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Thirty years after the April Revolution, Portugal is in the midst of the most successful democratic experience of its history. A product of the pact signed by the principal political parties and the Armed Forces Movement, the Portuguese constitution established a semi presidential system of power, which ensures that the principal organs of sovereignty exercise reciprocal control over each other. The presence of a unique political-military body — the Council of the Revolution — acted as a safety valve for the system during the transition period until 1982. Successive revisions of the constitution have perfected this architecture of power, while eliminating the ideological rhetoric inherited from the revolutionary period This article describes the functioning of the system on the basis of the evolution of electoral results, of the various arrangements attempted for forming governments, and of characteristics of the principal political parties. The growing tendency toward abstention is the object of particular consideration. The highly autonomous judicial system and the armed forces, increasingly under civ ilian control, is also be analyzed. In conclusion, the article considers the challenges of Portugal's immediate future, including the deepening of participatory democracy, the need to lessen both the bureaucratic weight and the excessive centralism of the state, and the quest for a system of justice that will be at once speedier and more efficient.

This study explores the literature on factors favorable to democratization. It is argued that there has been a domestic dominance, with international factors a forgotten dimension. It is also argued that the limited body of work dealing with international factors has been empirical in nature. This study sheds lights on one international factor in democracy promotion. The theoretical contribution of this study is the presented analytical framework for democracy promotion. The analytical framework consists of actors, interests, methods, channels, relations and impact. It is argued that, within a specific time-context (setting): (1) There are actors (2) that may promote the democracy norm and reinforcing interests. ( 3) They may use different methods of pursuing their interests and (4) that may be channeled towards domestic actors. (5) This may create certain relations and (6) have different impact on domestic actors. The empirical aim of this study is to illustrate the analytical framework. The empirical contribution is to provide an improved understanding of democracy promotion and democratization in postcommunist Europe. This is done by analyzing the role of the EU as democracy promoter in Slovakia, Belarus and FRY from 1995 to 2003. The analysis illustrates different interests, methods, channels, relations and impact between the EU as democracy promoter and the targeted states in Slovakia, Belarus and FRY.

Thirty years after the April Revolution, Portugal is in the midst of the most successful democratic experience of its history. A product of the pact signed by the principal political parties & the Armed Forces Movement, the Portuguese constitution established a semi presidential system of power, which ensures that the principal organs of sovereignty exercise reciprocal control over each other. The presence of a unique political-military body -- the Council of the Revolution -- acted as a safety valve for the system during the transition period unti1 1982. Successive revisions of the constitution have perfected this architecture of power, while eliminating the ideological rhetoric inherited from the revolutionary period. This article describes the functioning of the system on the basis of the evolution of electoral results, of the various arrangements attempted for forming governments, & of characteristics of the principal political parties. The growing tendency toward abstention is the object of particular consideration. The highly autonomous judicial system & the armed forces, increasingly under civilian control, is also be analyzed. In conclusion, the article considers the challenges of Portugal's immediate future, including the deepening of participatory democracy, the need to lessen both the bureaucratic weight & the excessive centralism of the state, & the quest for a system of justice that will be at once speedier & more efficient. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThis paper analyses the relationships between illness and structures of authority in the oasis of Dunhuang in the late 20th century and during the time of the Guiyijun regime which ruled the area as an independent warlord state from the middle of the 9th to the beginning of the 11th century. Both the medieval and the modern systems for dealing with illness in Dunhuang are analysed here as part of a larger problem of threat as an inherent element in any order of authority. In this paper, illness is taken as a political and administrative problem, both in the sense that political forces are mobilised around it and in the sense that political and administrative structures give illness an organisational form. Guiyijun systems of storage and structures of governance in the political and familial realms are understood as the reference point for the strategies deployed in the face of illness 'events' and as explanatory frameworks closely linked to accounts of dysfunction in the internal order of the body. The late 20th century order of disease management in Dunhuang forms a counterpart to these medieval structures, despite the major differences in the forms for responding to and attacking illness in the oasis in the public health regimes of the modern era and in the medical and ceremonial practices used a millennium before.

