BOOKS

Book reviewed in this article: Reviews: Beyond the new paternalism: Basic security as equality . Guy STANDING. Reviews: Family life and family interests: A comparative study on the influence of the European Convention of Human Rights on Dutch family law and the influence of the United States Constitution on American family law . Gerda A. KLEIJKAMP Reviews: The dynamics of full employment: Social integration through transitional labour markets . Günther SCHMID; Bernard GAZIER (eds.) Recent books: Critique du droit du travail . Alain SUPIOT Recent books: Réseaux de sociétés et codes de conduite. Un nouveau modèle de regulation des relations de travail pour les entreprises européennes . André SOBCZAK Recent books: Sociologie de la négotiation . Reynald BURQUE; Christian THUDEROZ New ILO publications: Fifteenth American Regional Meeting (Lima, December 2002), Report of the Director‐General: Globalization and decent work in the Americas New ILO publications: Annex: ILO activities in the Americas, 1999–2002 New ILO publications: International Labour Conference, 90th Session, Geneva, 2002: Record of proceedings New ILO publications: International Labour Conference, 91st Session, 2003, Report IV(2): Learning and training for work in the knowledge society: The constituents' views . New ILO publications: International Labour Conference, 91st Session, 2003, Report VII(1): Improved security of seafarers' identification New ILO publications: A statistical profile of the teaching profession . By Maria Teresa SINISCALCO New ILO publications: Alcohol and drug problems at work: The shift to prevention Argentina: Una década de convertibilidad. Un análisis del crecimiento, el empleo y la distribución del ingreso . By Mario DAMILL, Roberto FRENKEL and Roxana MAURIZIO New ILO publications: Corporate success through people: Making international labour standards work for you . By Nicolai ROGOVSKY and Emily SIMS New ILO publications: Decent work in Denmark: Employment, social efficiency and economic security . Edited by Philippe EGGER and Werner SENGENBERGER in collaboration with Peter AUER, Marco SIMONI and Corinne VARGHA New ILO publications: Employment, employability and equal opportunities in the postal and telecommunications services New ILO publications: Employment trends in the tobacco sector: Challenges and prospects . Report for discussion at the Tripartite Meeting on the Future of Employment in the Tobacco Sector New ILO publications: Formación profesional en el cambio de siglo . By Claudio de MOURA CASTRO. Edited by Klaus SCHAACK and Rudolf TIPPELT New ILO publications: Global employment trends New ILO publications: How to read a balance sheet New ILO publications: ILO generic crisis response modules . ILO InFocus Programme on Crisis Response and Reconstruction. Geneva, 2002. xxi + 132 pp. Loose‐leaf binder, glossary, boxes, tables, checklists, bibliography. 25 Swiss francs. ISBN 92–2–112690–0. Crisis response: Rapid needs assessment manual New ILO publications: Lifelong learning in the mechanical and electrical engineering industries New ILO publications: Managing disability in the workplace New ILO publications: Measuring the non‐observed economy: A handbook New ILO publications: Micro‐finance in the industrialized countries: Helping the unemployed to start a business New ILO publications: Panorama laboral 2002: America Latina y el Caribe New ILO publications: Pension reform in central and eastern Europe . Edited by Elaine FULTZ New ILO publications: Pensiones no contributivas y asistenciales: Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Costa Rica y Uruguay . Edited by Fabio M. BERTRANOU, Carmen SOLORIO and Wouter van GINNEKEN New ILO publications: Public emergency services: Social dialogue in a changing environment New ILO publications: Social dialogue in the health services: Institutions, capacity and effectiveness New ILO publications: Social reinsurance: A new approach to sustainable community health financing . Edited by David M. DROR and Alexander S. PREKER New ILO publications: The Committee on Freedom of Association: Its impact over 50 years . By Eric GRAVEL, Isabelle DUPLESSIS and Bernard GERNIGON New ILO publications: The evolution of employment, working time and training in the mining industry     

