Establishing a health promoting setting: an experience in an albanian polyclinic

A “health promoting polyclinic” based on the “health promoting setting concept” has been developed in Tirana, the capital of Albania. This paper discusses the implementation and intervention of the project, whereas the final evaluation results will be presented in another article. An important aspect of the whole program is the training of the administrators and staff members in the necessary skills relating to their allocated roles, such as creating a healthy environment, health education, outreach activities and total quality management. In this approach the International Relief Organization (IRO) acting as an external agent took the initiative of enabling, mediating and advocating, as well as providing support for the polyclinic's staff and its clients. The model appears to be effective in promoting health at the secondary health care level (the polyclinic). This may encourage health planners to adopt a similar concept at other settings i.e. general or specialized hospitals.     

Raising revenues: an introduction

Raising revenues, although necessary to budgets, has received relatively scant attention from students of public budgeting. This special issue focuses attention on that topic. The contributions to this special issue show the diverse ways in which raising revenues is important.     

Prospects for an Independent Catalonia

The aim of this paper is to examine the factors that have triggered the recent shift from devolution to secession expressed by the Catalan grassroots movement which has been consolidated in the last 5 years or so. This movement stands in favour of the so-called ‘right to decide’ which specifically demands the right of Catalan citizens to be considered as a ‘demos’ able to decide upon its political future by means of holding a referendum on the issue. Conflict has emerged as a result of the Spanish state’s prohibition to allow for a referendum on that issue. The paper offers an overview of the origins of modern Catalan nationalism by tracing back its roots to Franco’s dictatorship and the subsequent transition to democracy. It analyses the main arguments behind the qualitative shift from devolution to secession embodied in the rise of a novel bottom up secessionist movement supporting the idea of holding a referendum on Catalan independence from Spain; so far, strictly forbidden by the Spanish State. The paper considers the impediments to a ‘referendum’ on Catalan independence founded upon the Spanish Constitution. To conclude, it examines the rise of a novel grassroots civil society movement demanding the right of Catalonia to decide upon its political future.     

Faith in an Interdependent World

The resurgence of political Islam and the endurance of broad religious belief in the most modern of societies—America—has created a crisis of faith among secularists. If modernity no longer implies a secular outlook, and secularism, by definition, cannot generate any values beyond an indifferent tolerance of all belief, what role will religion play in the 21st century? In an interesting confluence of reflection, Jürgen Habermas, one of Europe's leading secular liberal thinkers, argues that secular citizens must be open to religious influence, especially since the very identity of Western culture is rooted in Judeo‐Christian values. In his political afterlife, Tony Blair has converted to Catholicism and established a Faith Foundation to press for religious literacy because “you can't understand the modern world unless you understand the importance of religious faith.” Similarly, when Pope Benedict XVI visited secular France in September, President Nicholas Sarkozy scandalized the lay establishment by saying, like Habermas, that “rejecting a dialogue with religion would be a cultural and intellectual error.” He called for “a positive secularism that debates, respects and includes, not a secularism that rejects.” Despite the flurry of controversy over a recent spate of books extolling the virtues of atheism in the wake of Islamist terrorism, the more interesting issue by far is the emergence of post‐secular modernity.     

The Good Faith of an Infidel

For most of human history, the other half of the species, women, were on the sidelines. Now they are central actors in all our societies as we negotiate the fraught transition from male‐dominated tradition to modernity and beyond. In this section we hear the voices of powerful women who in their own lives are making this historic shift.