Shanghai housing reform. Program a burden on foreign investors

This document contains a summary of the Housing Reform Program created in Shanghai, China, in 1991, which requires monthly contributions of all employers and employees in Shanghai to a "Collective Reserve Fund." The program also applies to foreign investment enterprises and must be followed by all enterprises, regardless of any previous housing benefits that an enterprise may be providing its employees. Employers must deduct 5% from each employee's salary (with a minimum) monthly and must match that amount. The total is paid into an account in the employer's name with the People's Construction Bank of China. The total amount collected and matched for an employee is considered the property of the employee, but the account is administered by the employer as a collective trust account. Each employee's balance may be withdrawn upon retirement, leaving the area, or purchasing a home and leaving state-owned housing. Foreign investment enterprises contribute a reduced amount in recognition of the fact that they pay salaries that are higher than those of state enterprises. The Housing Reform Program also requires employers to contribute to doubled rent subsidies for public housing, requires workers to purchase housing construction bonds in order to be eligible for newly allocated public housing, calles for housing to be sold at favorable prices, and creates a system whereby mortgages can be obtained from the Collective Reserve Fund.     

Violate, incur sanctions, and exhaust: the steep price of judicial review under Illinois Council

This Article analyzes the decision in Shalala v. Illinois Council on Long Term Care, Inc., in which the Supreme Court held that providers seeking to challenge Medicare regulations must first pursue those challenges through an administrative review process, except when application of this rule would result in "no review at all." In reaching this decision, the five-justice majority rejected the interpretation given to prior holdings by many commentators and circuits, and reasoned that it was appropriate to require providers to exhaust their administrative appeals even though the penalties for the challenged violations would not be stayed during the process. Given the nature of the administrative appeal process and the scope of penalties that may be assessed against Medicare providers, the author argues that the decision in Illinois Council evidences excessive deference towards the agency, or a disinclination on the part of the court towards entertaining Medicare lawsuits, either of which bodes ill for providers seeking judicial relief.     

Reconciling cultural diversity with a democratic community: Mestizaje as opposed to the usual suspects

A fascinating development within the liberal‐communitarian debate is how to deal with cultural diversity in increasingly heterogeneous democracies. Particularly noteworthy are Will Kymlicka's recasting of liberalism to deal with cultural minorities, especially the indigenous peoples of Canada and Charles Taylor's and Michael Walzer's articulation of a ‘deep diversity’ with regard to the federal relationship of Quebec to Canada as a whole. Both approaches, though, insufficiently address how combinations of cultures have been underway in the Americas for the past 500 years. Instead, I contend that mestizaje, the combination of cultures which has ensued in Mexico and the United States Southwest, articulates a ‘unity in diversity’ in which cultures transform each other without culminating in assimilation. To bolster my exegesis of mestizaje from the works of the Virgil Elizondo and Gloria Anzaldua, I accent how Jeremy Waldron's cosmopolitanism, Iris Marion Young's relational group theory, and Homi Bhabha's hybridity similarly illustrate how proposals such as Kymlicka's or Taylor/Walzer's insufficiently incorporate how integral heterogeneity is to cultural identity. In view of how ‘the border’ between the United States and Mexico exemplifies the growing intersection of diverse cultures from the developed and developing world, mestizaje offers that the intersection of multiple cultures in collaborative—not hegemonic—relations is intrinsic to realizing democratic citizenship.     

Making Way: Legal Mobilization,Organizational Response,and Wheelchair Access

Questions of how and why organizations respond to legal rights are analyzed in several sociolegal research traditions, including studies of legal mobilization, regulation, and neo‐institutionalist accounts of the diffusion of organizational structures. Using original qualitative and quantitative data, this article examines the responses of ten organizations to wheelchair access rights that are found in various provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and related state laws. We find that concepts from each of the research traditions are useful in understanding the sources of variance in response among the organizations in our sample. We focus on four key variables: legal mobilization, commitment, professionalization, and routinization. We contend that these variables offer a relatively parsimonious language for studying organizational responses to the law and for aggregating insights from competing approaches in the literature, both of which are essential to advancing our understanding of the conditions under which law changes society.     

Cooperatives for “fair globalization”? Indigenous people, cooperatives, and corporate social responsibility in the Brazilian Amazon

Cooperatives and socially responsible corporations are being hailed as possible correctives to the socioeconomic and ecological exploitation of transnational capitalism. AmazonCoop—a cooperative linking indigenous Brazil nut harvesters and the multinational firm The Body Shop through trade and development projects—capitalized on indigenous symbolism to generate significant material benefits for both parties. At the same time, however, it made indigenous people more vulnerable and dependent, failed to promote participatory development, masked the effects of unfavorable state policies, and perpetuated discriminatory distinctions among indigenous people. Furthermore, the cooperative did not provide an organizational framework to ameliorate the vulnerabilities of indigenous identity politics or transform symbolic capital into enduring political-economic change. This case strongly supports arguments that cooperatives must be rooted in participation, democratic member control, and autonomy if they are to promote “fair globalization” or social transformation rather than institutionalize existing patterns of exploitation.     

The control of professionals in a democracy

The term professional is used in a variety of ways as people discuss issues of professionalism in the public service. There are a1so some particular concerns regarding potential conflicts between ideas of democratic control over people who have expert knowledge and skills. These various ideas of professionalism are examined, and a series of more precise defintione are offered. Time-stratified systems theory is used to clarify the concepts and to indicate how control can be exercised over various types of public employees depending upon the concept of professional being used.     

Sudden death from hyponatremia and hypokalemia in a woman with Gardner syndrome.

The authors present the case of a 39-year-old woman with Gardner syndrome who died from marked hyponatremia and hypokalemia. Gardner syndrome is a rare variant of the familial adenomatous polyposis syndrome in which the affected individual develops thousands of polyps within the gastrointestinal tract, with a 100% risk of eventual malignant change. Individuals with Gardner syndrome also develop a variety of extra gastrointestinal abnormalities. In the case presented, a woman with a clinical history of Gardner syndrome who had previously undergone a total colectomy with ileorectal anastomosis presented to the hospital with a recent history of sore throat, fever, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. The symptoms were considered clinically to be due to a viral gastroenteritis. She was admitted to the hospital, where she had episodes of collapse believed to be vasovagal in origin. She suffered a cardiorespiratory arrest and died 24 hours after admission. After her death, electrolyte estimation performed on blood taken shortly before death revealed severe hyponatremia and hypokalemia. Postmortem examination showed the gastric mucosa to be virtually covered by innumerable adenomatous and hyperplastic polyps. Fewer polyps were seen within the small bowel. There was no evidence of malignancy. The features were consistent with Gardner syndrome. Hyponatremia and hypokalemia have been described in patients with villous adenomas and in familial adenomatous polyposis syndromes associated with numerous colonic polyps. The cause of death in this case was considered to be hyponatremia and hypokalemia associated with florid gastric polyps in a woman with Gardner syndrome. Viral gastroenteritis contributed to the death by causing further electrolyte depletion. To the best of the authors' knowledge, death in Gardner syndrome has not been described as attributable to such metabolic disturbance, in particular in those who have only gastric, small bowel, and rectal polyps remaining after total colectomy.