Suchergebnisse

This Article assesses the economic future of Hong Kong after reunification with China. After reviewing Hong Kong's economic history, this Article discusses Hong Kong's present economic situation, and both the positive and negative influences on its economic future. The author identifies China's self-interest in Hong Kong's continued economic prosperity as a positive factor for Hong Kong's economy. China's self-interest stems largely from the recognition that Hong Kong's economic failure will impact China's politics, economics, and foreign relations. Negative developments within China, however, could lead to a precipitous downturn in Hong Kong's economy. Negative developments include potential military and political crises, government corruption, and further deterioration of U.S.-China relations. The article concludes, however, that Hong Kong continues to offer a highly favorable business environment for international investors, especially for U.S. businesses. Furthermore, Hong Kong will continue to offer a more stable investment environment than many other countries in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

Argues that while religious traditionalists tend to hold more conservative positions on a wide range of issues than religious progressives, they also have an economic interest in relatively more liberal viewpoints with respect to socioeconomic & racial matters & government efforts to ameliorate economic & racial inequalities. It is suggested that religious traditionalists have a status interest in defending their way of life against secularists, which leads them to more socially conservative views. However, data from the 1991 General Social Survey are used to demonstrate that religious traditionalists are no more conservative on racial & economic issues than religious progressives. Moreover, because the religiously orthodox are disproportionately composed of members of disadvantaged groups, they may be more liberal than their progressive counterparts on these issues. Thus, the monolithic category of religious Right often attributed to religious traditionalists is taken to characterize only a small proportion of this group. 4 Tables, 1 Figure, 38 References. D. M. Ryfe

Considers the nationality problem in the former-Soviet state of Lithuania, focusing on the status of various ethnic groups. Throughout the Soviet period, Russians enjoyed majority status in Lithuania, while Lithuanians & other ethnic groups such as Poles were considered minority groups. This situation flipped in the post-Soviet context, with Lithuanians gaining majority status & Russians reverting to an ethnic minority. It is shown that, as Lithuanians pursued their goal of a national state in the late 1980s & early 1990s, Russians continued to maintain strong relations with Moscow, while Poles developed their own national-political program. Although the Lithuanians succeeded in achieving their goal of a nation-state, it is suggested that this success only stimulated other ethnic groups to struggle for their own cultural goals. It is concluded that the policies of the Lithuanian government have reinforced the corporate identity of both Russians & Poles, but without resulting in overt interethnic conflict. D. M. Smith

ABSTRACTMany countries have experimented with decentralization and privatization policies in hopes of increasing public sector efficiency. This article explores the impact of decentralization and privatization of education in Chile. Decentralization did have some benefits such as improved administrative efficiency and greater productive efficiency. However, government size, as measured by the total personnel working in the education sector, increased under decentralization. Privatization of education in Chile created a type of voucher system. Although educators are more accountable to parents who compare products, the greatest problem is that schools do not necessarily respond to competition by promoting better quality education. Comparisons of student performance in public and private schools in Chile is not conclusive, but national average scores have not risen even though private provision of education has expanded dramatically while public education has waned. Finally, both decentralization and privatization resulted in greater inequity in expenditures and in the performance of students from different income groups.

Reports that the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted sometime in the early part of the next century reinforce the need to make retirement policy in the United States more accommodating for those who want to work. While there is general agreement that disincentives to work at older ages in both Social Security and employer pension plans played an important role in the dramatic drop in retirement age from 1945 through 1985, skepticism exists over the ability of policy changes to both stop this trend and increase work at older ages. In this policy brief we summarize how government policy has influenced retirement since the end of World War II, show that reductions in some of the anti-work aspects of our retirement system in the 1980s appear to have ended the trend toward earlier and earlier retirement, and offer five pro-work policies which would increase work for twenty-first century older Americans.

American mucocutaneous leishmaniasis is an important health problem in Peru, particularly in the mountainous Cuzco Region, where 25% of all new cases reported in 1989 were located. Cases have increased considerably since the beginning of the 1980s, when large-scale seasonal migration to endemic zones occurred, particularly the forest area of Madre de Dios, following the discovery of new gold deposits there, and the deterioration in the economic situation in Peru. Following the lack of official response from the Peruvian government, hundreds of people suffering from leishmaniasis in the Cuzco area formed self-help associations with the objective of obtaining the drugs needed to treat their disease. The major achievement of this spontaneous movement, which was supported by several public and private institutions, was to encourage sick people, particularly patients with mucosal lesions, to emerge from isolation. As a result, the prevalence and incidence of the disease have now considerably decreased in the region.

This paper analyces two questions with the purpose to understand the behaviour of the Catholic Church in Guatemala during the Década Revolucionaria. First, the weakness of the Church (a institution without economical resources; without priest; etc.) promoted by the liberal revolution and ideological doctrinarianism of the 1945 movement; and second, the fear of the catholic group originated in the political mobilization fomented by the government of the Revolution. ; Este trabajo intenta comprender el comportamiento de la Iglesia católica en Guatemala durante la Década Revolucionaría considerando dos elementos que lo condicionaron claramente: la debilidad de la Iglesia (falta de medios económicos, escasez de sacerdotes, desamparo jurídico, etc.) provocada por el triunfo liberal y agravada por la intransigencia ideológica de los sectores revolucionarios y el miedo que entre los sectores eclesiásticos difundió la movilización que provoca, entre otras cosas, un incremento de las tensiones entre los sacerdotes y sus feligreses.

