Suchergebnisse

Combatting chronic disease (prevention and treatment of obesity, diabetes, heart health, and stroke) requires action at the local level, both to educate the public and to provide health services. Effective collaboration among local organizations devoted to educating the public about, and treating patients of, these diseases is a key component of successful health care. To better understand local efforts, a social network analysis of five local health care networks spanning eight counties in Maryland was conducted. The purpose of this exploratory research was to discover whether collaborative networks exist at the local level, to map the networks, and to assess their strengths and needs.

This article examines cases of municipal dissolution and the impact of the loss of government on a place, its people, and the surrounding area. A framework of three components of municipal community—people, place, and government—is presented. The interrelation of these elements is explored through cases where not all elements are present. Particular attention is given to the removal of government from community through municipal dissolution. The impacts of dissolution on community, and its potential as a governance strategy, are addressed.

Our methods of governance are shifting. We increasingly rely on an interconnected web of public, private, and nonprofit actors working across organizational, institutional, and sectoral boundaries to deliver public services. Our understanding of these new practices, however, is reliant on models of individual rationality and social behavior developed for hierarchical organizational forms. I argue that collectivist models of decentralized, self-organizing social forms may advance our understanding of modern governance practices and balance tensions in three areas: perspectives on organizations (structure or process), between individual liberty and collective responsibility, and whether increasing freedom or control over individuals enhances organizational efficiencies.

Some of our oldest and most powerful myths focus on sacrifice as a means of gaining power, strengthening relationships, and binding a community together. The oldest of these myths emphasizes blood sacrifices as the most powerful for this purpose. Our current American myths emphasize nearly the opposite: that success can be obtained without sacrifice. This article examines the implications of this fundamental shift on civil society. The author takes the Akedah—the Old Testament story of the binding of Isaac—as a central point in the evolution of the sacrifice myth. In particular, the author explores the evolution of "sacrifice" from ritual blood offering in a religious context to that of labor undertaken in a social context.