Access to Reliable Public Records as Evidence for Freedom of Information in Commonwealth Africa

Abstract

International attention to the benefits of openness for empowering citizens, strengthening economic performance and ending poverty has emphasised the importance of achieving accountability and transparency through freedom of information and open data. The ability to achieve openness depends upon the quality, completeness and accessibility of government records and data. However, chronic problems in managing this information in many Commonwealth countries, particularly in the digital environment, undermine the ability to achieve these goals. There is a critical need to develop and share solutions for managing this essential resource as a basis for digital governance across the Commonwealth, especially in relation to the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.     

When Someday Is Today: Carrying Forward the History of Old Age and Inheritance into the Age of Medicaid

Hartog, Hendrik. 2012 . Someday All This Will Be Yours: A History of Inheritance and Old Age . Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. 353. $29.95 cloth. This review essay of Hendrik Hartog's ( 2012 ) Someday All This Will Be Yours undertakes a brief overview of some of the massive changes in middle‐class planning for old age and inheritance in the United States over the course of the past century, focusing on the increased role of the state as a source of funding and regulation, the rise of the elder law bar, and the resulting new tools and motives for the transfer of property in exchange for care in the age of Medicaid.     

Path-dependent Implementation of the European Qualifications Framework in Education. A Comparison of Norway,Germany and England

Abstract

By comparing the implementation of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) in three education systems, this article advances the understanding of implementation processes and outcomes. The analytical framework combines concepts of norm diffusion with institutional, political and practical dimensions of implementation. Although a certain degree of norm diffusion is revealed, we find a variety of points of correspondence between national problem definitions and the EQF, varying levels of stakeholder involvement, as well as national institutional robustness against full EQF implementation. The national implementations represent different mind-sets and signify translation processes that reflect continuation of established institutional practices.     

Empire and Exception

Imperial power, and the policies of the Bush administration, are widely perceived as a distinct break with the modern world and the American past. In fact, elements of imperial power have been present since early modernity. The distinct nature of imperial sovereignty remains unclear. Negri and Hardt insist that imperial sovereignty constitutes a sharp break from modern nation-state sovereignty. However, if modern sovereignty is read from the standpoint of the exception, not liberalism, its ground and operation are the same as those of empire. What is new in empire is that global restraints still present in the nation-state order have disappeared. As a result, the state of exception today has become the rule. Only by recognizing that this relation is a product of imperial power, and not an external factor it seeks to counter, can we challenge the legitimating discourse of empire.     

1492: The discovery of Japan

Columbus and the Discovery of Japan, by Richard Nelson. Royal Shakespeare Company, the Barbican Theatre, London, July 1992.     

Élites in Omsk

A French sociologist provides a detailed analysis of the politics, economics, and political elite of Omsk oblast' in Western Siberia. Analysis covers oil politics, reactions to the August 1998 financial crisis, relations with Moscow, the role of entrepreneurs in politics, and the communist and nationalist oppositions. Focus is on the role of the governor and his relations with diverse political forces. The article also examines the gap between formal institutions and actual social and political practices.     

Men and women in language change. A Swedish case study

Continuity and change in present-day Swedish . Eskilstuna revisited is a study of language change in real time. It replicates an earlier investigation of the social variation of Swedish in the medium-sized town of Eskilstuna using data collected 29 years after the original study. In my article, I focus on the rate of change in relation to gender. I have studied seven morphological and morphophonological variables which are sociolinguistically marked, and according to general linguistic opinion in Sweden, in the process of fairly rapid change towards the standard forms of the written language. Our data show that the rate of change at the level of the community is low. Social and age differences have decreased, whereas gender differences have increased. I discuss different explanations for the fact that women in Eskilstuna use more standard language than men, and attempt to analyse why the men still use so many local variants.     

Women's right to work: The interplay of state,market and women's agency

This article addresses questions central to the conception of women's citizenship: Do women have the same right to wage work as men have? That is, do women have the same access to and chances to keep jobs as men? Is women's right to employment perceived as an individual right, disconnected from men's traditional prerogative to hold jobs as breadwinners? Women's right to work is conceptualized as a complex structural and ideological construct, shaped by the interplay of the labour market, welfare state and women's agency. The empirical analysis takes one of the Scandinavian welfare states, Norway, as its main case. The study concludes that women's individual right to work was significantly strengthened from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s.