Hurdles to peace: a level-of-analysis approach to resolving Sudan’s civil wars

Why do some peace agreements end armed conflicts whereas others do not? Previous studies have primarily focused on the relation between warring parties and the provisions included in peace agreements. Prominent mediators, however, have emphasised the importance of stakeholders at various levels for the outcome of peace agreements. To match the experience of these negotiators we apply a level-of-analysis approach to examine the contextual circumstances under which peace agreements are concluded. While prominent within the causes of war literature, level-of-analysis approaches are surprisingly scant in research about conflict resolution. This article compares two Sudanese Peace Agreements: the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005) that ended the North–South war and led to the independence of South Sudan, and the Darfur Peace Agreement (2006) which failed to end fighting in Darfur. We find that factors at the local, national and international level explain the different outcomes of the two agreements. Hence, the two case studies illustrate the merit of employing a level-of-analysis approach to study the outcome of peace agreements. The main contribution of this article is that it presents a new theoretical framework to understand why some peace agreements terminate armed conflict whereas others do not.     

非营利组织参与社会保障的优势分析

中国进入全面建设小康社会的新时期,而城乡贫困问题的客观存在、收入分配差距的持续扩大、市场竞争带来的失业现象,以及工业化与城市化的快速发展等,都迫切需要推动社会保障改革事业的健康发展和逐步完善。本文认为,非营利组织参与社会保障具有独特的优势与作用。政府应从各方面促进非营利组织参与社会保障;非营利组织也应创造条件,积极参与社会保障的管理和服务。     

基于综合集成研讨厅的应急警务情报研判

随着社会矛盾的尖锐化,应急警务活动日益频繁。情报研判的准确性在保证应急警务的制胜方面起着重要的作用。本文分析了现阶段应急警务活动中常用的情报采集与研判方式及其优缺点;在介绍综合集成研讨厅模型的基础上,设计了应急警务导入该方法的思路。最后结合当前应急警务队伍的实际状况,分析了引入综合集成研讨厅方法存在的困难,并提出了相应的改进对策。     

金融风暴下的"农民工失业潮"及对策分析

金融风暴的冲击使我国农民工就业面临新的困难和挑战,新形势下的农民工就业问题受到社会的普遍关注。本文首先介绍由金融风暴引发的“农民工失业潮”,其次从加强农民工就业能力培训、鼓励农民工回乡创业等五个方面探讨了当前促进农民工就业与发展的对策：     

1994-2007年国内公开发表有关眼动论文的统计分析

目的运用文献计量学的方法对1994-2007年我国眼动研究论文进行统计、分析,研究探讨我国眼动研究的现状及其发展趋势。方法以中国期刊网(下称CNKI)为检索数据源,检索有关尘眼动究论文。结果以"眼动"为关键词,出版年限定在1994-2007年进行检索,检索出14年间国内公开发表的眼动研究文献共173篇,文献主要分布在心理与行为研究、心理科学等56种心理学、教育学专业期刊上。对所检出的结果进行文献计量分析。主要项目包括论文分析、论文作者所在系统分析、论文主题内容分析。结论我国近14年来在眼动研究方面获得了稳步发展,呈现出迅速增长势头。研究领域非常广泛,涉及阅读、问题解决、工程心理、体育心理、病理心理、广告心理、仪器设备等7个方面。但是在眼动研究领域所表现的一些薄弱环节需要在今后的工作中进一步加强。     

A Qualitative Analysis of Vietnamese Adolescent Identity Exploration Within and Outside an Ethnic Enclave

Focusing on identity development explorations enables a greater understanding of contexts that affect immigrant adolescents. Utilizing thematic and grounded narrative analysis of 46 journal writings, during a one-month period, from first and second generation Vietnamese adolescents ranging in age from 15 to 18 (26 residents of a culturally and politically active ethnic enclave in Southern California; 20 adolescents living outside the enclave), this study establishes ways in which a focus on social context and exploration processes illuminates the complexity of immigrant adolescents’ identity formation. The two groups shared many similarities, including precipitants to exploration and steps undertaken to explore identity. However, two factors—social and cultural influences and emotional reactions—revealed interesting contrasts distinguishing enclave from non-enclave dwelling Vietnamese adolescents. Data also suggested that immigrant adolescents strive to integrate different domains of identity (ethnicity, gender, career) both with one another and with the historical, social, and cultural contexts they occupy.

