Linking decentralization and centralization: A critique of the new development administration

This article examines the orientation of what is here called the ‘New Development Administration’ (NDA), as put forth by Esman (1988). It does so using political elasticity theory. The article is sympathetic to the NDA's emphasis upon decentralization, community development, deregulation, privatization, minimal government, popular participation and flexible forms of foreign aid. However, it argues that these require an administrative framework to be effective, including strong leadership, effective bureaucracies, the cooperation of beneficiaries and the ability to shift from soft to hard forms of power. While the importance of a bureaucratic reorientation is generally recognized, NDA supporters seem unclear about the requisites needed. Without adequate supervision and control, NDA objectives cannot be achieved.     

Social experimentation

He is author of The Broken Apple: New York City in the 1980s;and Social Science Theory,both published by Transaction Publishers.     

Contextual,cognitive, and adolescent factors associated with parenting in adolescence

In this study, we examined predictors of parenting during adolescence from three domains: the contextual (i.e., stress, support, marital satisfaction), social-cognitive (i.e., beliefs about adolescence), and child (difficulty). Fifty-three mothers and 38 fathers of 13–18 year olds were interviewed and rated on three dimensions of parenting—involvement, autonomy support, and structure. Parents completed questionnaires assessing predictor variables. Results indicated that, for mothers, higher numbers of recent stressful events were associated with less provision of structure and more control. For fathers, relations between views of adolescence and parenting were in evidence; while for both mothers and fathers strong relations between adolescent difficulty and parenting emerged. Relations between perceived difficulty of adolescent and parenting were more apparent in conducive than nonconducive contexts. The differential results for mothers and fathers are interpreted in terms of mothers' greater involvement and less role latitude than fathers. Parents' resources, experience, and expectations are considered in understanding why predictors might be associated with parenting variables.Received Ph.D. in clinical psychology from University of Rochester. Research interests include motivational development, parenting, self- and emotion-regulation. Also investigating factors affecting parenting, especially parent involvement.Received a Master's degree from New York University. Current interests involve interpersonal processes in depression.Received a Master's degree from Clark University. Research interests include the development of self-regulation with particular interest in the effects of power, authority, and responsibility on the socialization and disciplining of young children.Received Master's of Social Work degree from Columbia University. Current interests include factors that facilitate adolescents developing connections with the community.     

Negotiating National Identity and Self-Determination in Ethnic Conflicts: The Choice Between Pluralism and Ethnic Cleansing

The contradictions of ethnonational identity, which make it a prime force in both the promotion and the destruction of human dignity and social justice, have become more pronounced with the ending of the Cold War. It is necessary to reconceptualize national identity and develop new norms for accepting a group's right to national self-determination through establishment of an independent state expressing its national identity, and even far accepting its claim to national identity itself This article proposes that (1) implementation of a group's right to self-determination cannot be left to the group alone, but must be negotiated with those who are affected by that decision, particularly minority populations; and (2) national identity itself must be negotiated — explored and discussed — with those who are affected by the group's self-definition.     

A welfare analysis of the EC‐ACP sugar protocol

The Sugar Protocol, laid down in the Convention of Lome, has been an established instrument of commodity policy for nearly 20 years. Its basic rule is that the EC imports at guaranteed prices specified quantities of sugar from ACP countries. It is the objective of the article to provide an economic evaluation of the Sugar Protocol. Impacts on prices, trade, export earnings and economic welfare are elaborated. The Sugar Protocol's impacts on the level and instabilty of sugar export earnings are jointly evaluated by computing transfer and risk benefits along the lines of Newbery/Stiglitz. A major conclusion is that the policy has to be evaluated differently from the donor's and the recipient's point of view. The Sugar Protocol induces international income transfers that are untargeted in terms of per capita income. It causes, however, rather strong risk benefits compared with other instruments of international commodity policy and sizeable welfare gains for individual recipient countries.     

Strong Reciprocity and the Roots of Human Morality

Human morality is a key evolutionary adaptation on which human social behavior has been based since the Pleistocene era. Ethical behavior is constitutive of human nature, we argue, and human morality is as important an adaptation as human cognition and speech. Ethical behavior, we assert, need not be a means toward personal gain. Because of our nature as moral beings, humans take pleasure in acting ethically and are pained when acting unethically. From an evolutionary viewpoint, we argue that ethical behavior was fitness-enhancing in the years marking the emergence of Homo sapiens because human groups with many altruists fared better than groups of selfish individuals, and the fitness losses sustained by altruists were more than compensated by the superior performance of the groups in which they congregated.     

Literatur

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