Ideological and pedagogical tensions in an environmental sustainability education project: A review of adult education practices around Lake Fundudzi,South Africa

ABSTRACT

Research in poor communities in South Africa faces intellectual challenges and tensions which offer lessons for evaluating environmental education (EE). This article illuminates five such tensions that emerged during the course of an adult environmental education programme, implemented from 1999 to 2002, in communities surrounding the catchment of Lake Fundudzi in South Africa: tensions arose between traditional and modern concepts of community; between traditional and post-apartheid structures of local governance; between liberal empowerment and traditional conservationist ideologies; and also within and between environmental ideologies and research paradigms. Paramount among the lessons learned is the need to develop multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary (MIT) practices that are sensitive to local community and environmental needs, and to solutions expressed through local residents, community workers and academics – in other words, the recognition and affirmation of local indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs).     

Challenges in conflict management in multi-ethnic states – the dissolution of Czechoslovakia and Serbia and Montenegro

This article examines the break-ups of post-communist Czechoslovakia and the Union of Serbia and Montenegro under consociationalism. According to Arend Lijphart, social divisions may be neutralized at the elite level with power-sharing mechanisms. Lijphart's theory has been abundantly criticized, particularly because, while its intention is to induce cooperation, consociationalism does not give leaders actual incentives to cooperate. Czechoslovakia and the Union qualified as consociations; however most favorable factors were absent. The states failed to overcome their divisions and broke apart. Both states were going through a democratization period, experienced differently in each republic. The article argues that the application of consociationalism at this time magnified the divisions. Stirring up the ethnic sensitivity of the population was the most reliable strategy for politicians to secure popular support. In this context, and with the EU enlargement prospect, the consociational structure, instead of bringing elites together, weakened the federal power and provided elites the opportunity to defend republican interests at the expense of the federations. Hence, while a consociation requires certain conditions and favorable factors, the context in which consociationalism is implemented, and particularly democratization periods, may have a decisive influence on the leaders’ ability to cooperate, on their decisions, and thereby on the state.     

The Relationship Between State Government Performance and State Quality of Life

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between government performance and quality of life in the American states. We contend that the management capacity of state governments should have direct, tangible impacts on the overall social and economic well‐being of state citizenry. In order to test this idea, we examine the influence of state management capacity (using the 1999 Government Performance Project grades), alongside other economic and political variables, on two prominent measures of state quality of life—The Morgan Quitno “Most Livable State” Index and State Policy Reports' (SPP) “Camelot Index.” We find that both state economic conditions and governmental policy priorities have significant impacts on state performance levels. But, our results clearly indicate that the management capacity of state governments also contributes directly to improving the overall quality of life for state citizens.     

Exploring the limits of institutional change: The direct election of mayors in Western Europe

The process of local institutional reform that different Western European countries underwent starting in the 1990s converged towards the direct election of mayors in Italy, England, Austria and Germany. Using a comparative analysis of those countries and including in it Belgium and the Netherlands (where the introduction of directly elected mayors is planned) and Greece and Portugal (with a long tradition of it), the article examines why countries with such different municipal traditions have tended towards the same institutional solution. The answer runs through the text implicitly: the institutional tradition of each country appears to have a greater capacity for explaining the outcome of the reform rather than isomorphism in the introduction of the direct election of mayors.     

A Bibliography About a Changed Federal Government Workplace

Abstract

This bibliography contains more than 130 hand picked sources that address change in the Federal government workplace, including articles and books by academics and practitioners and reports by Federal agencies including the General Accounting Office and the Office of Personnel management, as well as Congress. The introduction to the bibliography draws on the expertise of three well known authorities in the field, as well as the authors' of the bibliography.     

Privatising Local Public Services: Between Industrial Legacy and Political Ambition

Since the 1980s, research on the privatisation of local services has analysed the factors affecting government's delivery choices; but this research has not given unanimous results, for reasons connected both to the different methodologies adopted and the dynamic nature of privatisation processes. This article introduces the case of Italian water services reform, drawing attention to the economic and political dynamics that make privatisation an extremely complex choice, in which the preferences of politicians have to be balanced with industrial heritage and the strategies of the utilities. By privileging a historical analysis of the conditions in which such choices take place, it is possible to grasp the changing relations between local governments and utilities and to look at the relative power of firms, citizens and governments in the process of service delivery choice.     

The case for ‘face-time’ in a computer-mediated global economy

Abstract

The structuring of marketing and communication management within key organisations in South Africa is changing. These changes are affecting the relationship between marketing and communication practitioners, as well as the key tasks they are responsible for within the organisation. Globally, companies are downsizing, restructuring and eliminating hierarchy. This article investigates how key South African companies have responded to these changes, by looking at how the marketing and communication functions are structured within the organisation. Marketing and communication managers from top South African companies were interviewed telephonically. Findings from the study indicate that the two functions are progressively moving towards an integrated approach. However, a commonly agreed organisational structure is still not pervasive. Each organisation structured the marketing and communication functions differently, and various perspectives existed on the key tasks of both marketing and communication managers. From these findings, it is evident that the relationship between marketing and communication, as well as the role and tasks of marketing and communication managers, is still very diverse in the South African context.     

Introduction: South Africa's multiple languages in a shifting media environment

Abstract

The global South, as the collective for the peripheries of mainstream development is known, is often regarded as merely a beneficiary of Northern-borne notions in the field of organisational communication. The problem is that the Southern context and circumstance do not always mirror those of the North, meaning that these dominant, revered theories are not necessarily applicable. One Southern context is that of the South African mining and construction industries, which is seen as notoriously dangerous, plagued by various obstacles to internal organisational communication (such as illiteracy and diversity), and what Le Roux and Naudé (2009, 29) refer to as ‘historical baggage’. The research question of this article is whether congenital Northern communication theories can be adequately incorporated into the unique global South, in order to fulfil the important task of communicating safety information to employees. The article explores the appropriate implementation of the principles of the excellence theory, the stakeholder theory as well as the relationship management theory, and the research methodology includes interviews, focus groups and quantitative questionnaires at two organisations. The result of the empirical research is the amalgamation and reworking of these theories’ principles into a model for internal safety communication applicable to the South.     

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.     

我国公立大学组织管理的逻辑基础分析

作为社会组织的一种类型,公立大学具有明显的社会公共性质,但也具有遵循教育客观发展规律的学术本位特殊性质。本文从组织管理的逻辑起点出发发现:学科目录逻辑、问题导向逻辑和单位治理逻辑是我国公立大学组织管理的现实逻辑基础,并可汇集为政治逻辑的综合,这在一定程度上偏离了大学组织学术本位的原则,不利于公立大学按照高等教育发展规律以提升大学的学术创新能力,需要从基于认识论的学术逻辑出发,反思与重构多样性、自组织的学术组织管理及其治理机制,改革相应的管理体制。