Civil society organizations,Africa’s Great Lakes Region conflict,and attempts at regional peacebuilding

This article advances the conceptualization of ‘regional peacebuilding’ and suggests six essentials for effective regional peacebuilding that when put together present a structured analytical approach. The article rationalizes the need for civil society organizations’ (CSOs) regional peacebuilding in Africa’s Great Lakes Region based on the existing conflicts that are of a regional nature. CSOs’ attempts at regionalizing responses are discussed in the context of their constraints and impediments, including inadequate analysis of regional dimensions of conflict and fragmented action. A comparative analysis of two intergovernmental organizations reveals that CSOs’ responses are further handicapped by regional organizations’ narrow conceptualization of peace and security coupled with the limited space for their participation in shaping the organizations’ agenda. Efforts to address these constraints should be coupled with CSOs’ efforts to innovatively develop invented spaces to collaborate on regional peacebuilding.     

Community Participation in Local Governance – An Empirical Analysis of Urbanized Local Governments in the Philippines and Uganda

This article addresses community participation in local government, a controversial issue in the era of governance. Under the context of decentralisation reform in particular, active participation of the community in local governance has been expected, where as a range of critical arguments has been made on its concepts, ideas and feasibilities. Despite the significance of the issue, practices of community participation at the local level are academically under-examined, even in developed countries, let alone in developing countries. Given such situations, empirical observations from local governments of the Philippines and Uganda are introduced and comparatively analysed with in a specific analytical framework of participation. By doing so, the artide leads us to some keys to success for community participation schemes in the development context, which include the local leadership, functions of the central government and enhancing awareness of values of community participation both in the public and the local government.     

Community engagement in Australian local governments: a closer look and strategic implications

Public input into decision-making through participatory and deliberative democratic practices has become a widely accepted and legislated responsibility of Australian local governments. At any one time, councils are leading submission processes, workshops and online surveys on a multitude of projects, ranging from long-term community strategic plans to public art projects. The increase in these practices has been exponential, leaving little time for critical reflection. The lack of empirical data to illustrate how community engagement is understood and practised in different councils has hindered sector-wide reflection. This paper presents the findings of the ‘Local Government Community Engagement Census’, a survey of 175 councils – approximately half – from 4 of Australia’s eastern states. This sectoral snapshot provides a picture of how councils understand, prioritise and practise community engagement, allowing critical reflection, an interpretation of implications and suggesting areas for future research.     

May You Live to Be 150!

Daniel Callahan urges us to deliberate with a view to halting trends that might result in extending human lives to, say, 150 years. The socio-economic disruptions, he argues would be insupportable; changes affecting us all should not be left to personal choice or ceded to the juggernaut of untrammeled scientific inquiry and biomedical innovation. Goodman agrees that the ramifications of social change are often unpredictable, especially given the magnitude and accelerating pace of technological advance. But such changes are also polyvalent and will bring opportunities as well as challenges. Ageing, Callahan argues, is not a disease. So the desire to push back its boundaries is a medical aspiration, not a medical need. But that claim involves a category error. For although ageing is not a disease but a process, it is a process that makes us vulnerable to quite a variety of diseases and debilities. Morally, Goodman argues, it is wrong for “us” to seek to set limits to one another’s lives. Clearly most human beings would prefer any advances in life’s duration to proceed pari passu with preservation of the quality of life. But quality should not be made a fig leaf for sordid economic concerns. Human life is an intrinsic, not instrumental value. Humans can be creative long into old age, but persons should not be counted worthless just because they are no longer active, say, in the marketplace. Population is not pollution. But that equation raises its head ominously when Callahan grounds the mandate for collective deliberations about life extension on the analogy of laws restricting a supposed right to pollute. Citing prophetic visions of an age of reconciliation between the generations, Goodman sees community and communication—a mandate and an ethos of service—as critical to the effort to rise to the moral challenges that will present themselves as the trend toward life extension takes hold.

少数民族旅游发展中社区自主权的思考——以泸沽湖为例

社区自主权是少数民族旅游发展中的一种特殊方法,在旅游利益、文化自觉、民族自觉方面具有重要意义,但存在在着“阴影”,因此必须加强社区营造,走向良性的社区主权的运作。     

社区卫生服务建设中的问题与对策——以石家庄为个案的调查

目前,我国社区卫生服务正逐步走入每个家庭,全市社区卫生服务网络基本形成,服务功能逐步完善,但是社区卫生服务在开展的过程中,由于各种原因也出现了一些带有普遍性的问题,影响了社区卫生服务作用的发挥。根据石家庄的社区卫生服务建设情况和社区居民享受社区卫生服务等的调查,提出了政府重视、提高从业人员素质、加大宣传力度、完善机制的解决对策。     

Broadcasting party information: Can the introduction of community radio reduce the effective number of parties?

The introduction of a more majoritarian electoral system is expected to result in the consolidation of a party system as predicted by institutionalists. However, voters must have information on party viability and be able to coordinate with other voters within a constituency for an electoral system reform to have the expected outcome. I argue that the introduction of independent local radio frequencies can promote party consolidation by enabling coordination on viable candidates because of better information that becomes common knowledge. The effective number of parties (ENEP) is expected to be lower in constituencies where a larger proportion of voters listen to local radio. To test this hypothesis, access to television signals is used as an instrument for radio listening behavior to address potential reverse causality. Using 2SLS, I find that an increase in one standard deviation in regular radio listening is associated with a decrease of 0.42 ENEP in Thailand.