purpose hybrid voluntary organizations: The contributions of theories on civil society,social movements and non-profit organizations

Abstract

The paper offers a theoretical framework to study the conditions that lead to the emergence of multi-purpose hybrid voluntary organizations and the factors that influence their ability to mobilize resources and enlist commitment. These organizations are characterized by four interrelated attributes: (a) they set out as their mission to uphold and promote cultural values that are typically at variant with dominant and institutionalized values; (b) they offer services to members and the public that express their distinct values, using the services as a model and catalyst for social change; (c) in addition to their instrumental goals, they aim to meet the expressive and social identity needs of their members by promoting a collective identity; and (d) they evolve into hybrid organizations by having multiple purposes—combining to various degrees goals of value change, service provision and mutual-aid. Because they deliberately combine features of volunteer-run associations, social movements and non-profit service organizations, we articulate a theoretical framework that melds concepts and propositions from the various theoretical perspectives used to study each of these organizational forms. We argue that the expanded theoretical framework offers a more comprehensive and dynamic view of civil society and a better perspective to the study of third sector organizations.     

Homeownership affordability series Clashing demographics: Homeownership and affordability dilemmas

Abstract

This paper examines the competing effects of the major demographic factors affecting homeownership affordability in the 1990s. It briefly views the transition in housing eras and then examines long‐term demographic fundamentals, which represent parameters that can be anticipated with reasonable certainty and that define the broad boundaries of future housing demand. The first section, on household segmentation‐diversification, focuses on changes in household configurations and future living‐arrangement choices. Income variations by age and household configuration are evaluated next, after which homeownership variations by age and household configuration are reviewed. Both the uncertainty of future household segmentation and clashing demographic variations in income levels and home‐ownership rates define future housing market complexity and uncertainty.

Following that is a summary of the key demographic parameters and dilemmas emanating from the preceding analyses. A final section then explores the net effect of these factors on various housing market segments for the balance of the decade.     

Rethinking corporatism and consensus: the dilemmas of German social-protection reform

This article explores the competing influences of institutional legacies and political negotiation in recent German social-protection reform. Long a paragon of consensus and gradual political change, the German political economy has adjusted poorly to the pressures of fiscal austerity and structural unemployment, creating pressures for an increasingly salient role for the federal government. The article provides a detailed analysis of recent German social-policy and labour-market reforms, arguing that existing literature is poorly equipped to account for this emerging policy-making paradigm. It also suggests that, while the German case illustrates the importance of institutional factors in shaping reform trajectories in advanced industrial democracies, careful attention must also be paid to élites' capacity for negotiating policy outcomes within these parameters.