Why has the antidepressant era not shown a significant drop in suicide rates?

Over the past decades the rate of completed suicide has remained quite stable, whereas that of suicide attempts seems to have increased (to the extent it has been studied in defined regions). These are puzzling observations, since depression is the major suicide precursor and and since antidepressants have been increasingly used over the years in the treatment of depression. These observations have not attracted sufficient attention, possibly because they do not accord with consensus opinions about depression treatment in psychiatry today. This paper discusses a number of possible explanations that not only deserve, but are definitely in need of systematic investigation.     

To return or not to return? Politics vs. economics in China's brain drain

This study, based on 273 face-to-face interviews with students, scholars, and former residents of China in the United States in 1993, uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to explain people's views about returning to China. Although less than 9 percent of interviewees had concrete plans to return, over 32 percent were positively disposed to returning in the future. Key background variables that affect that decision are people’s age, sex, social background in China, and their views about returning when they first left China. Concern about children’s future was not significant, but having a wife abroad greatly increased the desire to stay abroad. Why people chose not to return varied significantly between people with children and those who didn't. Even four years after the Tiananmen crackdown, concerns about political instability, lack of political freedom, and a lack of trust that the government would let people who returned leave again were significant reasons for not returning. But economic factors—better U.S. housing and incomes—as well as professional concerns about lack of job or career mobility in China and a poor work environment there were equally important. Given the weight attributed to economic factors and political stability, if China weathers Deng Xiaoping’s succession and the economy continues to grow, significant numbers of Chinese may return. David Zweig is Associate Professor, Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is the author ofFreeing China’s Farmers: Rural Restructuring in the Deng Era (forthcoming),Agrarian Radicalism in China, 1968–1981 (1989), co-author ofChina’s Brain Drain to the United States: The Views of Students and Scholars in the 1990s (1995), and co-editor ofChina’s Search for Democracy: The Student and Mass Movement of 1989 (1992) andNew Perspectives on China’s Cultural Revolution (1991). He writes about China’s rural political economy, transnational relations, and domestic politics. He is currently completing a book on the impact of China’s open policy and transnational relations on urban development, rural industry, universities, and recipients of foreign aid.     

Whose world? Development,civil society,development studies and (not only) scholar activists

The current international development discourse focuses much on the Millennium Development Goals (mdgs) as part of a global social contract in support of international cooperation and governance, with the debate on the post-mdgs and the Sustainable Development Goals (sdgs) indicating a shift. These goals are at least in part addressing developmental constraints confronting the world as a result of the effects the dominant growth models have had on limited resources and global goods. Rio+20 was a forum which brought to the fore the conflicting issues at stake and the challenges for any development paradigm seeking to enhance global justice and equality. This article explores the discrepancies between dominant paradigms cultivated in official discourses, on the one hand, and alternatives for another development presented as anti-hegemonic counter-models for survival strategies. It considers the role of civil society agencies and scholar activists in development studies.     

“Why not love our language and our culture?” National rights and citizenship in Khrushchev's Soviet Union

This paper highlights campaigns for national rights among two non-titular communities in the Soviet Union and places them in local historical contexts. Drawing on archival sources and oral history interviews, the author not only delves into the campaigns themselves, but also explores broader debates about the nature of Khrushchev's Thaw and Soviet citizenship, which was far from an empty concept in the Khrushchev era. Petitioners invoked discourses that indicate both an awareness of national rights and an expectation of the state's obligation to protect them. Oral history interviews with surviving petitioners and community members support the notion that petition language can serve as a reflection of how petitioners viewed their place in Soviet society and interpreted the Soviet citizen contract.     

It is Ukraine,not Russia — Irish told in Kiev

Musa Carullah Bigi. Uzun Günlerde Oruc: Ictihad Kitabi. Editor Yusuf Uralgiray. Ankara: Kazan Türkleri Kültür Ve Yardimlasma Dernegi, 1975. pp. 243. 50 TL (A reprint of Uzun Kunlerde Ruze. Kazan: Umid, 1911).

Baymirza Hayit. Turkestan im Herzen Euroasiens. Köln: Studien vertag, 1980, pp. 308.

Lev. Bykovsky. Solomon I. Goldeman: A Portrait of a Politician and Educator (1885–1974). A Chapter in Ukrainian Jewish Relations. New York, Toronto, Munich: Ukrainian Historical Association, 1980. pp. 98. $8.00.

Kenneth C. Farmer, Ukrainian Nationalism in the Post‐Stalin Era: Myth, Symbols and Ideology in Soviet Nationalities Policy. The Hague, Boston and London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1980. Pp. 241. $35.00.

Vasyl Veryha. Dorohamy Druhoi svitovoi viiny. Legendy pro uchast ukraintsiv u Varshavskomu povstani 1944 p. ta pro Ukrainsku Dyviziiu “Halychyna”. Toronto: Novyi Shliakh, 1980. Pp. 259.

