Implementing ILO child labour convention 182: lessons from the gold-mining sector in Burkina Faso

This article explores the implementation of Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in the mining sector in Burkina Faso. It highlights key lessons from a project funded by DFID and Save the Children UK and implemented by COBUFADE, a Burkinabe NGO. Children were found to be important and capable actors in the fight against child labour, notably in research and lobbying, and the article explores the role that civil society can play in taking local voices to national policy makers and in linking the different actors implicated in Convention 182.     

What Dispute Systems Design Can Learn from Project Management

The discipline of project management (PM), a well‐recognized management approach to large‐scale, high‐cost projects, has much to offer the field of dispute systems design (DSD). This article explores the core concepts of each discipline, noting similarities and differences, with a particular focus on stakeholder management, scope management, risk management, and quality management. Two case studies, General Electric's early dispute resolution program and Chevron's corporate social responsibility initiative in the Niger Delta, demonstrate the application of project management priciples in two DSD scenarios: one with internal corporate stakeholders and one with external community stakeholders. The authors identify five key lessons that dispute systems design can draw from project management and identify areas for further study.     

Childhood poverty and evidence-based policy engagement in Ethiopia

This article explores efforts to bridge multi-disciplinary research and policy engagement to tackle child poverty in the contexts of developing countries, based on the experiences of Young Lives, an international longitudinal policy-research project. It focuses on a case study involving the application of research evidence on child poverty to shape policy debates concerning Ethiopia's second-generation Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2006–2010). The discussion is situated within theoretical literature on the interface between knowledge, policy, and practice, which supports the conceptualisation of policy making as a non-linear dynamic process. It pays particular attention to the importance of understanding the political and policy contexts of Southern countries, rather than assuming that they should simply import Northern-derived models of advocacy. It concludes by identifying general lessons for translating research into social-policy change.     

Is the Russian federation becoming more democratic? Moscow‐regional relations and the development of the post‐Soviet Russian State

This article addresses the condition of Russian democracy by focusing on the developing political relations between the central government and regional governments. A situation of profound ambivalence and ambiguity has evolved since ratification of the Russian Federation Constitution in December 1993. Regional governments have found it possible to gain a degree of political autonomy uncharacteristic of Russia's long historical experience, yet increasingly in line with global trends toward decentralization of governmental authority. Two political patterns in the current Russian Federation are explored, both of them promising broad and enduring significance. First, the political ambiguity of relations between the national government and regional authorities may provide the context in which divided government serves to enable democracy, despite the appearance of authoritarian rule in many regions themselves. Second, the nature of the interaction between the centre and regional authorities may be breaking new ground, in terms of flexible solutions to intra‐state relations among different levels of government. Because certain aspects of centre‐regional relations in the Russian Federation replicate comparable issues elsewhere (particularly regarding the ethnic‐territorial dimension of politics), the Federation's approaches and solutions to this aspect of state‐formation could suggest useful lessons for other parts of the world.     

Struggles over Identity and Territory: Regional Identities in Ethnoreligious Conflict in Northern Nigeria

This article explores how ethnoreligious conflict over boundaries and territoriality involves a politics of scale, that is, how positions and demands are framed by actors according to, for instance, local, regional, and national scales. The analysis focuses on how Muslim actors in a conflict in Kaduna State in Nigeria frame a regional, northern Nigerian identity that varies in content and form depending on the scalar context in which communal conflict is placed with regional and national politics yielding different identifications.     

The Rise and Fall of the 'Ethical Dimension': Presentation and Practice in New Labour's Foreign Policy

This article explores why the New Labour government in Britain stopped using the former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's notion of an 'ethical dimension' to present its foreign policy to the public. The article begins by tracing the rise of the 'ethical dimension' in New Labour's foreign policy pronouncements. It then surveys some of the debates about the party's foreign policy record, investigating how far its explicit appeal to ethics merely overlies traditional British foreign policy practices. The final section discusses three possible explanations for New Labour's decision to abandon the language of an 'ethical dimension'. It is argued that this decision suggests two important lessons for the future relationship of ethics to foreign policy. While explicit ethical standards provide important benchmarks for activists and public intellectuals, they can also serve to highlight the failures of an administration at the expense of more positive developments. Consequently, jettisoning the language of an 'ethical dimension' may actually encourage a more sophisticated public debate that moves beyond the facile and misleading belief that foreign policies are either 'ethical' or 'unethical'.     

