Community Stakeholder Responses to Countering Violent Extremism Locally

ABSTRACT

In the United States, despite federal efforts to empower communities to form local governance networks to develop and implement collaborative countering violent extremism (CVE) programs, local CVE governance networks are rare. Why do CVE governance networks emerge within only some communities? I argue that three factors—interest in CVE, capacity to participate, and facilitation—determine the prospects for the emergence of a CVE governance network within a community. The article uses a matching technique to identify and compare the community stakeholder responses to CVE in two communities—Houston, TX and Columbus, OH. Survey research of stakeholders who participated in Houston and stakeholders most likely to participate in Columbus but did not highlights the importance of the three factors. By focusing on these drivers of collaborative governance, the article provides an explanation for the lack of CVE collaboration in the United States.     

Reframing Development through Collaboration: towards a relational ontology of connection in Bawaka,North East Arnhem Land

Abstract

This paper draws on the collaborative experiences of three female academics and three generations of Yol?u women from an Aboriginal family from Bawaka, North East Arnhem Land to contribute to debates in development around participation, power and justice. Through a reflection on the process of collaboratively co-authoring two books and associated outputs, the paper discusses the way the collaboration is guided by collective priorities that are held as paramount: trust, reciprocity, relationships and sharing goals. The paper draws particular attention to the essential role that families and non-human agents play in shaping these priorities. The relational ontology which underlies this collaboration is inspired by a Yol?u ontology of connection that requires us to acknowledge ourselves as connected to each other, to other people and to other things. Guided by this Indigenous ontological framework, we reframe the concept of collaboration and of development as inherently and always relational.     

Gaps in knowledge about local peacebuilding: a study in deficiency from Jos,Nigeria

ABSTRACT

The emphasis on local or hybrid efforts in peacebuilding literature brings front and centre the importance of being rooted within a particular context, with leadership and vision for social change and justice proffered by local actors. This is the same emphasis found in development literature and a necessary foundation for transformation. Scholars and practitioners nevertheless also note a role for outsiders in supporting local efforts (eg Lederach in 2005). Yet a significant challenge arises for outsiders, and to some extent local actors: how do you know what was tried or is underway that you might support or from which you might learn? This paper reports findings from a collaborative research project that examined the gap between the practice of peacebuilding locally and internationally available ‘knowledge’ via publications produced on local peacebuilding in Jos, Nigeria, between 2001 and 2008. It identifies a staggering gap between efforts and knowledge in the form of publications. The paper discusses the implications of the findings in terms of what it means for outsiders when thinking about helping resource local transformation efforts.     

Government Study Commissions and County Home Rule

Abstract

Most of the state action on county home rule occurred in the 1970s and most of the 149 charters were adopted in the 1970s. Although there is still interest in home rule, it is largely confined to a few states and specific counties. In Pennsylvania there are six county home rule charters, and five of the six were approved in the 1970s. Only home rule for Allegheny County has been approved since then. Allegheny County's success came in 1998 after two unsuccessful efforts in the 1970s. This article is a study of Allegheny County's efforts to obtain home rule focusing on the charter writing process. The author contends that the charter writing phase has a major impact on whether the change effort is successful. He applies a framework to study this phase of the home rule effort. The framework consists of three models to categorize members by their orientation on the kinds of changes they seek. In addition to the models that are used to categorize members by their change preferences, a typology is applied to categorize members by their motivations and personal agendas to aid in explaining their behavior and voting on charter provisions. How the government study commission is chosen has an impact on the type of charter recommended and ultimately on the success of the change effort. Two of the charter commissions were elected, and the successful commission was appointed. A different model dominated each commission. The author concludes that an appointed commission and state parameters on the type of charter that could be recommended to the voters were major factors in the success of the change effort.     

A closer look at risk factors for public-private partnerships in Singapore: six case studies

ABSTRACT

Despite its global popularity over the past few decades, the public-private partnership (PPP) has not always led to successful outcomes, due largely to a number of risk factors associated with the projects. To explain how and why PPPs sometimes fail, this study considers the success-failure continuum of Singapore’s recent PPP experience from 2000 to 2019. After taking a critical, close look at the six failed cases, we identify the following latent risk factors: unstable financial capacity during the execution period of a project, force majeure unforeseen problems that arise, a lack of technical and/or financial foresight, poor corporate management (e.g. delays in construction and poor-quality service delivery), and an unfavourable investment environment stemming from the lack of a clear and supportive governance framework. In addition, we find that most risk factors tend to appear during the contract management (pre-operation) and project management (operation) phases. Such risks seem to drive the operational failure and subsequent contract termination of multiple unsuccessful PPPs, simultaneously (and sometimes sequentially) rather than in isolated fashion. All in all, this study offers for policymakers that better risk allocation and proper, mutual coordination between the public and private partners represent essential factors for PPP success.     

