AGENTS OF INFLUENCE: COUNTRY DIRECTORS AT THE WORLD BANK

This article seeks to understand the operations of the World Bank by examining one particular group of players—the country directors (CDs). It argues that the analysis of international organizations (IOs), by focusing on the behaviour of their principals (states), as principal-agent analysts do, or on organizational cultures, as the constructivist approach does, is inadequate in explaining the operation and behaviour of IOs, which are themselves complex organizations with chains of cascading relationships. Country directors at the World Bank occupy a pivotal position in this chain: with executive directors and the president as their nominal and ultimate principals, vice presidents as their direct principals and client countries as informal principals. They are themselves principals to their country team and to some sector people. For both conceptual and empirical reasons, therefore, CDs deserve separate analysis. To explain the way these relationships shape the work CDs do and how they do it, this article examines three basic functions of country directors at the Bank: (1) representing the Bank to the client countries; (2) representing the country to the Bank; and (3) managing the country offices and country programmes. The empirical section of this article is based on interviews with over 80 officials in both Washington and field offices. We show that an understanding of the Bank and its operations requires an examination of its internal processes and its staff.     

Marijuana Misuse in African States

This article focuses on marijuana misuse or abuse in African states. It specifically addresses the questions concerning the origins and meanings of marijuana, the history of marijuana as a drug of misuse, legal classification, model of consumption, user inducement and motivation, relationship between marijuana use and criminality, legal status and laws governing the control of marijuana; and it surveys African national programs aimed at reducing the demand for, use, cultivation and possession of Indian Hemp. The emphasis of paper is on the extent of group support for marijuana use and the legal processing of the offender.     

WE NEVER CALL THE COPS AND HERE IS WHY: A QUALITATIVE EXAMINATION OF LEGAL CYNICISM IN THREE PHILADELPHIA NEIGHBORHOODS*

This article presents data from the completed first wave of a multiwave comparative study of crime, danger, and informal social control that focuses on youth living in three high‐crime neighborhoods in Philadelphia, PA (N= 147). The study is a purposive sample of delinquent and nondelinquent young men and women in one predominantly African‐American, one predominantly Latino, and one predominantly white neighborhood, and researchers have completed in‐depth interviews and self‐reports with each subject. This article focuses on the narratives that youth living in high‐crime neighborhoods build around their contact with police and the strategies the young people propose for crime reduction in their communities. The data illustrate that most youth in each neighborhood are negatively disposed toward police and that this is grounded in the lived experience of negative encounters with law enforcement. However, when youth expounded on what they thought would reduce crime, they overwhelmingly chose increased and tougher law enforcement. We analyze these findings to determine whether support exists for a subcultural approach or a cultural attenuation/procedural justice argument, and we explore the implications of our findings for community‐based crime control.     

Relieving the Burden of Redeveloping RCRA Sites

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2003 Strategic Plan establishes aggressive targets for controlling risks to human health and the environment and making contaminated land more available for reuse. One of the targets of this plan is for the EPA to determine that all identified current human exposure to contamination will be under control or below health-based levels at 95% of the relevant Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) sites by 2008. Because over 6,500 facilities are subject to the RCRA corrective action statutory authorities, the EPA realizes that significant changes will have to be made to the RCRA program to expedite the cleanup process at these sites. To that end, the Agency has taken steps to alleviate some of the bureaucratic obstacles commonly encountered during redevelopment of RCRA Brownfield sites. The EPA has relaxed the regulatory and statutory requirements under the RCRA program and integrated federal and state programs to better accommodate redevelopment of these sites. One of the key improvements to the program involves the creation of the RCRA Brownfields Prevention Initiative, which provides more flexibility than the original requirements for completing corrective actions. Other significant reforms that encourage Brownfield site cleanups include the issuance of comfort/status letters and prospective purchaser agreements that reduce the uncertainties for prospective developers. This article discusses the key advancements that have been established under the RCRA program and presents tools for dealing with potential or perceived obstacles for reusing RCRA sites.     

Information, visibility and elections: Why electoral outcomes differ when voters are better informed

This article assesses the aggregate effect of information shortfall on the outcome of the last six Canadian elections. Building on Bartels' analysis, the authors find an information effect in three of the six elections examined, and in each case the information gap benefits the Liberal Party. That finding raises the question: why does information matter in some contexts but not in others? It is argued in this article that the information gap is related to lack of visibility. When and where all political parties have some degree of visibility, the less informed vote like the better informed, but when and where a party is hardly visible, the less informed are less likely to support that party. The less informed appear to consider a smaller set of options when they decide how to vote.