Gender justice: the World Bank's new approach to the poor?

Gender inequality is now widely acknowledged as an important factor in the spread and entrenchment of poverty. This article examines the World Development Report 2000/01 as the World Bank's blueprint for addressing poverty in the twenty-first century, together with several more recent Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), with a view to analysing the manner in which gender is incorporated into the policy-making process and considering whether it constitutes a new approach to gender and poverty. It is argued that the World Bank's approach to poverty is unlikely to deliver gender justice, because there remain large discrepancies between the economic and social policies that it prescribes. More specifically, the authors contend that the Bank employs an integrationist approach which encapsulates gender issues within existing development paradigms without attempting to transform an overall development agenda whose ultimate objective is economic growth as opposed to equity. Case studies from Cambodia and Vietnam are used to illustrate these arguments.     

INNOVATIVE APPROACHES IN CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATIONS

This article discusses the joint office interview as an innovative technique for evaluation of families, the feedback or "summary" sessions by evaluators, and the role of the mediator in the feedback process. A retrospective analysis of the procedures revealed that considerable material could be studied and presented. Summaries of these data are offered as a guide to those interested in the resolution of child custody disputes.     

Literatur

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Legacies of a culture of inequality: The Janus face of crime in post-communist countries

This paper explores the role of the specific structure and culture of inequality of the communist and post-communist countries in the simultaneouswave of elite crime and violent crime in Central and East Europe. Under thelayer of homogeneity, which had been imposed on the region by ethnic cleansingduring and after World War II and by the continuous policies of communistregimes, a substructure and subculture of inequality emerged, which becamedominant during the transition phase. Among the consequences of the ``hour-glass' society (Rose) and feudalization of society are closely knit networks at the top and the bottom of society, clientelism as a pattern of linking them, and non-egalitarian and collectivist value patterns. This specific cluster combines factors that contribute to both high-level corruption and violence. Pathways of development during the transition periodindicate a bi-partition of the ``geography of crime' in the region. The relative ``success stories' of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic withboth declining rates of corruption and lethal violent crime (homicide) are in stark contrast to many of the successor states of the Soviet Union. It is argued that strong institutions based on civil rights and the rule of law areimportant factors responsible for this difference.     

Terrorism in an Era of Unconventional Warfare

Academic studies of terrorism and mass political violence have developed largely independently of one another. Insurgents, in contrast, have tended to incorporate terrorism tactics along with other types of unconventional warfare in their repertoire of action. This tendency has become more apparent among insurgents engaging in armed confrontations in the twenty-first century. In order to take account of this development, scholars and others interested in contemporary warfare need to incorporate terrorism studies within the broader subject of insurgencies and “small wars”—political violence, in other words.