Using vocational choice theory and social dominance theory as guiding frameworks, this paper examines the interrelationships between the types of social institutions that a person occupies, on the one hand, and the sociopolitical attitudes and behavioral predispositions that a person displays, on the other. Beginning with Holland (1959, 1966), numerous researchers have documented the fact that people's work-related values tend to match the values of their work environments. Researchers have also found, as we might expect, that this value match yields superior job performance and greater employee satisfaction. Social dominance theory has proposed an important expansion of this research: people's sociopolitical attitudes (e.g. anti-egalitarianism) should also be compatible, or congruent, with their institutional environments (e.g. schools, workplaces). A growing body of research supports this claim. Specifically, recent research has shown that hierarchy-enhancing (HE) organizations (e.g. police forces) tend to be occupied by those with anti-egalitarian beliefs, while hierarchy-attenuating (HA) organizations (e.g. civil liberties organizations) tend to be occupied by those with relatively democratic beliefs. This research has also provided evidence for five (non-mutually exclusive) processes underlying this institutional assortment: self-selection, institutional selection, institutional socialization, differential reward, and differential attrition. This paper reviews the literature bearing on each of these processes, and suggests key paths for future research.

Springing from the argument in recent scholarship that 'race' is a doctrine that emerged only in the post-Enlightenment, this essay develops a theory concerning the ideological history of 'racism', understood in its modern Western sense. While it is impossible to examine all forms of Western racism, the author focuses on evolving reactions in European travel accounts, belles-lettres and anthropology to the Khoikhoi, popularly known as 'Hottentots', a people that became proverbial as the most wretched and degraded of all 'savages'. The question posed is why the Khoikhoi, a relatively peripheral and cooperative people, attracted this virulent hatred.Challenging the assumption of the small body of modern scholarship on the Khoikhoi, I maintain that this spite derived not simply from a sense of the Hottentots' 'Otherness', but more accurately from the awareness that this people upset models of ethnicity that supported the Western vision of the non-European world. Europeans needed to neutralize the ideological threat represented by the Khoikhoi, a programme that culminated in the development of the modern science of 'race'. 'Race', and its corresponding ideology of 'racism', I conclude, involves not merely the exclusion, but an approximation and appropriation of the 'Other' into Western systems of thought: the ultimate and fatal destiny of this highly distinct and independent culture.

Although it can be argued that, in order to expose Christianity's role as a tool to pacify the masses in capitalist exploitation, a revolutionary can appropriate and use Christianity to undermine itself, there is ambiguity as to how far this re-appropriation can go without running the danger of re-affirmation. After converting to Marxism, the literary Ngugi was consciously aware that his abstract economic analysis needed a credible vehicle of delivery to his peasant and worker audience's communicative repertoire, but his conversion also meant that he should abandon the rather romantic indulgence in Gikuyu mysteries of imagination, and turn instead to Christian mythology and imagery that provided him the rich and effective vessel so evident in Devil on the Cross and Matigari. But how does Ngugi reconcile the strategic value of religion with basic Marxism that categorizes it as opium to desensitize people from the realization of their material situation, and thus rob them of the potential action for their salvation? And, once the revolutionary has used religion successfully to attain liberation, how does he dispose of it? In this study, I argue that Ngugi does not seem to have resolved this dilemma in his literary writing, and examine his use of Christianity and the tensions and contradictions that this creates in interpreting the body of his works as a unit.

