Chains of Love? Global Production and the Firm‐Level Diffusion of Labor Standards

Under what conditions does the global economy serve as a means for the diffusion of labor standards and practices? We anticipate variation among internationally engaged firms in their propensity to improve labor standards. Upgrading is most likely when a firm's products exhibit significant cross‐market differences in markups, making accessing high‐standards overseas markets particularly profitable. Additionally, upgrading is more likely when lead firms attach a high salience to labor standards. Therefore, while participation in global production induces “trading up” behaviors among firms overall, the effect strength varies across industries. We test our expectations via a survey experiment, which queries foreign firms operating in Vietnam about their willingness to invest in labor‐related upgrading. We find strong evidence for the effect of markups on upgrading choices and suggestive evidence for the saliency mechanism.     

Approaches to Reduce Conflict when Insuring the Environmental Cleanup of Closed Military Bases Intended for Redevelopment

Base Realignment and Closure (“BRAC”) of military bases has occurred in waves over the last few decades. Many of these properties were operational through World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam conflict, and into the modern Cold War. As part of the United States military's transfer of these properties to the local municipalities, which includes significant funds to cleanup remaining chemicals of concern, contract terms of the transfer typically require insurance policies that have the intention of mitigating the risk of additional future cleanup costs. As a result, numerous BRAC sites have established contracts with environmental consultants who have provided guaranteed fixed price contracts for cleanup of the site. To mitigate additional future cleanup costs, the environmental contractor is required to purchase a stop loss or cost cap insurance policy for their guaranteed fixed price contract to share the risk that there will be cost overruns in the cleanup of the known pollution. The redeveloper is required to purchase Premises Pollution or Environmental Liability insurance to share the risk that any newly discovered contamination will not result in additional cleanup costs for the redeveloper. This paper will discuss some of the recent lessons learned regarding (1) the terms of the initial cleanup transfer agreement, (2) efforts for project scoping/set-up, and (3) subsequent implementation dynamics of the relationships between the US Military, local municipality, redeveloper, and environmental contractor.     

Defending Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service since 1945

Defending Country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Military Service since 1945. By Noah Riseman and Richard Trembath (St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 2016), pp. xi + 243, photographs, bibliography, AU$34.95 (pb).     

Clinical psychologists’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators to engaging service users in index offence assessment and formulation within a medium secure unit

Index offence assessment and formulation (IOAF) helps service users (SU) in secure units to make sense of their index offence, provides detailed understanding of risk and contributes to treatment planning and discharge decisions. Clinical psychologists’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators to engaging SUs in IOAF within the men’s and women’s services of one medium secure unit were explored through focus groups. Thematic analysis identified two relevant domains: person-specific factors and the organisational context. Person-specific barriers included challenges in working with fragmented narratives, conflicting motivations to engage, SU defences and distorted perceptions of clinical psychologists’ roles. Giving clarity and choice to SUs facilitated engagement with the work. Regarding the organisational context, clinical psychologists within both services identified the importance of having adequate resources and care-team support to complete this work. Findings highlight the importance of developing an evidence-based framework for IOAF to be embedded within clear ‘risk’ care pathways through secure services.     

The marginalisation of participation “as an end” development: an Ecuadorean case study

The evolution of participatory practices clearly evidences movement away from local participatory projects implemented with the use of participatory methodologies such as participatory rural appraisal, and towards citizen participation in government activities. This trend reflects development discourse concerning participation, and in particular responds to the critique aimed at local participatory development. Using case study data from Ecuador, the article discusses the previously overlooked effects of this phenomenon, namely a uniformity of participatory development practice and a lack of opportunities for people to engage in development activities that provide participation “as an end” benefits such as empowerment and confidence-building.     

COVID-19 and the Wuhan Diary –how does the overseas Chinese community react to group criticism?

Journal of Chinese Political Science - We conduct an online survey to explore how Chinese people living in Germany perceive and react to group criticism in the context of the debate on the Wuhan...