Smallholder Livelihood Adaptation in the Context of Neoliberal Policy Reforms: A Case of Maize Farmers in Southern Veracruz,Mexico

Governments around the world have embraced trade liberalisation as a means of enhancing efficiency to realise economic growth and alleviate poverty. Likewise, the Mexican government implemented neoliberal policy reforms, the NAFTA in particular, to stimulate sustainable development. Using the Mexican maize sector as illustration, this article describes the adaptation process of smallholders to market changes shaped by these reforms. Going beyond the aggregated level, we have investigated smallholders' livelihood strategies. Contrary to what economic models estimated, our data suggests that farmers intensified the cultivation of maize rather than switch to sectors in which Mexico has a comparative advantage.     

Factors Associated with the Performance of User Groups in a Participatory Forest Management around Dodola Forest in the Bale Mountains,Southern Ethiopia

This study analysed and determined factors associated with performance in collective action of a forest under participatory forest management in Southern Ethiopia. Data were collected in 22 user groups and a performance index was computed using indicators including forest cover change, households' perception of the change and satisfaction in their livelihoods, management activity, and length of overdue rent payment. The results show that heterogeneity, level of forest dependence and geographical variables such as altitude and distance to town are important variables that may affect the performance of user groups. The findings indicate the importance of taking into account the needs of members of user groups, differences among local people in dependence on forest income, and differences in values attached to the forest in the design of participatory forest management.     

Credit access,human capital and class structure mobility

This article examines the impact of microenterprise credit programmes on class structure mobility in developing countries. It develops a model that endogenously generates an eight‐fold class structure. Class membership is determined by optimal choice of labour activity, which is a function of access to credit and human capital endowments. Predictions from the model suggest that better access to credit will foster upward class mobility among self‐employed entrepreneurs, and that this upward class mobility will be accentuated among entrepreneurs with high levels of human capital. Theoretical predictions from the model are compared with data on class structure mobility collected first‐hand in western Guatemala. Empirical results show that upward class structure mobility increases substantially with access to credit, and also suggest that the combined effect of innate entrepreneurial ability and credit access has a greater impact on upward class structure mobility than the interaction between formal schooling and credit access.     

Changing chancellors in West Germany

All political systems encounter the need for leadership change at some point. This article examines how the change of chancellors has been accomplished in the Federal Republic of Germany. It argues that the connection between parliamentary elections and the subsequent election of a chancellor has not been the primary reason for a change. Rather, the changes which have occurred reflect the role of the Bundestag and the primary influence of the parliamentary parties in leadership change. The politics of the parliamentary term, rather than past Bundestag election campaigns, emerge as the decisive setting for chancellor change in West Germany.     

Book Reviews

If studies of conflict and terror involve understanding their causes and if the notion of “causes” is ultimately a philosophical concept (from Aristotle to Kant), then philosophy can make a unique contribution to studies of global ethnic conflict. Without delving deeply into philosophical ideas underlying the conflict, this article nevertheless examines how it largely stems from a cold war ideology of the Left. Moreover, a New Left is not only distinguished from politics and political philosophy but, dismayingly, traced to cold war western democracies, in which it continues, paradoxically, to flourish and be used to extinguish what it inflames.     

A Review of: “The War for Muslim Minds”

Terrorism: Threat, Reality, Response. By Robert Kupperman and Darrell Trent. (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press), 1979, 450 pgs., $14.95.     

Attitudes toward physician-assisted suicide: Effects of physician background,patient prognosis and patient mental health status

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate views toward physician-assisted suicide (PAS) as patient illness (terminal, not terminal), patient mental health (depressed, not depressed) and physician background (preoccupied, not preoccupied with death) are varied. Participants (N = 211) read a newspaper article and trial summary involving a PAS then gave their impressions of the patient, physician and PAS. Patient mental health did not affect decisions, but the preoccupied physician's testimony was seen as less believable (intent was seen as patient death, not an end of pain and suffering), and he was more likely to be seen as guilty than the non-preoccupied physician (reflected by both verdict and guilt level ratings). The terminal patient was seen as suffering more, wanting suicide more, and making a more rational decision to die than the non-terminal patient. Results are discussed in light of recent legal activity involving PAS.     

Offenders have higher delay‐discounting rates than non‐offenders after controlling for differences in drug and alcohol abuse

Purpose. Do criminal offenders discount future rewards more rapidly than non‐offenders? Theories of criminality assume that impulsivity is a key predictor of offending and suggest an affirmative answer, but there are no prior relevant studies with adult offenders and the only previous study with juveniles failed to find that offenders discounted delayed rewards more steeply than controls ( Wilson & Daly, 2006 ). Method. We measured rates of delay discounting for adult offenders incarcerated in two medium‐security facilities in New Zealand (n= 63) and non‐offender controls (n= 70) using a questionnaire which asked participants to nominate an indifference point – an amount of money to be received after a delay that was equal in value to an immediate amount – for immediate rewards varying from $500 to $4,000. Indifference points were converted to annual discounting rates. Self‐reported measures of alcohol and drug abuse were also obtained. Results. Offenders discounted future rewards substantially more than non‐offenders, and rates varied systematically with amount and delay for both groups, consistent with previous research. The difference in delay discounting between offenders and controls remained significant after controlling for self‐reported drug and alcohol use. There were no significant gender differences. Conclusions. These results suggest that offenders have a deficit in delay discounting, likely appearing in late adolescence or early adulthood, which may lead them to make suboptimal choices.     

Book reviews

Elites, Parties and Democracy: Festschrift for Professor Mogens N. Pedersen edited by Erik Beukel, Kurt Klaudi Klausen and Poul Erik Mouritzen. Odense: Odense University Press, 1999. Pp.xii + 341. DKK 350 hb ISBN 87 7838 506 7.

Horses in Midstream: U.S. Midterm Elections and their Consequences 1894–1998 by Andrew E. Busch. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburg Press, 1999. Pp.ix + 254. $45 hb ISBN 0 8229 4105 8; $19.95 pb ISBN 0 8229 5705 1.

Race, Redistricting, and Representation: The Unintended Consequences of Black Majority Districts by David T. Canon. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Pp.xiv + 324. £35 hb ISBN 0 226 09270 4, £13 pb ISBN 0 226 09271 2.

Rulemaking: How Government Agencies Write Law and Make Policy by Cornelius M. Kerwin. Washington DC: CQ Press, 1998 Second Edition. Pp.x + 294. $28.95 pb. ISBN 156802 418 5.

The Republican Takeover of Congress edited by Dean McSweeney and John E. Owens. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1998. Pp.xii + 202. £42.50 hb ISBN 0 333 66965 7.

When Women Lead: Integrative Leadership in State Legislatures by Cindy Simon Rosenthal. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp.xiv + 240. £35 hb ISBN 0 19 511540 6.

Reforming the House of Lords: Lessons from Overseas by Meg Russell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp.xi + 368. £18.99 hb ISBN 0 19 829831 5.

EU Committees as Influential Policymakers edited by M.P.C.M. Van Schendelen. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998. Pp.xiv + 294 £42.50 hb ISBN 1 84014 724 5.

The Dignity of Legislation by Jeremy Waldron. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp.xiii + 206. £35 hb ISBN 0 521 65092 5, £12.95 pb ISBN 0 521 65883 7.