Myanmar has undergone a remarkable political transformation in the last 2 years, with its leadership voluntarily transitioning from an isolated military regime to a quasi-civilian government intent on re-engaging with the international community. Decades of underinvestment have left the country underdeveloped with a fragile health system and poor health outcomes. International aid agencies have found engagement with the Myanmar government difficult but this is changing rapidly and it is opportune to consider how Myanmar can engage with the global health system strengthening (HSS) agenda. Nineteen semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with representatives from international agencies working in Myanmar to capture their perspectives on HSS following political reform. They explored their perceptions of HSS and the opportunities for implementation. Participants reported challenges in engaging with government, reflecting the disharmony between actors, economic sanctions and barriers to service delivery due to health system weaknesses and bureaucracy. Weaknesses included human resources, data and medical products/infrastructure and logistical challenges. Agencies had mixed views of health system finance and governance, identifying problems and also some positive aspects. There is little consensus on how HSS should be approached in Myanmar, but much interest in collaborating to achieve it. Despite myriad challenges and concerns, participants were generally positive about the recent political changes, and remain optimistic as they engage in HSS activities with the government.
How and with what effects do institutions diffuse between international organizations (IOs)? An emerging literature extends a key insight of the study of diffusion processes among states to the international level, establishing that the adoption of institutions in IOs is regularly conditioned by the choices of other IOs. Yet, this literature neglects a key contextual difference between the two settings: unlike in the hierarchically structured organizations that have dominated the literature on diffusion, institutional creation, and change in IOs are the result of decentralized bargaining among sovereign governments. This paper develops a heuristic model that shows how diffusion between IOs shapes decision-making within them through its impact on the institutional preferences of individual governments. The model establishes that, unlike in diffusion processes among states, convergence is an unlikely outcome of diffusion between IOs. By implication, studies that take institutional convergence as their starting point are likely to underestimate the pervasiveness of diffusion effects. I demonstrate these arguments with a case study of the establishment of a regional dispute settlement system in Mercosur, a regional organization in Latin America.
This is the second Annual Report of the International Joint Commission concerning progress toward the achievement of the water quality objectives which the Governments of the United States and Canada adopted in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. That Agreement was signed April 15, 1972, on behalf of their respective Governments by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada. The Commission's first report to the Parties and to the State and Provincial Governments was based primarily on 1972 conditions, but also reflected significant developments through mid 1973. The present report similarly covers progress during 1973 and takes cognizance of developments in the early months of 1974.
Miesten juomista kontrolloidaan enemmän kuin naisten Juomisen epävirallinen kontrolli on selvästi yhteydessä sukupuoleen: miesten alkoholin käyttöä kontrolloidaan enemmän kuin naisten, eikä kontrolli riipu juomisen määrästä. Suomalaisista miehistä noin neljännes ja naisista noin joka kymmenes oli kokenut, että joku oli viimeisen vuoden aikana yrittänyt saada heitä juomaan vähemmän tai harvemmin. Tavallisimmin juomista yritti rajoittaa puoliso. Epävirallinen kontrolli on Suomessa kuitenkin harvinaisempaa kuin useimmissa muissa tutkituissa maissa Euroopan mittakaavassa Suomi sijoittuu suunnilleen keskitasolle. Suomessa siis vallitsee epäsuhta juomisen suuren määrän ja epävirallisen kontrollin välillä. Voidaankin pohtia, juotaisiinko Suomessa vähemmän, jos siihen puututtaisiin nykyistä herkemmin myös epävirallisissa yhteyksissä, lähinnä kodeissa. Kontrollin kohteeksi joutumisen todennäköisyys kasvaa sitä mukaa, mitä enemmän juo tai mitä useammin on humalassa. Tutkittujen maiden välillä oli suurta vaihtelua siinä, kuinka suuri osa vastaajista oli kokenut juomiseensa puututtavan. Kehitysmaissa puuttuminen näytti olevan huomattavasti teollistuneita länsimaita yleisempää. Näissä maissa aktiivisia puuttujia ovat muutkin kuin puolisot. Juomisen epävirallisen kontrollin taustalla on aina jokin syy, eikä kontrollia ole ilman ongelmia. Ennen puuttumistoimiin ryhtymistä kontrolloijan on oltava sitä mieltä, että toisen juominen on ongelmallista. Tietoisuus ongelmista aiheuttaa paineita ja haittaa kontrolloijalle. Kun juomishaitat lisääntyvät yhteiskunnassa, lisääntyvät myös välillisesti tai suoraan muihin kuin juojiin kohdistuvat haitat. Niillä voi olla kauaskantoisia vaikutuksia kansanterveyteen ja jopa kansantalouteen. Suomessa juomista kontrolloidaan virallisesti enemmän kuin monissa muissa maissa. Suomessa alkoholia myös käytetään enemmän kuin useissa muissa Euroopan maissa, joten haitatkin ovat yleisempiä. Kun alkoholijuomien hinnat laskivat Suomessa vuoden 2004 veronalennuksen ja alkoholin tuontirajoitusten purkaminen seurauksena, alkoholin kulutus ja juomisesta aiheutuvat haitat lisääntyivät huomattavasti. Juomisen ja juomishaittojen kontrolloinnin siirryttyä osittain valtiolta paikalliselle ja yksilötasolle epävirallisen sosiaalisen kontrollin, käytännössä läheisten ihmisten kontrollin, merkitys on korostunut. Stakesin tutkija Kirsimarja Raitasalon väitöstutkimuksen kohteena oli alkoholinkäyttöön kohdistuva epävirallinen kontrolli. Tutkimus tarkasteli alkoholin käytön epävirallista kontrollia Suomessa ja kansainvälisesti. Päähuomio oli puolisoiden välisissä kontrolliyrityksissä, sillä juomisen kontrollointi on yleisintä parisuhteissa. ; This study examines the informal social control of alcohol consumption. The study attempts to discover how respondents interpret the survey questions about alcohol consumption and about the control of alcohol usage, and how control exercised by the spouse affects the drinker's concerns about self-control and the drinking patterns. Further, the study discusses the cultural differences in drinking and social control. The research object is viewed from the perspective of social control theories. The study proceeds from the subjective level to the general social level, and further to the informal social control of drinking in Finland as seen through international comparisons. The main focus is on control exercised by the