Suchergebnisse

This book was originally written as a doctoral dissertation. The research in this book was carried out among banana-farming households in the districts of Masaka and Kabarole in Uganda. A gendered livelihood approach was used. The research focused on the identification of critical factors that need to be taken into consideration in the development of relevant policies for HIV/AIDS-affected agriculture-based households or those that are at risk. The book shows that HIV/AIDS causes significant negative effects on the lives of those affected. Their resources are affected due to HIV/AIDS-related labour loss and asset-eroding effects and disinvestment in production and child education. While in the overwhelming majority of the affected cases the effects of AIDS are negative and lead to increased impoverishment and vulnerability, for some households HIV/AIDS-related effects are manageable. It is concluded that a household's socio-economic status and demographic characteristics influence the magnitude of HIV/AIDS-related impacts experienced and capacity to cope. The book also highlights some historically specific social practices, policies, and ideologies that continue to maintain or reproduce distinct forms of inequality, with certain social groups being marginalized and others being privileged. Unless these are redressed, they will continue to aggravate people's vulnerability regardless of the type of shock that they are exposed to or experience

This book was originally written as a doctoral dissertation. The research in this book was carried out among banana-farming households in the districts of Masaka and Kabarole in Uganda. A gendered livelihood approach was used. The research focused on the identification of critical factors that need to be taken into consideration in the development of relevant policies for HIV/AIDS-affected agriculture-based households or those that are at risk. The book shows that HIV/AIDS causes significant negative effects on the lives of those affected. Their resources are affected due to HIV/AIDS-related labour loss and asset-eroding effects and disinvestment in production and child education. While in the overwhelming majority of the affected cases the effects of AIDS are negative and lead to increased impoverishment and vulnerability, for some households HIV/AIDS-related effects are manageable. It is concluded that a household's socio-economic status and demographic characteristics influence the magnitude of HIV/AIDS-related impacts experienced and capacity to cope. The book also highlights some historically specific social practices, policies, and ideologies that continue to maintain or reproduce distinct forms of inequality, with certain social groups being marginalized and others being privileged. Unless these are redressed, they will continue to aggravate people's vulnerability regardless of the type of shock that they are exposed to or experience

This report attempts to identify the cause and magnitude of potential environmental impacts resulting from the influx of refugees from Rwanda into north western Tanzania, and to separate this change from that already occurring under the pressure of the indigenous population. It evaluates alternative mitigation measures for these impacts, and recommendations for preferred measures. The report is based on two visits to Tanzania by a team consisting of experts in natural resources, economics and human geography; field investigations were made during September and October 1994. The study team found that continuing excessive demand upon the scanty natural resources of the region is likely to prove unsustainable and serious damage will result. (DÜI-Hff)

This book explores the impact of electoral rules on political party development in Central and East Europe. It finds that 'high district magnitude' proportional electoral systems encourage centralised organisational development and campaigning – where communication with voters is conducted primarily via mass, social and digital media – while small electoral districts stimulate grassroots campaigning. As a result, low magnitude electoral systems are more likely to create an active role for party members, stimulating membership recruitment. The book further examines how parties organise and campaign on the ground. The analysis of in-depth surveys and interviews with party elites in Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia sheds light on areas of party life that are rarely examined, including party fundraising. Overall, the effects of electoral systems on party organisation and campaigning reflect patterns previously observed in Western Europe, demonstrating that a degree of convergence has occurred. Alison F. Smith is a lecturer in comparative government, European politics and Russian politics. She has published several academic articles on the roles of political party members in Central and East Europe.

In this paper we analyze the influence of direct democratic institutions on the size and development of the shadow economies. The framework developed predicts a negative relationship between the degree of direct democracy and the size of the shadow economy. Countries where direct democratic institutions support democratic life are expected to be characterized by a lower informal sector, ceteris paribus. The empirical / econometric investigation of a sample of 56 democracies confirms our core hypothesis and demonstrates that the effect of direct democratic institutions on the shadow economy is negative and quantitatively important; the results are robust and also depend on the interaction of direct democracy with other political institutions, such as district magnitude.

The authors of The Economic Effects of Constitutions use econometric tools to study what they call the "missing link" between constitutional systems and economic policy; the book is an uncompromisingly empirical sequel to their previous theoretical analysis of economic policy. Taking recent theoretical work as a point of departure, they ask which theoretical findings are supported and which are contradicted by the facts. The results are based on comparisons of political institutions across countries or time, in a large sample of contemporary democracies. They find that presidential/parliamentary and majoritarian/proportional dichotomies influence several economic variables: presidential regimes induce smaller public sectors, and proportional elections lead to greater and less targeted government spending and larger budget deficits. Moreover, the details of the electoral system (such as district magnitude and ballot structure) influence corruption and structural policies toward economic growth. Persson and Tabellini's goal is to draw conclusions about the causal effects of constitutions on policy outcomes. But since constitutions are not randomly assigned to countries, how the constitutional system was selected in the first place must be taken into account. This raises challenging methodological problems, which are addressed in the book. The study is therefore important not only in its findings but also in establishing a methodology for empirical analysis in the field of comparative politics.

