Rethinking poverty alleviation: a ‘poverties’ approach

This article argues that the practice of poverty alleviation is greatly limited by a vision of poverty that fails to capture the locally specific causes of and solutions to the challenges that threaten human well-being. This problematic vision of poverty takes real-world form in such initiatives as Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. It is a key reason why this and other contemporary poverty-alleviation efforts do not show greatly improved results compared with previous efforts. By reframing our understanding of the challenges to human well-being from poverty to ‘poverties’, however, we might envisage a new approach to policy development in relation to poverty that moves us towards a truly sustainable development.     

Psychological Injuries,Workers’ Compensation Insurance,and Mental Health Policy Issues

A selected review of workers’ compensation (WC) statutes reveals significant discrepancies between and within state coverage of job-related psychological injuries. Examples of the different rules on compensability of different types of injuries, across various state jurisdictions, are provided using specific case examples to demonstrate some of the more pronounced idiosyncrasies within and between the state statutes. PTSD and depression are frequent WC claims, and examples of how these injuries are treated within the WC systems, between states, are offered. In addition to an overview of various psychological injuries, attention is also provided to more specific qualifying issues, including extraordinary or unusual circumstances and occupational comparison groups (e.g., similarly situated). Examples of the omission of large bodies of scientific evidence related to the epidemiology, assessment, and failure to treat workplace psychological injuries are highlighted. Individual, employee, employer, and societal costs further demonstrate the implications of untreated psychological injuries. Given the disparity between the states and the lack of parity for mental health-related injuries, recommendations are offered to begin a move towards the parity of mental and medical benefits in WC.     

The failure of immigration reform in Germany

After many years without substantial activity in immigration policy, the German Red–Green government which came to power in 1998 introduced an American-style Green Card and a new citizenship law. From these beginnings, the immigration reform campaign captured the public imagination, and for two years a broad spectrum of figures from German public life took part in a lively debate on the issue. A law was eventually adopted by parliament and promulgated in spring 2002, but – in the wake of a voting scandal in the Bundesrat – it was struck down by the Federal Constitutional Court weeks before its scheduled entry into force. This report recounts the story of the now defunct immigration law and seeks to shed valuable light on German politics by analysing what the key differences were that divided the main political parties.     

Communing with Disaster: What We Can Learn from the Jusen and the Savings and Loan Crises

Now that the Japanese economic miracle has soured into the Japanese economic meltdown, scholars are confronted with a new challenge: instead of trying to penetrate the secret of Japan's successes, they must try to unravel the enigma of its misfortunes. Professors Curtis Milhaupt and Geoffrey Miller (1997) have performed a great service in documenting one of the most dramatic of those misfortunes – the collapse of the jusen companies. Professor Shinsaku Iwahara (1997) has also performed an equally valuable service by placing this event in the larger context of Japanese politics and society. But despite its record setting scale, the jusen problem was not unprecedented; Japan merely followed in the footsteps of its economic mentor, the United States, which experienced a very similar financial meltdown about a decade earlier. This commentary briefly describes that event – the U.S. savings and loan crisis – and then draws some tentative conclusions on the basis of a comparison of the two events.