spouse, as controlling alcohol consumption is most common in a couple relationship. The degree of formal and informal social control depends on the norms for acceptable drinking and drinking-related problems. Furthermore, the underlying reasons that trigger control are linked with both the cultural norms as well as subjective views on when alcohol use becomes unacceptable. Informal social control of drinking is expressed only when drinking exceeds the subjective or cultural norms. It should be noted here that subjective norms are always linked with the norms of the society. Hence, the level of informal social control is always linked to the level of formal control. Recently, EU legislation and the expanded markets have caused the traditional Finnish alcohol policy and restrictive pricing policies to lose much of their impact. Consumer prices were decreased as a result of the reduction of excise duty on alcohol and the liberation of passenger import in 2004. Consequently, alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems have increased dramatically. In the current situation, where control has to some extent been removed from the central, governmental level to the local and individual levels, the importance of informal social control in reducing alcohol consumption and alleviating the related problems has increased. Research data was partly taken from the international GENACIS Project (Gender, Alcohol and Culture: An International Study). Of the participating countries, the 18 countries that had asked a question on the social control of drinking were included in this analysis. As for Finland, the data from the STAKES 2000 Drinking Habits Survey was used. In addition, a qualitative study by STAKES in 2001 were used in this study to analyse in more detail how the questions in the other sections of the survey were understood. Gender is clearly a factor in the informal social control of drinking: irrespective of the amount of drinking, the drinking patterns of men are more often controlled than the drinking patterns of women. Of the Finnish men, 23% felt they had been persuaded to drink less or less often during the last 12 months. For women, the percentage was 9. Control was most commonly expressed by the spouse. This is true across all the countries that participated in the surveys, including Finland. The amount of alcohol consumed and especially the frequency of excessive drinking, together with the drinking-related harm, increase the likelihood of becoming a subject of social control. Across the countries, there was considerable variation on how many of the respondents had felt that their drinking habits were being controlled. Compared with the industrialised countries, interference in general seems to be much more common in the developing countries. In these countries, other members of the society not just the spouse have also actively interfered with drinking. The frequency and extent of the social control of drinking seems to be strongly linked with the amount of abstainers in the country. The more there are abstainers, the more drinking is controlled. For men, but not for women, the frequency and extent of control is linked with overall alcohol consumption. The qualitative study shows that there are several ways to interpret the meaning of "controlling drinking". This draws attention to the formulation of the survey questions: they need to be explicit in order to be uniformly understood by all of the respondents. Social informal control of drinking is always triggered by some underlying reason. When there are no problems, there is no need for control. The problems may be serious or the severity can be a subjective estimate of the situation. Before applying any form of social control, the controller perceives that the drinking is harmful on some level. The frequency of informal social control reflects the extent of drinking-related problems in the society. Being aware of these problems causes stress and anxiety to the people who are looking after the drinker. Living under such stress usually causes problems that are reflected in the physical and/or mental health, work or in other areas of life. In society, the increase in drinking-related problems will directly or indirectly give rise to problems concerning non-drinkers. These problems will burden e.g. public health care, and may have far reaching effects on primary health and even national economy.
Monetary targets have been instituted in major countries for nearly a decade. There has been a rather wide variety of experience with them, both in the control procedures and in the success with which targets have been achieved. This paper presents results of a reaction function investigation into the extent to which elements of discretionary monetary policy remained even under targeting. Generally, targets probably were successful in focusing central bank attention on the long run. But a conclusion here is that distinguishable elements of discretion (as opposed to rule), evidenced by movements in targeted aggregates themselves, were present for several countries, including the United States.
When are individuals more likely to support immigration? We suggest here that regional international organizations (IOs; for example, the European Union) publicly release reports about the scale and benefits of immigration to member states in the region in which these IOs operate. We argue that unlike individuals who are uninformed about immigration, informed individuals who have more knowledge of the main regional IO in which their country participates will be more likely to employ immigration reports released by their regional IO to construct their immigration attitudes. They will also perceive that these reports are credible. The credibility of these reports helps individuals with more knowledge about their region's main IO to view immigrants favorably, which translates to support for immigration. We test our prediction by developing a finite mixture model that statistically accounts for the econometric challenges that emerge when uninformed individuals "save face" by disproportionately opting for the middle "status quo" category in ordinal survey response variables of immigration support. Results from the finite mixture model corroborate our prediction and are more reliable than estimates from a standard ordered probit model. (International Interactions (London)/ FUB)
This article considers the relationship between geopolitical change and the evolving international rules on military force. Its focus is the impact of the United States' rise to hegemonic status on the rules governing recourse to force (the jus ad bellum) and the conduct of hostilities (the jus in bello, otherwise known as 'international humanitarian law'). For reasons of space and clarity of analysis, the article does not focus on the different, more traditional IR questions of whether and why the behaviour of the United States might be constrained by these rules.
