The Americans with Disabilities Act in Federal Court: litigating against public entities

This study represents the first systematic inquiry into the outcome of litigation against state and local public entities under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. Because Congress instituted a system of judicial review that established the courts as the final authority of rights and responsibilities under the Act, Title II litigation has a potentially significant impact on the disability policymaking of state and local governments in the United States. The analysis is based on all reported federal court rulings through June 2000 in which the court adjudicated a Title II claim against a public entity. The results show that plaintiffs are moderately successful in their suits against public entities, especially when compared to their record in litigating against private employers. However, the courts, particularly at the appellate level, still exercise restraint about interfering in the disability policies of subnational governments when implementing the ADA.     

The Americans with Disabilities Act: Costly Mandates or Civil Rights?

Some persons in the US view the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as a civil rights act. Others view it as an intrusive and costly mandate imposed upon the state and local governments by the federal government. In an attempt to resolve the issue, the question of costs versus civil rights in the ADA is reviewed. The argument that the ADA is intrusive and costly is analyzed showing that it fails in terms of logic and fiscal impact. A conclusion about costs and civil rights is offered.     

The Americans with Disabilities Act:

In response to finding of pervasive historical discrimination, Congress enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a far-reaching statue which prohibits discrimination in employment, transportation, and telecommunications, by both public and private entities. This article presents the essential principles of the ADA that govern equal employment opportunity and non-discriminatory access to and receipt of services and programs of private and public entities, particularly as they may affect elders and agencies serving elders.     

Strategic public diplomacy and local press: how a high-profile “head-of-state” visit was covered in America’s heartland

Drawing upon the lines of research on public diplomacy and media communication, this study aims to use Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s state visit to the US in 1997 as a case in point to examine the news values and judgment of the US local press in covering a major public diplomacy event and to discuss the effectiveness of the use of head-of-state visits as instruments of public diplomacy. The study focuses on two aspects of media image: visibility and valence. Its main findings indicate that, despite the PR efforts, the image of China, as reflected in the local press coverage, was not improved. This study highlights the critical role of the local press in managing the perception and reputation of a country in the eyes of a foreign public, and argues that the local aspect is not only significant in studying public diplomacy and the US media, but also relevant to US public diplomacy strategies and tactics overseas.     

'We Won't Go Back': the ADA on the grass roots level

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights statute protecting people from discrimination based on a disability in both the private and the public sectors. Using interviews with grass roots persons with disabilities across the USA-many of whom are experienced activists-and using other sources this article describes the reaction of the disability community in the United States to the passage of the ADA and its impact. Largely people with disabilities feel empowered by the ADA. However, a strong amount of cynicism is also found at the grass roots level regarding it. A revealing example of the empowerment felt by people with disabilities is the conflict in New York City over a proposal for non-accessible public toilets. Other reactions and developments are discussed including the possibility of the repeal or weakening of the ADA. A fundamental change occurred in the US with the passage of the ADA and the disability community will not allow that change to be undone.     

Re-authorization of the Rehabilitation Act: Comprehensive solutions or political satisficing?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is widely hailed as a sweeping piece of civil rights legislation that will dramatically affect the lives of individuals with disabilities in the US for generations. In contrast, the re-authorisation of the Rehabilitation Act in 1992, and attempts to consolidate the rehabilitation programme for people with disabilities into a generic, consolidated employment system for the general public in 1995 brought only modest reforms. How does comprehensive reform get on the US political agenda? What factors were present during passage of the ADA that were not present during reauthorisation of the Rehabilitation Act? The author will use dominant political theories about policy making and agenda setting to answer these questions, and draw conclusions that will assist advocates in other countries in passing comprehensive civil rights legislation.     

