An Attitudinal Response to Role Conflict in Local Government

Local government consists of elected community representatives, who serve on a part-time basis, hold office for a limited term and do not possess particular managerial skills. The chief executive officer (CEO) is appointed to manage the local government entity. Role conflict becomes an issue due to the competing values of the council and the CEO regarding resource allocation and the overall direction of the organisation. This paper looks at the underlying issues of the friction between the volunteer council and the paid staff and what strategies could be implemented to ensure the two functions are complementary and not conflicting.     

The Village of the Damned? Myths and Realities of Structured Begging Behaviour in and Around Phnom Penh

This paper concerns the nature of structured begging migration in Phnom Penh, as well as its impact and meaning in sender communities. It interrogates a popular myth known throughout Cambodia concerning the supernatural motivation of ‘rich’ beggars, arguing that its prevalence reflects the growing incidence of structured, circular migration based around alms seeking in the capital. In doing so, it seeks to bridge the lacuna between the literature on begging and that on migration by showing that the distinction between the two is both blurred and straddled by migrants in many cases.