Crisis,containment and development: the role of the landmine impact survey

This article sets out to explain the Landmine Impact Survey, implemented by the Survey Action Center (sac), which is led by a consortium of mine action organisations. The primary rationale of the survey lies in the need to root mine action priority decisions in a firm understanding of the impact that landmines have upon communities. Data from four countries in which impact surveys have been completed indicate that only a small share of communities—perhaps as few as 10%—can be categorised as high impact, another 25% as medium impact, and the remaining 65% as low impact. This has implications for the prioritisation of scarce mine action resources, but it also makes broad elimination of the impact of landmines within the dates specified by the Landmines Convention appear more realistic, even though total clearance may appear unrealistic. The article places the impact survey initiative in the context of the evolution of a humanitarian response to landmines, from an emerging realisation of the threat in the 1970s and 1980s to the present-day landmine response capacity working with other reconstruction and development initiatives. The success of the sector ultimately hinges on the availability of solid and systematic data on impact.     

The Pragmatic Research Approach： A Framework for Sustainable Management of Public Housing Estates in Nigeria

The paper is based on a research which tries to explore, explain and develop a framework that would be used in the sustainable post-construction management of public housing estates. Literature review provides evidence of the extent of unoccupied, unfinished, vandalized, and abandoned social housing estates in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, signifying that the availability and management of decent public housing estates in the Niger Delta of Nigeria are lacking because the post-construction management practice is not as good as it should be. The aim of this paper is to assess and set out the methodology and rationale for adopting a strategy to the research. It further, thus, examines case study design strategy that follows exploratory and explanatory methods and other research worldviews as alternatives in philosophy, approach and in research methodology. In addition, the paper draws out the significance of pragmatism as current practical world thinking that is a better answer to a research study aim, objectives and questions which focus on real-life situations. It argues that the development of a framework for use in the post-construction management of social （public） housing estates in a sustainable manner is needed; and that, using a pragmatic philosophical perspective and approach of worldview through a mixed method （qualitative and quantitative） in a case study design line of inquiry in the research methodology would be a better proposition to adopt in the study. The paper recommends that the issues of sampling, validity, reliability, the relationship between the researcher and the subject and other research quandaries are vital when deciding on an appropriate method.     

The Business of Peace: Raiding and Peace Work Along the Kenya Uganda Border (Part I)

Peace-building NGOs are frequently at work along the Kenya–Ugandaborder. But in this desolate region, results have been extremelysparse. This article contends that this is due to the inadequaciesof contemporary understandings of cattle raiding. Most NGOsand many academics ascribe cattle raids to a familiar arrayof factors such as resource scarcity, small arms proliferation,and generational conflict. While each issue is obviously ofsome relevance, such explanations are too cumbersome to reallyenhance our knowledge of cattle raiding. This article proposesa new approach to the problem by utilizing popular conceptionsof ethnicity and criminal responsibility for raids. Given thatmost major raids originally stem from seemingly insignificantthefts, the process of retaliation is seen as crucial to understandingwhy violence escalates in certain situations and defuses inothers. The failure of NGOs engaged in peace work to addressthis important issue in a meaningful way is the reason theyhave failed to achieve much success along the Kenya–Ugandaborder. This is in turn responsible for the widespread cynicismand corruption that has crept into their work, and is the subjectof the second part of this article. The author would like to acknowledge the Killam Trust, the SocialSciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and DalhousieUniversity for their generous support during the writing ofthis article. Special thanks are owed to Andrew Juma, MilcahAchola, Rachel Andiama, Kelly-Jo Bahry, Rob Blunt, MichelleBourbonniere, Kim de Vries, Gary Kynoch, Mark Longole, GabrielleLynch, Friederike Mieth, and Danielle Walters, as well as twoanonymous reviewers.     

A face in the crowd: The influences of familiarity and delay on preschoolers’ recognition

Abstract

Preschoolers’ abilities to recognize former caregivers were examined. Participants were 35 children from three preschool classes. Caregivers volunteered in the classes over a 7-week period. At an initial assessment, children were asked to select former caregivers from a line-up of five photographs, and to rank-order the caregivers by personal preference. Recognition was assessed again after 3 months. Although older toddlers performed at chance levels, clear age-related increases in recognition performance were observed, with older preschoolers recognizing 86% of the volunteers at time 2. Younger children responded less consistently over time than older children. Preference for individual caregivers affected recognition performance among younger, but not older, preschoolers. Implications for children's eyewitness testimony are considered.     

Kaiser Permanente: Using Interest-Based Negotiations to Craft a New Collective Bargaining Agreement

Building on a new labor–management partnership, Kaiser Permanente and its nearly seventy thousand union employees negotiated a five-year contract agreement in 2000 based on the principles of "interest-based negotiations." The people who made this remarkable achievement happen as well as the historic background of the case are described and analyzed. A key element to the success of this initiative was the back-and-forth work of many different groups, including joint labor–management committee, coalitions of unions, bargaining task groups focused on particular subject areas, and local and national leaders of the company and its unions. Using illustrative comments from actual participants in this complex, nearly year-long negotiation process, the authors explore how the parties crafted their agreement.     

A grass-roots experiment to resolve workplace problems

Leaders from the business, labor, academic, religious, and ADR communities in Massachusetts have gotten together to form a workplace network to encourage the use of ADR mechanisms in the resolution of workplace disputes and problems. The Massachusetts experiment may serve as a model for other states. Current ADR initiatives of the new Network focus on discrimination cases, health and safety issues, and education and training. Susan C. Eaton is a Ph.D. student in industrial relations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a research fellow of the Massachusetts Workplace Network, c/o Sloan School of Management, MIT E52-532, Cambridge, Mass. 02139.Thomas A. Kochan is the George M. Bunker Professor of Management at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the past president of the International Industrial Relations Association (IIRA).