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The Tamil Nadu Farmer Management of Irrigation Systems (TNFMIS) Act (2000) has legalised the participation of registered landowners (men and women) in the management of major and medium irrigation systems in the state. This article analyses the nature and extent of women's exclusion in the management of a medium irrigation system in this state. The evidence indicates that gender discrimination underlies both land ownership and election strategies to exclude women from participation.

This paper explores how formal and informal institutional arrangements are mobilised in unique ways to secure development approval on Sydney's fringe. The institutional configuration mobilised to secure approval rests on the identity and history of the developer and their project managers and their relations with state and development actors. This paper explores the differential enrolment of formal and informal institutions by those who principally operate within the area (local) and by those who have moved into the area from other regions (foreign). It becomes clear that local development actors are more likely to mobilise informal arrangements to secure approval, while foreign actors are more likely to use formal arrangements. However, this picture is complicated given that some foreign actors pursue local consultants in an effort to utilise existing development relations for their own purpose, while some local consultants avoid certain foreign developers for fear that existing relations will be damaged.

Résumé Les enfants d'immigrés progressent-ils plus vite à l'école que ceux dont les parents sont nés en France ? Pour répondre à cette question, cet article exploite des données longitudinales issues du panel d'élèves entrés dans le second degré en France en 1995. Comme le laisse à penser une partie de la littérature, les analyses empiriques sur les performances scolaires dans le premier cycle du secondaire montrent que leurs progrès sont effectivement plus rapides. Cependant, cela ne signifie pas nécessairement qu'ils apprennent davantage ou qu'ils sont plus doués ou plus motivés, comme on pourrait le déduire de l'hypothèse d'une sélection positive. Ce phénomène s'explique par le fait que ces élèves partent de notes plus basses au début de leur parcours scolaire.

To study and better understand people's working lives and organizational involvement in the context of their whole lives and in the context of the societal culture in which they have grown up and now live, it is helpful to bring together three key concepts of narrative, identity work and the social construction of reality. Such a move can be connected to the abandonment of widely used but limiting concepts, such as that of`managerial identity'. The essentially sociological nature of this move also provides an antidote to the equally limiting tendency towards the `narrative imperialism' which is associated with the idea of the `narrative self'. The value of the suggested theoretical framing and its linking of narrative, identity work and social construction is demonstrated by the close analysis of a large private autobiography of a former manager. This individual's identity work simultaneously uses discursively available narratives and creates new narratives (many small stories being embedded in one large life story), all within the framework of history, social structure and culture.

It is claimed that a new style of urban planning and policy intertwined with ICT is emerging and urban planning and ICT policy are no longer considered as separate disciplines. The interactions between electronic spaces and urban spaces are so complex and uncertain that confront urban planners and policy makers with great challenges. However, the assumption about the relationship between ICT and urban planning is mainly based on North American and European experiences. In the light of empirical evidence from Taipei City, this paper shows that this new type of urban planning and policy intertwined with ICT has existed in Asian city for a decade as well. Based on these results, this paper further reviews how the Taipei City government implements this new type of urban ICT planning and the validity and realism of its underlying assumptions. Finally, it also explores the extent to which urban ICT planning could promote positive synergies between physical and electronic developments.