Pohrom v Ukraini: 1972–1979 (Zoshyty ukrains'koko samvydavu, No. 1), Su?asnist, 1980. Pp. 312. Zupynit’ kryvosuddia! Sprava Levka Lukianenka (Zoshyty ukrains'koko samvydavu, No. 3). Su?asnist, 1980. Pp. 264.

Mykola Rudenko. Ekonomkhni monolohy. Introduction by Petro Hryhorenko. Su?asnist, 1978. Pp. 199.

Ivan Franko. The Master's Jests. Translated by Roman Tatchyn. New York: Shev‐chenko Scientific Society, 1979. Pp. 133. $10.00

Sidney Heitman. The Soviet Germans in the USSR Today. Köln: Bundesinstitut für ostwissenschaftliche und internationale Studien, 1980. Pp. 135.

Ivan Maistrenko. Natsional'naia politika KPSS v ee istoricheskom razvitii. Munich: Su?asnist, 1978. Pp. 224.

Alexander Podrabinek. Punitive Medicine. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Karoma, 1980. Pp. 223. $12.95, cloth.

Bohdan Wytwycky. The Other Holocaust: Marty Circles of Hell. Washington, D.C.: A Research project of “The Nowak Report,” 1980. Pp. 96.

John F. Besemeres. Socialist Population Politics: The Political Implications of Demographic Trends in the USSR and Eastern Europe. White Plains, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1980. Pp. 384. $25.00.

Peter J. Potichnyj, ed. Poland and Ukraine: Past and Present. Edmonton, Toronto: The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1980. Pp. 364. $14.95. Distributed by the University of Toronto Press.

Alvin Marcus Fountain II. Roman Dmowski: Party, Tactics Ideology 1895–1907. No. 60. Boulder Col.: East European Quarterly, 1980. Pp. XIII, 240. $16.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York.

Stavro Skendi. Balkan Cultural Studies. East European Monographs, 72. Boulder, Colo.: East European Quarterly, 1980. Pp. x, 278. $20.00. Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York.

Josef Kalvoda. Czechoslovakia's Role in Soviet Strategy. Washington: University Press of America, 1978. Pp. ix, 381. $8.75.

Joseph Held, ed. The Modernization of Agriculture: Rural Transformation in Hungary, 1848–1975. East European Monographs, no. 63. Boulder, Colo.: East European Quarterly, 1980. Pp. 400. $19.50. Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York.

Zsuzsa Ferge. A Society in the Making: Hungarian Social and Societal Policy 1945–75. White Plains, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe Inc. 1980. Pp 288. $22.50.

Robert F. Byrnes, ed. Communal Families in the Balkans: The Zadruga; Essays by Philip E. Mosely and Essays in His Honor. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976. Pp. xxvii, 285.

Warren F. Mazek, ed. Slovene Economy in the Eighties. New York: Society for Slovene Studies, 1981. Pp. v, 49.

Joseph D. Dwyer, ed. Russia, the Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe: A Survey of Holdings at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University, Hoover Institution Press, c. 1980. Pp. 233.

Paul S. Shoup. The East European and Soviet Data Handbook: Political, Social, and Developmental Indicators, 1945–1975. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. Pp. 481. $40.00.     

To address or not to address the violent past in the classroom? That is the question in Côte d’Ivoire

In the aftermath of violent conflict, divided societies have to answer the important question of whether, when and how to address their country’s violent past within their educational system. Whereas some scholars within the field of peace education and transitional justice argue that addressing the violent past in the classroom is important for fostering mutual understanding and empathy among future generations in order to prevent conflict recurrence, other scholars are more sceptical about the need and feasibility of addressing the violent past in schools. They emphasize the possible negative impact in terms of increased tensions within schools and within society more generally. The current paper makes an important empirical contribution to this debate by analysing the views and perceptions on this matter of 984 secondary school teachers in Abidjan, the largest city and de facto capital of Côte d’Ivoire – a country that was recently torn apart by ethnic strife and violent conflict. It emerges that while so far most teachers have shied away from addressing their country’s conflict history in class, it also appeared that many of the teachers were actually in favour of breaking this culture of silence.     

‘Illegitimate’ loans: lenders,not borrowers,are responsible

Debt relief has focused on the borrower—debt is cancelled if a country is too poor to repay and now has acceptable policies. Iraq shifted the focus to the lender—debt should be cancelled because creditors should never have lent money to the repressive regime. This paper uses domestic and international law to establish the concept of ‘illegitimate debt’, which should not be repaid independent of the status of the borrower. The concept of ‘moral hazard’ is used to argue that non-payment of illegitimate debt is necessary to discipline lenders and to prevent future lending to oppressive dictators.     

煤?霉? 媒?

起名字确实不该掉以轻心,譬如:煤。煤“霉”同音,它的那些奇遇要不怨“倒霉”的名字才怪呢。煤的长相实在也太难看,那些几十年一贯制的又脏又旧的煤店门面,与正忙着换成铝合金、茶色玻璃等新型材料的店铺相形见拙。专家认为,烧煤造成严重的大气污染,大气污染使广州人的癌