The spatiality of social relations: an Indian case-study

Using ethnographic information, the paper asserts the significance of space–society relations in rural India. In particular, the paper shows that material interests of classes and other social groups are normally tied to particular geographical areas. So agrarian social relations are local relations. Similarly, given the territorial organization of the state, state–society relations are local relations too. Thus as locally dependent members of classes and other collectivities and as citizens dependent on local branches of the state, people often find themselves predisposed to interact locally. There is also a counter-tendency to this in that people try to escape local dependence and interact with distant places. In either case, social relations are spatial relations, and the fact that social relations are spatial relations makes some difference to the way society works, although the specific ways in which this spatiality makes a difference are place-specific. The paper shows that social processes such as economic development, class conflict, reproduction of caste and kinship relations and performance of public policies can be better understood if we analyse the spatiality of these processes in particular places.     

Charting and theorising the territorialisation of agricultural policy

Against a background of contestation of European agricultural policy, the territorial dimension is one of the prominent factors in proposals for shaping new rules of public action. This situation has been brought about by shifts in the nature of the challenges facing farming and in society's expectations of it, but also by a change in the forms that public policy may take, which is challenging the hegemony of the nation states in matters of economic and social organisation. We attempt to characterise this territorialisation of public policy in agriculture from a regulationist standpoint and on the basis of research conducted in France. This involves three points: the renewal of decision-making procedures, the adaptation of public action to local specificities and the offsetting of market effects. Empirical findings show that these three factors are only marginal aspects of the changes that have come about in public action in farming: the territorial dimension is not at present the vector of any far-reaching change to the underlying principles and ground rules in this domain. However, these three emerging rationales do give a preview of new forms of regulation in the farming sector.     

Jurisdiction,inscription, and state formation: administrative modernism and knowledge regimes

In seventeenth-century France, Colbert built a more effective state administration not by rationalizing state offices but by using public documents to increase the government’s intellectual capacity to exercise logistical power and engage in territorial governance. This pattern calls into question Weber’s model of the genesis of “modern officialdom,” suggesting that its source was not social rationalization, but rather the identification and management of expertise. Colbert recruited into government nascent technocrats with knowledge useful to territorial politics, using contracts and other documents to limit their independence and subordinate them to patrimonial authorities. They exercised specific duties and impersonal powers in jurisdictional areas—much like modern technocrats. Their expertise enhanced the intellectual capacity of the administration to exercise territorial power and made the state less dependent on patrimonial clienteles without challenging the patrimonial culture of power/knowledge.     

State Failure in the South Caucasus: Proposals for an Analytical Framework

The paper examines state failure in the South Caucasus. First, it determines a general system of 13 categories for analyzing the failure of states. Second, it applies these categories to the three internationally recognised South Caucasian states Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. The main focus lies on the state monopoly on the use of force in the entire territory of a country. If the government does not fulfil this condition, it faces a lot of severe consequences for many spheres of state performance and societal activity. In the South Caucasus, only Armenia managed to maintain the state monopoly on the use of force. In contrast, the establishment of separatist state entities (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno Karabakh) led to the de facto collapse of the Georgian and Azerbaijani statehood. Thus, Georgia and Azerbaijan may be considered as failed states also due to the fact that in the foreseeable future there is no apparent chance to restore their territorial integrity.     

The potential for international and transnational public service advertising in public spaces in American and Chinese global cities: Conclusions from a 2010 survey of advertisements in subways in Beijing,New York,Shanghai and Washington,DC

Can we construct transnational or international public service advertising to counterbalance the proliferation of transnational commercial advertising? As an important first step in exploring the possibility of such an application of shared media public diplomacy among nations, this paper describes a complete survey of commercial and public service advertisements collected from the public spaces of subway systems in American and Chinese cities in 2010 – New York, Washington, DC, Shanghai and Beijing – to reveal the range of themes of commercial and public service ads in these spaces. The study reveals first that analogous commercial and public service ads are ubiquitous in the public spaces of both Chinese and American cities. Second, many of the themes that might appear in international or transnational public service ads are already being portrayed in ads created by local or national governments or NGOs, although these themes are portrayed in ads created by different sets of actors in China and in the US: government actors and a few international NGOs in Chinese cities, and governments, corporations and non-profit organizations in the case of American cities. Finally, the survey reveals that in all four cities there are many commercial advertisements that appeal to the identity of a transnational consumer, but that there are almost no public service ads that appeal to the identity of a transnational citizen: merely local or national ones who can solve such public problems as global warming, education, and health issues.     

