The rise of the Global South,the IMF and the future of Law and Development

Following the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis the world has witnessed a re-accommodation of the global financial system. In the particular case of middle-income countries they have disentangled themselves from the conditionality of the IMF and grown into more assertive actors in international forums, proposing new alternative mechanisms to become more financially independent and for the provision of development assistance. This article critically reviews the new reality by assessing the strategies deployed by developing countries to reduce the IMF’s influence, and explores the potential consequences of the rise of middle-income nations for Law and Development.     

New frontiers in delivering public infrastructure

Delivering infrastructure in a timely and efficient manner to provide public value remains challenging despite the theoretical developments that have been made. What do we know that could help to deliver quality and energy-efficient infrastructure, what are current challenges and how could we overcome them? This State-of-the-Art Review article attempts to uncover underlying themes, including the governance of large infrastructure projects, the importance of innovation and contractual arrangements, and social and environmental acceptability. A current review of major Canadian contributions is offered, and promising research avenues are proposed.     

Success in slow motion: The Europeanization of Romanian child protection policy

This paper analyzes the influence of the European Union (EU) through a qualitative case study of child protection policy in Romania. This is a particularly tough case for the growing “Europeanization” literature. Prior research has called attention to several factors that promote Europeanization, including the presence of a pro-reform domestic coalition, the clarity and consistency of the EU’s own legislative targets, a state’s own prior involvement in the setting of European standards, a strong consensus among EU member states backing the European position, and strong non-European support for EU initiatives. According to these propositions, Romanian child protection seemed to provide a worst case scenario for Europeanization, as initially none of these conditions held. And yet the paper shows that substantial Europeanization occurred anyway. We argue that the EU experienced a very slow start with Romania but that it cultivated an opposition that responded to EU initiatives when that opposition took power. Moreover, the EU found three “workarounds” to the obstacles just noted: it asserted legislative targets it did not possess itself, invented new policy tools, and drew protection for its most controversial policy from another international organization, the ECHR. Our central theoretical claim is that external pressure requires internal accommodation in order to have lasting effects. The claim has important implications for the diffusion and conditionality debates.

Developmental Change in Adolescent Delinquency: Modeling Time-Varying Effects of a Preventative Intervention and GABRA2 Halpotype Linked to Alcohol Use

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Better integrating human developmental factors in genomic research is part of a set of next steps for testing gene-by-environment interaction hypotheses. This...     

Access and coverage: which farmers do plant clinics reach in Uganda?

This article reports on a study that assessed farmers’ access to, and coverage of, five plant clinics operating from market places in two districts of Uganda. Despite the noticeable geographic and thematic coverage of the services, placing plant clinics at markets did not automatically ensure equitable access and high farmer attendance. Clinic users were predominantly middle-aged male farmers and overall attendance was relatively low. Uganda has taken plant clinics to scale in recent years due to their potential to strengthen the country’s responsiveness to pests and diseases. Optimising farmer reach and ensuring equity in access requires reviewing clinic placement, timing, and mobilisation strategies.     

The G20 after Los Cabos: Illusions of Global Economic Governance

The failure of the Los Cabos summit to satisfactorily address the European sovereign debt crisis and ominous world economic outlook, let alone agree on concrete measures to improve the oversight and functioning of the global economy, appears to confirm the diminishing effectiveness and relevance of the G20 as an organ of international governance since its inception in December 2008. While few accomplishments were achieved in the area of global governance during the Mexican presidency, acute collective action problems, made worse by the present economic crisis, paralysed the G20 in the lead-up to and during the Los Cabos summit. These collective action problems and the ensuing failure of global governance are attributable to the absence of leadership evident at both the global and European levels, which in turn testifies to the excessive dispersion of state economic and political power within the international system.     

¿Quién le teme a las diásporas y por qué?

Theoretical and analytical systematic and comprehensive consideration of diasporism and diasporas is relatively recent. The first systematic analyses appeared during the 1980s so there are still significant loopholes in their research and examination, as well as in the development of an overall outlook on diasporism and diasporas. As a result, there are also obstacles to a thorough understanding of the phenomenon. After reviewing the existing literature on diasporism and diasporas it is clear that an understanding of diasporas in general and particularly of both their recent involvement in politics, terrorism, and criminal activities in the receiving country, and their cultural, social, and political contributions of the countries of origin and destination is still far from being exhaustive. With the aim of presenting a detailed account of the peculiarities of this phenomenon, this paper describes and analyses the diasporic process in its entirety, going beyond the conventional views that have significantly hindered and limited the scope of the debate on the ethno-national-religious diasporic process in general, and on the contributions or threats generated by diasporas in the receiving countries.