Suchergebnisse

A number of consociational power-sharing initiatives are compared to explore some of the reasons why the elite conflict regulation model has not settled the Northern Ireland conflict. In the period 1972-85, four attempts by the British government to formulate and implement a power-sharing government within Northern Ireland failed as a result of the recalcitrance of one or other of the mainstream political parties. The 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) ended the Unionist veto and included the Irish government in the political process to find a solution. Since 1985, four efforts by both governments to establish a devolved power-sharing government have included previously marginalized political groups in the political process. In this article, I argue that since the 1985 AIA the bilateral external ethnoguarantors - the British and Irish governments - have contained the conflict by using a coercive consociational approach to elite conflict management. Since 1985, four efforts to promote contact between Unionists and Nationalists at all levels and all points show promise in reframing the conflict from resources and interests to identity needs. Such a transformational approach is necessary to open up thinking about conflict and in constructing a multimodal, multilevel contingency approach to peace-building and conflict settlement in Northern Ireland.

National doctrines are notoriously diverse, and often embody contradictory political values and criteria for membership. This article asks whether there is a 'core' national doctrine that connects republican, cultural, ethnic and liberal concepts of nationality. It considers two attractive candidates: one locating the 'core' in a doctrine about the political and psychological significance of pre‐political cultural identities, the other in the constitutional principle of popular sovereignty. After assessing the limitations of both, I sketch a different core national doctrine. This doctrine is constitutive and geopolitical, not constitutional or cultural. It has deep roots in the security concerns specific to the modern, pluralistic system of sovereign states, and prescribes in general terms the form that any community should take in order to survive or distinguish itself in that system. It says very little about the appropriate basis for such communities; the choice of political, cultural, ethnic or even racial criteria is left wide open. More than other versions, this 'core' is able to identify the common ground between cultural, constitutional, and other national doctrines. It also puts a sharp focus on the reasons why, historically, national and liberal values have been so hard to combine.

AbstractThere is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success,
nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.
Machiavelli.
This study assessed the communication methods used to promote energy reduction within a city council, and suggested ways of improving them. These methods were assessed using Lichtenstein's chaotic logic of organizational transformation, which uses chaos theory to divide a cultural change process into three stages. The council was identified as not having completed stage one of that change process, which involves the identification of reasons as to why a change process is necessary, and communicating about the change process to everybody in the entire organization. This was judged to be because the organization‐wide formal and informal communication network necessary for efficient cultural change had not been built. In order to improve the efficiency of communication, education and training methods, recommendations were made that included a council‐wide survey around energy issues, a series of informal meetings and the utilization of peer pressure and formal, informal, qualitative and quantitative feedback. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Objective. The contact hypothesis is difficult to test because of selectivity bias: the direction of causation between contact and attitudes cannot be definitively determined. Selectivity bias can be avoided given a sample for which, for reasons unrelated to group member attitudes, whites divide into groups that differ systematically in the amount of contact they have with blacks. This paper uses a natural experiment that provides such a test: All‐Star voting by baseball players versus fans. The average white player has more substantial and persistent contact with African Americans (as teammates) than does the average white fan, and the contact hypothesis would thus predict that players will discriminate less than fans, all else equal. Methods. Logistic, ordinary‐least‐squares (OLS), and tobit regressions are used to analyze the effect of candidate race on votes received, controlling for other factors. Results. No evidence is found of a differential in discrimination related to the amount of contact, although discrimination by both groups is found to decline between 1970 and 1980. Conclusion. The contact hypothesis is not supported; exogenous variations in the amount of interracial contact are not associated with difference in levels of discrimination.

Abstract

Valentine's Event Honors Persons Behind the Scenes


Motivating The Troops


Getting Volunteers Involved in Soliciting Gifts


Enable Volunteers To Apply Online


Share Supervisory Duties


Staff Liaisons Help Supervise Departmental Volunteers


Retention Ideas That Work


Five Practical Ways to Retain Volunteers


Connect With The Next Generation


Study Finds More Teens Volunteering


Make Correspondence Count


Letter Helps Move Volunteer From Prospect To Applicant


Videotapes Offer Several Training Advantages


Could Your Charity Benefit From a Visitor's Guide?


