The relevance of basic needs for political and economic development

This article addresses the “basic needs’ approach to development policy from the perspectives of the political and economic development literature. The central questions concern the compatibility of a basic needs approach with political and economic development and the impact of development on population welfare. Will a basic needs approach weaken or strengthn the processes of legitimation and state consolidation in developing systems? What impact will it have on participation and democracy? What will be the impact of such an approach upon attempts to industrialize and diversify production? While there are no definitive responses to these concerns the literature suggests that the approach has real potential value both for improving “human capital” and strengthening economic development, and for developing locally based political institutions.     

Psychosocial factors related to wife abuse

This paper reports the results of a comparative study of wife abuse. Factors that distinguished 94 physically abused women from a comparison group of 110 women were sought. The groups were matched on number of years married or cohabiting and socioeconomic status. Evidence was found that further supports a learning theory explanation of wife abuse. The study also found that wife abuse is no more likely to be displayed by blacks than by whites when the variable of social class is controlled.     

Book review

Veronica Doubleday, Three Women of Herat. London: Jonathan Cape, 1988, ix + 222 pp., glossary, illustrative chapter headings, colour photographs; L12.95. ISBN 0–224–02440‐X.     

Society as emergent and more than rational: An essay on the inappropriateness of program evaluation

In considering the efficacy of program evaluation researchers have not put language in proper perspective. They have not acknowledged that information gained from applied research is partly determined by situational factors, that language is selective and goal-oriented, justifying activity as often as it describes it, or that some important action cannot be expressed. The importance of language distinguishes applied social assessment from the natural science models of research from which it was derived. Examples from a wide range of applied situations are used to illustrate that, as an anticedent-consequent model of objective quantified assessment, evaluation is also inconsistent with the complex, resourceful, emergent social processes it is intended to measure. Three alternatives to quantification are discussed to illustrate interventions that may be made when the disadvantages of program evaluation outweigh the advantages.Preparation of the paper was supported by National Institute of Mental Health post-doctoral training grant 5T222-MH00180. Comments and requests for reprints should be sent to Nancy Cochran, Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, State of Illinois, 160 N. LaSalle Street, Chicago. Illinois 6061.