Aviation security and terrorism

Abstract

The author asserts that a sophisticated sabotage threat to U.S. international civil aviation has been well known to the U.S. government and air carriers since the early 1980s. He believes that both the U.S. government and air carriers have failed to do enough to counter this sabotage threat. He cites the findings of the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism (May 1990), and the enactment of the Aviation Security Improvement Act (Nov. 1990) to support his beliefs. The author concludes by providing a recipe for corrective action.     

Button-less on the information superhighway: Issues of ideological horizons in environmental communication amongst communities at fish-landing sites along Lake Victoria in Uganda

Abstract

The article addresses issues of ideological horizons in relation to the information superhighway, as they affect environmental communication, with a special focus on grassroots communities at fish-landing sites along Lake Victoria, in Uganda. While in the ‘button society’ a great deal of information is accessible at the push of a button, the most that button-less grassroots societies have to contend with, is a simple radio switch. Given this continuum of ideological horizons, both communities cannot interpret environmental management concerns in the same way. Conceptually, the article is guided by Hall's encoding and decoding framework, whereby due to a failure to share ‘meaning’ (between the two parties) miscommunication arises. The discussion is based on findings of a survey for a research project that sought to find behavioural change communication strategies that can be used to empower grassroots communities to participate more in managing their local environment in a sustainable way. The research looked at the communication of environmental issues pertaining to solid waste management and sanitation. The major question of interest to the discussion is why there is continued environmental degradation at Lake Victoria fish-landing sites, despite the available environmental information and existing frameworks for ensuring proper environmental management.     

Using the personal influence model to guide theory building for participatory communication in Africa

Abstract

This article argues that the personal influence model (PIM) be used strategically to resolve conflicts and social crises in Africa. It presents PIM as a complementary, analytic discourse to participatory communication, a development paradigm commonly used globally in a variety of social programs. That discourse, as a framework for theory building, is grounded in Africa's emerging and enduring realities: (a) the growing interest of the international community to assist Africa to meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, whose focus is to reduce extreme poverty by 2015; (b) the ephemeral nature of Africa's political and social stability that necessitates reducing fear, improving community security, nurturing public trust, and building inter-group relationships, all as preconditions for attaining social development, and for using a community-agency- contracts-partnerships approach to deliver development services; and (c) the palpable congruence of PIM with Africa's extensive social networks, which are typically used as communication tools for social development. Those realities guide four propositions that serve as a heuristic template for testing and refining the participatory approach, thereby guiding theory building in participatory communication in African communities. That template identifies an expansive three-concept research agenda – culture, community governance and rule of law, and economic freedom – that raises questions, defines concepts, measures key variables, and assesses outcomes.     

Toward a measurement tool for the monitoring of media diversity and pluralism in South Africa: A public-centred approach

Abstract

This article responds to recent debates within South African media politics regarding the diversity and transformation of the print sector in the country, by suggesting a necessary refocus of previously used methods of measuring media diversity and proposing a more audience-centred approach. This audience-centred method is discussed with regard to meeting the demands of the normative understanding of media diversity, where the media are viewed as central to an individual's formulation of opinions and ideas, thus rendering the media – and particularly the news media – vital in fostering an enabled and informed citizenry. The argument proposes a bottom-up instead of a top-down methodology for measuring media diversity, by placing the primary focus on the public as the starting point, rather than the end point of the analysis, and validating this position through the normative view of the media's role in assisting citizens to formulate personal views. The article concludes by listing four key areas in which current debates on media diversity in South Africa should be realigned and refocused, including at a parliamentary level.     

Universities and the teaching of forensic sciences to lawyers—a note *

This article presents the findings of the survey conducted among business and accountancy students of the Nanyang Business School, Singapore, on the teaching of business law. The article is organised in three main sections. Section 1 formulates the framework for the research by outlining the three basic approaches adopted across many jurisdictions for the legal education of business students—the traditionalist ("black‐letter law"), the environmentalist and mixed approaches. Section 2 briefly describes the survey questions drawn up in the light of four principal objectives that, according to legal educators, the teaching of business law should achieve. Section 3 presents and examines the findings. The article concludes that law teaching at the Nanyang Business School conforms to the traditional approach. The author accordingly makes recommendations for the transformation of current teaching and assessment medthods: an injection of a great deal of “environmental” content and context‐based education; more use of actual and current cases, practical examples and a link to the business environment.     

公共行政研究方法及其走向评析

纵观百年公共行政发展过程的方法论,个人主义的理性思雏与经验的实用分析方法是其显著特征。本文认为,公共行政的研究方法,在保持现有研究方法的基础上,应引入哲学的形而上的反思与批判的研究方法,以提高公共行政方法研究的层面与视角;引入理性与非理性相统一的研究方法．以克服单一的理性思维与正向思维的研究方式与方法;引入伦理的研究方法,在尊重科学性的基础上,打破行政的以个体为核心价值理念的结构,调整好个人与个人、个人与组织、政府与社会的关系,建立良性的社会导向机制。     

Making a difference: On the constraints of consensus building and the relevance of deliberation in stakeholder dialogues

This article illuminates the contribution of stakeholder dialogues to environmental policy making. It makes a distinction between stakeholder dialogues as consensus building and stakeholder dialogues as deliberation. Although consensus building seems to be the dominant approach in participatory environmental policy making, this article questions the merits of consensus building and it uses the experience of the Dutch stakeholder dialogue project Climate OptiOns for the Long term (COOL) to explore, in a deliberative design, the shortcomings of a consensus-building approach and how they are possibly dealt with. The article presents the results of two deliberative methods that have been used in the COOL project – the repertory grid analysis and the dialectical approach – to demonstrate how a deliberative design can help policy makers to critically assess arguments in favor of and against a broad range of policy options, and deal with stakeholder conflict in an early phase of the policy process.     

Conflict Assessment in Energy Infrastructure Siting: Prospects for Consensus Building in the Northern Pass Transmission Line Project

As energy demand grows rapidly worldwide, power line infrastructure will continue to be a major development planning challenge. This study considers the environmental conflict that has arisen over a transnational transmission line project between Canada and the United States. A qualitative conflict assessment is presented to define the parameters for consensus that could prevent protracted litigation between stakeholders. Proactively designing a process to encourage consensus building during the early development phase remains the most critical determinant of compromise. In this article, we argue that in this case a consensus‐building effort could be feasible if certain design requirements were met, including gaining the participation of key stakeholders, paying attention to trust, and focusing on the issues specific to this transmission line rather than to a larger energy discussion. The research shows that despite potential pitfalls, reaching more widely accepted and ecologically sensitive solutions to environmental conflicts through participatory and collaborative approaches is possible and worth the effort.     

参与式发展的迷思——云南省三个少数民族社区项目的个案研究

参与式是发展理论中新近被承认的正统理论,通过对云南三个少数民族社区项目的个案研究,揭示参与式概念泛化所导致的参与式发展的重重迷思,文章认为不应把参与式发展与国家干预对立起来,外部环境的改善为社区参与式发展提供有力保证。     

Ordering Disorder – On the Perplexities of the Partnership Literature

The literature on public‐private partnerships (PPP) has proliferated in recent years. However, confusion about the actual meaning of PPP still abounds. As a consequence, contradicting findings and statements about PPP flourish in the literature. This article reviews the literature, and argues that there are different streams of PPP research which operate with qualitatively different notions of the PPP concept. Accordingly the literature is divided into four different PPP ‘approaches’. By doing so the article offers some clarification concerning an increasingly complex concept. The article concludes that an authoritative definition of PPP – one that can encompass all the different variations of the concept currently in use – is not logically possible.