Exploring Collaboration,Its Antecedents,and Perceived Outcomes in Service Partnerships of Community-Based Organizations in South Florida

This article examines the temporal sequence of inter-organizational collaboration by investigating what factors contribute to collaboration and which collaboration practices influence collaborative outcomes in service partnerships formed by community-based organizations (CBOs) in South Florida. The article uses structural equation modeling to test the service partnership model. Findings indicate that development of service partnerships are mostly affected by environmental factors related to solving social problems (p < 0.001) which accounts for 37% of variance in inter-organizational collaboration. In addition, cognitive and resource reciprocity, indicators used to measure inter-organizational collaboration, had statistically significant influence (p < 0.001) on perceived collaboration outcomes. These findings shed light on how CBOs transfer theirs social mission in collaborative actions to alleviate social problems. Implications of this study can help service partnerships in identifying best practices and areas for improvement which are needed to build capacity at the inter-organizational level.     

Politicians,organisations and the public ‐ the provision of gypsy sites

Under the Best Value regime, the government requires local authorities to involve the public in determining the provision of services. Indeed, the Best Value legislation provides a legal basis for consulting citizens and the local community in relation to better management of local government functions. The guidance on Best Value also encourages local authorities to place performance management within a community strategy framework. These combined actions will, it is hoped, result in more innovative, effective and efficient provision. Arguably, however, the success of increased participation will be influenced by how and why the public are involved. This study draws on case study research to ask whether involving the public does result in innovative changes and to what extent those involved are empowered through the process, concluding that success for both the authority and service users is influenced by factors such as cost structures and whether the original intent includes careful consideration of how those involved might benefit from the process.     

Collaborative Sociological Practice: the Case of Nine Urban Biotopes

This paper examines the socially engaged art project Nine Urban Biotopes (9UB), an international exchange between European and South African cultural organisations. Two artist residencies offer case studies of collaborative arts and research practice. The ways that these case studies are read as ‘failures’ and ‘successes’ illustrate the complexities of North-South collaborations. This project, the partnership that sustained it and the residencies that were central to it, exemplify, in modest ways, how public sociology can be realised in modest ways in a global context. This paper shows, with examples, that whilst partnership and collaboration are emphasised in institutional and policy discourse, in practice these arrangements are filled with tension and unequal power relations between partners. An evaluative methodology premised on sociological practice allows the tensions that are inherent in partnership and collaboration to be recognised and productively interrogated. It also allows us to reimagine what ‘success’ and ‘failure’ looks like in research partnerships by working with the antagonisms that are integral to collaboration.     

The horror of ‘horrorism’: laundering metropolitan killings

Abstract

Modern colonialism carries many names. But ‘horror’ is not one of them. How and why is this? Why does the slaughter of the ‘native’, the ‘Indian’ and the ‘slave’ not register as crime or horror? This essay explores these questions though a close reading of philosopher Adriana Cavarero’s Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence. Horrorism has become an increasingly influential source for critical international scholarship concerned with broadening the frames of violence beyond those offered by strategic and legalistic lenses. Its focus on the dismemberment of the body and discovery of a new form of ontological violence offer a fruitful avenue of inquiry for theorising the wounding and violation wrought by practices of terror and counter-terror. This essay cautions against such a supposition. A close reading of the key claims and conditions of possibility of horrorism reveals it to be constituted through the erasure of colonial violence. Tracing the lineaments of this erasure shows that horrorism functions not as a sign of newness but of Western revanchism in a time of crisis. However, this does not make horrorism redundant, for it offers valuable insights for understanding the pervasive failure to consider the horrors perpetrated by the West against non-Western others.     