A culture-specific framework for analysis of discourses of legitimation is developed & applied to the 1989 Tiananmen Square (Beijing, People's Republic of China) demonstrations. W. R. Fisher's (1987) narrative paradigm is extended to suggest that the discourse of legitimation is intimately conected to national or political myths. National myths are powerful legitimators, because they provide a motive for collective action & perform many vital psychological roles. This framework of legitimation is contrasted to that of Jurgen Habermas's (1975) theory of legitimacy. It is argued that these demonstrations are properly understood in terms of a struggle by the students to deconstruct the community national myth, & the corresponding effort of government leaders to resist this challenge. Thus, it is argued that what was at stake in the demonstrations was not a set of political procedures, but the very terms on which the Chinese society would imagine its history & identity. D. M. Smith

This article discusses the nature of Italy's major post-war government party, Christian Democracy (recently collapsed, after almost half a century in power), and its local power structures. Its main thesis is that, for a series of historical and socio-economic reasons, it was constituted initially of two types of party - a notables' party in southern Italy and a mass party in northern Italy - held together by generic anti-communism and state patronage. Moreover, as a result of a succession of crucial developments (party reorganization in the 1950s, Vatican II in the 1960s), it became a sort of catch-all party ante litteram, or more accurately a national `syndicate of political machines'. The second part of the article documents the various mechanisms employed to ensure political consensus in two contrasting regions (Naples and Vicenza) in the two major periods (1950s-1960s and 1970s-1980s). It concludes with an indictment of the party in the current Italian political crisis.

JAPANESE OFFICIAL DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE (ODA) IS UNDERGOING A MAJOR TRANSFORMATION IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA. AS TOTAL AID SUPPLY HAS STAGNATED IN THE 1990S, JAPAN HAS EMERGED AS THE NEW TOP ODA DONOR. TAKING THE LEADERSHIP IN THIS AREA, JAPAN HAS RECENTLY JOINED THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY IN SHIFTING FROM PROVISION OF TRADITIONAL "HARDWARE" INFRASTRUCTURE AND EQUIPMENT, TO "SOFTWARE" - HUMAN RESORCE DEVELOPMENT AND INSTITUTIONAL BUILDING, EMPHASIZING SOCIAL ISSUES LIKE AIDS, WOMEN IN DEVELOPMENT, POPULATION, AND THE ENVIRONMENT. ALTHOUGH EXPRESSING STRONG POLICY SUPPORT FOR SOFTWARE AID ISSUES, JAPAN'S PRESENT BUREAUCRATIC COMPLEXITY, HUMAN RESOURCE CONSTRAINTS, PROJECT MONITORING AND EVALUATION, AND GENERALLY CLOSED POLICY PROCESS LIMIT THE ODA ADMINISTRATION'S ABILITY TO IMPLEMENT THEM. THIS ANALYSIS SUGGESTS SOME CHANGES WHICH MAY BENEFIT THE PRESENT SYSTEM: STRUCTURAL REFORM, INCLUDING STREAMLINING THE ODA BUREAUCRACY AND STRENGTHENING ITS SOFTWARE AID ELEMENTS, AND OPENING ODA PROCESSES WIDER TO PARTICIPATION BY THOSE OUTSIDE THE GOVERNMENT, INCLUDING FOSTERING LINKAGES WITH EXTERNAL ORGANIZATIONS.

The relationship between political & media agenda building is examined with reference to mobilization of the Spanish antimilitary movement, 1976-1993. Three models of media-state relations are discussed in terms of possible media outcomes of social protest & used to examine political & media agenda building in relation to movement challenges. Analysis of the antimilitary movement coverage by three national daily newspapers demonstrates that political opportunity structures shape media opportunity structures. There are, however, small windows of opportunity when the causal effect works in the other direction. Media structures can help a movement open, reset, & sometimes block official policies, but media opportunities are not favorable in the long run, because government elites can bureaucratize & trivialize movement challenges, thereby reducing their newsworthiness. It is concluded that institutionalized media abide by journalistic rules that tend to validate the political class & dilute social protest. 4 Tables, 1 Figure, 54 References. Adapted from the source document.

Investigates perception of the relationship between citizens & postcommunist government officials in Ukraine & the Czech Republic, using focus group discussions & one-to-one interviews conducted in multiple Ukrainian & Czech cities. Ukrainian (N = 5,143) & Czech (N = 1,459) text-units of focus group transcripts were analyzed to determine citizens' attitudes toward the transition to democracy & market economics, expectations for official-citizen relations, personal experiences with officials, & past & future expectations. Several findings are reported: (1) The difference between citizens' allegations & actual experiences of political corruption was greater in the Czech Republic than in Ukraine. (2) Significant discrepancy was revealed between Czech & Ukrainian citizens' experiences with officials. (3) Respondents in eastern & western Ukraine exhibited similar attitudes toward both low- & high-level corruption. It is concluded that differences between Czech & Ukrainian citizens' perceptions of officials are representative of each government's differing treatment of its citizens immediately following the disintegration of the USSR. 14 Tables. J. W. Parker