Can Producer Associations Improve Rural Livelihoods? Evidence from Farmer Centres in India

Abstract

Rural producer associations are considered a potential community-driven solution to the problems of smallholder agriculture. This article evaluates the impact of organising female farmers into producer associations in Gujarat, India. The initiative provided training, information, access to inputs, risk mitigation, and market linkages. Over 18 months, the programme weakly increased members’ non-farm income and access to output markets. It had stronger impacts on members’ awareness and utilisation of financial services. Impacts were heterogeneous, varying by pre-existing socioeconomic conditions. These findings suggest that producer associations can lower transaction costs for smallholders, but that poverty alleviation may be a longer-term prospect.     

Établissements d’enseignement et de santé confessionnels,espace public et agency à Ouagadougou (1987–2010)

Abstract

In response to the significant urbanisation and the demographic expansion of Ouagadougou, the Catholic Church and Islamic associations are diversifying their operations, which were already significant in terms of health and education at the end of the 1980s. This social engagement is at the heart of humanitarian, proselytising, socio-economic and political challenges and influences the position of these actors in the public space. This article intends to contribute to consideration of the relations between these religious actors and the State in Burkina Faso with the aim of analysing the sectors of secondary teaching and health in Ouagadougou. It will be demonstrated that the operations of these actors (Muslim and Catholic) made their legitimacy evolve differently in the public space from 1987 to 2010. The Catholic actors have had a greater influence than the Muslims on the decisions of the State. Subsequent to the challenges and the political context, the capacity of agency (capacity to act) of the actors of the two denominations has modified.     

The Bulgarian connection: Drugs,weapons, and terrorism

Abstract

The Bulgarian government is involved in sub‐version of Western governments, almost certainly orchestrated in Moscow, involving drugs, weapons, and terrorism. Despite U.S. efforts to work with Bulgaria to curb the illicit traffic of drugs and weapons, cooperation has been virtually nil. This has prompted some members of Congress to probe Bulgaria's motives, and on February 26, 1985, Senator Alphonse D'Amato introduced a bill, S. 515, the Bulgarian Interrelation Review Act, directing the President to conduct a comprehensive review of U.S. policy toward Bulgaria. This article analyzes that legislation, the dimension of the drugs and terrorism connection in Bulgaria, and offers further recommendations in dealing with the issue.     

Four Positions on the Recognition of States in and after the Soviet Union,with Special Reference to Abkhazia

Abstract

This essay looks at why, how and with what degree of success the international community has applied its recognition policies in the post-Soviet space. The essay addresses the issue from a normative perspective by comparing these policies with alternative policies on recognition that have arisen in Soviet and post-Soviet debates. A basic distinction is made between four normative positions. The essay compares the kind of just cause these positions claim to defend, the motives of those supporting each of these positions, the likelihood of success in achieving the stated objective, and the consequences and drawbacks inherent in each of these positions for post-Soviet conflicts over sovereignty generally and more specifically for the Georgian–Abkhaz dispute.     

Criminalisation of Free Speech in Russia

Abstract

The essay addresses the current trends in the criminalisation of free speech in Russia. It critically discusses the amendments to the Russian Criminal Code, criminalising various forms of public expression of opinions, adopted in the years following the presidential elections in March 2012, and questions their compliance with international human rights law. Seeking to identify the motives behind the new provisions, the article argues that the amendments are intended to cause a ‘chilling effect’, to control public dissent by selective or random criminal prosecution. Two of the new criminal law provisions—‘Public Calls for Separatism’ and ‘Rehabilitation of Nazism’—are considered in detail to illustrate the author’s conclusions.     

Vera Zasulich,the shooting of Trepov and the growth of political terrorism in Russia, 1878–1881

Abstract

This article is an analysis of a trial that has been described as the most momentous in the history of Imperial Russia. In January 1878 Vera Zasulich, later a correspondent of Marx and a critic of Lenin, shot at and wounded Fyodor Trepov, the Governor of St. Petersburg; her trial and acquittal a few months later sparked a wave of political terrorism in Russia that culminated on March 1, 1881 in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. The article attempts to demonstrate, among other things, that the Trepov shooting was hardly the political act it was perceived to be by contemporaries who were inspired by it to resort to terrorism in an effort to overthrow autocracy. That historians as well have treated the Trepov shooting as “political'’ makes it imperative that this misperception be corrected. The author concludes from a lengthy exploration of Zasulich's motives that, in moral terms, they compare favorably with those of most terrorists today.     

