Overcoming Constraints of State Sovereignty: global health governance in Asia

Abstract

In an increasingly globalised world effective international communicable diseases control requires states to embrace basic norms informing global health governance. However, recent international public health crises have shown that states continue to use national sovereignty to justify non-compliance with these norms. In this article we use three recent high-profile examples from Asia in which the tight hold of state sovereignty cut into the effective implementation of international communicable disease control efforts. Taken together, the three cases illustrate a wider trend in which states historically diminished in structural power or subject to imperialist intrusion contest the legitimacy of global governance initiatives if they are perceived to be another vehicle for the imposition of exogenous norms that do not reflect the values or goals of that state. In response to these challenges, three strategies are posited for how the actors involved in protecting public health might overcome the constraints of state sovereignty to more effectively address global public health threats created by the fluid movement of pathogens across borders.     

The Organization of Purchasing at German Universities: An Empirical Investigation

The objective of this article is two-fold: first, it studies how German universities organize their purchasing activities, and, second, it identifies patterns in the structure of the purchasing function and analyzes factors that influence the design of purchasing. For this purpose, the article develops an analytical framework based on ideas of contingency and organization theory and presents the results of an empirical study which analyzed the purchasing organization of 65 German universities. The results of the study indicate that German universities use a medium level of centralization and specialization to organize their purchasing activities, and that the purchasing process is highly formalized in most universities. As to influential factors of the structure of purchasing, the study indicates that the number of employees, the number of employees with purchasing-responsibility, the purchasing volume, and the number of students enrolled at the university influence the structural variables.     

Slapping Accountability in the Face: Observance of Accountability in Malawi's Local Governments in the Absence of Councilors

Against the background of Malawi having had no councilors since the second quarter of 2005, this article aims at establishing the effects of the absence of councilors on the promotion of accountability as a tenet of good governance as espoused in the National Decentralization Policy. Adopting a mixed research design with a strong bias towards qualitative research methodologies, the article finds out that in the absence of councilors, observance of accountability by local governments has been negatively affected. The article argues that in the absence of councilors there has been reversal of accountabilities whereby horizontal accountability has been given more emphasis than vertical accountability; having a secretariat that is both a decision-maker and implementer of decisions has been a recipe for abuse of power; and interim mechanisms and emerging institutions responsible for advocating accountability are limited and a mockery of good governance.     

H. G. Wells's The Time Machine and the “Odd Consequence” of Progress

The Time Machine of H. G. Wells stands as one of the foundational works of science fiction. It is a true product of its time, a reflection of the fast pace of technological development and social change that makes a romance of the ideology of advancement for its own sake. But between the lines of its “adventure” plot, we find evidence of another, more complex story being told. Wells's work is plagued by ambivalence about the outcome of social and scientific progress—the selfsame progress that gave birth to the time machine in the first place. The Time Machine, in short, is preoccupied by an anxiety about a catastrophe just around the corner, not one born of global war or political turmoil but rather of the absence of turmoil, of need, of struggle. The idea and possibility of fiction itself becomes entangled in this problem of the everyday catastrophe, as it nearly suffocates under the conditions of the utopian society which it creates.     

Behind closed doors: the effect of pretrial publicity on jury deliberations

Abstract

Effective treatment of aggressive behaviour and accurate release decision making are necessary components of adequate clinical practice in forensic psychiatric units. Unfortunately, methods to identify treatment targets and ameliorate aggressive behaviour have developed at a slower pace than risk assessment technologies. Recent progress on the identification of offence paralleling or functionally equivalent behaviour offers a framework for individually tailored treatment and idiographic release decision making, although empirical scrutiny of this approach is inadequate. This paper describes an examination of the relationship between aggressive behaviour prior to admission with aggression during inpatient psychiatric treatment, and reconviction for violent offending following discharge. Results showed a relationship between pre- and post-admission aggression but no relationship between aggression during inpatient psychiatric treatment with either pre-admission aggressive behaviour or violent recidivism. These findings indicate the importance of state psychological variables, specifically those states affected by symptoms of psychiatric illness, as well as environmental activators and inhibitors of violence that operate within the hospital. These require inclusion in an adequate functional analysis of aggressive behaviour for forensic psychiatric patients.