Window on the world. Social policy and social work in New Zealand

In recent years, New Zealand has attracted some international attention for its relatively rigorous application of monetarist, neo-liberal social and economic policies. This has led to its transformation from being one of the most socialized and protected economies in the western alliance to being relatively deregulated and open to global trade. The implications for New Zealand society and its publicly funded services have been profound. This article gives a summary of the outcomes of the neo-liberal era for New Zealand, including some of the major changes specific to social policy and social work. Areas of interest include: the growing recognition of the bi-cultural foundation of New Zealand society; the changes in welfare, labour, housing, and social security policies; and especially New Zealand's unique approach to the welfare of children and young persons. The implications of New Zealand's strong emphasis on contracting-out of social services are considered, alongside a broader assessment of the benefits of the 'reforms' for New Zealanders collectively. Some indications of future changes in direction, subsequent to the recent change in government, are also given.     

社会主义新农村视角下的乡镇政府职能研究

全面建设社会主义新农村,乡镇政府是重要的组织力量。本文对构建社会主义新农村的内涵和关于在社会主义新农村中乡镇政府职能的研究做了梳理,指出在建设社会主义新农村的视角下乡镇政府的主要职能表现于：经济建设职能、社会建设职能、文化建设职能、生态建设职能和政治建设职能。     

Calling capital: call centre strategies in New Brunswick and New Zealand

This article compares government promoted call centre initiatives in New Zealand and New Brunswick, Canada, thereby identifying differing policies and practices associated with ‘globalization’. Both New Brunswick and New Zealand are small resource based economies in which policy makers aspire to attract foreign investment into call centres as a new means of economic growth and job creation. However there are significant differences between the two call centre strategies. In New Brunswick the provincial government plays a central role, most notably through the use of incentives to lure companies to the province but also through the coordination of education and training. In New Zealand an informal network made up of public and private sector actors drives the strategy, and the relevant government agency (Trade NZ) plays only a coordinating role. Despite these differences both call centre strategies aspire to link service sector activities into global flows and networks, and foster low wage and feminized forms of employment.     

The New Zealand national survey of problem and pathological gambling

In New Zealand, awareness of gambling-related problems has increased in association with the legalization of new forms of gambling. This paper presents the methods and selected results from a national survey of gambling and problem gambling completed in New Zealand in 1991. While the primary aim of the study was to determine the extent of problem gambling in New Zealand, the study included a second phase intended to assess the validity and reliability of the widely-used South Oaks Gambling Screen as well as to examine other aspects of problematic involvement in gambling. The results of the two-phase study in New Zealand show that problem gamblers in different countries are remarkably similar in demographic terms as well as with regard to other risk factors associated with problematic gambling involvement. The New Zealand study of problem gambling points the way toward important research topics that will require further exploration in the future.This research was funded by the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs and by the US National Institute of Mental Health (MH-44295).     

Stewardship of public assets under nonprofit conversion models: New York's Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield case study

This research describes a case study of the Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield conversion under way in New York. In January 2002, legislation approved the conversion and the disposition of $1 billion in assets: 95 percent for health care salaries and expenses and 5 percent for a foundation to promote health care for the poor. New York's approach is controversial. According to Greene and Sommerfield (2002), the New York Times considers it the largest fiscal gimmick in New York's history, and Consumers Union is challenging it in the courts, asserting the plan is illegal. This article describes New York's approach to nonprofit conversion, proposing that more research on conversions is needed and that case study research illustrating the way different states approach the issue has the potential to bring together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in an important debate that will advance public policymaking that furthers the public good. Subsequently, on June 20, 2005, New York State's highest court dismissed the Consumers Union lawsuit, affirming the actions of the New York State legislature and bringing to an end nearly three years of state‐level litigation.     

