Enforcing ethics in social work

The attention paid by the social work profession to ethical issues has waxed and waned since the formal inauguration of the profession in the late 19th century. For the first half century of the profession's life, relatively little attention was devoted to problems of professional ethics, though social work's literature was filled with discussions of value-laden issues that arise in practice. In recent years, interest in professional ethics has increased substantially. This article discusses the growth of interest in professional ethics, the formulation of the social work code of ethics, the adjudication of grievances in social work, and the strengths and limitations of the profession's code.     

Interest in political campaigns: The influence of question order and electoral context

A split-ballot experiment shows that, when people are asked how interested they are in following political campaigns, their response depends not only on the order in which the question is asked, but also on the broader electoral context in which it is posed. When asked how interested they were in following the political campaigns immediatelyafter a question about whether or not they voted in the (1982) election, people were more likely to think they were interested in the campaign, especially if they claimed to have voted, than if they were asked about it immediatelybefore the question on whether or not they voted. This order effect, however, appears to depend onwhen the questions are asked. If asked within a few weeks after the election, there is little or no order effect. But later, as the memory of the campaign fades, the order of the questions makes a sizable difference in the results. This order effect also seems to be more pronounced among better-educated respondents, suggesting that they are more likely to feel pressured by a social norm to vote and to express an interest in political affairs, not only in real life, but in the survey interview as well. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications for the design of the interview schedule used in the American National Election Studies.The research reported in this paper was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES81-11404).     

Civil Society,Populism and Liberalism

This paper considers the threats that various kinds of populism might be said to pose to the ideal of a civil society that mediates between ‘private’ and family life and the state. Although it is difficult to generalise about populisms, just about all—whether on left or right—share a hostility to ‘intermediate’ powers. Of course civil society is exactly what could be called a forum for intermediate powers. In contrast, populists often tend to emphasise a vision of immediate power in the sense of the possibility of the direct expression of the people’s will in political institutions. Populists, of whatever pitch, often tend to invoke a partisan state that will be on the side of the people (however defined) rather than a putatively neutral ‘liberal’ state that stands over and against civil society. These factors make most populisms more or less generically hostile to liberalism, understood not in ideological terms but more as a doctrine which emphasises the necessity of mediating power through institutions. Very often, populism is a threat to the idea of civil society understood as a concept integral to liberal political theory, as a means of balancing the state and its wider interlocutors. In this paper, various means, largely inspired by the writings of Tocqueville on the one hand and Paul Hirst on the other, are suggested for addressing aspects of this predicament.

     

Stuck in the Middle: Taiwan's Semiconductor Industry,the U.S.-China Tech Fight,and Cross-Strait Stability

The Trump administration has worked to restrict the People's Republic of China's ability to manufacture and acquire semiconductor chips since 2018. Caught in the crossfire of this burgeoning tech war is Taiwan, which is home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer. With the United States banning companies that use U.S. technology in their chip manufacturing process from doing business with Huawei, TSMC can no longer do business with the Chinese tech company, one of its most important clients. Until the Trump administration announced the license restriction on Huawei, TSMC had managed to walk the fine line of doing business with both China and the United States, without riling either. This article argues that the TSMC example is indicative of how great power competition between the two countries will play out for the foreseeable future. TSMC has announced that it will build a new factory in Arizona as it faces Chinese firms poaching its employees and Chinese actors hacking its systems and code for trade secrets—all actions demonstrating how great power competition will play out for tech dominance. Avoiding direct live-fire conflict, China and the United States will work to restrict the other's actions and development by forcing important tech companies, such as TSMC, into picking a side.     

The establishment of the presence and group classification of sperm in mixed stains by isoelectric focusing

The article deals with experimental data on design of the method used for detection of sperm, blood and vaginal secretions according to isoelectric points of acid phosphatases, differential diagnosis of ABO group antigens in "mixed" stains as well as detection of phenotype of red cell acid phosphatase by isoelectric focusing method.     

Underlying patterns in a current economic development model

Public officials may subjectively use a variety of elements, including economic characteristics and political considerations, in their selection of locations and allocation of resources for economic development. Policy capture is a method that determines the impartial weighting of a broad number of elements which influence these decision makers as they operationalize programs. Non-political criteria that may influence the selection of sites for local economic development provide the basis of the analysis conducted in this paper. Public officials at various levels of responsibility assessed the chances of creating jobs for disadvantaged residents (employment success) for a variety of hypothetical areas chosen as an enterprise zone. Their responses give insight into policy decisions. There is a comparison of both individual responses and groups of respondents to the hypothetical data as well as to actual zones that were recently selected. Concluding remarks will discuss these results and the application of this method for enterprise zones and other policy analyses.We wish to acknowledge the extensive helpful suggestions of the editor and two anonymous reviewers.     

The population in a sociopolitical system in crisis: Mexico before the Revolution

The author reviews some of the literature on the Mexican Revolution in order to assess the impact of demographic change on the outcome of that conflict. Consideration is given to urbanization, spatial distribution, literacy, industrial growth and the employment opportunities it provided, and land conflicts caused by population growth. (SUMMARY IN ENG)