Suchergebnisse

Community self-help has gained increasing prominence in Cambodia, and elsewhere, as an urban poverty reduction strategy of non-government organisations and the state. Embedded in this approach are assumptions of 'community' as a site of cooperation and 'women' as an inherently cohesive social group with a shared identity. If such interventions are to be effective and inclusive it is critical to understand how the practices and discourses that underscore them interact with local struggles to produce new forms of power.A qualitative case study of an urban informal settlement in Phnom Penh involving multiple semi-structured interviews with 25 women residents and staff of a nongovernment organisation identified differing perspectives of how development interventions worked and what they were supposed to achieve. Divergent motivations for participation, the selves women constructed as distinct from the identities they were expected to perform by non-government organisation staff, parallel group membership pathways controlled by wealthier residents, and the silencing of violence experienced by women illustrated these cleavages. In response to these misalignments women found alternate ways to assert entitlement and subvert social power to further their respective interests.This thesis makes three arguments. First, that in this settlement development and aid were a both a struggle over redistribution of resources and a symbolic struggle over morality and entitlement. Second, that development adapted to social structures by entrenching the power of existing elites, while social structure adapted to development by creatingparallel discourses and modes of participation. Third, that women were both oppressed (by local authorities, men, landlords, and police) and oppressors (of each other). These themes have important implications for self-reliance groups that mobilise women on the assumption that economic marginalisation will shape collective identity. Gender-based group formation offers the potential to transcend and transform the exclusions that women in urban informal settlements encounter in their everyday lives. Attention,however, must be paid to gradients of power and social hierarchy within and across groups – beyond the state/citizen dyad – and an understanding of 'development' as embedded in everyday politics.

Arthur F. Bentley developed a critique of the philosophic premises underlying a number of orientations in the social sciences, especially those that would model social science on the natural sciences. Unlike many critics of social science, Bentley did not argue that social science had to develop its own explanatory style. His more radical teaching was that certain basic problems in both the natural & social sciences could be traced to defective understandings of relations between language, behavior, & scientific thinking. For Bentley, any science develops from ordinary language through a process of increasing formalization. No external position, including that of conventional logic, can direct process, since even logic is thoroughly embedded in linguistics & behavioral contexts. HA.

Abstract
The presence of civilian witnesses and victims in court is central to the effective operation of the criminal justice system. However, there is evidence of significant non-attendance which can result in ineffective and cracked trials. To address this, West Midlands Police Witness Care Unit and the Behavioural Insights Team designed an intervention using behavioural insight principles consisting of (1) a new conversation guide for Witness Care Officers (WCOs); (2) a redesigned 'Warning Letter' confirming details of the proceedings; and (3) a new reminder call and SMS. The impact of the new approach was evaluated through a randomised controlled trial in which 36 WCOs were randomly assigned to either "business as usual" (control) or treatment. The evaluation used an intention-to-treat design with implementation guided and encouraged at several points. Subgroup analysis was undertaken to explore whether differential effects were seen for domestic violence cases or between those that were victims and witnesses. Results indicated that the treatment approach was directionally positive in all cases, but that the increase in attendance was not statistically significant. This is in line with findings of other similar research in this area.

The nature of health care, a multifaceted system of reimbursements, subsidies, levels of care, and trade-offs between economics, values and social goods, makes it both a problematic area of policy and critical to the well-being of society. In the United States, provision of health care is not a right as in some countries, but occurs as a function of a complex set of cross-subsidized mechanisms that, according to some analysts, exclude from coverage those who may be in the most need of it. Accordingly, this article examines some of the issues involved in making decisions on how to justly expand health insurance.