EU Actorness in the International Labour Organization: Comparing Declaratory and Voting Cohesion

This article presents data on the voting records of the European Union (EU) Member States and the frequency of EU common statements in both technical (standard-setting) and political (scrutiny) issues in the International Labour Organization (ILO) between 1973 and 2007. By contrasting voting cohesion to declaratory cohesion, it advances the literature by demonstrating that contrary to theoretically informed predictions, political coordination is more successful than technical coordination. It explores the reasons for this through an analysis of different forms of actorness, namely the opportunity to act within the ILO, the presence of the EU through its Member States, and the capability of the policy-making apparatus to produce cohesive outputs. It concludes that the socialisation of Geneva-based diplomats is the most important variable explaining the relative success of political coordination, while the unfamiliarity of seconded national officials to Geneva with EU coordination explains the reduced effectiveness of technical cooperation.     

Defining child labour: a controversial debate

While it is internationally agreed that the worst forms of child labour should be eliminated in order to promote children's welfare, the consensus breaks down when trying to define what constitutes ‘light work’. This article seeks to show why it is difficult to get everyone to agree on this issue, focusing on the definition of child labour proposed by the International Labour Organization (ILO).     

Rural development from the ground up: agro-food initiatives in Tasmania

Concerns about the decline of rural agricultural communities have recently refocused on new economic opportunities available in regional food production. This article analyses three on-the-ground case studies of rural development projects in Tasmania, Australia that aimed to develop new regional food opportunities. It analyses these projects to identify how local food producers can create viable economic alternatives in rural settings. The projects illustrate that the existence of regional food assets alone is not enough to guarantee economic development success: rural producers need connections into relevant knowledge networks if they are to identify and respond to new agro-food market opportunities.     

Did the project fail? A community perspective on a participatory primary health care project in Ecuador

This article examines a UNICEF/Ministry of Health primary health care programme in Ecuador from a community perspective. It contributes to the debate concerning the way in which the relative ‘success?s or ‘failure?s of participatory projects is measured. It argues for evaluators to distinguish between the perceptions of the different actors involved, and to extend their enquiries beyond the actual lifespan of the project. It also provides lessons for the future by discussing the contribution that technical projects can make to capacity building and the empowerment of community-level organisations.     

印度区域金融中心构建的演绎路径及其启示

印度作为人口众多的发展中大国，在金融改革与发展区域金融中心培育与构建的经验与教训，对同为发展中人口大国的中国的区域金融发展具有重要的借鉴意义。为此，本文拟在探索印度区域金融中心构建的演绎路径基础上，总结其构建中的经验与教训，以便于中国在区域金融中心构建方面有镜可照。     

Political terrorism in South‐East Asia

This article will provide an overview of one specific non‐military threat that is beginning to assume greater prominence on south‐east Asia's broadened security agenda: political terrorism.¹ Although by no means new to the south‐east Asian environment, for much of the twentieth century its importance was sidelined and, in a sense ‘contained’, by the more pressing concern over US‐Soviet nuclear rivalry. With the end of the Cold War, however, the ‘bottle has been uncorked’ on a variety of lower‐level threats, with issues such as terrorism now taking on greater prominence and relevance in their own right as significant regional and national security concerns.²     

Democratization in Mozambique: Trends and practices

This article explores the nature of party political competition four years after Mozambique's first democratic national elections, with particular attention being accorded to the democratization of local government. It commences with an overview of the nature of contemporary party politics in Mozambique. Secondly, the democratization of local government is reviewed. Thirdly, recent political developments are located within the context of major economic reconstruction and escalating corruption. It is concluded that whilst Mozambique does have a stable multi‐party system in the formal sense at least, the substance of genuine multi‐partyism remains elusive, given the near‐total lack of policy alternatives and the proliferation of corruption at the highest levels of political life.     

Undergraduate sustainability education programs and national security

Sustainable development directly aligns with local, regional, national, and global security. In the last decade, much progress has taken place in graduate sustainability education and research. However, undergraduate sustainability education programs have not shown the same levels of achievement. Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) is one of the pioneer universities to have established its Sustainable Systems Engineering Program at the undergraduate level. Since 2016, the Program has been revised and improved upon. This article details the relationship between undergraduate sustainability education and national security, and explores the undergraduate sustainability education practices at MSU Denver as a model. The authors emphasize the development of program educational objectives (PEO), curriculum design, and assessment. The recently developed course, “Leadership in Sustainable Design,” is discussed, illustrating the university’s introduction of general sustainability concepts to interdisciplinary undergraduate students.     

