Federalism and the Implementation of Environmental Policy: Changing Trends in Canada and the United States

In a federal system of government, powers are shared by the national and sub-national units in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. However, the process of policy implementation may differ on the basis of allocation of power and the nature of the system. Canada and the United States of America adopted federal systems of government, and faced similar pressures for implementing policies on environmental issues. Yet, the degree of success and outcome appear to be different due to variations in the strength of the respective federalist systems. An analysis of the various aspects of the federal system in the two countries reveals noticeable differences in institutional configurations, relationship between national and sub-national units, and variances in intra-institutional relations. All these have contributed to a divergence in the past, but there is an emerging trend of convergence as both the Canadian and American governments are gradually moving away from their existing patterns of policy implementation toward a new approach involving private-sector initiatives and self-enforcement with strong inclinations toward voluntarization, corporatization and marketization.     

Feminization and Labor Vulnerability in Global Manufacturing Industries: Does Gendered Discourse Matter?

Two contested arguments persist in explaining the causes of feminization and labor vulnerability. Some scholars argue that global industries are dominated by female workers as a result of the search for cheap labor. On the other hand, some scholars claim that the primary cause of feminization and labor vulnerability is the gendered discourses of work. Drawing views from readymade garment (RMG) industries of Bangladesh, this paper argues that both economic choices of cheap labor and gendered discourses of work collaboratively contribute to feminizing the labor force. This feminization of the workforce enables the violation of labor rights and benefits capitalists.     

Sexual orientation and full-time monthly earnings, by public and private sector: evidence from Swedish register data

In this paper we explore annual earnings as well as full-time monthly earnings differentials resulting from sexual orientation. We observe that gay males are at an earnings disadvantage compared to male heterosexuals regardless of which earnings measure we use. This earnings disadvantage is found to be larger when we compare gay and heterosexual males who are working full-time. In addition, the disadvantage is larger in the private than in the public sector. Lesbians, however, earn more than heterosexual females. This earnings advantage is considerably smaller when we study full-time monthly rather than annual earnings but an earnings advantage for lesbians at the top of the earnings distribution is documented regardless of which earnings measure we use. In addition, lesbians are doing better than female heterosexuals in the public sector. To sum up, the results indicate that gay males face obstacles on the labor market that hinder them from reaching top-level positions and high earnings. The earnings advantage observed for lesbians is likely to stem from the fact that lesbians devote more time to market work than heterosexual females do.     

Psychology in the Arab World: Past, Present, and Future

In this article, we present a broad-based view of psychology in the Arab countries. We begin by casting light on the relevant contributions by ancient Arab scholars in the Middle Ages. Given that systematic scientific investigation of this legacy has been minuscule, we argue that in the future, scholars seeking to provide a more balanced and comprehensive history of Arab psychology should reanalyze these works. We point out that in the early decades of the modern twentieth century, Western psychology was introduced in the Arab countries, especially in Egypt—the gateway through which such psychology was introduced and practiced. By the early 1960s, a number of universities had been established in some Arab countries, and Egyptian academicians, including psychologists, were invited to perform teaching, research, and administration tasks. Their legacy was a discipline bearing most of the strengths and weaknesses of Egyptian psychology, although in spite of such commonalties, there exist also some interesting differences characterizing psychology in the various Arab countries. The final section of the article summarizes some key aspects endemic to psychology in the Arab countries.     

Constructing Co-governance between Government and Civil Society: An Institutional Approach to Collaboration

The aim of this paper is to analyze how civil society organizations (CSOs) collaborate with both developed and developing governments in Asia through institutional processes. It argues that in developed countries, institutional arrangements have a positive impact on collaboration. Favourable administrative governance can create collaboration between governments and CSOs. This paper reports on 3,944 studies of CSOs from 2004 to 2009 in Tokyo, Seoul, Manila, and Dhaka. CSOs in Tokyo have better combined collaborative and institutional processes than those in the other three cities. Governance in Seoul is more polarized than in the other cities, and in both Manila and Dhaka, despite there being a high degree of institutionalized relations between CSOs and the government, their collaboration is low. This research also finds that intermediary institutions between governments and CSOs play a role in co-governance.     

A Note on Regression-Type Estimators Using Multiple Auxiliary Information

Kiregyera (1984), Mukerjee, Rao & Vijayan (1987), and Tripathi & Ahmed (1995) considered a number of regression-type estimators where information on two auxiliary variables related to study variable is available at different levels. Mukerjee et al . (1987) suggested three estimators and computed their mean square errors, but the computations seem to be incorrect. This note corrects them, and finds their estimators are no better than that of Kiregyera (1984). The estimator suggested by Tripathi & Ahmed (1995) is the best in the sense of having the smallest mean square error.     

Environmental Sustainability and Social Work: A Rural Australian Evaluation of Incorporating Eco-Social Work in Field Education

Climate change poses significant threat to the wellbeing of global society. Addressing this change has as yet generated no fixed blueprint for social work practice and education. This paper reports on a formative evaluation of one Australian initiative to address this transformative opening in social work field education. Prompted by service users' and workers' experience of the impact of drought, a rurally located social work course team amended the field education curriculum to include a focus on Environment and Sustainability. This learning goal was added to the existing learning goals derived from the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) Practice Standards. Students and field supervisors were surveyed on their experience of meeting this new learning goal. While most expressed confidence in understanding the concepts involved, they clearly lacked assurance in interpreting these in practice encounters. Considering their qualitative input suggests that this topic is making a transition from being on the margins of social work to becoming mainstream. Their open-ended responses indicate that the incorporation of environmental sustainability into practice is at a threshold stage of development. Further enactment of eco-social work at the local level is concluded to be supported by using a transformative learning framework in facilitating critical reflection and collaborative dialogue for effective change.     

Empirical Bayes estimation of parameters in Markov transition probability matrix with computational methods

Empirical Bayes estimator for the transition probability matrix is worked out in the cases where we have belief regarding the parameters, For example, where the states seem to be equal or not. In both cases, priors are in accordance with our beliefs. Using EM algorithm, computational methods for different hyperparameters of the empirical Bayes are described. Also, robustness of empirical Bayes procedure is investigated.     

Choices at various levels of uncertainty: An experimental test of the restated diversification theorem

Our “Restated diversification theorem” (Skogh and Wu, 2005) says that risk-averse agents may pool risks efficiently without assignment of subjective probabilities to outcomes, also at genuine uncertainty. It suffices that the agents presume that they face equal risks. Here, the theorem is tested in an experiment where the probability of loss, and the information about this probability, varies. The result supports our theorem. Moreover, it tentatively supports an evolutionary theory of the insurance industry—starting with mutual pooling at uncertainty, turning into insurance priced ex ante when actuarial information is available.