Socioeconomic Development and Voluntary Associations in Swedish Municipalities

Abstract

This paper explores the link between voluntary associations and socioeconomic development in Swedish municipalities. According to previous research in the field of social capital, the causal flow goes from having many associations to a high level of socioeconomic development. It has been argued, however, that the causal flow from the level of socioeconomic development to the level of social capital is so weak that it can be ignored. This paper tests a simple simultaneous equation model in order to test whether the causal flows from socioeconomic development to social capital and the inverse are simultaneous. The study is carried out at an aggregated level (the municipalities) that corresponds to the lowest administrative level in Sweden. The results indicate that the socioeconomic development cannot be ignored and that there is a simultaneous relationship. Moreover, the empirical findings indicate that the relationship is negative between the variables expressing socioeconomic development and associational density.     

What Foster the Climate for Merit?: Test of a Mediation Model

ABSTRACT

The failure of performance management in the public sector can be conceived as the failure to create the right climate for merit. This study proposes a mediation model explaining howorganizational climate for merit can be fostered. The analysis of the 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey reveals that constructive use of effective performance feedback and encouraging participation will help create a climate for merit and that such associations were mediated by organizational justice perception and trust toward their supervisor.     

Resurgent religious terrorism: A study of some of the Lebanese Shi'a contemporary terrorism

Abstract

This study introduces the concept of geocultural immobility. A minority's geocultural immobility is identified as an imposed low geographic mobility within a nation with low cultural pluralism. It establishes the Lebanese Shi'a geocultural immobility, to which it attributes their religious resurgence. This Lebanese Shi'a religious resurgence is proven in this research to produce the zealots needed by religious terrorist organizations. This study also introduces and defines religious terrorism as violent acts performed by elements of religious organizations or sects, growing out of a commitment to communicate a divine message. It makes distinctions among religious terrorism, secular terrorism, and fighters for religious freedom, which are based on the actors' motives, affinities, and consciousness of the maliciousness of their acts. The primary and secondary data and the quasiexperiment in this research support its special hypotheses. They indicate a statistical correlation between eight Lebanese Shi ‘a cultural and religious attributes.     

Indigenous food sovereignty in a captured state: the Garifuna in Honduras

Abstract

This study explores the emergence of the Afro-Indigenous food sovereignty movement in the context of a captured Honduran state and unequal political economy. In contrast with national-level research that has advocated a policy of food security in the context of non-indigenous campesino movements, this work explains how food sovereignty is more appropriate regarding Garifuna Hondurans. In a political economy that has precluded other options, and given the deep cultural relation that Garifuna activists have to land and autonomy, food sovereignty provides a possibility around which Indigenous development can be animated. It encapsulates a local ‘fight’ response to repression as an alternative to northern ‘flight’, often via migrant caravans, that many Garifuna have undertaken. This study shows how food sovereignty, more than being a technical policy set, is a discursive and material node through which dispossessed and especially indigenous populations can enhance decolonial power in the contestation of entrenched hegemonic and institutionalised power in a corrupt, unequal and colonised political economy.     

Chapter 3. Mental Health Care of Hispanic Immigrant Children

Abstract

This chapter addresses the mental health care of Hispanic immigrant children within a school-based context. The school system is presented as a natural support agent that is psychologically, culturally and geographically accessible for the delivery of culturally competent mental health services. The development of a multifaceted New York City public school-based program created, by the first author of this chapter, in response to the psychosocial needs of Hispanic immigrant children is discussed as a viable approach that may be used in the provision of ethnic-sensitive mental health care.     

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.     

Is Citizens’ Trust Escalating the Effect of Sound Governance on Citizens’ Satisfaction in Ethiopia?

