The Future of Belgian Federalism as Seen Through the Eyes of the Social Partners: A Continuing Obstacle to Social Policy Decentralization?

In this article, we take a look at the discussion on the devolution of social policy. Despite the pressure of strong nationalist movements to decentralize socio-economic matters, the federal welfare state does not erode. In their study up to the early 2000s, Béland and Lecours explain this relative standstill by pointing to the institutionalization of neo-corporatistic organizations. These organizations, which are strongly involved in the management of the welfare state, have not split along language lines and prevent the decentralization of socio-economic policies in order to preserve their power. Based on empirical evidence, this paper shows that federal social partners are an important obstacle to social policy decentralization in Belgium while the regional social partners have differing opinions on the devolution debate.     

Child Trafficking,Child Soldiering: exploring the relationship between two ‘worst forms’ of child labour

While it may be intuited that human trafficking is an ineluctable component of the child soldiering experience, very little research exists to illustrate the tangible connections between these two ‘worst forms’ of child labour. The extent to which common reception points for trafficked children—such as slave-owning households, religious boarding schools and brothels—double as profitable reservoirs for recruiting commanders remains entirely unknown. Likewise, despite the clear financial incentive that some erstwhile commanders might have to traffic their former child combatants into civilian slavery, the prevalence of such practice is unknown. The purpose of this article is to delineate some of the most conspicuous academic gaps pertaining to the intersection of child trafficking and child soldiering.     

Book reviews

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, On My Country and the World, George Shriver (Translator). New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Pp.308, index. $29.95 (cloth). ISBN 0–231–11514–8.

Simon Duke, The Elusive Quest for European Security: From EDC to CFSP. New York: St. Martin's, 2000.Pp.xvii + 406, notes, list of abbreviations, acronyms and conventions, index. $69.95 (cloth). ISBN 0–312–22402–8.

Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham and Tom Woodhouse, Contemporary Conflict Resolution. Oxford: Polity Press, 1999. Pp.xviii + 270, table of abbreviations, bibliog., index. $69.95 (cloth). ISBN 0–7456–2034–5.     

Book reviews

Chalmers Johnson, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000. Pp.287, biblio., index. $26. ISBN 0–8050–6238–6.

Heinz Kramer, A Changing Turkey: The Challenge to Europe and the United States. Washington DC: Brookings Institute, 2000. Pp.xv + 304, notes and index. $18.95 (paper). ISBN 0–8157–5023–4.     

Facial Soft Tissue Depth Statistics and Enhanced Point Estimators for Craniofacial Identification: The Debut of the Shorth and the 75‐Shormax

Several methods that have customarily been used in craniofacial identification to describe facial soft tissue depths (FSTDs) implore improvement. They include the calculation of arithmetic means for skewed data, omission of concern for measurement uncertainty, oversight of effect size, and misuse of statistical significance tests (e.g., p‐values for strength of association). This paper redresses these limitations using FSTDs from 10 prior studies (N = 516). Measurement uncertainty was large (>20% of the FSTD), skewness (≥0.8) existed at 11 of the 23 FSTD landmarks examined, and sex and age each explained <4% of the total FSTD variance (η² calculated as part of MANOVA). These results call for a new and improved conceptualization of FSTDs, which is attained by the replacement of arithmetic means with shorths and 75‐shormaxes. The outcomes of this implementation are dramatic reduction in FSTD complexity; improved data accuracy; and new data‐driven standards for casework application of methods.     

Budgetary chaos and evasion: the case of somalia

In 1990 and 1991, several Sub-Saharan African nations (Liberia, Somalia, and Ethiopia) experienced violent disintegration of existing governments. Other nations (Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, and Zaire) continued to show signs of being on the brink of violent upheaval, while Zambia experienced a major democratic shift in its government. The forces of change in Africa seem to be mirroring political change that has and continues to take place in eastern Europe and in the territories of the former Soviet Union. This paper is a case study of national budgetary and financial management during a period of national disintegration. The information comes from observations formed during the final days of the political regime of one of these Sub-Saharan African nations - the Republic of Somalia.

The twenty-one year political regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in Somalia came to an end in January 1991 when rebel forces captured the capital city of Mogadishu, forcing Barre and his remaining followers to flee the capital. In the weeks and months leading up to the end of the regime, the normal functioning of the government had effectively ceased, collapsing under the weight of corrupt practices and substantial inefficiencies resulting from the government policies.

This paper describes some of these practices as they related to the national budgetary and financial management processes. In particular, the existence of chaos and evasion in national budgeting was evident with the existence of repetitive budgeting, lump sum budgeting, escapist budgeting, underfunding, externally driven policy, and information gaps. The analysis conducted suggests the importance of sound budget practices for the stability of a government. The conclusions derived focus on the issue of the role of political instability, attempts to modernize, and general systems organization as they relate to Somalia.     

Local Governance Versus Centralization: Connecticut Wetlands Governance as a Model

Scholars disagree whether local decision making is inherently more democratic and sustainable than centralized governance structures. While some maintain it is, due to the incorporation of local knowledge, citizen decision makers' closeness to the issues, and the benefits of participatory democracy, others find it as susceptible to issues of corruption and poor implementation as any other scale. We argue that with wetlands, a natural resource with critical local benefits, it is imperative to incorporate local governance, using the U.S. state of Connecticut as an example. Despite the American policy of No Net Loss, the local benefits of wetland resources cannot be aggregated on a national scale. Each local ecosystem needs wetland resources to ensure local ecological benefits such as flood control and pollution remission, as well as the substantial economic benefits of recreation. We illustrate the benefits of local control of wetlands with data from the American state of Connecticut, which consistently surpasses the federal wetland goal of No Net Loss due, we argue, to the governance structure of town‐level wetlands commissions. A national policy such as No Net Loss, where wetlands are saved or created in designated areas and destroyed in others, is insufficient when it ignores critical benefits for localities. The Connecticut system using local volunteers and unpaid appointees is a successful method for governing common‐pool wetland systems. In the case of Connecticut, we find that local decision making is not a “trap,” but instead an effective model of sustainable, democratic local governance.     

'A Stranger to its Laws': Sovereign Bodies, Global Sexualities, and Transnational Citizens

This article examines the importance of mobility in the historical and ongoing constitution of lesbian and gay subjectivities. While the state in the past frequently sought to restrict the movement of sexual dissidents across national borders, current developments in an array of jurisdictions suggest a more permissive attitude, particularly in the case of the 'unification' of same-sex couples. These legal and political developments are interrogated with respect to the construction of 'acceptable' homosexualities and, more broadly, in terms of cosmopolitan and communitarian visions of sexual citizenship.     

Race relations in police operations: A legal and ethical perspective for officers

This presentation looks beyond the contemporary controversy over the use of race in drug courier profiling and examines the broad spectrum of rare relations affecting police operations. Racial controversy is not new to law enforcement, nor is it a recent phenomenon in American society. American police do not get enough credit for the enormous amount of positive daily interaction within minority communities. Police are pervasively present within minority communities around the clock successfully solving disputes, responding to calls for service, and addressing community concerns. It is against this backdrop that many in law enforcement are becoming increasingly frustrated by the perception, if not the reality of deteriorating race relations between police and minorities. One thing is certain: police cannot withdraw from racial conflict. Police will continue to operate within minority communities, regardless of the racial composition of either the community or the law enforcement agency. Therefore, officer and supervisory training should not only focus on how to avoid racial conflict, but also on how to ethically and legally perform in an environment where treatment of minorities is critically examined.