The Certified Public Manager (CPM) program has attracted some attention in the modest published literature on noncredit continuing education in public administration. However, this body of scholarship has not paid comparable attention to noncredit certificates affiliated formally or informally with CPM programs and awarded in the process of earning the full certification. This article presents results of an exploratory survey of these noncredit certificates. The results indicated that about a third of all CPM programs offer at least one midpoint certificate prior to a student's completion of the full certification. There were wide variations in titles, duration and price of the pre-CPM certificates. On the other hand, these certificates usually focused on required workshops rather than elective ones, on grading and on elements of pedagogy besides classroom attendance. Eight noncredit certificates in general public administration were not formally linked to CPM, but about a third of them had an informal relationship to the local CPM program, permitting the transfer of some or all of these workshop hours toward the full CPM certification. The results of this exploratory research indicate that this little-known phenomenon of pre-CPM certificates and other noncredit certificates that often have links to CPM may be emerging as a component of the CPM process and, therefore, might deserve a higher profile from pedagogues.

For non-profit social agencies, new contract funding structures have increased their vulnerability. Collaboration is a strategy for dealing with reductions in the availability of funding and the pressures to 'do more with less' but there are few illustrations of how this might be achieved. The main body of literature devoted to creating models for collaboration was developed in the world of the new public administration and market models. Many of the less formal approaches consist of checklists and mock contracts that strive to account for variables that may affect collaborations. While valuable for focussing attention on key aspects, these approaches assume a static set of factors that predict successful collaborations. In this project, an alternative to these types of functional or instrumental methods of partnership development was created through a particular type of action research known as co-operative inquiry. Through the iterative stages of reflection and action, a new conceptualization of collaboration evolved and a subsequent model developed. The model is based on criteria derived from the experiences of the community members and accounts for the dialectical relationship of the individual agency and the collective non-profit sector. Through the process of the research, a transformation in thinking, purpose and practice occurred, resulting in a new metaphor for living and working in the community.

The authors review research on police effectiveness in reducing crime, disorder, and fear in the context of a typology of innovation in police practices. That typology emphasizes two dimensions: one concerning the diversity of approaches, and the other, the level of focus. The authors find that little evidence supports the standard model of policing—low on both of these dimensions. In contrast, research evidence does support continued investment in police innovations that call for greater focus and tailoring of police efforts, combined with an expansion of the tool box of policing beyond simple law enforcement. The strongest evidence of police effectiveness in reducing crime and disorder is found in the case of geographically focused police practices, such as hot-spots policing. Community policing practices are found to reduce fear of crime, but the authors do not find consistent evidence that community policing (when it is implemented without models of problem-oriented policing) affects either crime or disorder. A developing body of evidence points to the effectiveness of problemoriented policing in reducing crime, disorder, and fear. More generally, the authors find that many policing practices applied broadly throughout the United States either have not been the subject of systematic research or have been examined in the context of research designs that do not allow practitioners or policy makers to draw very strong conclusions.

Purpose.To illustrate a formula to estimate the amount of risk reduction required to break even on a corporate health promotion program.Design.A case study design was implemented. Base year (2001) health risk and medical expenditure data from the company, along with published information on the relationships between employee demographics, health risks, and medical expenditures, were used to forecast demographics, risks, and expenditures for 2002 through 2011 and estimate the required amount of risk reduction.Setting.Motorola.Subjects.52,124 domestic employees.Measures.Demographics included age, gender, race, and job type. Health risks for 2001 were measured via health risk appraisal. Risks were noted as either high or low and related to exercise/eating habits, body weight, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, cholesterol levels, depression, stress, smoking/drinking habits, and seat belt use. Medical claims for 2001 were used to calculate medical expenditures per employee.Results.Assuming a $282 per employee program cost, Motorola employees would need to reduce their lifestyle-related health risks by 1.08% to 1.42% per year to break even on health promotion programming, depending upon the discount rate. Higher or lower program investments would change the risk reduction percentages.Conclusion.Employers can use information from published studies, along with their own data, to estimate the amount of risk reduction required to break even on their health promotion programs.

