Causes of absenteeism at the secondary level in Jamaica: parents' perspectives

This article examines parents' views on the causes of students' absenteeism at the secondary level, using a sample of 221 parents from nine schools across Jamaica. The key factors identified as causes are little value for education, lack of resources, and factors within the immediate school environment. Apart from improvements to the school environment, the article underscores the need to provide employment-generating opportunities to enable parents to meet the needs of their children, and emphasises that efforts to address students' absenteeism must involve multi-agency partnerships including parents, community members, and social workers.     

The first image reversed: IGO signals and mass political attitudes

This paper considers the argument that intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) send signals to the mass public, legitimizing certain policy options, and/or helping assure voters about the competence of the elected government. It discusses why the reception of IGO signals may be problematic within the mass public: many individuals lack the attention and knowledge to process them. And among those who are attentive and knowledgeable, pre-existing negative attitudes about IGOs may lead them to process the signal differently than intended. Using an experimental research design, it presents evidence consistent with an IGO signaling effect from two different scenarios. In an economic scenario, a negative signal from the World Trade Organization reduces support for the government’s economic policy. In a security scenario, a positive signal from the United Nations Security Council increases support for the government’s military policy. However, both IGO signals are conditional on certain individual-level attributes, and the IGO signal in the security scenario is generally stronger than in the economic scenario.     

英国公共住房政策和立法的发展及其对中国的启示——以利物浦为中心的案例分析

快速的城市化和工业化给公共住房问题带来了巨大的压力,社会的发展和不同历史时期政治的变化必将导致公共住房政策和立法的不时调整,这其中更多应属延续而非突变,但其中必有一些内在的本质因素属于解决城市公共住房问题所不可忽视的共性基因.利物浦是英国公共住房政策的先锋,以此为主要研究对象予以个案分析,将有助于对英国公共住房政策和立法的成功经验、失败教训予以总结.比较当代中国所面临的公共住房问题的现状,英国公共住房政策和立法的经验教训也许能为中国处理好21世纪的公共住房问题提供借鉴和启发.     

Putting Principle into Practice: The Role of Human Rights in Foreign Policy

This commentary by Robin Cook reflects upon what was accomplished during his four years as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs after the new Labour government in 1997 placed the promotion and protection of human rights at the heart of its foreign policy. The paper emphasises this partnership by introducing a programme of exchanges and secondments between human rights NGOs and the Foreign Office, focusing on the pursuit of human rights in both principle and practice. While discussing the role of the British government the author provides an overview of many of the most important examples of attempts at ethical foreign policy over the last five years. It is argued that that national interest is promoted, not hindered, by a commitment to human rights and suggests new rules for when the UN can intervene to keep peace within states rather than among states.     

Experience in international travel and aversion to terrorism

Conclusion Unlike the great majority of international travelers whose purposes are mainly recreational, touring or visiting among relatives and friends, business executives are obliged by the nature of their occupations, much like airline personnel and other professional groups, to travel despite varying degrees of hazard to their persons. And it is this segment of the traveling public that has suffered the most in terrorist incidents. Within the subject populations of international travelers, the outcomes were apparent, both of which involved rationalizations in overcoming fear. For the inexperienced international travelers who depend on second hand accounts of danger, they tend to accept sensational accounts of terrorist threast and overestimate risks; experienced executives who have traveled and who possess more reliable, concrete knowledge of terrorism, react differently: in their case, reactions are also psychologically determined. They are induced by dental, but are additionally informed by more valid information and experiences about the extent and dangers of terrorism.     

Dealmaking Disrupted: The Unexplored Power of Social Media in Negotiation

While social media has had profound effects in many realms, the theory and practice of negotiation have remained relatively untouched by this potent phenomenon. In this article, we survey existing research in this area and develop a broader framework for understanding the wider roles and effects of social media on negotiation. Through a series of detailed case studies, we explore how social media can drive important negotiations either off the rails or toward beneficial outcomes—and how savvy practitioners can harness this often‐neglected factor to their advantage, or else find themselves outmaneuvered by more digitally sophisticated parties. Applying the lens of the “3D negotiation” approach developed by Lax and Sebenius, we describe a number of potentially decisive roles that social media can play to enhance actions by negotiators “at the table,” with respect to deal design, and “away from the table.” In this 3D context, we show how social media can help negotiators learn about their counterparts (interests, perceptions, relationships, and networks), directly and indirectly influence the parties, mobilize supporters, and neutralize potential opponents. We show that being proactive—both in cultivating digital influence or allies and in building resilience to threats across online information ecosystems—can provide critical advantages for negotiators navigating a hyperconnected world. We develop a preliminary framework to help identify the full range of platforms, tools, and methodologies appropriate for the use of social media in negotiations, including network mapping software and open‐source intelligence techniques. Throughout our analysis, we stress the importance of ethical and privacy considerations.     

More Rights,Less Power: Labor Standards and Labor Markets in East European Post-communist States

This paper examines changes in labor markets and labor rights for 13 post-communist states of East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union. It focuses on the simultaneous pressures to increase the flexibility of labor markets and improve labor standards in the years since the collapse of communism. Comparative measures and patterns of both de jure and de facto standards and flexibility are presented, and the roles of key institutional promoters of change are analyzed. I find that a combination of democratic regime type and European Union accession has pulled East European states toward the strengthening of collective labor rights. The effect is strongest on the states that joined the EU in 2004, weaker for those joining in 2007, while the three post-Soviet, non-accession states remain significantly more labor-repressive. Labor market flexibilization has been a more uniform trend in the post-communist region. In the context of this project’s inter-regional comparisons, contemporary Eastern Europe has the strongest labor rights. At the same time, the decline of trade unions and limits of collective bargaining in most post-communist states undermine the effectiveness of transposed EU legislation and bargaining institutions in empowering labor. As shown by the exceptional case of Slovenia, strong unions are necessary to fully enforce rights.     

NEGLECTED INFANTS IN FAMILY COURT

This paper applies the science of early childhood development to the question of neglect in infancy to offer best practice guidance to family law and child protection professionals charged with acting in their best interest. The paper discusses the challenges of presenting cases of infant neglect, particularly emotional neglect, to the court. Current science on the implications of neglect for brain development, and long term mental health are discussed. Recommendations for assessment, intervention and questions that should be addressed in court deliberations are outlined.