Nonprofit organizations as franchise operations

This article examines the structural relationship between national nonprofit organizations and their local affiliates. For a substantial number of nonprofits, the national-local relationship can be modeled as a franchise relationship. The author considers ways in which the franchise system serves to mitigate a number of the organizational and economic problems facing nonprofits. Finally, particular devices used by franchises are examined, focusing on the ways in which national organizations tax their local affiliates and the extent of territorial restrictions placed on local affiliates.     

Institutional Isomorphism in Religious Entities of Post‐Soviet Tajikistan

Grounded in institutional isomorphism theory, the paper analyzes the extent to which the process of homogenization (isomorphism) can be useful in our understanding of changes within religious entities. Examining the emergence and development of religious entities in post‐Soviet Tajikistan, I find that three isomorphic mechanisms are less dependent on the impact of religious institutional environments and interaction among religious organizations. Rather, isomorphic changes are manifested as the result of interaction with the state. Mimetic and normative processes are observed in a weak state, whereas coercive isomorphism is exerted under the influence of a strong state. A relative heterogeneity of the religious field is observed in the first two stages of the development of religious entities. Once the state expands its regulation and control, religious entities become more homogeneous in structure and administration due to coercive isomorphism. Implications for extending the concept of institutional isomorphism beyond traditional organizational fields are discussed.     

State Fragmentation: Toward a Theoretical Understanding of the Territorial Power of the State

In existing theories of revolution, the state is narrowly defined as an administrative entity, and state breakdown simply refers to the disintegration of a given political regime. But this narrow definition cannot deal with this question: Why, in a revolutionary situation, do some states become fragmented and others remain unified? I would therefore argue for the broadening of the concept of state breakdown to include the territorial power of the state and to treat the latter as a key analytical dimension in the study of state fragmentation. The dynamics of territorial state power involve the control of critical territories and valuable resources associated with the spatial position of a given state in the interstate system. A strong territorial state is able to maintain its organizational coerciveness and territorial integrity, whereas a weak territorial state is vulnerable to fragmentation. The overall state crisis derives from the accumulated effects of geopolitical strain by which territorial fragmentation unfolds.     

Applicability of the Generic Principles of Excellent Public Relations in a Different Cultural Context: The Case Study of Singapore

This study used 4 generic principles of public relations based on the Excellence Theory to analyze the extent to which strategic public relations management was practiced in Singapore and whether public relations is part of senior management in 4 types of organizations: public relations consulting firms, corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Data were collected from 127 public relations professionals using a survey questionnaire based on the Excellence study. In addition, 22 in-depth interviews were conducted and organizational publications analyzed. The data revealed that the 4 generic principles studied are applicable in another culture. In Singapore, public relations has a lower status compared with advertising or marketing. Public relations is also not used as a strategic business tool and professionals do not practice strategic public relations in the city–state because of lack of proper training, among other things. Thus, although Singapore has emerged as an "Asian Tiger" the public relations profession has not developed as much as one would have expected.     

Illegal immigrants in Texas: impact on social services and related considerations

A 1982-1983 survey of 868 undocumented aliens and a number of providers of public services showed that the state of Texas receives more from taxes paid by undocumented persons than it costs the state to provide them with public services, such as education, health care, corrections, and welfare. The same survey showed that 6 cities in the state (Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, McAllen, and San Antonio) together expended more to provide services to undocumented aliens than they received in taxes. The survey concentrated on undocumented persons not detained by the immigration authorities and found that this group constituted a distinct population from those in detention centers in that the former exhibited normal characteristics of settled families, while the latter were predominantly the familiar young, single, and peripatetic males. A related finding is that the households of the transient group consist predominantly of undocumented persons whereas the households of the settled group contain a greater mixture of legal residents and illegal aliens. Undocumented persons do indeed use public services, primarily education and health services. They are rarely recipients of welfare services or food stamps. Undocumented persons do indeed pay taxes and those taxes that go to or revert to the state of Texas clearly exceed the cost to the state to provide services to those people. On the other hand, local governmental units (below the state level) in Texas must expend more to provide public services to illegal aliens than those governmental levels receive from the taxes paid by these persons. This is an administrative issue relating to the recipients of tax dollars and the government level on which the burden falls to provide certain services, primarily health care and education. Finally, since only about half of the settled population is in the job market in Texas, a quick fix of deportation of these persons would not create an equivalent number of jobs.     

