Java furniture makers: Globalisation winners or losers?

This article is concerned with the question of whether participation in the global economy leads to sustainable income growth. It examines the furniture industry of Central Java, which has grown rapidly since the financial crisis in 1997. The article shows that the exporting small and medium-sized enterprises generated substantial employment and income growth. However, this growth is not sustainable because the viability of exports has become dependent on wood which is logged illegally and risks depletion. Government and donor projects aimed at small enterprises risk driving these enterprises deeper into the race to the bottom. The article then discusses ways to avoid this, stressing the need for a coalition of public and private actors along the local–global axis.     

论决策者胆识素质的培养

决策是决策者最重要的职能 ,是决策者工作的起点和核心内容。决策的正确与否 ,决策质量的优劣 ,直接影响到决策后执行效率的高低和所决策问题的解决程度 ,直接关系到事业的成败。决策或由领导集团共同作出 ,或由领导者个人作出 ,如何确保领导集体或领导个人作出正确的、高水平的决策 ,值得认真研究和探讨。笔者认为 ,正确的、高水平的决策 ,不仅取决于决策过程的科学化、民主化 ,而且还有赖于决策者所具有的良好素质。决策者的胆识素质 ,在决策过程中具有极为重要的意义 ,它是决策者应该具备的诸多素质中的重要素质之一。我们必须高度重视并…     

The value of decision analysis in mediation practice

Conclusion To be constructive and effective within the mediation process, a mediator's case evaluation must be carefully derived and reasoned, persuasively articulated, and tactfully delivered. A decision analytic approach allows the mediator to structure and present an intellectually rigorous evaluation while minimizing the risk of perceived loss of neutrality. This approach can enhance the mediator's ability to unlock or redirect participants' emotional and professional investment in litigation and to remove personal and organizational incentives for entrenchment in adversarial and costly disputes.In a particularly complex case, using computer software for decision analysis offers added value by facilitating discussion of the evaluative analysis among additional decision makers who were not at the table. It provides a neutral language and method with which the mediator can probe and challenge the parties' stated positions and tolerance for risk. By helping people focus more clearly and dispassionately on the choices they face, a decision analytic approach and its presentation on computer software should enable them to achieve intelligent settlements.She also specializes in the mediation of legal disputes and the design of curricula in negotiation and mediation practice.     

Migration decision from Bangladesh: permanent versus temporary

More than 50% of the total migration from Bangladesh occurred from Sylhet, located to northern part of the country since the middle of the last century. This paper provides an empirical distinction between the temporary migrants (Bangladeshi citizens engaged in earning aboard) and the permanent migrants (those who have the dual citizenship) based on their cost conditions, earnings, and utilization of remittances in their country of origin. Temporary migrants’ educational status, per capita income allocation to family members, work experience before migration, source of income and income range are much lower compared with the permanent migrants. But, the dependency ratio, contribution to the family, remittances, risk etc. are higher for the permanent migrants than the temporary migrants. Cost of migration and the migration decision are inversely related. Migration costs determine individual’s decision to migrate permanently or temporarily. Our results suggest that higher migration cost reduces the probability of permanent migration.     

A comparison of consensus and voting in public decision making

Conclusion As much as consensus decision making may be in vogue, as much as it may feel like an appropriate and progressive form of civil discourse, it is not without its problems and it may not always be the best avenue to pursue.Policymaking about community problems requires all the creativity we can bring to the task. One of the areas where we might best apply our creativity is in the continual search for improved models of civil discourse and decision making. Consensus-based approaches hold great promise for addressing thorny issues like dispersed public housing, but we need to remember that such methods are relatively new to most of us, and that we are still feeling our way with them.These cautionary comments, however, should not be embraced by public officials as excuses for keeping citizens out of public policy setting. Governments work best ultimately where there is broad consensus for their policies. Bernie Jones is associate director for university resources in the Colorado Center for Community Development at the University of Colorado at Denver, where he also holds an appointment as associate professor of urban and regional planning. His mailing address is Campus Box 128, University of Colorado at Denver, P.O. Box 173364, Denver, Colo. 80217-3364.     

ICTs and decision making: findings from the Poverty Assessor

Pro-poor decision making depends on an understanding of the complexities and inter-relationships between household livelihood, demographic, and economic factors. This article describes the design and implementation of the Poverty Assessor, a software programme to assist practitioners, policy makers, and researchers in visualising the direct impacts on poverty of specific livelihood factors and events among populations living in poverty. The software enables users to upload their own data and profile households in relation to the national poverty line, by selecting from a range of demographic and livelihood indicators. The authors present findings from the programme, using a dataset from Bolivia.     

Information inconsistency and the cognitive algebra of foreign policy decision making

This paper explores a special feature of the information complexity that underlies foreign policy decision making, i.e., inconsistency in information. We use the actor and action images to categorize types of inconsistency. The consequences of inconsistency for process and outcome are analyzed within the framework of a cognitive algebra model. Finally, we demonstrate the implications of the model in an experimental study. Our findings show that not every inconsistency is detected and those that are detected do not always affect the choice. The critical inconsistency is the one that presents an imbalanced structure of the actor and the action image. This inconsistency affects the choices made by decision‐makers and sensitizes them to the within image inconsistency. Furthermore, the results suggests that in the context of the scenarios employed in this experiment the actor image has a more dominant status for the foreign policy decision making process than the action image.     

The Soldier, The State, and The Clash of Civilizations: The Legacy of Samuel Huntington

The major military challenge that the United States faces today is the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. military is engaged in a grueling counterinsurgency campaign against the Islamist movement known as the Taliban, which is based among Pashtun tribes in Southeastern Afghanistan and Northwestern Pakistan, who have never been permanently subdued by a foreign military force. This challenge comes in the wake of that other grueling counterinsurgency war that the U.S. military has had to conduct in Iraq, where its chief adversary was the Islamist movement known as al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. Moreover, the challenge in Afghanistan comes on what could be the eve of an impending military challenge, perhaps even a war, with Iran, as that Islamist state relentlessly moves toward acquiring nuclear weapons. In its entire history of two- and-a-quarter centuries, the United States has never been engaged in an unbroken succession of three wars, in three different countries. Together, the U.S. wars with or within Islamist countries add up to what is a “long war,” indeed.     

《小说神髓》的“文学冒险”

坪内逍遥《小说神髓》要展现的是一个庞大的帝国文化图景,其主要意图应置入近代日本社会“他者意识一民族主义一近代国民国家”这一思想观念流程中才能够被理解。它不仅呈现出作者根深蒂固的民族主义立场,而且反映出日本文化界在明治维新后积极谋求文化自立、自强与扩张的文化帝国主义图谋。