Development policy and the evaluation of community self-help: The harambee school movement in Kenya

This attempt to objectively assess the costs and benefits of involvement in the harambee education movement for individuals and families is directed at policymakers and is an exercise in policy analysis. Evaluative studies of this nature are essential to the improvement of the of the overall quality of policymaking. Despite general agreement that harambee education projects involving secondary schools differ in many ways from types of self-help projects, few attempts have been made to assess the long-term social impact of the harambee education movement. For nearly 2 decades Kenya's harambee movement has flourished and has been largely viewed as a positive contribution to national development. Between 1969-79, the total value of contributions to self-help projects rose from around $6 million to almost $27 million, demostrating the substantial inputs of local communities to the economic growth of the country as a whole. Policymakers, after initial reservations about independent self-help, in recent years have come to rely on such activities as complementary to the government's efforts. Self-help activities aimed at expanding educational opportunity are the most significant in terms of both monetary resources expended and the scope of human involvement. Benefits are difficult to extimate. The growing number of students in harambee schools does not necessarly indicate that the majority of these students are acquiring marketable skills or that their consequent levels of academic training will prepare them to complete successfully in the job market with the average student educated in government-sponsored schools. The evidence, in fact, clearly points in the opposite direction. Yet, politicians, policymakers, and citizens continue to regard harambee activities for expanding educational opportunities atall levels as necessary contributions to Kenya's development program and to individual achievement. The direct cost to government for harambee education can be compared with the direct private expenditure on this type of ecucation. The 1976 annual private investment in harambee education was $45 million. The most direct benefits from harambee efforts are reaped by wealthier regions and communities in Kenya. The greaes social benefits derived from the government's policy toward the harambee school movement are political benefits. By symbolically drawing linkages between its national development strategy and independent self-help activities, the government can elicit the tacit support of rural communities. Direct social costs of such a policy are minimal. The indirect, long-term costs may result in disastrous, unintended consequences as the pool of educated and unemployed youths expands and as resulting ethnic and class inequalities sharpen and crystallize.     

A Closer Look at an Eye for an Eye: Laypersons’ Punishment Decisions Are Primarily Driven by Retributive Motives

According to recent research on laypersons’ punitive attitudes people’s sentencing decisions are primarily driven by a desire for retribution. The research designed to test this notion, however, can be criticized for suffering from several limitations. Three online-based studies were conducted with samples from Western Europe with the aim of replicating the findings of Carlsmith (J Exp Soc Psychol 42:437–451, 2006) in which participants’ punishment motives were inferred from their behavior in a process tracing task. In the present research, this approach was adopted and modified in order to provide a more conservative test for the notion that people mainly care about retribution. Although these modifications strongly influenced the overall pattern of results, retribution still was the most important punishment motive in all three studies.     

An Operational Code Analysis of China’s National Defense White Papers: 1998-2015

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Scholarly efforts to predict the future character of the U.S.-China relationship abound. Few however looks to leaders’ beliefs as valid explanatory...     

Distanziertes Mitleiden. Katastrophische Ereignisse,Massenmedien und kulturelle Transformation

Ausgehend von der Großkatastrophe am Staudamm von Vajont (Italien) in den 1960er Jahren diskutiert der Beitrag die moderne gesellschaftliche Risikoerfahrung. Risiko-katastrophische Ereignisse sind hybride Prozesse aus sozialen, technischen und ?natürlichen“ Bestandteilen, die zum Gegenstand symbolischer, diskursiver Konflikte werden. In der öffentlichen Risikokommunikation konkurrieren eine Kontroll- und eine Gefahrennarration um die legitime Interpretation solcher Katastrophen. Dabei begünstigen die Aufmerksamkeitsstrukturen der Massenmedien dramatisierende Darstellungen. Die gesellschaftliche Katastrophenerfahrung ist eine medienvermittelte Erfahrung aus der Distanz. Sie konstituiert temporäre, flüchtige Gefahrengemeinschaften. In diesem Prozess werden Risiko-Katastrophen zum Kristallisationspunkt sozialer Dramen, in deren Verlauf sich die entsprechenden, massenmedial organisierten Erfahrungskollektive über ihre Identität sowie die Grundlagen ihres Agierens in Raum und Zeit verständigen. Die Katastrophenberichterstattung oszilliert dabei zwischen zu viel und zu wenig Aufmerksamkeit; daraus entsteht ein ?risikogesellschaftliches Paradoxon“: Mit der Häufigkeit von Katastrophen sinkt ihr Skandalwert; Katastrophenerfahrung wird normalisiert. Je seltener sich Katastrophen ereignen, desto wahrscheinlicher wird ihre mediale Repräsentation und öffentliche Wirkung.