The state of public relations in Singapore

The public relations (PR) industry in Singapore is presently in a state of transition. A recent survey reveals that while many of the industry practices are still limited within the scope of media relations, print production, event organization and promotions, there is a growing realization among practitioners for the need to provide higher profile activities related to issues development, strategic planning and image management. The latter activities reflect the trend that the PR industry in Singapore is maturing towards at the agency, private, and public sectors.Findings in the survey indicated that both the agencies and end-users emphasised the need for more training in, and greater usage of services ranging from investor relations to community relations to research (survey). A notable development which lends support to the emerging trend in the PR industry is the Singapore government's push towards the regionalisation of local companies in building the country's external economy.Yeap Soon Beng is a lecturer at the School of Communication Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also a council member of the executive committee of the Institute of Public Relations in Singapore, which has given him permission to use data from a survey which was conducted by a local research firm.     

Public opinion and the privatization of welfare: some theoretical implications

The social policy of the Thatcher government is characterized by an abrupt shift in the direction of the private sector. To what extent does this reflect what people want? The Institute of Economic Affairs conclude from the only suitable national opinion survey that such a move is strongly supported. Our reanalysis of their data shows that this strand in public opinion can coexist with, and need not contradict, an equal public enthusiasm for state welfare. Such results have important implications for our understanding of social policy. We conclude, therefore, with a discussion of contrasting marxist and liberal accounts which seeks to show that the evidence of ambivalence in popular attitudes about the welfare state supports particular developments in theory.     

Public spheres,hidden politics and struggles over space: boundaries of public engagement in post‐apartheid South Africa

The development of a public sphere forms a central ingredient in the consolidation of a new political culture following a transition to democracy. The Habermasian idea of the public sphere has been challenged for not taking into account the role of ‘part’ and ‘counter public spheres’, particularly with reference to ‘developing’ societies. ‘Actually existing’ public spheres must therefore be conceptualised within the framework of a broader category of ‘public space’. A national public sphere in South Africa is held back by inequalities of wealth and power. A minority public of privileged consumers has access to a structure of print and electronic media, while the majority population relies on different systems of networking that make up counter publics. After 1994, the public sphere has been influenced by a dominant‐party system, accompanied by a division into formal and informal politics, with formal politics assuming a ritualistic function and ‘Realpolitik’ being played out within the non‐public structures of the dominant party. Meanwhile, critical public debate has had to find its course through varieties of informal politics. The article examines how moral debates around HIV/AIDS and crime in KwaZulu‐Natal have constituted an alternative arena for debate, and how cultural and religious discourses have been the channels of a local public sphere. The article discusses to what extent debates have constituted a local democratic ‘deliberative public sphere’, and looks at the ways in which the local state in the form of the eThekwini Municipality has interacted with local publics since 1994.     

Explaining Urban Migration from Mexico City to the USA: Social Networks and Territorial Attachments

Using a representative survey on a municipality in Mexico City, the article explores the relevance of both social networks and place attachments for US migration. By comparing households with and without migrants, the logistic regression models show that social networks make emigration more selective with respect “education”, but less selective regarding “sex” and “marital status”. These results shed new light on the mechanism through which social networks operate in urban settings. Even if a municipality that is very homogeneous in terms of poverty and employment opportunities, variations on the socio‐demographic profile of the would‐be emigrants to the USA are found depending on the household′s social networks. As for territorial variables, the general impression is one of placelessness, apart from attachment to the municipality, but here again social networks act as an intervening variable.