ABSTRACT

In the context of widespread criticisms to good governance, sound governance is proposed to be a viable alternative. This study examines the effect of sound governance on citizens’ satisfaction with the mediating role of citizens’ trust in the context of Ethiopia. Using a concurrent mixed method design, data were collected from eight key informant interviews besides 175 respondents through questionnaire. The results show the positive link between sound governance, citizens’ trust, and satisfaction. It also reports a partial mediating role of trust into the relationship between sound governance and citizens’ satisfaction.     

Russian Views of Stalinism as a Negative Satellite of Capitalism

Abstract

The conflation of Stalinism with socialism was a key aspect of the relationship between Stalinism and capitalism. The Russian Marxist Nodari Simoniya exposed that conflation in his book What We Have Built, which is discussed in this essay in the context of Russian historiography about Stalinism. The main themes of Simoniya’s critique of Stalinism as a historical reversal are elaborated and linked to political images during the Cold War that distorted the meaning of socialism. Stalinism is revealed as a negative satellite of capitalism, constituting an external economic zone, not an alternative form of world order.     

Dialogue and the Administrator-Mediator

Abstract

Conflict resolution is a widespread challenge in organizational life. Many common sense ideas about conflict fail to take into account communication behavior in a psychosocial context. Instead, they focus on “moves” and established techniques as the way to solve problems. This article presents a deeper conceptualization of conflict, mediation, and peacemaking that focuses upon psychosocial and existential issues embedded in both conflict and peacemaking. The central theme is that a host of human developmental variables interfere with “authentic dialogue.” These are the key for constructive and lasting dispute resolution.     

Public Administration in the Middle East and North Africa

ABSTRACT

This article highlights the objective of the special issue which is to understand the status of public administration in six profiled countries – Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey – in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The special issue explores public administration as a concept—the diversity of guiding general principles that determines how governments administer the affairs of state in the context of their governance frameworks—and as praxis—the diversity of public administration structures, procedures and practice, and reform initiatives. It is evident that the countries profiled have adopted a mode of public administration and governance that mirrors its history, and its cultural, geo-political, socio-economic, and conflictive environments. In this context, the editors hope that the articles presented in this special issue will contribute to advancing the public administration literature in MENA.     

Chapter 11. The Future of Culturally Competent Mental Health Care for Latino Immigrants

Abstract

This chapter underscores the importance of cultural competence in the provision of effective mental health services to Latino immigrants. Culturally competent mental health care must be understood within the context of a social-political-economic framework that is changing on a continual basis. Health and mental health care reform for Latino immigrants must be linked to both practice-based research efforts and timely diffusion of best practice innovations. Cultural competence must be integrated as a valued component of the organizational structure of mental health systems of care.     

Government/non-profit Partnerships,Public Services Delivery,and Civil Society in the Transitional Nations of Eastern Europe: Lessons from the Hungarian Experience

Abstract

This paper will explore the complexity of the relationship between government and non-profit organizations in the context of Hungary on the cusp of accession to the European Union. First it will argue that the concept of a civil society is in fact not a unitary one but, rather, a cluster of linked concepts. It will argue further that it is essential to deconstruct this cluster of concepts in order to develop a common language. Without such a language it is not possible to debate the achievement of a civil society, or otherwise. This article is a contribution to the development of such conceptual clarity.     

Historical Origins of Uneven Service Supply in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Role of Non-State Providers

Abstract

Variations in non-state service provision are a relatively understudied dimension of wellbeing inequality in sub-Saharan Africa. This study from Madagascar documents long-term associations between nineteenth-century missionary education and the availability of private schools today. The article exploits an original data set with unusually detailed information on missionary education and contemporary local private school supply. The results indicate high levels of persistence in non-state schooling at the geographic level. The long tradition of faith-based education appears to contribute to religious differences that overlap only imperfectly with more widely studied ethnic divides.     

Pensions and the Health of Older People in South Africa: Is there an Effect?

Abstract

This paper critically reviews evidence from low and middle income countries that pensions are associated with better health outcomes for older people. It draws on new, nationally representative survey data from South Africa to provide a systematic analysis of pension effects on health and quality of life. It reports significant associations with the frequency of health service utilisation, as well as with awareness and treatment of hypertension. There is, however, no association with actual control of hypertension, self-reported health or quality of life. The paper calls for a more balanced and integrated approach to social protection for older people.