Current challenges facing participatory rural appraisal

This article provides a summary of the major challenges currently facing participatory rural appraisal (PRA), as well as the changes implied by some of these challenges. These challenges are considered at six different levels, namely the individual, community, organizational, project and programme, donor and policy levels. The challenges identified are drawn from the literature on PRA, as well as from a recent series of workshops held by the author with the staff of six NGOs that are promoting PRA in South Asia. The article concludes by attributing these challenges to five cross-cutting factors: differences in power, culture, knowledge, money and time. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hung Parliaments and the Challenges for Westminster and Whitehall: How to Make Minority and Multiparty Governance Work (with Commentaries by Turnbull,Beith, Evans and Crick)

The return of a hung parliament at the 2010 general election is a serious possibility. But due to Westminster's limited recent experience of parliaments under ‘no overall control’ there is little institutional memory in Whitehall or Westminster, and even less public understanding, of what the implications would be. This article sets out to analyse the principal challenges that would be faced by government, opposition, parliament and the media in the event of a hung parliament. Drawing on experience from Canada, New Zealand and Scotland, we discuss the difficulties that may arise during the immediate government formation process and in the course of making minority or multiparty governance work on an ongoing basis. We conclude that a hung parliament need not undermine political stability or effective governance, but that all actors would need to adapt their behaviour and should therefore prepare carefully for this eventuality.     

Agrarian Change and the Democratic Transition in Chile: an Introduction

Abstract — The aim of this overview article is to sketch out the broad path of agrarian transformation in Chile since 1973 in order to better contextualise agrarian change and the democratic transition in Chile, the main theme that links the papers in this Special Issue. The legacy of the military government's neoliberal policies on the agricultural sector is analysed before the key themes of agrarian policy during the democratic transition are introduced. The themes of productive transformation and greater equity are focused upon and the articles in this volume put into this context.     

Budget Deficits in the States: New York

New York faces large projected budget shortfalls. Although the recession has contributed, a large part of the shortfalls are due to long standing structural imbalances. The structural imbalances result from high spending levels, particularly on Medicaid and education, a volatile revenue structure, and political forces that make it difficult to achieve recurring spending reductions. In the most recent budget session, federal stimulus money allowed legislators to avoid the tough decisions needed to move the state toward long-run fiscal balance, and the adoption of increased income tax rates for high earners is likely to increase revenue volatility moving forward.     

Actor alignments in the European Union before and after enlargement

What impact has the 2004 enlargement had on legislative decision making in the European Union (EU)? This study answers this question by examining the controversies raised by a broad selection of legislative proposals from before and after the 2004 enlargement. The analyses focus on the alignments of decision‐making actors found on those controversies. Member State representatives, the European Commission and the European Parliament vary considerably in the positions they take on controversial issues before and after enlargement. Consistent patterns in actor alignments are found for only a minority of controversial issues. To the extent that consistent patterns are found, the most common involve differences in the positions of Northern and Southern Member States and old and new Member States. The North‐South alignment was more common in the EU‐15 and reflected Northern Member States' preference for low levels of regulatory intervention. The new‐old alignment that has been evident in the post‐2004 EU reflects new Member States' preference for higher levels of financial subsidies. This study argues that the persistent diversity in actor alignments contributes to the EU's capacity to cope with enlargement.     

POISONED DEVELOPMENT: ASSESSING CHILDHOOD LEAD EXPOSURE AS A CAUSE OF CRIME IN A BIRTH COHORT FOLLOWED THROUGH ADOLESCENCE

The consequences of lead exposure for later crime are theoretically compelling, but direct evidence from representative, longitudinal samples is sparse. By capitalizing on an original follow‐up of more than 200 infants from the birth cohort of the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods matched to their blood lead levels from around age 3 years, we provide several tests. Through the use of four waves of longitudinal data that include measures of individual development, family background, and structural inequalities in how lead becomes embodied, we assess the hypothesized link between early childhood lead poisoning and both parent‐reported delinquent behavior and official arrest in late adolescence. We also test for mediating developmental processes of impulsivity and anxiety or depression. The results from multiple analytic strategies that make different assumptions reveal a plausibly causal effect of childhood lead exposure on adolescent delinquent behavior but no direct link to arrests. The results underscore lead exposure as a trigger for poisoned development in the early life course and call for greater integration of the environment into theories of individual differences in criminal behavior.