Ice Breakers For Remembering Names


Communicate Reasons For Volunteering


Brochure Focuses on Benefits of Joining Hospital's Auxiliary


Establish a Volunteer Development Committee


Getting Staff Buy‐in Takes Salesmanship On Your Part


Give Volunteers A Voice


Make Use Of a Volunteer Reaction Report


Brainstorming Tips


Recruit Members Online


Second‐in‐command Volunteers Free You Up


Bring Professionalism to the Ranks


22 Rules and Regulations Worth Sharing With Volunteers


Replace Street Corner Tactics


Tag Days: An Effective and Safe Fund Raiser


Include Those Who Benefit From Your Event


Making Every Minute Count


Tips for Conducting Effective Meetings


Planning Special Events


Choose An Event Based On Who You Want to Attract


Staying Motivated


Overcome Procrastination By Recognizing Its Cause

This case is designed to help students gain a more thorough understanding of activity-based costing (ABC) than is usually obtained in introductory managerial accounting courses. If you have taken such a course, you have probably seen, in general, simple examples of activity-based costing. However, ABC can be more complex than these examples indicate for three reasons: (1) the mechanics of ABC are far more complex than these simple examples indicate; (2) many of the design choices required in an ABC system, which are critical to the cost-benefit decision, are omitted from the simple examples; and (3) without adequate detail, it is hard to see how economic consequences arise from the choice of costing systems.
The Pecos Products ABC Design Project (the "project") addresses these issues by providing a hypothetical company with a detailed business scenario and asking you to help with the cost-system-design decision. To accomplish this, you will have to think about traditional cost system and ABC design issues, delve deeply into the cost system mechanics, and evaluate the benefits (economic consequences) of an ABC system in light of the cost and effort required to create it.

The colorimetric standard of the present-day television system goes back to the American NTSC system from 1953. In this RGB colorimetric system it is not possible, for basic reasons, to produce a scanning device which will provide signals suitable for controlling any displayed unit. From the very beginning of the television system the scanning device has produced inevitable colour deformation. The range of reproductive colours is not fully utilized either by a contemporary Cathode Ray Tube display unit or by a Liquid Crystal Display. In addition, the range is not sufficient for true reproduction of colours. Specific technical and scientific applications in which colour bears a substantial part of the information (cosmic development, medicine) demand high fidelity colour reproduction. The colour splitting system, working in the RGB colorimetric system, continues to be universally used. This article submits the results of a design for a colour splitting system working in the XYZ colorimetric system (hereafter referred to as the XYZ prism). A way to obtain theoretical spectral reflectances of partial XYZ prism filters is briefly described. These filters are then approximated by real optical interference filters and the geometry of the XYZ prism is established.

An investigation of the pattern and determinants of frequent residential mobility among highly mobile low-income families in Winnipeg, this study features an examination of the pattern and reasons for frequent mobility among low-income families in an impoverished neighborhood using qualitative interviewing. The study particularly advances previous knowledge about the residential mobility of the urban poor, especially poor Abo iginal single-parent women in Winnipeg. The main findings are that highly mobile households are predominantly headed by poor, unemployed, single parent Aboriginal women. The major factors that influence residential mobility among low-income Aboriginal households are the need for low rental accommodation and more living space. Since many of them were unemployed or worked in low paying service jobs, the women limited their housing searches to inner city neighbourhoods where they could access low rental accommodation. Their need for low rental accommodation reflected their low incomes, low levels of education and reliance on government transfer payments such as social assistance. The other finding was that the residential mobility of the low-income Aboriginal women was determined in part by their perceived racial discrimination in the housing market. This perception served to limit their housing search to, and within, neighbourhoods with a high Aboriginal population. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "TThe United States and Russia began an ambitious nonproliferation program, the Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI), to create sustainable job opportunities for weapons scientists in Russia's closed nuclear cities and to help Russia accelerate the downsizing of its nuclear weapons complex in in 1998. The program, however, poses a daunting challenge. The nuclear cities are geographically and economically isolated, access is restricted for security reasons, and weapons scientists are not accustomed to working for commercial businesses. Thus, Western businesses are reluctant to invest in the nuclear cities. This report reviews (1) the costs to implement NCI, including the amount of program funds spent in the United States and Russia, as well as planned expenditures; (2) the impact of NCI projects; and (3) the status of the European Nuclear Cities Initiative. GAO summarized this report in testimony before Congress; see: Nuclear Nonproliferation: DOE's Efforts to Secure Nuclear Material and Employ Weapons Scientists in Russia, by Gary L. Jones, Director Natural Resources and Environment, before the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, Senate Committee on Armed Services. GAO-01-726T, May 15 (10 pages)."

