Reform of International Monetary System andConstruction of Global Monetary SecurityMechanism: Connections and Problems

The international monetary system is the basis to establishing acomprehensive global financial safety mechanism. To understand the internalconnections between the reform of the international monetary system and the globalsafety mechanism has important policy implications. The reform of the internationalmonetary system and the construction of the global safety network are inherentlyrelated to each other. Risk management and crisis response are the functions ofthe international monetary system and serve to ensure the safety of the globalfi nancial system; liquidity management and international exchange rate coordinationare conducive to the maintenance of the stability of the global financial system.International exchange rate coordination, the control of spillover effect of US monetarypolicies and the reform of governance structures of the international monetary systemcontribute to global fi nancial safety. However, the reform of the international monetarysystem and the establishment of the global fi nancial safety mechanism are faced withproblems such as Triffin Dilemma, the technical shortcomings of global financialsystem, the ill coordination of global and regional fi nancial security network and thegrowing number of political issues involved. In order to build a sound global fi nancialsafety system, cooperation should be enhanced in the following fi ve aspects: to promotethe reform of the Bretton Woods institutions; to build the global financial safetynetwork; to establish the liquidity management system; to facilitate the construction ofthe super sovereign currency; and to deepen regional monetary cooperation.     

Children Fleeing Domestic Violence to Emergency Accommodations: Education Rights and Experiences

Domestic violence forces many families to flee to emergency accommodations. This article focuses on children’s experiences of schooling and life at confidential addresses, and to what extent their legal right to education in the face of domestic violence is safeguarded in practice. Data were collected from interviews with 20 children aged 6–16 with multiple relocations at Norwegian refuges for abused women. Interviews were coded using the constructive approach to grounded theory. Data were analyzed using Antonovsky's theory and interpreted within the context of Norwegian and international law, examining the rights of children to education versus the legal rights of abusers. The findings indicate that children’s rights to education and a life without violence may be sacrificed in favor of due process for abusers. The article suggests concrete protective measures to help safeguard these rights, and calls on policymakers and support agencies worldwide to rethink their policies and practice.

     

Social Media and the Successful Anti-Mining Campaign in Bangka,Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This article elaborates on the functionalities of Facebook and WhatsApp, and the possibilities and limitations of their usage in the anti-mining campaign in Bangka, Indonesia, with special focus on the participation and offline–online intertwining of communication processes. The research reported in this article contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between social media and political protest in the context of discriminatory natural resource extraction in Indonesia. In 2017, the alliance against the mining activities of the Chinese company PT Mikgro Metal Perdana in Bangka, which consisted of villagers, activists, tourism operators and divers, succeeded in ousting PT MMP from Bangka. Social media enhanced mobilisation, communication, knowledge transfer, transparency, and solidarity in this anti-mining campaign. Through WhatsApp, the rapid transmission of information and communication was facilitated when urgent action was needed. The Facebook group Save Bangka Island not only provided general information but also enhanced solidarity, cohesion and the creation of an “imagined community.” However, it is also found that social media sites are stratified spaces where villagers – the primary affected group – are excluded because of their lack of Internet access.     

Social Classes and the Neo-Liberal Poverty Regime in Turkey, 2002–2011

The Justice and Development Party (or AKP) era in Turkey has witnessed the emergence of a new welfare regime resting on voluntary public and private transfers. This system has been replacing the former welfare system in which the right to social welfare benefits was constitutionally guaranteed. The new welfare system has tended to distribute transfers on a selective and unequal basis. This article analyses the size and effects of this system using a social class-based analytical framework. In explaining class structure in Turkey, we use the official Household Budget Survey database. The results indicate a massive process of proletarianisation has taken place. Our results indicate that the working classes have constituted the majority of the poor. In this environment, the shares of voluntary public and private transfers in the incomes of households have been rising. For some classes, like rural unemployed, urban unemployed and agricultural labourers, these transfers have captured a very high share of the incomes. These transfers have also been distributed very unequally. Their share in the central budget has also been rising. All these point to the emergence of a new neo-liberal welfare (poverty) regime as part of a new labour control regime.     

Liberals and nationalism: E. H. Carr,Walter Lippmann and the Baltic States from 1918 to 1944

The Baltic states were among the ‘new’ states that were created after the First World War; they were the only states to lose their sovereignty during the Second World War. Most historians explain the birth and demise of the Baltic states in terms of their relative strength vis-à-vis the great powers. This article places the short-lived independence of the Baltic states into the perspective of intellectual history by focusing on two Western thinkers: E. H. Carr and Walter Lippmann. The analysis assumes that ideas matter in international politics. It adds to our understanding of the forces that led to the creation and later to the extinction of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the period of the two world wars.     

Lost in Translation: A Multi‐Level Case Study of the Metamorphosis of Meanings and Action in Public Sector Organizational Innovation

This paper explores the early implementation of an organizational innovation in the UK National Health Service (NHS) – Treatment Centres (TCs) – designed to dramatically reduce waiting lists for elective care. The paper draws on case studies of 8 TCs (each at varying stages of their development) and aims to explore how meanings about TCs are created and evolve, and how these meanings impact upon the development of the organizational innovation. Research on organizational meanings needs to take greater account of the fact that modern organizations like the NHS are complex multi‐level phenomena, comprising layers of interlacing networks. To understand the pace, direction and impact of organizational innovation and change we need to study the interconnections between meanings across different organizational levels. The data presented in this paper show how the apparently simple, relatively unformed, concept of a TC framed by central government is translated and transmuted by subsequent layers in the health service administration, and by players in local health economies, and, ultimately, in the TCs themselves, picking up new rationales, meanings and significance as it goes along. The developmental histories of TCs reveal a range of significant re‐workings of macro policy with the result that there is considerable diversity and variation between local TC schemes. The picture is of important disconnections between meanings, that in many ways mirror Weick's (1976) ’loosely coupled systems’. The emergent meanings and the direction of micro‐level development of TCs appear more strongly determined by interactions within the local TC environment, notably between what we identify as groups of ’idealists’, ’pragmatists’, ’opportunists’ and ’sceptics’ than by the framing (Goffman 1974) provided by macro and meso organizational levels. While this illustrates the limitations of top down and policy‐driven attempts at change, and highlights the crucial importance of the front‐line local ’micro‐systems’ (Donaldson and Mohr 2000) in the overall scheme of implementing organizational innovations, the space or headroom provided by frames at the macro and meso levels can enable local change, albeit at variable speed and with uncertain outcomes.     

Verbesserter Verbraucherschutz beim Timesharing: Das Teilzeitnutzungsgesetz 2011

Am 23. Februar 2011 ist das Bundesgesetz über den Verbraucherschutz bei Teilzeitnutzungs- und Nutzungsvergünstigungsverträgen, BGBl I 2011/8, in Kraft getreten. Der nachstehende Beitrag erläutert das Regelungsanliegen der neuen ?Timesharing“-Richtlinie (RL 2008/122/EG), zu deren Umsetzung das TNG erlassen wurde, und gibt einen Überblick über den Regelungsinhalt der RL sowie der österr Umsetzung.