Migrant Workers Home and its practices on shaping the culture and community of ‘New Working Class’: a criticism on cultural-political activism in contemporary China

ABSTRACT

New Workers Home (Beijing, China) has been the most important site of activism and organizing of New Workers culture in Mainland China over the past 15 years. Beyond today’s intellectual atmosphere of liberal and ‘left-phobia’ in China, exploring the formation of a New Working Class can give us a new sense of class discourse and imagination of socialist China in the dimensions of both knowledge and activism. Based on my half-year fieldwork in New Workers Home and participant observation in knowledge and activism of New Workers culture, this paper aims at providing an in-depth analysis of the implications and tensions in the Migrant Workers Home’s imagination of New Workers culture and the organization’s energy and internal turbulence in their imagination of the community of the New Working Class, through reviewing their cultural actions focusing on the ‘cultural battlefield’ and community culture of Pi Cun (an urban fringe village in Beijing), their wider actions in social enterprise, ecological agriculture, organizational works among New Workers and their own organization’s internal situation. The outline of the problematics in this paper can be drawn by putting forward the following questions. How is the New Workers culture shaped by Migrant Workers Home? According to the situation of New Workers in contemporary China, what is its imagination of this forming class? How does it intervene the forming of a New Working Class with its cultural activism? By establishing a museum, college, social enterprises and ecological farms, how do these practices show its imagination of labours’ culture and politics? Located in Beijing and facing special political conditions, how does it arrange the guidelines and strategies of movements? What are the dilemmas of these practices, strategies and real politics?     

State experiences with implementing the Cash and Counseling Demonstration and Evaluation project

The Cash and Counseling Demonstration and Evaluation (CCDE) tested one of the most autonomous forms of consumer direction for personal assistance services. In the winter of 1996/97, Arkansas, Florida, New Jersey, and New York each received grants to develop and implement CCDE. While Arkansas, Florida, and New Jersey were successful in their efforts of implementing CCDE, New York was unable to do so. Using elements of Hasenfeld and Brock's (1991) political economy policy implementation model, the following sections describe two primary interactions between key policy implementation instruments and internal and external stakeholders that made New York's participation in CCDE not possible. This case study also provides some lessons for other states interested in developing Cash and Counseling models.     

He Wero: The Challenge of Putting Your Body on the Line: Teaching and Learning in Anti‐Racist Practice1

This paper explores ways in which social workers, community workers and social work educators have developed anti‐racist practice in relation to indigenous issues in Aotearoa/New Zealand. A brief history of anti‐racism training in Aotearoa/New Zealand is provided, showing how this has been reflected in the Massey University Bachelor of Social Work programme. The core of the discussion describes the application of a structural analysis model to engage students in identifying their own culture and how they situate their experiences in relation to the indigenous Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Processes of Maori tikanga (custom) and whole person/soul learning are utilised to prepare students to engage with the Bicultural Code of Practice of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers, which mandates partnership under the Treaty of Waitangi, acknowledging Maori as the indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand.     

Adoption Now: a joint initiative of New York's courts and child welfare system

In November 2002, Chief Judge Judith Kaye attended the National Adoption Day festivities in Albany County and New York County (Manhattan). Although pleased that 600 adoptions were being finalized statewide on this special day, she was concerned to learn more than 6,000 other children were free for adoption but had not yet found permanent families. Judge Kaye reached out to New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) Commissioner John A. Johnson and New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS) then-Commissioner William Bell to come together and begin a discussion to identify and resolve systemic barriers to adoption. At a press conference in May 2003, Chief Judge Kaye, Governor Pataki, New York City Mayor Bloomberg, and Judges and Commissioners representing counties from across the state announced the Adoption Now initiative that set a goal of finalizing adoptions for 5,000 children (3800 in New York City and 1200 upstate) by the end of 2003.     

Tracing Saint Germain: Absolute Knowledge and the Specter of Immortality

So‐called New Age practices and popular culture phenomena have virtually inundated the postmodern world, giving rise to numerous critical responses as well as welcome investments in their presumed significance. Sometimes dubbed a “religion”, New Age ideas and their various cultural manifestations have provoked sectarian and at times vituperative responses from significant critics of various ideological persuasions. Umberto Eco indicts the New Age movement for its lack of critical thinking, chastising the odd preference for a multiplicity of mystical truths, ranging from Dan Brown’s novels to faith in psychics. His position echoes the sentiments of a number of scholars who view New Age adherents as self‐centered and gullible. Slavoj ?i?ek, from his Marxist/Lacanian position, excoriates New Agers as deluded because of their withdrawal from political commitment, and he also views them as merely another symptom reproducing the mystified logic of consumer capitalism. Given the range of critical responses to New Age beliefs, it is particularly important to understand their historical antecedents. Some of these, such as the Saint Germain phenomenon, can be mined for what they disclose about the deeper motivations underlying the present willingness to grasp at arcane and ephemeral beliefs and dubious cultural practices. Some fall within the purview of “spiritualism”, including the search for a confirmation of immortality, which Saint Germain has symbolized for many, including certain of the nobility of pre‐revolutionary France. Saint Germain provides an ideological and psychoanalytic test case for what drives the alternative quests of New Age occultism. By reading Isabel Cooper‐Oakley’s work on Saint Germain, in conjunction with other representations, the objective is to launch a dialogue with both Eco and ?i?ek that builds a critical response to the New Age from a more informed historical and cultural studies approach.     