Examining Temporal Associations Between School Connectedness and Early Adolescent Adjustment

This study examined (a) the associations between school connectedness and early adolescent adjustment problems over a 1 year period and (b) the equivalence of these associations across gender. Five hundred middle school students (53.4% female), initially in the 6th and 7th grades, participated in the two-wave study. Results from two-group cross-lagged panel analyses were consistent across boys’ and girls’ data. After controlling for baseline levels of adjustment problems, school connectedness predicted lower levels of early adolescent conduct problems 1 year later. Regarding the opposite direction of associations, and even after baseline levels of school connectedness were taken into account, conduct problems predicted lower levels of subsequent school connectedness. There were no cross-lagged associations between depressive symptoms and school connectedness, although elevated levels of baseline depressive symptoms predicted higher levels of subsequent conduct problems. Findings elaborate previous research by demonstrating that early adolescents actively shape the middle school environment.

Buyer and Seller Differences in Business‐to‐Business Negotiations

The purpose of this article is twofold: first, to examine the differences between buyers' and sellers' use of negotiation tactics in face‐to‐face business‐to‐business (B2B) negotiations and second, to explore how negotiators' professed negotiation styles influence buyers' and sellers' use of tactics. The methodology is a multiple case study analysis of eighteen negotiators representing twelve companies in six real‐life buyer–seller negotiations in B2B settings analyzed using qualitative research methods, including both comparative analysis and frequency analysis. We found some difference between buyers' and sellers' use of negotiation tactics, which suggests this question deserves further empirical study. Buyers' and sellers' use of specific tactics differs according to which overall strategy the negotiators chose, and sellers generally use a greater number of negotiation tactics than buyers. The findings challenge previous findings that suggest that B2B negotiations are collaborative and that negotiators communicate in a collaborative manner. The findings also increase our understanding of buyers' and sellers' variable use of tactics in the course of everyday practice as well as the interplay between negotiation tactics and strategies.     

Adaptive strategies of smaller foreign investors in the Russian agricultural sector: identity,narrative and performance

This paper utilises a qualitative narrative analysis approach to examine smaller foreign investors operating within the Russian agricultural sector as private farmers: the foreign versions of the krestyansko-fermerskiye khoziaistva (peasant farms) that were the early focus of agrarian reform. With difficulty experienced by foreign investment in Russian agriculture, and with the Putin administration shifting its focus to larger scale agriculture, interest lies in the fate of these smaller foreign investors, set in the broader question of: ‘Is there really a future for smaller foreign investors in Russia?’ The investors were aligned along a performance and narrative spectrum, and the construction of their identities – guided by their adaptive processes on the ‘Turnerian’ frontier – were found to shape their business conduct, and interactions with labour forces and regional authorities. Negative prejudgment of the labour force existed amongst the investors – with associated negative notions of trust, inefficiency, laziness, morality, and sexual deviancy – and they were involved in explicit or ambiguous forms of gift-gifting, drawing parallels to Soviet blat behaviour. This paper concludes that despite efforts to construct identity, the narratives of the investors betrayed themselves in certain aspects, with elements of ‘undoing’ in the identity process.     

The Investment Approach to Public Service Provision

The investment approach to public service provision is now receiving considerable attention worldwide. By promoting data‐intensive assessments of baseline conditions and how government action can improve on them, the approach holds the potential to transform policy development, service implementation, and program evaluation. Recently, variations on the investment approach have been applied in Australia to explore the effectiveness of specific programs in employment training, criminal justice, and infrastructure development. This article reviews the investment approach, presents a Public Investment Checklist to guide such work, and discusses three examples. It concludes by considering the implications of investment thinking for the work of policy designers and public managers.