The role of marginalised women in sanitation initiatives: Somali women in northern Kenya

Research has shown women from marginalised communities have significant articulated needs for sanitation that are often unmet. Using focus group discussions with displaced Somali women living in rural villages in northern Kenya, this study found that women’s central concerns were for personal safety and convenience rather than hygiene; and for alleviation from the pain and discomfort associated with female genital mutilation and reproduction. Based on the findings, the article recommends organisations supporting sanitation initiatives should adopt approaches responsive to women’s particular concerns and needs. It makes specific recommendations for implementing an agenda of participation in a context where women are highly marginalised.     

An analysis of the United Kingdom’s cannabis market using crowdsourced data

This article contributes to the growing literature on the use of computer-mediated communications to research illicit markets. In it, we conduct an analysis of the British cannabis market using data crowdsourced from a publicly available platform, PriceofWeed.com. Crowd-sourced transaction data present some new insights into the British cannabis market. First, this study has tracked the trafficking flow of cannabis within the UK. Second, it shows the extent to which a quantity discount is granted to consumers. Third, it discusses purchasing habits of cannabis users. Conclusions suggest new areas of application of crowdsourcing to research hard to reach and deviant populations.     

INDUSTRIAL SHIFT,POLARIZED LABOR MARKETS AND URBAN VIOLENCE: MODELING THE DYNAMICS BETWEEN THE ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION AND DISAGGREGATED HOMICIDE*

Industrial restructuring marks the removal of a manufacturing and production‐based economy in urban areas, which had served as a catalyst in concentrating disadvantage and polarizing labor markets since the 1970s. Although scholars have established a relationship between concentrated disadvantage — poverty, joblessness, racial residential segregation — and urban violence in cross‐sectional studies, this literature has yet to estimate whether economic restructuring contributed to the change in urban homicide over time. Modeling this relationship requires an analytical strategy that incorporates specific indicators of (race and gender) polarized labor markets, separate from indicators of urban disadvantage, on disaggregated homicides while taking into account the growing dependency of urban cities on formal social control (via police presence and rise in incarceration). In this study I provide a theoretical rationale for linking industrial restructuring to urban homicide. Using a multivariate strategy to capture the shift in labor market forces and disaggregated homicides from 1980 to 1990, I also estimate the impact of this relationship. The results provide evidence of the industrial ship and documents both the decline in Manufacturing jobs for black males and black females and a growth in the service sector opportunities for white males only. I also find that industrial restructuring had a unique impact on disaggregated homicide beyond what has previously been established in cross‐sectional studies.     

“水外交”视角下的中国和下湄公河国家跨界水资源合作

在跨界水资源合作与国家间"水权力"矛盾与日俱增的背景下,国际机构和部分国家开始重视"水外交",并将其视为处理对外关系的重要方式之一。中国与下湄公河国家在湄公河跨界水资源开发中的争端也急需通过"水外交"来解决。本文在对"水外交"研究脉络进行梳理的基础上,尝试性地将"水外交"定义为"一国政府围绕(跨界与非跨界)水合作项目和‘软水产品’的开发和利用问题,通过技术和社会双层举措来进行解决的外交实施方式",并以此为切入点,通过三个案例分析阐明中国与下湄公河国家跨界水合作中所存在的问题,同时指出中国"水外交"实施不足的具体原因。本文认为中国应通过完善"水外交"体系,建立水资源合作利益共同体,借助"水资源综合管理"、第三方评估机构以及实施积极有为的"水外交"对外策略,来应对湄公河跨界河流开发中的内外困境。     

发达国家的流域水污染公共治理机制及其启示

发达国家在治理流域水污染过程中形成五种机制。借鉴发达国家流域水污染治理机制,汲取其成功经验,对于深化我国流域管理体制改革,完善流域水污染治理机制,提高流域水污染治理的效益具有重要的意义。     

Joint Default Probabilities and Sovereign Risk

The assessment of sovereign risk is of crucial importance for international lenders and investors. Many existing sovereign risk approaches are opaque and heavily rely on subjective choices. In general, they lack a theoretical basis. To assess sovereign risk, we use the Merton model in which a loan defaults if the value of a firm's assets falls below the value of its debt. In a portfolio context, this implies that default correlations warrant the utmost attention. We analyze defaults for 37 countries during the period 1970–1998. We find that sovereign default correlations are low. Joint defaults are highest in Central and Eastern Europe. They are intermediate in Latin America and they are low in (Southeast) Asia.     

How Efficient are Africa's Emerging Stock Markets?

The development of financial institutions has been viewed in recent years as critical to the economic development process. This research uses recent data from the eight largest African stock markets to test whether these markets meet the criterion of weak-form stock market efficiency with returns characterised by a random walk. Results are then compared with similar tests on emerging stock markets in South-east Asia and Latin America. Conclusions from the research indicate that test results for weak-form efficiency in the emerging African stock markets compare favourably with those performed on other emerging stock markets.     

Threat-Based Competition Policy

This note suggests a link between the theory of contestable markets and competition policy. We propose that in the absence of potential hit and run entrants into an industry the behaviour of a firm may be constrained by the fear of intervention by the competition authorities. Hence, in periods in which hit and run entry is believed to be a non-credible threat, the competition authorities can affect a firm's behaviour by the threat of intervention, as well as by intervention itself. Requirements for the successful use of threat-based competition policy are identified, and its potential benefits are outlined.     

US-Asia Economic Relations: A Political Economy of Crisis and the Rise of New Business Actors

Reviewed here are contrasting approaches to the same locus of marginalisation: the precariat in the informal sector. In developed and underdeveloped countries alike, neo-liberal economic growth is increasingly dependent on insecure, temporary and low-paid employment. Such laissez faire capitalism demonstrates additionally that – contrary to earlier views about the capitalism/unfreedom link – bonded labour is not an obstacle to accumulation, since the free market currently thrives on an unfree workforce. Because, with the exception of Marxist theory, no opposition to this pattern of economic growth argues for transcending the capitalist system, critiques of its labour regime are unable to formulate an adequate political solution.     

The dams of Northern Sudan and the policy of demographic engineering

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the deteriorating situation in Northern Sudan linked to policies of demographic engineering, embedded in plans for the further construction of dams along the Nile River in the North by the Government of Sudan. Although the generation of power and agricultural irrigation are the declared purpose of the dams, the fact is, these dams will, as past dam constructions have, cause a massive displacement of the Nubian, Manasir and Amri-Hamdab people far from their ancestral lands. With the collaboration of the Egyptian government the areas vacated will be repopulated with Egyptian peasants, as part of both governments’ plan to alter the demographics of North Sudan.