Balancing act: Business and household in a small Bolivian city

Sucre is a city of micro enterprises. The lines between business and household are often blurred: accounts are mixed, space is shared, and partners from outside the household are rare. On the surface, this kind of business organisation seems most inadequate for economic success. Yet a closer look at the internal workings of Sucre's businesses suggests that the complex 'balancing act' between business and household may represent not sloppy management (as micro-enterprise development agencies often maintain), but a flexible strategy for household well-being. Sucre's businesses essentially follow 'triple bottom line' accounting at the household level, taking into account both financial and non-financial goals.     

Detention and the Evolving Threat of Tuberculosis: Evidence, Ethics, and Law

The issue of detention as a public health control measure has attracted attention recently. This is because the threat of strains of tuberculosis that are resistant to a wider range of drugs has been identified, and there is renewed concern that public health is threatened. This paper considers whether involuntary detention is justified where voluntary measures have failed or where a patient poses a danger, albeit uncertain, to the public. We discuss the need for strengthening evidence-based assessments of public health risk and suggest that we should reflect more profoundly on the philosophical foundations upon which our policies and practices are grounded.     

Gatekeeper persuasion and issue adoption: Amnesty International and the transnational LGBTQ network

Network theory is a valuable tool for understanding how transnational human rights advocacy emerges and develops; how norms become salient; and how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) gain prominence within networks. This article evaluates political network theory through the case study of the transnational lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) advocacy network. Through interviews with key figures at human rights and LGBTQ NGOs, I suggest that the transnational LGBTQ network emerged through contestation with the human rights gatekeeper, Amnesty International, and its US section, AIUSA. This process of contestation would produce a specific type of gatekeeper activism that would become a defining feature of the network. Over time, the network would evolve from a collection of national groups engaging in direct action to a highly professional and international network with a dual focus on movement building in the Global South and the advancement of LGBTQ rights at the United Nations.     

Network Structures: Working Differently and Changing Expectations

There is a growing need for innovative methods of dealing with complex, social problems. New types of collaborative efforts have emerged as a result of the inability of more traditional bureaucratic hierarchical arrangements such as departmental programs to resolve these problems. Network structures are one such arrangement that is at the forefront of this movement. Although collaboration through network structures establishes an innovative response to dealing with social issues, there remains an expectation that outcomes and processes are based on traditional ways of working. It is necessary for practitioners and policy makers alike to begin to understand the realities of what can be expected from network structures in order to maximize the benefits of these unique mechanisms.     

Development in motion: what to think about migration?

Recent interest in migrant remittances as a development resource calls attention to a deeper issue: the relationship between migration and development. Remittances may be a significant source of economic inflows to poor countries and regions, but their actual development impact (positive or negative) is tied to the migration processes that generate them. Attention to migration in turn creates an opportunity to think about the broader context of development policy and practice, and to re-think the boundaries that we put around our work.