Participation in the Knowledge Society: the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement compared with participatory development

The possibilities and limits of participation at the ‘bottom’ (represented, for example, by PRA and PLA) have been well articulated in development literature. However, the emergence of the Knowledge Society has opened up spaces for what we could call participation at the ‘top’ (free software, wiki, open access), the implications of which Development Studies is only beginning to grapple with. Building upon recent debates on the issue, we take the cases of the free software movement and participatory development, arguing that they share common ground in several ways. We aim to offer a few pointers on conceptualising development in the Knowledge Society.     

Gold mining and corporate social responsibility in the Wassa West district,Ghana

Despite a boom in gold mining in Ghana's Wassa West district (WWD), unemployment and poverty have deepened, partly due to loss of farmland to surface mining but more so because of the limited opportunities for wage employment in the district's ‘revived’ gold-mining industry. However, the large-scale mining companies are implementing some alternative livelihood programmes (ALPs) as part of their corporate social-responsibility (CSR) agenda. While the ALPs have provided some employment and income-earning opportunities and skills training, the prospects for their sustainability depend on how the challenges confronting the various programmes are addressed. This will require a well-coordinated approach involving all the key stakeholders.     

Eco-regional conservation and development in Madagascar: a review of USAID-funded efforts in two priority landscapes

The need for eco-regional or landscape-scale conservation and development has been widely recognised in Madagascar, yet implementation remains problematic. The approach was initially driven by biodiversity-conservation concerns, without enough emphasis on sustainable development, especially agriculture. Current challenges include consensus building for eco-regional visions, strengthening partnerships with government institutions, and negotiating land-use trade-offs within focal landscapes. Increased attention to revenue generation from agriculture and forest products, as well as enhanced communication and widespread participation by all stakeholders, should augment the success of broad-scale conservation and development programmes.     

Reimagining race and gender in public administration and public policy: Insights from an interdisciplinary systematic review

Public administration scholarship on race and gender is motivated by normative concerns about social equity, and dominated by work on bureaucracy and its representativeness. Despite decades of research on race and gender in public administration, there has been limited engagement with racializing and gendering processes. Relatedly, scant attention is paid to other disciplines that center on race and gender in theorizing. The purpose of this review is to explore public administration scholarship on race and gender in the context of allied social science disciplines, reveal limits of current approaches in public administration, and articulate strategies for enhancing understanding of race and gender in public administration scholarship. We use bibliometric and content analysis methods to map the intellectual structure of social science scholarship on race and gender, highlight public administration's place in this structure, and compare public administration scholarship on race and gender with other social science disciplines.     

Political ideology and nuclear energy: Perception,proximity, and trust

Political ideology is an increasingly powerful force in support of public policy. Historically, nuclear energy has found more support among political conservatives. This study updates the literature on political ideology and support for nuclear energy by examining how political ideology is associated with perceptions of nuclear energy and trust of nuclear information sources. After excluding participants with incomplete data, and participants within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor, the analytical sample size for the analysis examining political ideology and perceptions of nuclear energy was 4153. The analytical sample includes a total of 1035 participants within a 50-mile radius of INL, 710 participants from within Idaho who lived further than 50 miles from INL, 1899 participants from other states (more than 50 miles from a nuclear reactor), and 509 Non-Idaho participants living within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor. Logistic regression was used to determine how political ideology was associated with perceptions of nuclear energy and trust in different sources regarding radioactive waste, after controlling for demographics and location. While liberal participants near INL were less favorable towards nuclear energy, and more trusting in impact scientists to tell the truth about radioactive waste than their conservative counterparts, this was not consistent across the US. Our findings reveal the complexity of political ideology and the perceptions of nuclear issues and how proximity influences perceptions. The perceptions of political moderates were particularly important in providing a more complex understanding of political ideology and nuclear energy issues.     

Revealed preferences of a state bureau: Case of New Mexico's underground storage tank program

Leaking underground storage tanks (USTs) are a pervasive national environmental problem. Cleanup of leaking USTs is largely publicly financed and under the control of state agencies. In the transition to new compliance standards, individual states have taken advantage of provisions in federal regulations to implement their own programs. This raises the policy question of environmental federalism and the appropriate locus of government control. The objectives of this study are to examine the revealed preferences of a state UST bureau. New Mexico was one of the first state programs to use risk assessments in setting funding priorities. We analyze the statistical determinants of funding decisions and find strong evidence that risk information is used. Although our case study provides a measure of support for state control, the argument is strengthened if public financing is limited to the cleanup of historical pollution, rather than a means for providing insurance for prospective pollution. ©1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Calling on Jefferson: the ‘custodiary’ as the fourth estate in the Democratic Project

Aimed at reinforcing the democratic values of freedom of speech and increased diversity in civic access to the means of communication, this paper examines the concept of democracy within an information and communication technology-mediated context. Discussion proceeds with an analysis of orthodox views adopted by Jefferson and the architects of the American Constitution. Building on the Jeffersonian tradition, a critique is presented of present-day, non-transparent constraints on the democratic values of freedom of speech, information access and the structural constrains mitigating unfettered public access to critical information and debate on fundamental social and political issues of the day. The proposed ‘custodiary’ model for the new Democratic Project is premised on the development of a constitutional framework which encourages information diversity and freedom of access and expression as a way of bringing back ‘discourse’ into democratic praxis.     

澳大利亚、新西兰、香港、加拿大传闻法律改革及酝酿中的改革——以“先前不一致陈述”为重要视角

本文概览了澳大利亚、加拿大、新西兰、香港等四个主要的环太平洋普通法系国家和地区的传闻法律改革,尤其关注与先前不一致陈述相关的改革。指出先前不一致陈述事关"被告人获得公平对待"以及"证人的人权"等基本原则,因此,如何对待先前不一致陈述将成为一项有效的指标,通过该指标。我们得以评价传闻法律改革中的关键原则以及个人权利在大多数严重犯罪的起诉、审判过程中的境况。认为无论借助成文法还是借助先例,公正的传闻法改革应当适用某些相互一致的基本原则,包括放宽采纳传闻的条件决不能以错案数量增长或不公正审判为代价,将传闻改革与保护被告人、证人的基本权利紧密联系起来,保护证人不受任何形式的强迫或不当侦查行为的干扰,辩护律师必须能够无拘束地对陈述可采性加以质疑,通过充分、及时地开示证据来分析有争议的证据的可采性等。     

Rural responses to reform in Post-Soviet countries

This review article discusses three books on post-communist agrarian reforms. At the heart of the discussion are questions over the efficacy of market reform and rural responses to reform policies. The article argues that the conception of reform that stemmed from the Washington Consensus was often too narrow and did not always lead to expected results, and indeed, sometimes led to unwanted, unintended results. Nonetheless, the three books are highly suggestive of rural adaptation in most post-communist nations. The nature and degree of adaptation to a new economic environment across several post-communist nations represent a critical mass of rural responses. Instead of seeing rural responses as resistant to change, or victims of change, a more nuanced view of reform appreciates the transformation in social and economic relations engendered by market reform.