Land Accumulation Dynamics in Developing Country Agriculture

Abstract

Understanding land accumulation dynamics is relevant for policy-makers interested in the economic effects of land inequality in developing country agriculture. We thus explore and simultaneously test the leading theories of micro-level land accumulation dynamics using unique panel data from Paraguay. The results suggest that farm growth varies systematically with farm size – a formal rejection of stochastic growth theories (that is, Gibrat’s Law) – and that titled land area may have considerable influence on land accumulation. Furthermore, our estimates indicate that a dualistic agrarian structure is the likely product of the unfettered operation of land markets.     

Creating a safer working environment through psychological assessment: A review of a measure of safety consciousness

This article explores how organizations can prevent workplace accidents through the psychological assessment of employees. We present a model of employee safety consciousness consisting of personality and attitudinal variables associated with a higher risk of accident involvement. A safety conscious employee is described as one who: has an internal locus of control in matters related to workplace safety, has a high tolerance for work‐related stress, and avoids engaging in high‐risk, sensation‐seeking activities. Relevant research is reviewed and applications of the safety consciousness construct to hiring, promotion and training are discussed.     

Sketching the Lineage: The Critical Method and the Idealist Tradition

The influence of philosophical idealism on critical theory is often taken for granted, but it has rarely been the subject of scrutiny. This paper attempts to explore the logic of idealism--as it developed from Kant, to Fichte and Schelling, Hegel, and the young Marx--and the way in which it frames the dominant alternative perspectives in critical theory. The interplay between traditions should illuminate some of the contributions of critical theory, expose certain problems that plague it, and offer a few positive suggestions for those committed to the critical enterprise in our own time. Thus, this article will hopefully serve as an example of an intellectual history with a political purpose.     

Evidence of Behavioural Compensation in Internal Replication Study of Male Circumcision Trial to Reduce HIV Acquisition in Kisumu,Kenya

We replicated the study ‘Male circumcision for HIV prevention in young men in Kisumu, Kenya: a randomised controlled trial’ using an epidemiological approach as well as an econometric approach. Both approaches confirmed the 60 per cent protective effect of circumcision reported in the original paper. Similar to the original paper, we found no evidence of heterogeneous treatment effects by age. Contrary to the original study, we found evidence of risk compensation, with circumcised men less likely to stay abstinent (odds ratio 0.79 [95% CI: 0.64, 0.99]) and more likely to have had unprotected intercourse (OR 1.2 [1.1, 1.4]). These findings reinforce the impact of circumcision but highlight behavioural risk.     

Russian Economic Nationalism during the First World War: Moscow Merchants and Commercial Diasporas

While accounts of the end of the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires have often stressed the rise of Turkish and German nationalisms, narratives of the Romanov collapse have generally not portrayed Russian nationalism as a key factor. In fact, scholars have either stressed the weaknesses of Russian national identity in the populace or the generally pragmatic approach of the government, which, as Hans Rogger classically phrased it, “opposed all autonomous expressions of nationalism, including the Russian.” In essence, many have argued, the regime was too conservative to embrace Russian nationalism, and it most often “subordinated all forms of the concept of nationalism to the categories of dynasty and empire.” Recently, two authors have challenged the predominantly pessimistic portrayals of the extent of Russian national identity in late imperial Russia, focusing on peasant responses to the First World War. Scott Seregny makes a strong case that while peasants may not have been full “Russians” by 1914, the spread of politics and literacy to the countryside through the zemstvos was rapidly integrating peasants into a broader civic identity. Josh Sanborn argues that even though responses were varied and in fact protest against the war quite frequent, the important thing is that both positive and negative responses were expressed within a single national political framework and discourse. In response, S. A. Smith grants that the war strengthened rather than weakened national identity, but thinks Sanborn and Seregny underestimate the degree to which nation, empire, and class pulled in different directions from 1916, concluding that “by the summer of 1917, politics had become polarized between an imperial language of nation, used mainly by the privileged and educated strata, an anti-imperial language, used mainly by the elites of the non-Russian nationalities, and a language of class, used mainly by the subaltern classes.”     

Necessary Illusions: Misperception,Cooperation, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

A significant and growing body of literature related to security regimes focuses on the importance of either common knowledge or common norms to the success of efforts to limit military competition. This paper challenges this central pillar of the arms control literature. Security regimes, in particular arms control regimes, are not necessarily the product of common knowledge, norms, or shared identities. Rather, actors can and sometimes do cooperate because they do not fully understand one another and lack information. In these cases, examples of what I will refer to as “imagined intersubjectivity”—the mistaken belief that two actors share information, norms, and identities when in fact each has an idiosyncratic understanding—the lack of information is crucial for international cooperation. I analyze the record of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty negotiations. Through process-tracing, I will argue that three crucial moments in the negotiation process were premised on a misunderstanding of the position of the other party. The implications for cooperation without intersubjectivity are then explored.     

Public Support for Democratic Governance in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The transition and consolidation of democracy in Southeast Asia has proven fragile and tenuous some 30 years after the current wave of democratization began. A critical ingredient in the process of democratization is the role of public opinion and the extent that the public supports the democratic ‘rules of the game’. This study uses 2006 and 2007 public opinion data from the AsiaBarometer Survey of six Southeast Asian countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Singapore) to examine popular perceptions of democracy and democratic principles and practices. Specifically, it seeks to shed light on the following interrelated questions: Do democratic institutions in Southeast Asia work well in the short and long term? To what extent are citizens in these countries satisfied with various political and civil freedoms? Do citizens trust specific institutions to operate in the best interests of their society? Does the current political system and government perform well?     

Introduction: South Africa's multiple languages in a shifting media environment

Abstract

The global South, as the collective for the peripheries of mainstream development is known, is often regarded as merely a beneficiary of Northern-borne notions in the field of organisational communication. The problem is that the Southern context and circumstance do not always mirror those of the North, meaning that these dominant, revered theories are not necessarily applicable. One Southern context is that of the South African mining and construction industries, which is seen as notoriously dangerous, plagued by various obstacles to internal organisational communication (such as illiteracy and diversity), and what Le Roux and Naudé (2009, 29) refer to as ‘historical baggage’. The research question of this article is whether congenital Northern communication theories can be adequately incorporated into the unique global South, in order to fulfil the important task of communicating safety information to employees. The article explores the appropriate implementation of the principles of the excellence theory, the stakeholder theory as well as the relationship management theory, and the research methodology includes interviews, focus groups and quantitative questionnaires at two organisations. The result of the empirical research is the amalgamation and reworking of these theories’ principles into a model for internal safety communication applicable to the South.     

The Publication of Precedents and Its Effect on Legislative Behavior

What was the effect of the publication of the precedents in the House in the late nineteenth century? Empirical analysis demonstrates a significant effect of the publication of the House precedents on the behavior of members' willingness to appeal decisions of the chair. Publication of the precedents reduced the frequency of appeals, a finding consistent with the qualitative arguments of past parliamentarians but never before demonstrated empirically. Further, parallel analysis of the Senate reveals that the publication effect found for the House is not an artifact of some secular trend in legislative behavior, doing so by showing that no similar pattern occurs in the Senate during the same period of time.