Small (approximately 6 inch long, or hand-held) reconnaissance micro air vehicles (MAVs) will fly inside buildings, and require hover for observation, and agility at low speeds to move in confined spaces. For this flight envelope insect-like flapping wings seem to be an optimal mode of flying. Investigation of the aerodynamics of flapping wing MAVs is very challenging. The problem involves complex unsteady, viscous flow (mainly laminar), with the moving wing generating vortices and interacting with them. At this early stage of research only a preliminary insight into the nature of the little known aerodynamics of MAVs has been obtained. This paper describes computational models for simulation of the controlled motion of a microelectromechanical flying insect – entomopter. The design of software simulation for entomopter flight (SSEF) is presented. In particular, we will estimate the flight control algorithms and performance for a Micromechanical Flying Insect (MFI), a 80–100 mm (wingtip-to-wingtip) device capable of sustained autonomous flight. The SSEF is an end-to-end tool composed of several modular blocks which model the wing aerodynamics and dynamics, the body dynamics, and in the future, the environment perception, control algorithms, the actuators dynamics, and the visual and inertial sensors. We present the current state of the art of its implementation, and preliminary results.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Gasoline is subject to dramatic price swings. A multitude of factors affect U.S. gasoline markets, including world crude oil costs and limited refining capacity. Since the 1990s, another factor affecting U.S. gasoline markets has been a wave of mergers in the petroleum industry, several between large oil companies that had previously competed with each other. For example, in 1999, Exxon, the largest U.S. oil company, merged with Mobil, the second largest. This testimony is based primarily on Energy Markets: Effects of Mergers and Market Concentration in the U.S. Petroleum Industry (GAO-04-96, May 17, 2004). This report examined mergers in the industry from the 1990s through 2000, the changes in market concentration (the distribution of market shares among competing firms) and other factors affecting competition in the industry, how U.S. gasoline marketing has changed since the 1990s, and how mergers and market concentration in the industry have affected U.S. gasoline prices at the wholesale level. To address these issues, GAO purchased and analyzed a large body of data and developed state-of-the art econometric models for isolating the effects of eight specific mergers and increased market concentration on wholesale gasoline prices. Experts peer-reviewed GAO's analysis."

Many states are under court-order to reduce local disparities in education spending. While a substantial body of literature suggests that these orders and the resulting school finance equalizations have increased the level and progressivity of state education spending, there is little evidence on the broader effects of such measures on the change in total resources available not only for schools, but for other local government programs as well. When states spend more on education, both state and local budget constraints change, which may affect both state and local spending and revenue decisions. We find that while mandated school finance equalizations increase both the level and progressivity of state spending on education, states finance the required increase in education spending in part by reducing their aid to localities for other programs. Local governments, in turn, respond to the increases in state taxation and spending by reducing both their own revenue-raising and their own spending on education and on other programs. Thus, while state education aid does increase total spending on education, it does so at the expense of drawing resources away from spending on programs like public welfare, highways, and hospitals. These findings provide insight not only into the ultimate incidence of mandated increases in state education aid, but more broadly into the effectiveness of using earmarked funds to achieve redistribution.

The district court below correctly upheld the constitutionality of the Lynn School Committee's Voluntary Plan for School Improvement and the Elimination of Racial Isolation. In particular, the district court's conclusion that promoting racial diversity and reducing racial isolation in the Lynn schools are compelling governmental interests is well supported by both the expert testimony introduced at trial and numerous research studies documenting the benefits of racially diverse student bodies and the harms of racially segregated learning environments. Among the many benefits that accrue from student body diversity are increased academic achievement, greater educational and occupational aspirations, more cross-racial understanding, a stronger sense of civic engagement, and an increased desire to live and work in settings with members of multiple racial groups. Among the harms associated with racial isolation and segregated learning environments are adverse effects on school attendance and performance, stereotyping and racial hostility, decreased opportunities to learn from members of other racial groups, and poorer preparation to address interracial contexts as adults. Research studies also support the district court's conclusion that the Lynn Plan is narrowly tailored because of the necessity of employing race-conscious policies in attaining student bodies that can promote the benefits of racial diversity and prevent the harms of racial isolation.