Political economy of the tumen river basin development: Problems and prospects

Northeast Asia is a cluster of countries with wide differences in political systems, stages of economic development, levels of technology, and natural resource endowments. In addition, infrastructures of national economies are mutually complementary. Yet many sociopolitical elements have so far barred active economic cooperation from becoming a reality, such as North Korean nuclear issues, different ideologies, unstable political systems, and anti-Japanese sentiments. The Tumen river Delta area development projects can be a litmus test for future economic cooperation in the region. Market forces in Japan and South Korea increasingly tend to jump national boundaries and to escape political control, whereas sociopolitical factors have a tendency to restrict and channel the economic activities. Thus, problems of the Tumen river basin development lie in how and where those positive and negative factors are reconciled.     

Do State Bond Banks Have Cost Advantages for Municipal Bond Issuance?

State bond banks are created to extend management expertise, subsidies, and economies of scale to local government issuers, but bond banks incur issuance and program costs. This research examines whether state bond banks appear to achieve lower than average borrowing costs, once the costs of issuance are controlled for. We find that bond banks are associated with significantly lower borrowing costs for two of the three programs we examine, and determine that these savings are due largely to reductions in costs of issuance.     

Participative Management and Job Satisfaction: Lessons for Management Leadership

Researchers and practitioners in both the public and private sectors agree that participative management improves employees' job satisfaction. Public agencies have also turned to strategic planning to enhance government performance and accountability. This study explores the relationship between participative management in the context of the strategic planning and job satisfaction in local government agencies. The results of multiple regression analysis show that managers' use of a participative management style and employees' perceptions of participative strategic planning processes are positively associated with high levels of job satisfaction. The study also finds that effective supervisory communications in the context of the strategic planning process are positively associated with high levels of job satisfaction. The study suggests that participative management that incorporates effective supervisory communications can enhance employees' job satisfaction. In this regard, organizational leaders in the public sector should emphasize changing organizational culture from the traditional pattern of hierarchical structure to participative management and empowerment.     

Uniform State Law Adoptions in the American States: An Explanatory Analysis

No general explanation seems to distinguish popular from unpopularuniform state law proposals. Adoption appears to be a productof the timeliness of specific proposals rather than of the wisdomor "necessity" of the movement itself or of the purely technical,legal, or policy merits of individual proposals. Overall, thestates have not been highly responsive to uniform law proposals.The predominant factor discriminating high from low adoptingstates is political culture: moralistic states have, on average,the highest adoption rate; traditionalistic states have thelowest. This finding is plausible in terms of both the "goodcommonwealth" orientation of the moralistic political cultureand the "good government" orientation of many uniform law proposals.     

Making the ‘empowered woman’: exploring contradictions in gender and development programming in Kyrgyzstan

This article examines the complexities of women’s increasing participation in international development programming for gender equality. Taking a specific setting in rural Kyrgyzstan where one such project has been operating, the researchers discover adverse effects on the local women’s livelihoods, status and health. Women’s contradictions are attributed to the women’s own failures and lacks, creating confusion and frustration among them. Adopting Smith’s institutional-ethnography approach, we explicate and map out the hidden processes which must be held accountable for these reactionary outcomes, taking women’s experiences as entry points to inquiry. We find that the reactionary effects are not accidental but organized, powerfully, systematically but invisibly, by taken-for-granted institutional practices serving the purposes of global development institutions, where women are seen as instruments of global economic growth. The analysis provokes critical discussion of ‘how’ and ‘what’ it takes to transform Central Asian women into ‘empowered’ people.     

Critical incidents,alcohol and trauma problems,and service utilization among police officers from five countries

This study examines the relationship between critical incidents, alcohol problems, trauma symptoms, and service utilization across five countries. A sample of 1286 police officers (79% male; 21% female) from five countries (US = 838, Canada = 231, UK = 102, Australia = 58, and New Zealand = 57) completed the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the PTSD Checklist – Civilian PCL-C, as well as questions regarding service availability and utilization in an on-line survey. ANOVA and chi-square tests indicate significant country differences on all variables except social stressors. Multivariate analysis of critical incidents, AUDIT, PTSD, and service utilization found negative coping and country of origin mattered. The reasons officers provided for why they felt they could not use available services (i.e., confidentiality, stigma, distrust of department, and ineffective/inadequate) also varied by country, which has important policy implications.