Labour Crisis and Innovation in Developing Countries: An Analysis of Locum Program for Health Personnel in Malawi

This article interrogates the dynamics of public sector innovation within the context of labor crisis in a developing country environment. It finds that to minimize the impacts of labor shortage in the health sector, Malawi uses a locum program where health workers are encouraged to work extra hours and are paid overtime allowances accordingly. The article observes that although the program has been pivotal in motivating the existing staff to go the extra mile and attempt to cover up for the labor shortages, it is rocked with several challenges which usually disrupt effective service delivery. These include delayed payments, sustainability problems, governance challenges, work ethics challenges, and negative effects of the quality of services delivered. Taking a qualitative approach, the analysis combines the use of primary and secondary data.     

Social Connection to Neighbors,Multiple Victimization,and Current Health Among Women Residing in High Crime Neighborhoods

This study assessed current health [physical health, bodily pain, global distress, posttraumatic stress-related disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and illicit substance use] among 160 minority women residing in high crime areas with varying numbers of different types of victimization histories and varying levels of social connections (SCs) to neighbors. Multivariate analyses of covariance indicated a main effect for number of different types of victimization and for SC to neighbors, after considering ethnicity, immigration, and marital status. Women with two or three+ different types of victimization reported higher global distress, PTSD symptoms, and illicit substance use than women with zero or one type of victimization. Likewise, women with low levels of SC to neighbors reported higher bodily pain than women with high levels of SCs to neighbors.     

Reforming International Environmental Governance: An Institutionalist Critique of the Proposal for a World Environment Organisation

This article argues that a World Environment Organisation (WEO) does not promise to enhance international environmental governance. First, we claim that the establishment of an international organisation alone in a policy field currently populated by regimes cannot be expected to significantly improve environmental governance because there is no qualitative difference between these two forms of governance institutions. Second, we submit that significant improvement of international environmental governance through institutional re-arrangement must rely on a modification of decision-making procedures and/or a change of institutional boundaries. Third, we develop three principal models of a possible WEO. A WEO formally providing an umbrella for existing regimes without modifying issue-areas and decision-making procedures would be largely irrelevant. A WEO integrating decision-making processes of existing regimes so as to form comprehensive world environment rounds of intergovernmental bargaining would be largely dysfunctional and prone to a host of negative side-effects. A supranational WEO including large-scale use of majority decision-making and far-reaching enforcement mechanisms across a range of environmental issues might considerably enhance international environmental governance, but it appears to be grossly utopian. In conclusion, a WEO cannot be at the same time realistic, significant and beneficial for international environmental governance. Available political resources should be invested in advancing existing and emerging sectoral environmental regimes rather than in establishing a WEO.     

Time and Punishment: Delayed Consequences and Criminal Behavior

This article develops two distinct explanations for the failure of potential consequences to influence behavior. Discounting is the tendency to deliberatively devalue the future. In contrast, poor impulse control refers to the failure to consider the future. The implications of this distinction were investigated with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health. The study produced several findings. First, both forms of present-orientation independently predicted a range of problem outcomes among respondents. Second, high discounting was a better predictor of deliberative or future-related problem outcomes, whereas poor impulse control was a better predictor of urge driven behaviors or conduct involving little forethought. Third, only poor impulse control but not high discounting predicted violent offending among respondents. While both forms of present-orientation were associated with property offending, high discounting was a stronger and more consistent predictor. These three findings were far more evident for males than they were for females.     

男、女戒毒劳教人员精神卫生状况的对照研究

目的采用目前较为成熟的人格、心理测量量表,研究戒毒劳教人员的人格特征、心理卫生状况。方法对16～61岁的508名戒毒劳教人员(其中男性258人,女性250人)进行MMPI、SCL-90的测试。结果MMPI测试显示男性戒毒劳教人员Hs、Pd、Pa、Pt、Sc、Ma均高于临界值,以Hs和Pa为最高;女性Hs、Pd、Pt、Sc均高于临界值,以Hs和Pd为最高。SCL-90测试显示戒毒劳教人员在各因子分上均高于中国常模,女性甚于男性。结论戒毒劳教人员普遍存在个性特征异常和心理卫生问题,男性者个性特征异常更为突出,女性者心理卫生状况尤其值得关注。     

Cross Border Health Care: An Analysis of Recent ECJ Rulings

Recent rulings of the European Court of Justice show a trend towards a virtual European health-care basket. Four developments underlie this trend. First, the competence of the European Union seems to mature in the field of health care. Secondly, through a variety of authorisation procedures, individual Member States can to a large extent determine the conditions for cross border care. Thirdly, recent court cases indicate that the co-ordination of cross border care increasingly becomes a EU matter. Finally, in particular border regions, more flexible procedures for cross border care are being developed. An analysis of these developments from an (economic) institutional/constitutional point of view shows that potential Pareto-improvements can be expected from recent changes. These improvements depend on the institutional/constitutional framework into which these rules and engagements are embedded. Our analysis suggests that, although the current (increasing) role for the EU seems desirable, diminishing the role that individual Member States can play is not. National authorisation procedures, local/regional arrangements and flexible rulings are mechanisms that can secure an efficient level of output and an optimal size of the jurisdiction responsible for cross border care. This leads to the following recommendations: Current authorisation procedures (which differ per Member State) have to be maintained in order to secure an optimal community size for cross border services and goods; Bilateral agreements and flexible procedures in cross border regions should be stimulated in order to adapt institutional arrangements to the demand for cross border care by (a group of) individuals. The increased competency of the EU in the field of health care can best be used to make authorisation procedures more consistent and stimulate regional cross border care arrangements.     

警察心理健康问题与对策

“心理健康”问题已成为全球瞩目的课题,我国警察的心理健康问题也早已凸现。针对目前人民警察队伍中普遍存在的心理健康问题,分析产生这些问题的主要原因、表现及其影响,以找到增进警察心理健康的策略。     

公安院校心理健康教育与心理训练模式的探索

根据警察的职业特点,提出了在公安院校开设《心理健康教育》课程、开展心理咨询、举办心理指导专题报告和讲座、建立学生心理素质档案和对学生进行心理训练的必要性及其具体模式。     

Depoliticisation and ahistoricism of transparency and accountability via global norms: assessing the EITI in Ghana and Nigeria

ABSTRACT

While extant assessments of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) have focused on institutional and regulatory regimes, such evaluations have largely tended to depoliticise institutions. This article argues that a more robust understanding of EITI processes must give central attention to historically situated political structures and power relations that continue to shape the present institutional quality/capacity of extractive industries' transparency, and EITI reforms. Assessing the EITI in Africa through the lens of historical institutionalism clarifies how global governance regimes interface with specific institutional pathways, state-corporation-civil society configurations, and historical legacies to produce outcomes that may complement or undermine intended reforms.     

Occupational safety and health of factory workers in European countries in the nineteenth century: historical and legal analysis

ABSTRACT

Historical and legal analysis of factory workers’ occupational safety and health in Europe in the nineteenth century has been carried out. In particular, the main causes of industrial injury and occupational diseases among factory workers of those times were analyzed and classified. The main negative consequences of child labor in factories are determined. The distribution of industrial injury and occupational diseases by age group is shown. The influence of labor conditions at the factories on the health of the descendants of factory workers of those times was analyzed. The features of the organization of control over compliance with the safety requirements of workers’ health are highlighted. The issues of introduction of legal regulation of factory workers’ safety and health, as well as child labor regulation (i.e. working hours limits and working conditions regulation) in factories, are analyzed. The issues of implementation of legislation that established compensations for factory workers in the event of industrial injury and occupational diseases of those times are analyzed.