How can small donors contribute to sustainable development in large regions? The case of NZAID in Latin America

Donors face many issues when trying to support development goals in large regions such as Latin America. In their attempts to channel assistance to appropriate end‐users, they also have to provide coherence with national strategy, balance supply and demand of technical resources, and ensure accountability to their taxpayers. Resolution of these issues requires considerable focus and a clear understanding of all relevant factors. This is particularly so for, but not exclusive to, small donors. This paper provides agencies with a model to assess regional involvement and create a decision‐making framework for future investments. It places the quality of aid above the quantity of donation.     

Talking past each other: Journalists,readers and local newspaper reporting of general election campaigns in the UK

Drawing on an extensive database of local press reporting of the last four general elections (1987, 1992, 1997 and 2001), as well as contemporary interviews with journalists and editors, this paper argues that local press coverage of the constituency campaign has changed markedly since 1987, and in ways which may contribute to diminishing voter interest and participation in elections. Significantly, journalists do not perceive themselves as the ‘cause’ of voter apathy, but their efforts to ‘lighten up’ election coverage and report local election issues, contrast starkly with readers' preference for more serious reporting of the national agenda. Journalists and readers appear to be talking past each other in the pages of the local press. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Integrated planning and Bob tunings organizational conflict

Abstract: This paper examines the introduction and operation of integrated resource planning management in the Department of Energy and Natural Resources, Government of Alberta, during the period 1976-86. In government planning, systems are introduced to increase task interdependencies, create common purposes and establish performance monitoring. Such a system forces the organizational units concerned to confront their differences. This is because planning systems change task interdependence from pooled to reciprocal. This change means that the differences between organizational units in terms of values, status, organizational processes and power are brought into the open. As a result conflict occurs, not so much because planning in uSis context represented an organizational change, but because reciprocal interdependence is inherently conflictual. This case shows that the planning systems are about both policy-making and organizational structure and processes. Changes in ways of making policy are changes in organizational operation. Outcomes such as incrementalism and political behaviour are derived from the pre-existing pattern of organizational differentiation and the way in which an innovative technical system, in this case integrated resource planning, interacts with that differentiation by changing task interdependence between resource agencies. Sommaire: Cet article traite de la mise sur pied et du mode de fonctionnement d'un service intégré de planification des ressources au ministére de l'Énergie et des Res-sources naturelles de l'Alberta entre 1976-86. Les gouvernements conçoivent des systémes de planification pour accroître l'interdépendance des tâches, fixer des objec-tifs communs et surveiller le rendement. Un systéme de ce genre fait ressortir les divergences qui existent entre les unités organisationnelles car l'interdépendance des tâches y est réciproque au lieu d'y être collective. Ceci met en lumiére les différences qui opposent les unités organisationnelles sur le plan de leurs valeurs, de leur statut, de leurs procédés organisationnels et de leurs pouvoirs. Il en découle un conflit, non pas tant parce que dans ce contexte la planification représente un changement organisational, mais parce que l'interdépendance réciproque est conflictuelle par essence. L'étude démontre que les systémes de planification touchent à la fois l'élaboration des politiques, la structure et les procécdés organisationnels. Modifier la façon d'élaborer les politiques débouche sur un changement du fonctionnement organisationnel. La comportimentation et le comportement politique qui en résultent proviennent du modéle organisationnel pré-existant, des divergences qu'il comporte et de la maniére dont un systéme technique novateur, en l'occurrence la planification intégrée des ressources, répose sur ces divergences pour modifier l'interdépendance des tâches entre les organismes ressources.     

Race, conventional crime, and criminal justice: The declining importance of skin color

Blacks in the United States are arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated in numbers disproportionate to their percentage of the population. One explanation is that racial discrimination against Blacks pervades the American system of criminal justice. This study examined the nature and extent of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system by evaluating five propositions using data from extant literature. Little evidence was found to support the allegation that the criminal justice system systematically discriminates against Blacks.     

Criminal liability of physicians: an encroachment on the abortion right?

The Supreme Court in 1973 in Roe v. Wade established that decision of first trimester abortion is left to the physician, exercising his best medical judgment, in consultation with the patient. During this period the state may not regulate abortion determination since there is no compelling state interest; therefore a physician performing abortion will be precluded from civil or criminal liability. In second trimester abortion the state has a compelling interest in the health of the mother and may regulate the procedure to protect maternal health; although a previable fetus may be able to survive the abortion, Roe v. Danforth definitively places the woman's right to an abortion above the life of the fetus during the previable stage; therefore the state cannot seek to safeguard the life or health of the fetus during the abortion. Third trimester abortion implies a viable fetus; thus, a compelling state interest in the potential life arises and the state may regulate and proscribe abortion except when necessary for the life and health of the mother. The determination of when viability has been achieved is a matter of judgment resting with the physician who has the choice of techniques and operating procedures which may or may not be fatal to the unborn. It is a question of either termination of pregnancy or destruction of the fetus. In this last case the legal responsibility placed upon the physician is very serious, and involving a risk of civil and criminal liability. Uncertainties as to the boundaries of legal abortion and the threat of criminal liability can only result in a reluctance among physicians to perform second and third trimester abortions, which is against the fundamental right to abortion guaranteed by the Constitution. The Supreme Court will have to elaborate upon the scope of the abortion right, whether it encompasses fetal destruction or only termination of pregnancy, because it directly affects the extent and quality of maternal and fetal care that must be rendered by a physician. If only termination of pregnancy is included the Court must resolve whether the woman's health interests predominate, or whether the physician can be required to enhance fetal survival. Physicians have a right to know the full extent of legal ramifications and implications of legally induced abortion.     

Public Sector Labour Relations in Western Australia – An Overview

The election of a LiberalNational Coalition government in 1993 heralded a period of significant and sustained change in Western Australian public sector labour relations. As legislator, the Coalition government embarked upon a program to decentralise and deregulate the Western Australian industrial relations system; as an employer, the government has had to respond to the economic imperatives which have faced most employers in recent years. The result has been a period of major change in the public sector – employment levels have declined as services have been privatised or contracted out; the proportion of non-permanent and part-time employees has risen significantly. Individual workplace agreements have been introduced; individualised performance-related management and reward systems have increased; and the scope for union involvement has diminished, as has the level and density of union membership. The experience of the public sector therefore reflects many of the workplace changes that are also found in the private sector. It also brings the government's industrial relations policies into sharper focus.     

International relations in Indonesia: historical legacy, political intrusion, and commercialization

This paper is about the development of international relations(IR) as a field of study in Indonesian universities. It arguesthat IR as a discipline has been encountering a paradox. Onthe one hand, while the discipline has been increasingly heldin high esteem by students, marked by an increasing number ofapplicants to IR departments across the country; on the otherhand, IR scholars show too little commitment to research andpublication for the development of the discipline; and if theydo publish, the quality of writing is generally poor. This articleindicates that the paradox of teaching IR in Indonesia has muchto do with historical legacies and political intrusion, as wellas an economic environment in which universities are increasinglydriven toward commercial activities. All these factors shapethe current development of social science in general, and IRin particular. Received for publication August 28, 2008. Accepted for publication October 7, 2008.