‘It’s all bollocks!’ and other critical standpoints on the UK Government’s vision of global citizenship

The UK Government’s International Citizen Service (ICS) sends volunteers abroad to ‘fight global poverty’ as ‘global citizens’. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the construction of development on the ICS programme forecloses important political and historical contexts, resulting in a model of global citizenship we might term ‘soft’. This article presents data from interviews with ICS volunteers with a specific methodological concern of recognizing the agency of young people and allowing their responses to lead discussion. The outcome is a range of themes across the data that critique the Government’s model of citizenship and, I argue, shows the volunteers to be ‘critical’ global citizens. I then ask whether we can consider this a mode of resistance. I conclude with a final data set that – the case is made – presents an imperative to allow these volunteers to have their perspectives on historical and contemporary North–South relations recognized as a critical mode of global citizenship.     

国际组织与成员国法律责任多重归属问题研究

国际组织和成员国的法律责任归属问题一直以来都是国际法争论的话题。政府间国际组织作为一类国际法主体,应独立承担法律责任。但在实践中,成员国在执行国际组织决议的过程中往往滥用国际组织法律人格,其行为不仅是国际组织法律人格的体现,还代表了自己的意志,造成法律责任归属不明。以此种争议情形为研究对象,结合1999年的使用武力合法性案,2007年欧洲人权法院的拜拉米案和萨拉马提(Behrami/Saramati)案、阿尔吉达(Al-Jedda)案以及2014年海牙法院关于斯雷布雷尼察(Srebrenica)诉荷兰案的相关判决,借鉴国外学者近几年的相关研究,认为应当坚持国际组织和成员国法律责任的多重归属。围绕责任多重归属原则的确立过程,通过对2011年《国际组织责任条款草案》相关条文的分析,明确了行为归属与责任归属的关系:只有确定行为归属之后,才能确定责任归属;为了最终确定责任的多重归属,提出以有效控制为标准认定行为归属,并明确这种有效控制是对具体行为的事实控制。     

开放经济下OFDI对产业结构升级效应及传导路径

开放经济下对外直接投资(OFDI)已成为我国融入世界经济的主要途径,在优化产业结构、推进经济转型等方面扮演着重要角色。根据OFDI与产业结构升级及传导路径的互动机理分析,在对安徽省OFDI投资概况和产业结构现状进行分析的基础上,选取2003—2017年相关数据为样本构建VAR模型,运用ADF检验、脉冲响应函数等方法从产业结构总水平角度,实证分析得出短期内安徽省OFDI所能带来的产业结构升级效应并不显著的结论。进而从具体传导路径角度,采用主成分分析法,从10个变量中提取主成分构建VAR模型,运用脉冲响应等方法实证分析得出安徽省OFDI可通过贸易、省内投资、就业和技术路径来促进产业结构升级。为此,安徽省应扩大OFDI规模,提升OFDI质量和效益;增强企业竞争实力和科技创新能力,优化对外投资结构;发挥政府宏观调控和政策引导作用,加大对企业的扶持力度。     

Humanitarian response and stress in Kenya: gendered problems and their implications

ABSTRACT

Stress-related conditions such as burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder are a growing concern in the humanitarian sector. Aid workers themselves report not only that mental health problems are common, but that the support they receive from their employers is insufficient. Problematically, the experience of the international aid worker – particularly those who are white and from the global North – is often foregrounded in explaining what constitutes stress and related mental health problems. This indicates a wider problem of what is required of ‘the perfect humanitarian’ – a personality that is gendered and racialised – and how this influences the different experiences and treatment of national and international staff from aid agencies. This article explores the organisational culture and working conditions of humanitarian settings and their impact on the mental health and well-being of staff. It argues that there is a structural dimension to stress that is less to do with external security threats and more to do with the specific infrastructure, policies, and practices of humanitarian operations, with implications for aid workers which cut across dimensions of race, gender, and nationality.     

Children and global social policy: Exploring the impact of international governmental organisations

Axford N. Children and global social policy: exploring the impact of international governmental organisations International governmental organisations (IGOs) seek to influence child welfare policy and practice in individual sovereign states. But do they succeed and, if so, in what way? This article outlines the nature of selected IGOs' work, explores the nature of their impact and seeks to explain the pattern that emerges. It also notes areas for further research.     

