The governance of the World Bank: Lessons from the corporate sector

The World Bank Group (WBG) is a multilateral organization as well as a large financial conglomerate. The debate on its governance, however, has mainly focused on how to ensure more inclusive decision-making by strengthening the voice and representation of its entire membership. The WBG’s governance as a set of arrangements that enable the principal (shareholders) to oversee the agent (management) has so far been overlooked, even though the adequacy of such arrangements is relevant in all institutions wherein shareholders delegate to management the achievement of organizational objectives. In reviewing the institutional, historical, and current underpinnings of the WBG’s decision-making, we elaborate on the extent to which the Group follows best-practice corporate governance standards that have been designed with the aim of improving shareholders’ oversight. Drawing from a methodology developed by the IFC, an entity of the WBG, we analyze the Group’s internal governance, highlighting which aspects are furthest from (or closest to) current financial-sector best practices. In so doing, we provide a framework for prioritizing the most critical areas in which the WBG’s governance falls short of private-sector standards, and we identify the nature of possible remedies.

Policy or person? What voters want from their representatives on Twitter

Social media have the potential to transform democracies as they allow for direct contact between representatives and represented. Politicians can use social media to show their policy positions but they can also give insight into their private lives. Based on survey experiments in Germany and Switzerland we show that social media messages about politicians’ private lives rather deter voters. Instead, we find that voters prefer candidates that communicate policy positions. The effect of a policy-oriented communication style on Twitter can even lead to appreciating a politician from a different party in Switzerland, which has an electoral system that gives a strong incentive to cultivate a personal vote.     

Conserving the Principle of Identity: Identity,Representation and Equivalence

Howie recognizes as a starting position that there is a significant and political problem with judgements that presume an easy and unrestrained identification of a thing or a person, but she is sceptical that all judgements of identity are necessarily implicated in the same politics. She investigates how 'identity' functions in logic, judgement and epistemology, and argues that a dialectical understanding of identity provides the grounds both for a realist appreciation of the world that includes a subjective element and for a recognition that a subject both is and is not how she is and has been identified.     

When Do Men Represent Women’s Interests in Parliament? How the Presence of Women in Parliament Affects the Legislative Behavior of Male Politicians

This paper analyzes the conditions affecting male Members of Parliaments’ (MPs) proclivity for representing women’s interests. It particularly explores whether the presence of female MPs has an effect on men’s parliamentary behavior. Three contrasting effects are discussed in the literature: (1) A spillover effect which postulates that men will become more likely to act on behalf of women if the number of female MPs increases, (2) a group‐threat effect which creates a hostile backlash among male MPs, or (3) a specialization effect which makes male MPs less likely to represent women because this is typically seen as a function that should be fulfilled by female MPs. Empirically, this paper analyzes the representation of women’s issues in parliamentary questions tabled in the German Bundestag (1998‐2013) by using automated content analysis. The results support the specialization hypothesis and show that male MPs reduce their intensity of women’s representation if the proportion of female MPs is high.     

Family Peacemaking with an Interdisciplinary Team: A Therapist's Perspective

Interdisciplinary teams provide an unparalleled opportunity for peacemaking in families within the consensual dispute resolution continuum. This interdisciplinary environment was born out of the integration of Collaborative Law, in which lawyers limit the scope of their services to settlement by way of a signed agreement, and Collaborative Divorce, a team approach to divorce services that includes a lawyer for each party along with a Collaborative Divorce Coach for each party, a neutral financial specialist, and a neutral child specialist. Taken together, Interdisciplinary Collaborative Practice supports the resolution of legal issues out of court as well as addressing any emotional, relational, or behavioral problems that create obstacles to the successful resolution of the separation process.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Collaborative Practice creates legal representation in a consensual environment limiting services to settlement negotiations by way of a written agreement.
• The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals includes 5,000 members in twenty‐five countries.
• Legal representation in a consensual environment together with interdisciplinary teams create endless possibilities for dispute resolution processes.
• Collaborative Lawyers, Collaborative Divorce Coaches, child specialists, and financial specialists can create custom‐fit interdisciplinary teams that work together out of court to support families through marital transition.
• Interdisciplinary teams are family centric, bridging appropriate disciplines and resources to the needs of the family to address the vast majority of divorce‐related problems.
• Divorcing families are moving targets, learning and evolving through the process.
• Therapeutic teams support families with more complex relational, emotional, and mental health problems to find resolutions out of court.
• Divorce is a mainstream event in Western culture; we need supportive processes to encourage the best possible outcomes for all family members, especially the children.

     

新加坡集选区制度初探

集选区制度是新加坡国会大选的独创。1988年新加坡国会大选实行集选区制度与单选区制度并行,这对新加坡整个政治生态产生了重大影响。国内新加坡研究涉及集选区制度的著述甚少,基本未对集选区制度予以系统阐述与分析。本文比较全面地介绍新加坡集选区制度的产生与实践的过程,并围绕新加坡集选区制度的核心争议,即代表性问题和程序公正性问题进行分析。本文认为反对党虽有突破,但选举程序设计对反对党仍然是极大的障碍,由于目前反对党积极性迅速提高,使人民行动党面临极大挑战,因此自主革新的可能性是存在的。