Representation and Institutional Design examines how variation in the structures and processes of state legislatures affect how legislators represent their constituents. It examines whether electoral laws, term limits, professionalism, and district size and magnitude affect legislators' electoral vulnerability, ambition, and role orientations, as well as their actions involving symbolic, service and policy representation. This book reveals that legislative staff increases legislators' closeness to their constituents, legislative resources tend to increase symbolic and service representation but do little to help policy representation, and term limits tend to weaken relationships between legislators and constituents. These issues address what has been an enduring question for most nations: how to best represent their citizens and their needs.

Cover -- Contents -- List of Boxes, Tables and Figures -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- 1 The Study of Electoral Systems -- 1.1 Why Study Electoral Systems? -- 1.2 Classifying Electoral Systems -- 1.3 Confl icting Views on the Meaning of 'Representation' -- 1.4 Conclusion -- 2 The Single-Member Plurality System and its Cousins -- 2.1 The Single-Member Plurality System in Practice -- 2.2 Britain's Long Road to Electoral Reform -- 2.3 The Electoral Reform Debate in Other SMP Countries -- 2.4 Other Plurality Systems -- 2.5 Conclusion -- 3 Majority Electoral Systems: Two-Round Systems and the Alternative Vote -- 3.1 The Two-Round System -- 3.2 The Alternative Vote System -- 3.3 Assessing Majority Electoral Systems -- 3.4 Conclusion -- 4 The List Systems of Proportional Representation -- 4.1 The Origins of List PR Systems -- 4.2 Electoral Formulas: Largest Remainders and Highest Averages -- 4.3 District Magnitude: Constituency Size and Multi-Tier Districting -- 4.4 Ballot Structure: Closed, Ordered and Open Lists -- 4.5 The Operation of the List PR System in the Netherlands -- 4.6 Conclusion -- 5 Mixed-Member Electoral Systems -- 5.1 The Operation of Germany's Mixed-Member Electoral System -- 5.2 Proportionality, Parties and Politics in Germany -- 5.3 Other Mixed-Member Electoral Systems -- 5.4 Conclusion -- 6 The Single Transferable Vote System of Proportional Representation -- 6.1 STV in Ireland -- 6.2 How STV Works -- 6.3 Variations in STV Design -- 6.4 The Consequences of STV for the Political System -- 6.5 Conclusion -- 7 The Consequences of Electoral Systems -- 7.1 Proportionality Profi les of Different Electoral Systems -- 7.2 Electoral Systems and Party Systems -- 7.3 Parliament as a 'Microcosm'? -- 7.4 The Strategic Effects of Electoral Systems -- 7.5 Conclusion -- 8 The Politics of Electoral System Design.

An extensive literature debates the causes and consequences of the desegregation of American schools in the twentieth century. Despite the social importance of desegregation and the magnitude of the literature, we have lacked a comprehensive accounting of the basic facts of school desegregation. This paper uses newly assembled data to document when and how Southern school districts desegregated as well as the extent of court involvement in the desegregation process over the two full decades after Brown. We also examine heterogeneity in the path to desegregation by district characteristics. The results suggest that the existing quantitative literature, which generally either begins in 1968 and focuses on the role of federal courts in larger urban districts or relies on highly aggregated data, often tells an incomplete story of desegregation.

"In September 1993 a devastating earthquake rocked Latur, a district near Mumbai, India. To convey the unprecedented magnitude of this disaster, the mainstream newspaper the Times of India published editorials and photographs; in addition, their internationally famous staff cartoonist, R. K. Laxman, drew a cartoon depicting a human skull and a ravaged hut. A week later, the newspaper's "letters to the editor" column included an angry reader's note criticizing Laxman's insensitivity at caricaturing human misery"--

This book analyses the magnitude of public expenditure on education, the composition. of such expenditure, the flow of funds from the Centre to the districts, and the. bottlenecks in the process, with a focus on elementary education. Most of the. existing body of work in this area concentrates on Central Government`s budgetary. provisions instead. The significance of this research lies in that it dwells on. the major challenges confronting the States with regard to these issues. Public Provisioning for Elementary Education in India focuses on elementary. education in the context of the ongoing

Theoretically, there are several reasons to expect education to have a positive effect on health, and empirical research suggests that education can be an important health determinant. However, it has not yet been established whether education and health are indeed causally-related, and the effects found in previous studies may be partially attributable to methodological weaknesses. Moreover, existing evidence on the education-health relationship using information of schooling reforms for identication, generally uses information from fairly recent reforms implying that health outcomes are observed only over a limited time period. This paper examines the effect of education on mortality using information on a national roll-out of a reform leading to one extra year of compulsory schooling in Sweden. In 1936, the national government made a seventh school year compulsory; however, the implementation was decided at the school district level, and the reform was implemented over a period of 12 years. Taking advantage of the variation in the timing of the implementation across school districts,by using county-level proportions of reformed districts, census data and administrative mortality data, we find that the extra compulsory school year reduced mortality. In fact, the mortality reduction is discernible already before the age of 30 and then grows in magnitude until the age of 5560.

Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- About the Author -- List of Tables and Figure -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Conceptual Framework -- Rural Non-farm Sector and Process of Urbanisation -- Selection of Case Study -- Objectives and Methodology -- References -- Chapter 2: Occupational Diversification and Rural Transformation -- Introduction -- Overview of Rural Non-farm Diversification: Insights from Literature -- Occupational Diversification After 2000 -- Overview of Macro Tendencies -- Employment and Income in Economic Sectors -- Sectoral Employment and Income Shares -- Labour Productivity Across Sectors -- Correlates of Rural Non-farm Sector -- Dynamics of Structural Changes in Rural Economy -- Concluding Remarks -- Annexure -- References -- Chapter 3: Changes in the Employment Scenario in Gujarat -- Introduction -- Overall Scenario -- Workforce Composition -- Non-Agricultural Employment: A Disaggregated View -- Size Structure of Enterprises -- Rural-Urban Distribution of Employment in Non-Farm Enterprises -- Share of Activities in Total Non-Agricultural Employment -- Share of Industry Groups in the Net State Domestic Product -- Emerging Economic Activities in Gujarat -- References -- Chapter 4: Structural Changes and Implications for Urbanization -- Introduction -- Rural Economic Changes and Nature of Urbanization -- Relation Between Census Towns and Metropolitan Areas (Diffused vs. Metropolitan Growth) -- Constituents of Urban Growth in Gujarat -- Determining Factors for Emergence of Census Towns -- Magnitude of the Future Urbanization Challenge -- Concluding Remarks -- Annexure -- References -- Chapter 5: Changing Socio-Economic Profile of Urbanised Villages (Census Towns) in Gujarat -- Introduction -- Profile of Census Towns -- Tribal Area -- Bhiloda, Aravalli District -- Sanjeli, Dahod District -- Main Issues.

This paper examines the effects of India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, currently the world's largest public employment program, on household consumption and poverty rates in rural India. Combining regionally coded data from consumption surveys with information on the district-wise rollout of the program, we employ a regression discontinuity design to estimate program effects during the years 2007 and 2008. We find large, season-specific effects among a traditionally deprived sub-group of the rural population, whose incomes are particularly dependent on agricultural wage labor. We find that for this group of households,which accounts for thirty percent of India's rural population, employment opportunities under the scheme have cut poverty during the agricultural lean season by as much as one half while we find no effect during the agricultural peak season. In a cost-benefit analysis we find that consumption increases among this group of households are of the same order of magnitude as the wage outlays of the program. We document that consumption among this group of households had previously exhibited severe systematic seasonal fluctuations and conclude that the employment program has had a lasting effect on consumption smoothing across agricultural seasons.

Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- References -- Party Names in Polish and English -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- 1 Theoretical and Methodological Framework -- 1.1 Approaches to Studying Political Parties -- 1.2 Political Parties as Communication Organisations -- 1.3 Research Outline -- 1.4 Data Selection and Party Characteristics -- 1.5 Research Methods -- References -- 2 Democracy in Poland: The Post-communist Regime and Its Performance -- 2.1 The Legacy of the Communist Regime -- 2.2 Trust in Political and Public Institutions -- 2.3 Low Voter Turnout -- 2.4 Towards an Illiberal Democracy -- References -- 3 The Emergence of the Party System in Poland-From Instability to Permanent Rivalry Patterns -- 3.1 Party Institutionalisation -- 3.2 Organisation Model(s) of Political Parties -- 3.3 Entry Barriers to the Political Market -- Registration of Candidate Lists -- Electoral Threshold and Voting System (Formula for Allocating Seats) -- District (Constituency) Magnitude -- Public Funding of Parties -- References -- 4 Changing Communication Environment -- 4.1 Parties' Communication Orientation -- 4.2 Media Logics in Party Communication -- 4.3 Factors Shaping Politicians' Relations with the Media in Poland -- References -- 5 Are Political Party Structures Still Important? -- 5.1 Beyond the Party Central Office-Organisational Potential -- 5.2 Local Structures in the Eyes of Party Elites -- 5.3 Beyond Mass Media: The Communication Potential of Political Parties' Structures -- References -- 6 Political Party Membership Features -- 6.1 Legal Regulations Regarding Party Membership -- 6.2 Party Members' Profiles -- 6.3 Motivations for Joining Political Parties -- 6.4 Party Members' Activities -- 6.5 Internal Communication: Practices vs Members' Expectations -- References.