The Intergenerational Continuity of Fathers' Absence in a Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Sample

Fathers' absence is a pattern that shows intergenerational continuity, most notably within disadvantaged populations. The process whereby this pattern is repeated across generations is not well understood. Using data from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, the authors investigated pathways between fathers' absence in 1 generation and the experience of fathers' absence by their children. The current sample included 386 socioeconomically at‐risk individuals across 2 waves of data collection: (a) when they were children and (b) when they were adults with their own children. Analyses based on structural equation modeling revealed that men whose fathers were absent when they were children were more likely to become absent fathers, and women whose fathers were absent when they were children were more likely to have children with absent partners. Indirect pathways between fathers' absence in 2 generations through aggression, education, and substance abuse were illustrated for women. These findings add to the literature suggesting that fathers' absence during childhood has intergenerational effects.     

100 key research questions for the post‐2015 development agenda

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) herald a new phase for international development. This article presents the results of a consultative exercise to collaboratively identify 100 research questions of critical importance for the post‐2015 international development agenda. The final shortlist is grouped into nine thematic areas and was selected by 21 representatives of international and non‐governmental organisations and consultancies, and 14 academics with diverse disciplinary expertise from an initial pool of 704 questions submitted by 110 organisations based in 34 countries. The shortlist includes questions addressing long‐standing problems, new challenges and broader issues related to development policies, practices and institutions. Collectively, these questions are relevant for future development‐related research priorities of governmental and non‐governmental organisations worldwide and could act as focal points for transdisciplinary research collaborations.     

国际商事仲裁裁决效力考辨

关于“国际性”与“商事”内涵的界定，已呈现出由国内标准向国际标准演进的趋势。此种趋势一方面导致了二者解释的逐步扩大，另一方面也促成各国对二者内涵的趋同认识。相比较而言，“裁决”内涵的界定受国内法影响较多，但仍应以“解决了纠纷”作为“裁决”的基本构成要件。建构在以上三个基本概念基础之上的国际商事仲裁裁决的效力，则主要是指裁决对当事人、各相关仲裁庭和法院所产生的保护力、拘束力和执行力，     

Books on probability ideas are reviewed

In this paper, semiparametric methods are applied to estimate multivariate volatility functions, using a residual approach as in [J. Fan and Q. Yao, Efficient estimation of conditional variance functions in stochastic regression, Biometrika 85 (1998), pp. 645–660; F.A. Ziegelmann, Nonparametric estimation of volatility functions: The local exponential estimator, Econometric Theory 18 (2002), pp. 985–991; F.A. Ziegelmann, A local linear least-absolute-deviations estimator of volatility, Comm. Statist. Simulation Comput. 37 (2008), pp. 1543–1564], among others. Our main goal here is two-fold: (1) describe and implement a number of semiparametric models, such as additive, single-index and (adaptive) functional-coefficient, in volatility estimation, all motivated as alternatives to deal with the curse of dimensionality present in fully nonparametric models; and (2) propose the use of a variation of the traditional cross-validation method to deal with model choice in the class of adaptive functional-coefficient models, choosing simultaneously the bandwidth, the number of covariates in the model and also the single-index smoothing variable. The modified cross-validation algorithm is able to tackle the computational burden caused by the model complexity, providing an important tool in semiparametric volatility estimation. We briefly discuss model identifiability when estimating volatility as well as nonnegativity of the resulting estimators. Furthermore, Monte Carlo simulations for several underlying generating models are implemented and applications to real data are provided.     

Electronic payment mechanisms in social security: Extending the reach of benefit and contribution transactions

More often than not, the existing modes of contribution collection and benefit payment of social security organizations are adapted to the collective arrangements that characterize employer‐employee relationships. Extending coverage to individuals in difficult‐to‐reach groups, however, may require new modalities of service that can cope with many separate, secure transactions rather than a few bulk data transfers between organizations. Recent developments in electronic payment show its wide applicability in enabling huge volumes of such individual transactions. It is in this light that the article explores the potentials of this technology and identifies possible arrangements through which electronic payments could surmount barriers that stand in the way of covering difficult‐to‐reach groups. The high level of mobile phone penetration on a global scale augurs well for using e‐payment mechanisms to collect social security contributions and to deliver social security benefits and services. A generic model is used to describe the requisite elements to implement electronic payments in social protection programmes. Based on empirical evidence of current social protection practices from around the world, five scenarios are presented to describe possible configurations for electronic payment, from the simplest to the most sophisticated. The broader objective is to contribute in a practical manner to the international commitment to extend social protection to all, as defined by the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.