Precaution, Scientific Development and Scientific Uncertainty under the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures

The World Trade Organization (WTO) Appellate Body has noted that the precautionary principle will be relevant to the interpretation of the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures in various ways, although the Appellate Body has declined to determine the status of the precautionary principle for international law or to find that it has been written into the SPS Agreement. The Appellate Body's awareness of precaution, the dynamics of scientific research and the nature of scientific uncertainty is to be welcomed. This awareness is helpful in dealing with new and emerging issues, such as the question of when a risk assessment relied upon by a WTO member becomes outdated by virtue of subsequent scientific developments. If maintained, an overly rigid approach to risk assessment, with a tight temporal focus, will inadequately acknowledge the natural processes of flux in the development of scientific knowledge.     

Reinventing government through on‐line citizen involvement in the developing world: a case study of taipei city mayor's e‐mail box in Taiwan

Since the 1980s, a global administrative reform movement is reshaping the relationship between citizens and state. A major concern is how government can be more responsive to the governed through citizen participation. However, the more citizens participate, the more costly it is to govern. And the application of new information and communication technology (ICT) seems to be a cure for this limitation. In this research, authors take the Taipei City Mayor's e‐mail‐box (TCME) in Taiwan as a case to illustrate the complex relationships among citizen involvement, e‐government and public management. After a series of empirical investigations, the authors show that although ICT can reduce the cost of citizen involvement in governing affairs, it cannot increase citizens' satisfaction with government activities without reforming the bureaucratic organisation, regulatory structure, and managerial capacities of the public sector. The results could be helpful to public managers in planning and evaluating online governmental services in the developing countries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

MCMI Results for Batterers: A Response to Gondolf

Gondolph [Gondolf, E. W. (1999). J. Fam. Violence 14: 1–17] recently published MCMI-III results on men in batterer treatment groups that appeared to indicate much lower levels of psychopathology than previous studies. Gondolph concluded from these results that the existence of an abusive personality was debatable. Gondolph is mistaken in drawing conclusions about the abusive personality based solely on MCMI results. The assessment of the abusive personality is not based on this instrument. Also, respondents in Gondolph's study had extremely high Desirability scores on the MCMI-III, so even his estimates of the incidence of personality disorder are questionable. Current assessment of personality disorder has begun to steer away from self-report instruments such as the MCMI-III; this practice should be utilized in assessing batterers.     

Income of the population aged 55 and older, 1976.

This article inaugurates a biennial series of reports on the income of persons aged 55 and older. The survey on which it is based updates information on the broad economic picture for a cross-section of this population and forms the basis for an analysis of trends in the financial status of the group as a whole. In 1976, persons aged 55--61 were generally working full-time, not receiving income from pensions, and married. Those aged 73 and older were predominantly not working, mostly recipients of retirement pensions, and likely to be widows. Most persons aged 65 and older were receiving social security benefits; those with neither earnings nor a second pension constituted the largest subgroup and had the lowest median income. Married couples, as a group, were substantially better off financially than nonmarried persons because they were younger, two-person rather than one-person units, and had one member who was a man. Blacks were less likely than whites to receive pension income other than social security benefits, and their median benefits and earnings were both lower.     

Digital Social Multitasking (DSMT), Friendship Quality,and Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction Among Adolescents: Perceptions as Mediators

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Most existing research assumes “phone use during face-to-face interactions” to be psychosocially detrimental. Drawing on the digital social...     

Defining Mediator Knowledge and Skills

A two-year collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and advisers from the major national organizations of mediators produced a job analysis relevant to mediators involved in interpersonal disputes (i.e., divorce, community, formal parent-child mediation, etc.). One byproduct of the job analysis is an extensive list of the knowledge areas and skills important to effective job performance. This essay defines the knowledge and skill areas that emerged from the analysis.     

Gender tropes and colonial discourses in the turbulence of global finance

This article seeks to prick the pretension of neutrality and objectivity in finance as a knowledge construct and regime of power. It does this by focusing on how constructions of risk, the deployment of ‘otherizing’ discourses and, importantly, the mobilization of gender and colonial tropes assisted(s) not only in the normalization of financial practices but also the imperial order of Western-derived financial governance institutions as well.     

社会主义的复兴

约翰.贝拉米.福斯特是著名的左翼学者,美国俄勒冈大学社会学教授,美国《每月评论》月刊的联合撰稿人之一,著名的生态马克思主义的代表人物,其代表作有《马克思的生态学:唯物主义与自然》。近年来,福斯特在《新自由主义及其批判》、《资本主义普遍性中的矛盾》等文章中对新自由主义、新保守主义以及新帝国主义进行了深刻的抨击,并对社会主义的复兴充满了信心。该文节选自福斯特发表在《每月评论》2005年7—8月号的文章,文章认为,历史并没有终结,种种迹象表明,社会主义正在复兴。