The legitimacy of Dutch do-it-yourself initiatives in Kwale County,Kenya

Abstract

Established development organisations face a long-standing legitimacy crisis for not living up to the expectations once set. Meanwhile, thousands of small-scale, voluntary development organisations – referred to as Private Development Initiatives (PDIs) – have joined the field of international development. In this article, I examine the legitimacy of their acts from a local government perspective based on an analysis of four dimensions of legitimacy: regulatory, pragmatic, normative and cognitive legitimacy. The study took place in May 2017 in the Kenyan coastal county of Kwale. A range of government officials were interviewed on how they perceive the interventions of international development organisations in general, and Dutch PDIs in particular, and on their cooperation with these development actors. The study shows that, although many of these PDIs operate in areas that fall under the responsibility of the local government, most of them have a rather limited cooperation with the local government, putting their legitimacy in the eyes of local government officials at stake.     

Identity in adolescence: Influences of dysfunction and psychosocial task issues

The Erikson Psychosocial Stage Inventory (EPSI) was utilized in two studies to investigate task resolutions (trust, autonomy, initiative, industry, identity) in adolescence. In the first study, a comparison of delinquents and non-delinquents indicated that delinquents have less successful task resolutions. In the second study, a comparison of adolescents with high and low dysfunctional attitudes again revealed that troubled adolescents have less successful task resolutions. In this study, 7th graders, 12th graders, first-year college students, and junior and senior college students participated. Older adolescents demonstrated more successful task resolutions than younger adolescents, and different identity issues were salient during early adolescence as compared to later adolescence. Also, first-year college students had more problems with identity consolidation and less positive overall task resolutions than high school seniors or college juniors and seniors. A life-context approach to identity formation is discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the first biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence, Madison, Wisconsin, March 1986, and at the Midwestern Psychological Association meetings, Chicago, Illinois, 1987 and 1989.M.A. degree in psychology from University of Toledo. Research interests: identity development, cognitive and perceptual development.Ph.D. from University of Toledo. Research interests: personality and cognitive development in adolescence, infant cognitive development.     

Free Movement of Third Country Nationals in the European Union? Main Features,Deficiencies and Challenges of the new Mobility Rights in the Area of Freedom,Security and Justice

The adoption of European Community (EC) Directives in the field of legal migration has been accompanied by the introduction of intra-community mobility rights. This new kind of right is characterised by specific features with regard to free movement rights enjoyed by European Union (EU) citizens. Besides, existing mobility rights for third country nationals (TCNs) raise some important problems with regard to their legal configuration and to their relationship with other fields of Community law. After having addressed these issues, it will be argued that the current regulation of mobility rights for TCNs does not fulfil the requirements of systematic coherence, and does no meet the need to grant a level of free movement that encompasses the evolution of harmonisation in the field of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice.     

Texas Criminal Defense Attorneys’ Perceptions of Crime Victim Involvement in Criminal Prosecutions

The purpose of this study was to test the utility of the Victim Satisfaction Model of the criminal justice system by quantitatively assessing criminal defense attorneys’ perceptions of victims’ involvement in the charging and plea bargaining stages of the criminal process. A cross-section research design was used in this study. Self-administered questionnaires were mailed to defense attorneys who regularly practice criminal law in Texas. The results of this study support the utility of the Victim Satisfaction Model of the criminal justice system and further our understanding of victim involvement in the decision making and have important implications for the American criminal justice system.     

NHS Inquiries and Investigations; an Exemplar in Peculiarity and Assumption

There is little research focussing on how bereaved families experience NHS inquiries and investigations. Despite this gap, there is a consistent assumption that these processes provide families with catharsis. Drawing on my personal experiences of NHS investigations over a five‐year period after the death of our son, Connor Sparrowhawk, I suggest the assumption of catharsis is misplaced and works to erase the considerable emotional ‘accountability’ labour that families undertake during these processes. I further question whether inquiries or investigations are an effective way of holding stakeholders to account. I conclude with two points: first, qualitative research is needed to better understand bereaved family experiences of inquiries and investigations and second, the ‘lessons learned’ objective underpinning inquiries should be replaced with ‘leading to demonstrable change’, which is what families typically want.