Government firms and authorities often sell services in the free market via affiliated consulting firms (CFs). In this study, I analyze whether these agents have an unfair competitive edge compared to private CFs. The theoretical analysis shows that private and state-owned CFs operate under different conditions. A private CF must choose between having permanent employees and pay full-time wages with the risk of over- and under-capacity or hiring professionals temporarily in the free market, which gives flexibility but may cause problems in hiring qualified professionals. In contrast, state-owned CFs can hire professionals from their parents and have the exclusive right to do so. With experiences from Sweden, I show that this exclusive dealing contract is a schoolbook example on unfair competition and gives several negative welfare effects and consequences. First, private CFs' profits are lowered. In some cases, private CFs are deterred from entering the market. Second, competition is limited, meaning that the buyers of consulting services are worse off. Third, a necessary reorganization of the Swedish consulting sector is prevented. Fourth, the unfair competition is the main reason why the re-flow to Sweden from multilateral development agencies has been so low during the recent 20 years. This last consequence is especially analyzed.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As used in public health and environmental regulations, risk assessment is the systematic, scientific description of potential harmful effects of exposures to hazardous substances or situations. It is a complex but valuable set of tools for federal regulatory agencies to identify issues of potential concern, select regulatory options, and estimate the range of a forthcoming regulation's benefits. However, given the significant yet controversial nature of risk assessments, it is important that policymakers understand how they are conducted, the extent to which risk estimates produced by different agencies and programs are comparable, and the reasons for differences in agencies' risk assessment approaches and results. GAO studied the human health and safety risk assessment procedures of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Department of Transportation's Research and Special Programs Administration. This report describes (1) the agencies' chemical risk assessment activities, (2) the agencies primary procedures for conducting risk assessments, (3) major assumptions or methodological choices in their risk assessment procedures, and (4) the agencies' procedures or policies for characterizing the results of risk assessments."

In the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of World War II, an urban planning concept known as ' defensive dispersal' came to be advocated by city planners, architects, atomic scientists, and military strategists. Defensive dispersal advocates saw in the contemporary American city large concentrations of industry and population that would prove tempting targets for an enemy armed with nuclear weapons. The solution they put forth was that these populations and industries should be moved (or encouraged to be moved) out of cities and into smaller satellite towns. The atomic bomb became, therefore, a potent argument for the very features of the postwar urban form that have commonly been cited as contributors to sprawl and urban decline: low-density peripheral development, deindustrialization, the Interstate Highway system and urban renewal. As important as this school of thought was during the 1940s and 1950s, it is rarely mentioned in the planning, sociological or historical literatures today. A principal thrust behind this study is to determine the reasons for this academic incuriousness and what this absence represents not only for planning history and theory, but the social history of the Cold War a well. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

The purpose of the paper is to outline an analytical framework which captures the ample scope of locational competition: cost differences, resulting from differences in factor prices including taxes, human capital, infrastructure services and total factor productivity. If cost differences are small, locational competition controls excessive government power. We have modelled locational competition by assuming that governments have a vital interest to keep mobile factors of production at home. We represent this aspect by restricting the usage of environmental instruments such that they will at most exhaust the cost difference to a competing foreign firm. If cost differences are large enough there is no binding restriction for the cost-benefit calculus of a national environmental policy. The tax will be below marginal damage due to strategic reasons of rent shifting. If small international cost differences do not allow taxation in accordance with marginal damage considerations, then locational competition restricts the size of the tax rate such that the firm is indifferent in relocating or staying at home. If no cost differences exist, it is even possible that both governments will subsidise the pollution intensive input in order to make the domestic location attractive.

This paper examines how far Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have achieved gender equality in earnings. These Nordic countries are contrasted with Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in the mid-1990s, and include some comparisons to the situation in the 1980s. While all these countries have experienced the same general changes in women's roles and positions, when these began and how fast they have progressed vary greatly. There is every reason to expect substantial country differences a the end of the 20th century, and that the four Nordic countries as a group have moved closer to realizing the political goals of gender equality in the labor market and a lessening of women's economic independence on men. There are three parts to the empirical analysis. The first is an examination of the gender differences in earnings for adults aged between 18 and 60. The second part concerns women's economic dependence on the men they live with and how much having small children increases that dependence. The third part of the analysis takes up the question of how more equality between spouses affects their dependence on each other and the inequality of economic risks.

We provide a comprehensive analysis of the Portuguese parties and their policy space. We show how and how well the parties have been able to adapt to the changing environment in the party system. Our analyses show that, not only are we able check existing static expert assessments of the Portuguese party and policy space, but we are also able to track the dynamics of the system. In this way, we expand on what little has been said thus far about the Portuguese party system. We conclude with three important ideas. First, we confirm that the Portuguese policy space is unidimensional, with the parties lining up from Left to Right, as some but not all experts, have suggested. Second, we propose that the environment of the Portuguese party system is one of compression, that is, parties have been office-seekers in that they have all been approaching the Centre of the political spectrum for a number of reasons we explore in detail. Last, we learn that only through issue dimensions and how parties pronounce themselves on these dimensions are the smaller parties able to survive and avoid extinction in the compressing environment of the party ...