Poverty and Disasters: Do Remittances Reproduce Vulnerability?

Abstract

In many low-income countries, remittances are important in sustaining people’s livelihood and become even more significant during disasters. Meanwhile, the literature suggests that remittances are mainly accessible to middle and upper-income households, rather than to the poorest, thus implying differential capacities amongst households to overcome crises. The present study uses cyclone Evan that hit Samoa in December 2012 as a case study to test this hypothesis. It focuses on the village of Tafitoala and draws on interviews and participatory activities undertaken with the poorest households of the community. It indicates that the poor receive little to no remittances and that they struggled more than the rest of the community to cope with and recover from the cyclone. Their lack of access to remittances had negative consequences on the security and sustainability of their livelihoods. We conclude that remittances reproduce or even increase both inequalities and vulnerabilities existing within the community of origin.     

Selling perestroika and new thinking to Southeast Asia: Gorbachev at his persuasive best

This article examines the Gorbachev regime's strategies in reorienting Soviet foreign policy toward the nations of Southeast Asia. It reviews and evaluates the tactics of public diplomacy and persuasion which Gorbachev and his advisers utilized extensively in their attempt to construct a new Soviet agenda toward Southeast Asia.     

The politics of Belgium: Institutions and policy under bipolar and centrifugal federalism

This volume seeks to provide an integrated understanding of the Belgian political system through the prism of comparative politics. The transformation of the political system from a unitary into a federal system is used as a connecting theme linking the contributions. The volume is divided in two parts. The first part touches upon the sociological and institutional determinants of policy-making in Belgium, such as the dynamics of the Belgian federal system, the consociational features of the Belgian polity, the presence of a Belgian political culture (or of two distinct political cultures), the fragmentation of its party system and the role of political parties. The second part addresses policy performance and policy reform within the context of Belgian federalism, with a focus on divergence in policy performance and administrative practices, social security as a contentious federal policy area, policy failure and corruption and the impact of EU policies on the domestic federal order.     

Justice and Feelings: Toward a New Era in Justice Research

In this special issue, the relationship between feelings and justice and its consequences are highlighted. Five articles discuss the role that affect, feelings, and emotions play in justice processes across a variety of social settings. In the present introductory article, the position of past and present justice research in relationship to these topics is briefly reviewed. In addition, reasons are outlined to show why a focus on these issues may be pivotal for a better understanding of social justice and how this may pave the way for a new, more process-oriented era in social justice research, focusing more on “hot” cognitive aspects as they pertain to social justice concerns.     

Evaluation of a Treatment Program for Sexually Abused Adult Males

This study evaluated the effectiveness of an individual treatment program for five adult males who experienced childhood sexual abuse. A treatment manual focusing on abuse-related self-blame, anger, and anxiety was developed. Daily self-blame, anger, and anxiety self-ratings were completed before and throughout treatment. A multiple-baseline approach was used to evaluate treatment effects. Overall findings indicated that most participants experienced significant reductions in self-blame, anger, and anxiety as a result of their involvement in the sexual abuse treatment program. Treatment was particularly helpful in decreasing feelings of self-blame and anger. The study made an important initial contribution to the development of systematic treatment outcome research for a population of individuals that has received relatively little attention. The results have implications for future clinical and research efforts with sexually abused adult males.     

The Production of Culprits: From Deportability to Detainability in the Aftermath of “Homeland Security”

In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, the virtually instantaneous hegemony of a metaphysics of antiterrorism has radically reconfigured the politics of race, immigration, and citizenship in the United States. In the extended historical moment beginning with the United States' proclamation of a planetary “War on Terrorism” and encompassing our (global) political present, the US sociopolitical order has been racked by several interlocking crises—convulsively careening between heightened demands on citizenship and the erosion of civil liberties, imperial ambition and nativist parochialism, extravagant domestic law enforcement and global lawlessness. In relation to the parallel but contradictory hegemonic projects of “American” national identity and attachment, on the one hand, and the expansion or refortification of US empire, on the other, the cumulative crisis-as-opportunity for US nationalism that has ensued is replete with unpredictable dilemmas and unresolved possibilities for both citizens and denizens alike. This essay examines significant new deployments of migrant “illegality” as this sociopolitical condition has been significantly reconfigured in the United States in the aftermath of the proclamation of a purported War on Terrorism, and the concomitant implementation of draconian police powers domestically that the author calls the Homeland Security State.     

Was the Antitrust Action that Broke Up the Movie Studios Good for the Movies? Evidence from the Stock Market

The Paramount antitrust litigation was a series of eight actionsbrought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) beginning in 1938and ending in 1949 against the major motion picture studios.In the early cases the DOJ succeeded in changing industry contracts,but it took a decade of litigation to accomplish what the DOJwanted, which was to break up the studios and force them tosell their theater chains. We use stock market evidence to evaluatethe impact of events in the Paramount litigation on firm value.By the stock market's assessment, the Supreme Court decisionwas the major event. But the impact of this and other decisionson integrated and nonintegrated defendants, and on a nondefendant,does not support the view that the courts dismantled a successfulmonopoly; indeed, the contrary may be true.     

Europe in Search of its Civil Society

Building upon the experience of the Convention for the elaboration of the Charter of fundamental rights and upon the suggestions of the White Paper on European Governance, this article puts forward proposals for a better involvement of the 'civil society' in the system of the European Union. It offers a general diagnosis of the misunderstandings surrounding the notion of 'civil society' and the relationship of representative democracy to participatory democracy. It then draws some lessons from the experiment in deliberative democracy which led to the drafting of the Charter of fundamental rights. Finally, it focuses on the contribution the organisations of the civil society can make to good governance in the European Union. Altogether, the proposals presented tend to encourage a better structuration of the actors of the civil society. Such a structuration, the article concludes, although it is usually considered with suspicion even by those whom it would most benefit, must be seen instead as a condition for the effective exercise of whichever participatory rights might be granted to the organisations of the civil society.     

安徽省中药资源优势和永续利用

介绍了安徽省中药资源的地理、人文等环境特点,尤其对安徽地道药材、优质药材以及特色民间药作了概述,并提出了永续利用中药资源的建议.