Prevalence and correlates of elder mistreatment in South Carolina: the South Carolina elder mistreatment study

The purposes of this study were to (a) derive prevalence estimates for elder mistreatment (emotional, physical, sexual, neglectful, and financial mistreatment of older adults [age 60 +]) in a randomly selected sample of South Carolinians; (b) examine correlates (i.e., potential risk factors) of mistreatment; and (c) examine incident characteristics of mistreatment events. Random Digit Dialing (RDD) was used to derive a representative sample in terms of age and gender; computer-assisted telephone interviewing was used to standardize collection of demographic, correlate, and mistreatment data. Prevalence estimates and mistreatment correlates were obtained and subjected to logistic regression. A total of 902 participants provided data. Prevalence for mistreatment types (since age 60) were 12.9% emotional, 2.1% physical, 0.3% sexual, 5.4% potential neglect, and 6.6% financial exploitation by family member. The most consistent correlates of mistreatment across abuse types were low social support and needing assistance with daily living activities. One in 10 participants reported either emotional, physical, sexual, or neglectful mistreatment within the past year, and 2 in 10 reported mistreatment since age 60. Across categories, the most consistent correlate of mistreatment was low social support, representing an area toward which preventive intervention may be directed with significant public health implications.     

基于“脆弱性-能力”综合视角的公共安全评价框架:形成与范式

国际社会的公共安全评估框架在不断发展之中,从单独的脆弱性视角或能力视角进行公共安全评价,到形成较为完善的公共安全评价的脆弱性-能力综合视角,大体经历了三个过程。本文阐述了在脆弱性-能力综合视角下的公共安全评价主要研究内容,以及该评价框架的范式与应用。脆弱性-能力综合视角的评价框架研究,把质性研究与定量方法相结合,从脆弱性和应对能力综合的视角出发,通过引入系统动力学,提出了一种公共安全与公共危机管理动态评价的新思路,构建了一个公共安全与公共危机管理的动态评价和识别框架,为公共安全评价工具和方法提供新的视角和前提。     

Interviewing Witnesses: The Effect of Forced Confabulation on Event Memory

After viewing a crime video, participants answered 16 answerable and 6 unanswerable questions. Those in the "voluntary guess" condition had a "don't know" response option; those in the "forced guess" condition did not. One week later the same questions were answered with a "don't know" option. In both experiments, information generated from forced confabulation was less likely remembered than information voluntarily self-generated. Further, when the same answer was given to an unanswerable question both times, the confidence expressed in the answer increased over time in both the forced and the voluntary guess conditions. Pressing eyewitnesses to answer questions, especially questions repeated thrice (Experiment 2), may not be an effective practice because it reliably increases intrusion errors but not correct recall.     

New Changes in Northeast Asia and the Post-Kim Jong-il Era

In the long term, a change in the situation in Northeast Asia will depend on the geopolitical and economic structural changes caused by China’s rise; in the medium term,     

Legal Development and Privatization in Russia: A Case Study

An American attorney and political scientist presents a study focused on managerial efforts to reorganize the corporate structure of a large aviation conglomerate with 14,000 employees. The conversion of properties from state to collective ownership and organizational shifts to a joint-stock company are detailed and analyzed. Managerial strategies to streamline the privatization are traced from corporate documents and procedures designed internally to devise orderly regulations not rooted in parliamentary legislation or presidential decrees. Broader implications are noted in light of possible trends to develop laws at the grassroots level and to establish precedents that may be assimilated. journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: K22, L21, P13, P31.     

Unexpected narratives in conservation: Discourses of identity and place in Šumava National Park,Czech Republic

Abstract

In ?umava National Park, dominant actors dispute appropriate conservation strategies habitually overlooking ?umava's residents and their socioeconomic concerns. Routinely disregarded, ?umava's residents invoke narratives of identity and place that undermine the conservation paradigm by constructing the local population ‘quality’ as insufficient to make conservation a success. This paper examines the circumstances in which such a discourse emerges, how it responds to the asperity of conservation in a post-socialist setting and gains credence for implausible conclusions by appealing to broadly recognised Czech and European narratives of identity and place. What emerges is a discursive fragmentation of the subject simultaneously lends the discourse credibility and frustrates the redistribution of power in the area.     

Book reviews

Iron Oxen: A Documentary of Revolution in Chinese Farming. By William Hinton. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1970. Pp. x + 225. $6.95 and £2.15.

Hundred Day War: The Cultural Revolution at Tsinghua University. By William Hinton. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1972. Pp. 288. $7.95 and £3.15.

The Development of China's Steel Industry and Soviet Technical Aid. By M. Gardner Clark. Ithaca, NY: New York State School of Industrial and Labour Relations, Cornell University, 1973. Pp. vii + 104, appendices. $7.00.

Urban Unemployment in Developing Countries. By Paul Bairoch. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1973. Pp. v + 99. 12 Swiss F.