Blacks and earnings in New York State

This research seeks to explain why earnings differences among foreign‐born Jamaicans and native‐born blacks are significantly larger in New York State than they are throughout the United States. The findings indicate that the Jamaicans in New York State are less endowed in terms of earnings‐related attributes, relative to the native born, than they are nationwide. Furthermore, even though the Jamaicans in New York State definitely are more disadvantaged with respect to earnings, this is not a manifestation of more intense discrimination. In all actuality, discrimination accounts for a relatively smaller proportion of the earnings gap in the New York State case than in the national case.     

The New Media and social culture demoralized and demoralizing in China

ABSTRACT

Since sometime in the 1990s, the Internet- and digital technology-based New Media has been on a rapid increase and is now profoundly affecting the daily life of contemporary Chinese people, who are at once enjoying its various benefits and suffer constantly from its problems. It is no surprise that the New Media should have its peculiar liabilities, but in China, in particular, its downsides are extensively and acutely felt. Based on close-range observation of current Chinese life, an in-depth interview and a discussion of a few typical ‘media events’, this paper reviews the disordered and demoralized Chinese social culture, proliferated and amplified by the New Media, in perspectives of media biases, ‘media events’, and communicative strategies and their functional inversion, to explore the correlation between the New Media and cultural derailment and disruption. It suggests that amorality, the absence of deep thinking, and the ever-demoralizing mass culture that mark contemporary China can be, to a large degree, attributed to the technological revolution embodied in the New Media. In short, the demoralized New Media culture is demoralizing the whole social culture.     

Rapid Reregulation,Agricultural Restructuring,and the Reimaging of Agriculture in New Zealand1

Abstract As a member of the Cairns Group, New Zealand is an excellent case for investigation of the impacts of market-based restructuring and the emergence of new mechanisms for regulation. The paper examines how agriculture in New Zealand has been impacted by economic reforms that have fundamentally changed the nature and interrelations of regulatory arrangements and economic processes. The paper sketches the origins of New Zealand's agricultural crisis and the main features of the reforms, outlines developments in several global commodity chains (meat, dairy, apples) that since the mid 1980s have shaped regulatory and governance adjustments, and explores dimensions of a reimaging of agriculture in new conditions. The paper concludes that agri-food restructuring in New Zealand is implicated in the wider integrative project of globalization. Agriculture's reconstruction reopens the scope and terms under which New Zealand labor and households might be able to participate in the agri-food sector.     

Briefly Noted

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will award 12 grants to form the Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN) to support research on quality addiction treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) in criminal justice settings nationwide, with a total of $155 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. One focus will be on finding new medications. There will be 10 research institutions and two centers. JCOIN is part of the NIH HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long‐term) initiative launched last year. Funded institutions and the site locations are: the New York State Psychiatric Institute (New York), Baystate Medical Center (Massachusetts), Friends Research Institute Inc. (Maryland), Texas Christian University (Illinois, New Mexico, Texas), the New York University School of Medicine (Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon), Brown University (North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island), the University of Chicago (Illinois), Chestnut Health Systems Inc. (Illinois), the University of Kentucky (Kentucky), and Yale University (Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Puerto Rico). George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, will serve as the JCOIN coordination and translation center. For more information, go to https://www.nih.gov/research‐training/medical‐research‐initiatives/heal‐initiative/justice‐community‐opioid‐innovation‐network .     

