Building a network organization to foster economic development

This article describes the process of building network organizations that support and foster broad-based economic and social development. Coverage includes phases in the development process, approaches to devising action steps, the nature of network organizations, and action research required to support network development.     

Civil Wars and Economic Growth: Spatial Dispersion

This article quantifies the impact of civil wars on economic growth at home and in nearby countries. Three alternative measures of nearness—contiguity, length of contiguous borders, and distance of closest approach—are used to capture the spatial dispersion of civil war consequences. We present short-run panel estimates (at five-year intervals) and long-run (1961–95) panel estimates for the world. Generally, the distance measures, novel to this study, and not contiguity provides the most accurate measure of the diffusion of the negative economic consequences of civil wars on other countries. Unlike earlier studies, we also investigate the temporal influence of civil wars on growth at home and in nearby countries. Both the duration and the timing of civil wars have an economic impact.     

Using self- and peer assessment at honours level: bridging the gap between law school and the workplace

Growing awareness and interest in pedagogical issues permit greater experimentation with the design and delivery of law teaching. While employability skills are now commonplace within the law curriculum, the development of graduate attributes can also be enhanced through assessment methods requiring students to apply clearly understood criteria to their own performance. Where students are allocated work-related tasks, moderated self- and peer assessment can also help replicate the sense of “real” situations and act as an even more powerful stimulus to learning. The article considers staff and student perceptions of group-based learning in which assessment is considered both a means to “deep learning” and an end in itself insofar as students are allocated the task of formally recommending grades for coursework. Recognising that student-led learning and student-driven assessment are still relatively unorthodox in law teaching, the article concludes that this form of assessment method can clearly assist learning and the enhancement of graduate attributes and moreover can be justified objectively by reference to standard assumptions of validity, reliability, convenience and integrity.     

Toward a psychological ecology of affirmative action

Research-based knowledge of the effects of affirmative action has been little help to policy makers. That is the case because there has been no means through which to organize into a policy-relevant whole the findings that have come from a variety of disciplinary sources. A heuristic schematic of the psychological ecology of affirmative action is proposed as a step toward developing a conceptual framework that can reduce this problem. A psychological ecology of affirmative action consists of the mutual relations between policy interest groups and the procedures used to implement these policies. A critical point that the ecological framework leads to is that the nature of affirmative action procedures has a major influence on the material and subjective links between interest groups. Given that claim, the schematic is used to categorize, review, and critique the multidisciplinary research on affirmative action. From that overview, a set of general guidelines for the design of effective affirmative action programs is proposed. Finally, a call is made for a shift in the unit of policy analysis from a focus on group justice to relational justice.     

Affirmative action in American politics: Strength or weakness?

When Geraldine Ferraro was selected to be the Democratic Party's vice-presidential candidate, questions were raised about why she was chosen. Was her selection an outcome of affirmative action in the political arena? The research reported in this paper investigates whether the effect of Ferraro's candidacy on voting inclinations and behavior among college students was mediated by conceptions of the procedure of affirmative action. As predicted, conceptions of affirmative action (the difference between actual and threshold ratios) influenced changes in inclination to vote Democratic in response to the Ferraro candidacy. In turn, those inclinations affected voting behavior in the 1984 presidential election. The discussion focuses on the theoretical and practical importance of perceived procedural fairness in the political arena.     

Human Rights in the Scottish Courts

This article looks at the use made of the human rights legislation in the Scottish courts since the devolution of legislative and executive power to Scotland, based on research undertaken in all the ordinary courts, but excluding tribunals. It concludes that the incorporation of the Convention via the human rights legislation has had significant effects within the Scottish court system and on policy development without amounting to a major upheaval.     

Schadenersatz wegen im Prozess verz?gerter R?umung

Immer wieder kommt es vor, dass Bestandnehmer in R?umungsprozessen Einwendungen erheben, um die R?umung zu verhindern bzw hinauszuschieben. Dadurch k?nnen dem Vermieter Sch?den entstehen, die durch die prozessrechtliche Kostenersatzpflicht und Benützungsentgelte nicht gedeckt sind. In deswegen geführten Schadenersatzprozessen hat der OGH die Frage der Beweislast zum Verschulden bisher unterschiedlich beantwortet. Oftmals wurde der Vermutung, dass die Anrufung des Gerichtes gutgl?ubig erfolgt, Vorrang gegenüber der Beweislastregel nach § 1298 ABGB gegeben. Zu diesem Rechtsstandpunkt ?u?erte sich der OGH nun ausdrücklich in der nachstehend besprochenen Entscheidung 1 Ob 153/11y.