Regulating Collaboration: The Legal Framework of Collaborative Governance in Ten European Countries

ABSTRACT

Many scholars have considered when and why collaboration between government agencies and societal actors occurs. This article argues that a simple but largely overlooked answer to these questions is that a formal legal or administrative requirement to do so is in place. Therefore, the objective is to substantiate whether there are legal requirements to collaborate and in what type of source and context this obligation applies in ten European countries. The main finding is that collaboration is underpinned by an extensive range of legal requirements in Europe, although imposing these requirements is generally not the main objective.     

Political incrementalism: Political lessons from China's 20 years of reform

The recent crackdown by the Chinese Communist Party government on the efforts of Chinese dissidents to organise the China New Democratic Party has raised a serious question among scholars: why has the Chinese leadership been so reluctant to initiate democratic reforms? But an equally important question is: how has the Chinese political system been able to accommodate drastic socioeconomic changes? Although Chinese leaders from Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin have strongly opposed the Western style of democracy, they have continuously adjusted the country's political system to prevent socioeconomic chaos from occuring, chaos that has troubled many former communist states and Third World countries. This paper explores China's political incrementalism and explains how incremental political reforms have worked. It argues that, although Chinese leaders have so far been successful in accommodating social changes through incrementalism, they are still uncertain about how to cope with increasing social demands for political reform and democratisation.     

The measurement of development effort—A suggestion

A notable shortcoming of development economics has been a failure to design an objective indicator allowing for an evaluation of the effort made in particular developing countries. Own‐country effort has been noted in the literature to be an important ingredient in the illusive recipe of development‐success; and so the above problem is of considerable interest, both theoretical and practical. This paper analyses the interrelationships between three groups of commonly used ‘effort‐indicators’ ; and in addition studies the relationships between each and growth of per capita income of a sample of developing countries. The findings suggest that at the present time, effective development efforts tend to lie less in the area of belt‐tightening and mobilisation of domestic savings, and more in the area of explicit export promotion.     

Decolonising drugs in Asia: the case of cocaine in colonial India

Abstract

This article examines a drugs trade in Asia that has been largely forgotten by historians and policy-makers, that in cocaine. It will briefly trace some of the contours of this commerce and the efforts to control it. It will also assess how successful these efforts were. The article is designed to contribute fresh perspectives on recent controversies in the historiography of drugs in Asia to argue that the agendas and agency of consumers are central to understanding why markets have formed there for psychoactive substances in the modern period.     

Job Strenuousness and Obesity: The Case of a Developing Country

Abstract

This paper analyses the Indonesian Family Life Survey to show that job strenuousness is negatively related to obesity, which is largely consistent with the literature. However, this paper does not interpret the relationship as causal. Instead, efforts are made to demonstrate that the relationship is attributable to sample selection: workers with low socioeconomic status are lightweight and selected for strenuous jobs. This paper warns against reflexive applications of the conclusions derived from the developed world to the developing world. Our results imply that sedentariness at work probably plays a small role in the prevalence of obesity in the region.     

When States Die: geographic and territorial pathways to state death

Abstract

State death, understood as the formal loss of control over foreign policy, is an important but neglected issue in the international relations literature. When do states die and why? How do states exit the system? The consequences of state death can be wide-ranging, from forced migration movements, regional instability, to general famine. Despite these severe consequences, political scientists have yet to adequately study the causes of state death. Fazal finds that states are prone to death when they are located as a buffer between two rivals; this suggests that being a buffer state is a cause of state death. Our expansion of current research seeks to add the concept of territorial disputes to the state death literature. We suggest that states are at greater risk of death when they become involved in territorial disputes that raise the stakes of conflict. The resulting research demonstrates that a reliable predictor of state death is engagement in a territorial dispute. Territorial disputes are the most prevalent issue that leads to war and can also be a leading cause of state death.     

TEACHING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY PRINCIPLES TO NON-TECHNOLOGISTS — LESSONS LEARNED

ABSTRACT

Much has been written over the past several decades on the “inevitability” that the technological revolution will transform international, interpersonal, and business relations. But are the effects of technological change as far reaching as the literature suggests and where it does reach does it penetrate very deeply into the general culture, its organizations, or into the psyche of its citizens? The linkage of science and technology education to industrial trends, and its prominence in pubic policy debates makes it all the more important to ensure that the educated public have as complete a grounding in S&T issues as possible. Perhaps it is a unique twenty-first century paradox that it is more important for “progress” and public policy formulation to focus the attention of our educational system upon the inter-relationships, consequences, and implications of current and previous technological developments rather than mindlessly joining the “bandwagon of progress.” Students must be exposed to the theories, language, culture, engineering difficulties, societal implications, and public policy problems posed by the inevitable advance of technology. The primary target of such efforts should be the non-technologists who tend to enter government service, run for public office, enter the teaching profession, are more politically active and where the greatest multiplier effect can be achieved.     