A Wanderer in a Distant Place: Tibetan Exile Youth,Literacy, and Emotion

Among Tibetans living in exile in India, expressions of longing and sadness for family, friends and places in Tibet are not uniformly shared across members of the community. Time and distance have faded and idealized their homeland in the memories of long‐term exiles. Yet, for a segment of this community called New Arrivals, who have only relatively recently left Tibet, people and places “back home” are real and immediate. The immediacy of these ties to Chinese Tibet, however, often engenders perceptions of New Arrivals as Sinicised, backward and uneducated. This paper focuses on these New Arrivals in the enclave of McLeod Ganj, India, home to the Tibetan exile government and approximately 7,000 Tibetan exiles. In this predominately Tibetan area, the division between long‐term exiles and New Arrivals constitutes the dominant social boundary among McLeod Ganj Tibetans, a division that is most prominent among McLeod Ganj’s Tibetan youth. Drawing from community discourses, social networks and practices, and educational institutions, I analyse everyday written forms (e.g., poetry, letters, diary entries) to suggest that through these writings, New Arrival youth are constituting and reconstructing their marginalized position within the community. In an exile community where resources are limited, improving the position of New Arrivals can be challenging. Here, I suggest two approaches to the difficulties these youth face. First, re‐educating the larger Tibetan community in order to breakdown the prejudices that exist toward these new exiles. Second, refashioning the existing educational institutions for New Arrivals to better prepare them for employment in the Tibetan communities or elsewhere in India.     

Gender Trouble in Town: Educated Women Eluding Male Domination,Gender Violence and Marriage in PNG

Following Zimmer-Tamakoshi's observations about educated Pacific women not wanting to marry their countrymen, I examine educated Papua New Guinean women's perspectives on marrying Papua New Guinean men. Women in this group avoid marriage because they fear such relationships will destroy their career prospects, compromise their economic and decision-making independence and force them to grapple with male jealousy and violence in the domestic realm. In short, educated Papua New Guinean women perceive partnerships with their countrymen as being more troublesome than they are worth. The women's attitudes and actions suggest an emerging trend with important implications for understanding (both) the relationship between gender and education and intimate relationships in Papua New Guinea.     

The Imaginary Audience and Personal Fable: Factor Analyses and Concurrent Validity of the “New Look” Measures

This study examined key components of the “New Look” at the imaginary audience and personal fable constructs. Toward this end, data from four samples of Belgian high school students (N= 1,458) were analyzed. Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses failed to confirm that the measures associated with the New Look theory, the New Imaginary Audience Scale, and the New Personal Fable Scale (NPFS), tapped a common underlying construct. Only the invulnerability and omnipotence subscales of the NPFS proved to be highly related. In line with the New Look theory, boys were found to believe more strongly in their own uniqueness, invulnerability, and omnipotence than were girls. Higher scores on the invulnerability and omnipotence subscales were associated with lower levels of depression and loneliness. Finally, each aspect of the personal fable seemed to have its own specific role in the process of separation – individuation. Implications of these findings for the New Look theory of the imaginary audience and the personal fable are discussed. Suggestions for future research are put forth, with particular emphasis on the role of the invulnerability/omnipotence complex in adolescent development and behavior and on the family resemblances among the various aspects of the personal fable.     

A Tentative Study of New Historicism in China

The concept of New Historicism provides us with a new and critical perspective to understand the historical truth. Influencedby New Historicism, more and more scholars have been tapping into the truth of history by interpreting the literary texts of history inChina. This paper aims at telling the impact of New Historicism on Chinese scholars, writers, and readers by analyzing the characteristics ofhistory books, historical novels and new historical novels.     

International migration and New Zealand labour markets

"This paper seeks to assess the value of the overseas-born members of the labour force in ensuring a flexible labour supply in New Zealand since the beginning of the 1970s. Three main issues are considered: first, the role of the labour market in New Zealand's immigration policy; second, international migration trends and the labour market; and third, the evidence on migration and labour market segmentation in New Zealand." Data used are from official external migration statistics, quinquennial censuses, and recent research. The author notes that "in New Zealand immigration measures are currently being taken that emphasize that immigration continues to add to the flexibility of the labour market while uncontrolled emigration is a major cause of labour market instability." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)