Promoting country ownership and inclusive growth? An assessment of Feed the Future

This article investigates the level of country ownership and inclusivity in Feed the Future (FtF) projects in Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Senegal, and Tanzania. It finds that though interventions largely align with country-defined priorities and plans, other aspects of country ownership – consultation and provision of aid through local systems – are weaker than expected. Regarding inclusion, FtF is to some extent exclusive, perhaps as an unintended consequence of alignment with national development plans that do not reasonably promote equity. Focus is mostly on productive areas and ‘market-ready’ smallholders. The article suggests policy actions needed to better achieve expected results.     

Regional integration and the individualism/collectivism dichotomy

This paper explores how regional integration can be seen through the lens of the individualism/collectivism dichotomy. Two main worldviews dominate the world since the 18-century: individualism and collectivism. These worldviews not only shape the behaviour of individuals but also that of institutional actors such as states. At the level of states, these two worldviews have been reflected in states pursuing their national interests and in states seeking to cooperate with other states. Also, within single states, these two worldviews find their expression in conceptions about how social order and public life are organised: the welfare state versus a market oriented society. As such, regional integration is a process that has a double relation to the individualism/collectivism dichotomy. First, the level of regional integration that states will pursue is linked to (individual) national interests. Secondly, regional integration as a move towards unity is function of the existing degree of homogeneity in social welfare systems. Today, a major challenge for the world is the dual evolution of growing individualism on the one hand (with limits to solidarity) and of a growing area of problems that have to be tackled at a collective level (cf. globalisation). This paper will argue that regional integration can be a valuable answer to overcome the individualism/collectivism dichotomy at the level of states. But for this to happen, civil society needs to become much more involved in regional integration processes.     

Back‐pedalling in Iraq: lessons unlearned

This article analyses which of the major lessons learned from previous experiences in nation building have been applied or ignored in Iraq. It focuses on the first six months of the post‐combat period, a time frame generally recognised as being critical for laying the foundations for a stable and democratic future. A review of previous cases points to six lessons that, in fact, have been unlearned, and only two that have been realised in this initial phase in Iraq.     

Universities,NGOs, and civil society sustainability: preliminary lessons from Ecuador

The context for NGOs in the Global South – delegitimising discourse, restrictive policies, and decreasing international funding – leads to major concerns about the sustainability of organised civil society. As a result, NGOs are exploring new means to contribute to social development. This article explores developing university–NGO collaborations through the case of Ecuador. It contributes to development research on two fronts. First, it examines the role of the university in the South and their collaborations with NGOs. Second, it situates university–NGO collaborations within concerns about civil society sustainability. The article presents lessons learnt by Ecuadorian NGOs.     

The Challenge of Revolutionary Terrorism to Turkish Democracy 1960-80

After the dramatic failure of the socialist Turkish Labour Party in the election of 1969 many extremist left-wing ideologists seemed to regard terrorism as a legitimate method of achieving their objectives. Cayan, for instance, made it clear early in the 1970s that he considered that there was no alternative and that political power had to be obtained through the methods of armed violence. Although one of the main factors responsible for political violence was the autocratic state tradition and the rigid understanding about prevention of political terrorism and violence, the major political parties also failed to play a constructive role in protecting democracy in Turkey. The left in the period of 1960-80 claimed that parliamentary democracy in Turkey was a device to perpetuate social injustice and backwardness, allowing the upper classes to enrich themselves by maintaining semi-feudal relations in society while the right-wing groups considered that democracy had destroyed the traditional social order and its values, allowing the left the freedom to subvert and undermine the national integrity and character. In this framework, this article assumes that these bloody years in Turkey have many lessons for preventing revolutionary terrorism in a pluralistic environment.     

Bracing for Cold Peace. US-Russia Relations after Ukraine

Despite rising back to prominence during the global economic turmoil, the International Monetary Fund remains under severe pressure over its lack of legitimacy and effectiveness. It is surrounded by increasingly vibrant and potentially competing systems of regional financial arrangements. But while it is feared that regional arrangements can undermine the global financial order, they can also help buttress the multilateral institutions that are struggling to manage an increasingly complex global economy. The purpose of this article is to draw on trade, exploring the decades-long efforts to ensure compatibilities between regional trade agreements and the multilateral trading system, to offer lessons to financial policymakers.