The Credibility Factor in Elections: Evidence from Britain's Nationwide Building Society's Vote Against Conversion

Public Choice - Why did members of Nationwide Building Society vote against converting to a bank and, by doing so,turn down a £ 2,000 windfall each? The findings of a survey of Nationwide...     

Assessment of accuracy of suicide mortality surveillance data in South Africa: investigation in an urban setting

Although it is not a legal requirement in South Africa, medical practitioners determine the manner of injury death for a surveillance system that is currently the only source of epidemiological data on suicide. This study assessed the accuracy of suicide data as recorded in the system using the docket produced from standard medico-legal investigation procedures as the gold standard. It was conducted in one of three cities where the surveillance system had full coverage for the year 2000. In the medico-legal system, one-third of cases could not be tracked, had not been finalized, or had unclear outcomes. For the remaining cases, the sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were generally high, varying somewhat across sex and race groups. Poisoning, jumping, and railway suicides were more likely than other methods to be misclassified, and were more common among females and Whites. The study provides encouraging results regarding the use of medical practitioner expertise for the accurate determination of suicide deaths. However, suicides may still be underestimated in this process given the challenge of tracing disguised suicides and without the careful examination of potential misclassifications of true suicides as unintentional deaths.     

Troubling notions of farmer choice: hybrid Bt cotton seed production in western India

The debate over agricultural biotechnology is increasingly being centered on the question of farmer choice. Advocates for biotechnology argue that farmers should be able to choose the seeds and technologies they use, and therefore these new technologies should be legalized and made available immediately. Who would deny farmers of the global South their right to choose? But these discourses of choice and freedom are being deployed to market a particular kind of development. This neoliberal development of agriculture is leading to the individualization of risk, the shifting of risk to marginalized contract farming households, and greater control for wealthier farmers, seed companies and agents. The state of Gujarat, India, is seen as a success story of hybrid Bt cotton, in which farmers have their choice of hundreds of varieties of seeds. As cotton seed production is taking off in the neighboring state of Rajasthan, however, choosing Bt cotton has different implications and meanings altogether. Drawing on eight months of qualitative research with adivasi households in Dungarpur District, Rajasthan, I offer narrative accounts from farmers and seed agents that both explore and trouble neoliberal notions of farmer choice. The use of these discourses by biotech advocates is just one example of the ways that choice and freedom are being utilized to further neoliberal development.     

Boarding School Fictions: schoolgirls' own communities of learning

This article explores the fictional world of the schoolgirl annual in the interwar period and the significance of the imagined girls'-only spaces for their intended readership. The article takes the year 1929, the year of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, and focuses on two annuals designed for the 12–15 market: School Friend and Schoolgirls' Own. The annual compendium of stories, a very British invention, drew on characters whose adventures were followed in the weekly schoolgirl comics and was published at Christmas, a time when there was little personal space available as families gathered together. The imaginary world of boarding schools such as Cliff House or Morcove offered readers an escape from the hierarchy of family life and expectations of girls' participation in the home. Using the background of Woolf's feminist polemic and a framework informed by the theoretical framing of space by feminist geographer Linda McDowell, the article teases out the meaning of the multilayered nature of stories created by men with no experience of single-sex girls' school, writing as women.     

Social Capital,Civic Engagement,and Economics in a Transitioning Economy: The Case of Vietnam Provinces

Social capitalist assert that civic engagement and participation yield significant economic gains for a county but, generally focus on democratic governed societies. The objective of this research is to determine if social capital transitions to Vietnam, a single-party governed country. This analysis first identifies factors that impact civic engagement and participation. Then it analyzes the relationship between civic engagement, participation, and economics. Using the 2012 Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index, we find human capital is a stronger predictor of economics in Vietnam. We conclude by offering policy implications for understanding social capital in single-party, transitioning economy countries.