Fiscal Federalism. By Wallace E. Oates. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972. Pp. xvi + 256, diagrams.

Foreign Resources and Economic Development: A Symposium on the Report of the Pearson Commission. Edited by T. J. Byres. Portland, Oregon and London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971. Pp. xi + 199, index. £2.75.

The Inter‐American Development Bank: A Study in Development Financing. By Sidney Dell. New York, Washington and London: Praeger Publishers, 1972. Pp. xv + 255. £6.25.

Money and Economic Development: The Horowitz Lectures of 1972. By Milton Friedman. New York: Praeger, 1973. Pp. x + 67, diagrams. £3.50.

Modern Revolutions: An Introduction to the Analysis of a Political Phenomenon. By John Dunn. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972. Pp. 294, index, bibliography. £1 .40 (Paper).

Socialist Economic Development and Reforms. By J. Wilczynski. London: Mac‐Millan, 1972. Pp. xvii + 350. £5.

Reforms in the Soviet and East European Economies. Edited by L. A. D. Dellin and Hermann Gross. Lexington: D. C. Heath and Co, 1972, Pp. viii + 175. £4.

Politics and Society in Post‐War Naples. By P. A. Allum. London: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Pp. xvi + 410, appendices, maps, bibliography and index. £11.00.

Latin America Review of Books. Edited by Colin Harding and Christopher Roper. London and Leeds: Latin America Review of Books Ltd, No. 1 Spring 1973. Pp. 220. £3.00 (cloth), £1.25 (paper).

Rural Guerrillas in Latin America. By Richard Gott. London: Penguin Books, 1973. Pp. 637. £1.00.

Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution. By André Gunder Frank, New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1969. Pp. xviii + 409. £3.90.

Politics and Social Structure in Latin America. By James Petras. New York and London: Monthly Review Press, 1970. Pp. 382. £4.25.

The Politics of Land Reform in Chile, 1950–1970. By Robert R. Kaufman. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972. Pp. 321. £6.00.

Political Mobilization of the Venezuelan Peasant. By John Duncan Powell. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971. Pp. 229.

Urban Challenge in East Africa. Edited by John Hutton. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1972. Pp. viii + 285, map, tables and photos. Shs. 42 in East Africa.

Employment, Incomes and Equality: A Strategy for Increasing Productive Employment in Kenya. Geneva: International Labour Office, 1972. Pp. xx + 600. 305 wf.

Arms and African Development. Proceedings of the First Pan‐African Citizens Conference. Edited by Frederick S. Arkhurst. New York and London: Praeger, 1972. Pp. xvi + 158. £7.75.

Man, State, and Society in the Contemporary Maghrib. Edited by I. William Zartman. New York: Praeger and London: Pall Mall, 1973. Pp. vii + 531, appendices with tables, maps, bibliographical essay. $13.50 and £5.67.

Histoire Economique du Québec 1851–1896. By Jean Hamelin and Yves Roby. Editions Fides: Montreal, 1971. Pp. 436, index. $10.00.

Indochina in Conflict: A Political Assessment. Edited by Joseph J. Zasloff and Alan E. Goodman. Lexington, Mass., Toronto and London: D. C. Heath and Co, 1972. Pp. xv + 227. £5.00.

The Dynamics of Indian Political Factions. By Mary C. Carras. London: Cambridge University Press, 1972. £6.50.     

The moral hazards of neo-liberalism: lessons from the private insurance industry

The key tenets of neo-liberalism regarding risk, governance, and responsibility are critically evaluated through an empirical study of the private insurance industry. Recent tendencies in this industry towards increasing segmentation of consumers regarding risk, and towards an expansion of private policing of insurance fraud, are analysed. The definition of moral hazard is broadened to include all parties in the insurance relationship, not just the insured. Moral hazards embedded in the social organization of private insurance lead to various kinds of immoral risky behaviour by insureds, insurance companies, and their employees, and to intensified efforts to regulate this behaviour. The analysis concludes with some critical observations about the neo-liberal emphasis on minimal state, market fundamentalism, risk-taking, individual responsibility, and acceptance of inequality.     

Character ethics and the transformation of governance

A focus on character ethics has the power to transform public adminstration, and transform governance as we know it. Virtue demands of us many things that professionalism, efficiency, effectiveness, and ordinary bureaucratic practices do not. It requires that we be perceptive and discerning, and that we have a predisposition to make judgments and act with courage. Focusing on character ethics would transform governance because a public service characterized by virtue and the attending fundamental respect for the dignity and worth of others, would not deny the public their rightful role in self-governance. A virtuous public servant will be an enabling and empowering force in our institutions of governance, helping reinvigorate civic virtue among both public administrators and the general citizenry. But if an ethic of character is to take hold in public administration, we need to design organizational environments and management practices more conducive to the development of virtuous habits. Fortunately such changes are also likely to foster productivity, creativity, and effectiveness.