Public Resource Allocation through Grassroots Democratic Institutions: Evidence from Assam,India

ABSTRACT

The success of democratic institutions at the grassroots level in allocating public benefits to the target groups depends on people’s political participation. Applying logistic regression, ordinary least squares (OLS), and the Heckman model based on a data set collected from 30 panchayats from three districts of Assam (India), this article addresses three questions: (a) who participates? (b) who gets the public benefits? and (c) whether participants get more benefits. The results suggest no overwhelming elite capture and clientalization, and contributes to the current debate on the association between democracy and development by way of establishing that democracy at the grassroots does, indeed, deliver.     

Interlocal collaboration and local climate protection

ABSTRACT

The influences of state government have been curiously absent from most studies of collaboration among cities. Extant research on city collaboration which promotes on climate and environmental sustainability issues focuses primarily on local-level institutions, politics, and processes. Thus, the role of states to constrain or facilitate collaboration among local governments needs to be more fully accounted for. Building on transaction cost and institutional collective action theory and drawing on data from a national survey of US cities, we investigate the influences of city-level factors together with the hierarchical effects of state rules and policies on the extent to which mechanisms for interlocal collaboration are employed in pursuing climate protection and renewable energy development goals. The results confirm predictions that multilevel intergovernmental forces influence the extent to which cities collaborate. These results have both theoretical and practical implications for understanding interlocal collaborations.     

THE DILEMMAS OF A CIVILIAN POLITICIAN IN TIME OF WAR: ZHOU FOHAI AND THE FIRST STAGE OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR,JULY–DECEMBER 1937

Abstract

History’s verdict on Zhou Fohai is that he was an arch-collaborator, the éminence grise of Wang Jingwei’s government. Yet Zhou’s political career in the 1930s as a member of Chiang Kai-shek’s factional network did not suggest his later activities as a highly placed collaborator. Prior to 1938, Zhou had little or no political connections to Wang Jingwei; indeed, prior to the outbreak of war he regarded Wang and his followers as bitter factional enemies. Zhou’s background, therefore, underscores the complexity and indeed contingency of collaboration in the Sino-Japanese War. This article examines three areas of Zhou’s activities in the Guomindang Party-State during the first six months of the Sino-Japanese War: his role as a Chiang Kai-shek loyalist helping to craft key policies; his involvement with developing the United Front after the Lushan Conference; and his part in efforts to seek a negotiated peace with the aim of preserving as much of China’s sovereignty as possible. The article argues that these peace efforts were not in themselves a harbinger of collaboration, but were in fact conducted within the framework of the Party-State and involved a variety of leading figures. Despite Zhou’s liaison with the communist representatives, he remained staunchly anti-communist and suspicious of their ultimate ambitions, a suspicion that only deepened with the Guomindang’s every military reverse. And in his efforts to effect peace negotiations, he faced insurmountable obstacles in Chiang’s decision to pursue the military option, in the failure of international mediation by the leading Western powers, and in Japan’s ratcheting up its demands as its army went from victory to victory. By early 1938, therefore, Zhou was profoundly pessimistic about China’s prospects in its war with Japan.     

THE CONTRIBUTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS IN THE SUCCESS OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT COMMERCE

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to identify factors which affect the success of electronic commerce applications in federal agencies and to explore the role of transformational leadership and strategic planning for Web sites in the success of electronic commerce applications designed to serve citizens. Based on the literature review relative to electronic government commerce, the research model in this study postulates that transformational leadership, strategic planning for Web sites and other factors such as the size and complexity of the Web site influence the success of electronic commerce applications in federal agencies. The success of electronic commerce applications is the dependent variable and is measured by a combination of user-based criteria and system-based criteria. This research employed a combination of an online questionnaire survey and a Web structural survey. Questionnaires were electronically mailed to IT managers and/or users who have e-mail addresses at federal agencies. The results of the research confirmed the close association between organizational factors (transformational leadership and strategic planning for Web sites) and the success of electronic commerce applications in federal agencies.