Why International Organizations Should Bring Basic Needs Back in

An important milestone in the development debate is the recognition of poverty as a multidimensional phenomenon via the capabilities approach. However, a challenge remains in that many governments in less-developed countries continue to avoid prioritizing issues of absolute deprivation. This paper demonstrates how and why existing efforts to operationalize capabilities may distract policy makers from giving sufficient weight to issues of basic survival. We propose that international organizations can address this challenge through a method of triangulation: (1) identify how countries rank on universal goals of human development; (2) identify how countries rank on universal goals of basic needs provision; and (3) promote participatory poverty assessments. This approach ensures that absolute deprivation issues are addressed, and it establishes an acceptable (and necessary) balance between standardization and local complexity.     

Assessing swings in multi-party systems: The Indian experience

India has a single member, first-past-the-post system. Owing to the importance of wasted votes in a multi-party system, the relation between votes and seats cannot be explained by traditional swing analysis. In this paper a measure of vote-splitting¹ is developed and used to decompose changes in margins into the ‘swing’ and the ‘split’. This method of analysis is applied to the study of electoral change in India and its usefulness for prediction is examined.     

Ethical Considerations in the Conduct of Electronic Surveillance Research

The extant clinical literature indicates profound problems in the assessment, monitoring, and documentation of care in long-term care facilities. The lack of adequate resources to accommodate higher staff-to-resident ratios adds additional urgency to the goal of identifying more cost-effective mechanisms to provide care oversight. The ever expanding array of electronic monitoring technologies in the clinical research arena demands a conceptual and pragmatic framework for the resolution of ethical tensions inherent in the use of such innovative tools. CareMedia is a project that explores the utility of video, audio and sensor technologies as a continuous real-time assessment and outcomes measurement tool. In this paper, the authors describe the seminal ethical challenges encountered during the implementation phase of this project, namely privacy and confidentiality protection, and the strategies employed to resolve the ethical tensions by applying principles of the interest theory of rights.     

‘Two Bodies With One Spirit'

<正>Beijing Review recently interviewed Ashok K.Kantha,Indian Ambassador to China,eliciting his views on issues relevant to ChinaIndia relations:from managing cross-border disputes and addressing trade imbalances and infrastructure challenges to encouraging people-to-people exchanges and adapting to a new global economic environment.His responses touch upon the many important tasks     

Openness, Welfare Spending, and Inequality in the Developing World

How does government social spending affect inequality in this era of globalization? This article investigates the relationship between openness, government social expenditures (i.e., education, health, and social security and welfare), and income distribution through a time-series cross-sectional panel data set for 35 less developed countries (LDCs) from 1972 to 1996. I compare these findings to the redistributive effects of social spending in 11 advanced industrialized economies. The results show that while all categories of social spending help improve income distribution in richer countries, the effects of social spending are much less favorable in LDCs. Only spending on education in LDCs encourages a more favorable distribution of income in the face of globalization. I argue that the pressures of a more competitive global economy increase incentives for more redistributive education spending, whereas publicly sponsored health programs and, particularly, social security and welfare programs confront greater political lobbying and clientelism.     

Fatal Folic Acid Toxicity in Humans

Folic acid is B‐9 vitamin. Folic acid is prescribed commonly for pregnant women to prevent neural tube defects in the fetus, patients under chemotherapy, pernicious anemia and to reduce the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. Acute or chronic ingestion of a large dose of folic acid generally manifests as neurological complications, which are reversible. In this present case, a 23‐year‐old pregnant woman committed suicide by consuming folic acid tablets and succumbed to death within 36 h. Postmortem toxicological analysis detected folic acid in viscera. Death following acute consumption of folic acid is rare and has been not reported in the literature, to the best of our knowledge.     

Are Workers in the Developing World Winners or Losers in the Current Era of Globalization?

This article investigates whether workers in less-developed countries (LDC) are winners or losers in the expanding global economy. This study is distinctive in that it looks beyond the impact of globalization on direct economic benefits to labor (employment and surplus labor) and assesses if workers simultaneously improve their bargaining power in the marketplace. I use a time-series cross sectional panel data set for 59 developing countries from 1972 to 1997 to demonstrate that the overall impact of globalization on labor has been different in countries at various levels of economic development. These results challenge conventional wisdom by revealing that under conditions of globalization, labor in low-income countries is not necessarily in a better bargaining position despite certain economic gains. In contrast, labor in high-income countries enjoys both greater economic benefits and an improved bargaining position. The absolute “winners” in globalization ultimately comprise a small percentage of the larger labor force in the developing world. Nita Rudra is an assistant professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include the impact of globalization on social welfare expenditures in developing countries, the political foundations of welfare regimes, and the causes and effects of democracy. Her most recent works appear in theAmerican Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, International Organization, andInternational Studies Quarterly. The author is grateful to Hayward Alker for valuable advice and input on this research project and James McGuire for generously providing access to his data. The SCID editors and anonymous reviewers also provided extremely helpful feedback and comments.