Different Paths to Similar Outcomes? Industrial Relations Reform and Public Policy in Australia and New Zealand

In recent years, both Australia and New Zealand have embarked on significant labor market reforms which have resulted in more decentralized and individualized systems of industrial relations. Although both countries share a common heritage of state-sponsored conciliation and arbitration, which fostered a centralized approach to labor market regulation, each has responded in its own way to economic and political pressures to reform its long-established industrial relations system. Despite differences in the process of indusrial relations reform, both countries now have industrial relations systems which are more individualistic and in which unions play a less significant role than in the past.

Colonialism and Civil Society in Africa: The Perspective of Ekeh’s Two Publics

Although it has gained wide currency in the analysis of African politics, civil society remains a “mysterious” concept in need of proper grounding and understanding as an integral part of African social formation. This paper argues that one of the widely acclaimed canonical works in African studies, Peter Ekeh’s theory of colonialism and the two publics in Africa provides one of the most original perspectives for locating and understanding the character of modern civil society as a product of colonialism. In particular, the theory provides an explanation for why primordial attachments have remained fundamental to the structuration of civil society and why state–civil society relations have largely been fractured, instrumentalist, and dialectical in the post-colonial period.

Bringing the body back into theory and methodology

This is a discussion of a book by Kathryn Linn Geurts, Culture and the Senses. Bodily Ways of Knowing in an African Community, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002; and a book by Judith Farquhar, Appetites. Food and Sex in Post-Socialist China, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2002.

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Good for the Goose,Bad for the Gander: International Labor Standards and Comparative Development

The international labor rights movement, led by the International Labour Organization (ILO), asserts that developing countries are currently ready for more stringent labor standards. We investigate this claim by examining the timing of labor standard adoption in highly developed countries, which were all once as poor as today’s developing countries and made the trade-off between labor standards and income in the past. Their experience therefore suggests a safe income threshold for adopting similar labor standards in the developing world. We find that every ILO-proposed labor standard is highly premature for the developing countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Countries there are between 100 and 300 years from reaching this threshold. Similarly, we find that so-called sweatshop-intensive developing countries are between 35 and 100 years from this threshold. ILO-proposed policy is exactly backward. A substantial relaxation of labor standards is the appropriate labor policy for the developing world.

Export, Import and Economic Growth: The Case of Transition Economies

This study analyses the relationships between export, import and economic growth for the 13 transition economies. Empirical results show that there is a unidirectional causality from economic growth to export. Empirical findings show that the growth-led export hypothesis is valid in those countries and growth is rather shaped by increase in import demand.

The Structure of the Chinese Banking System and Credit Access Problems for SMEs

This paper examines the structure and the main characteristics of the Chinese banking industry. In particular, the paper analyses the problematic aspects of credit relations of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The SMEs are facing several problems in accessing the bank loans market, dominated by the political and contractual weight of state-owned enterprises. However, some recent reforms have improved the situation, a fundamental condition for additional positive results. Nevertheless, further and more pervasive modernization efforts are needed to consolidate these results and to develop the relationships between banks and SMEs.

Gender and Value Orientations—What’s the Difference!? The Case of Japan and the United States

This paper analyzes gendered social identity in Japan and the United States, countries with comparable postindustrial economic systems but distinct cultural traditions. Using national surveys (1995), we find gender differences in value orientations to be neither systematic nor consistent. They often disappeared after controlling for demographic and human-capital variables, though not so often for Japan. Other variables proved more important predictors of values than gender, although in different ways in Japan and the United States. We conclude by reassessing the use of the term gender in social research and the cultural meaning of gender relations by addressing the feminist concerns with issues of gender location.

The scoring rules in an endogenous election

Plurality rule is mostly criticized from being capable of choosing an alternative considered as worst by a strict majority. This paper considers elections in which the agenda consists of potential candidates strategically choosing whether or not to enter the election. In this context, we examine the ability of scoring rules to fulfil the Condorcet criterion. We show for the case of three potential candidates that Plurality rule is the only scoring rule that satisfies a version of the Condorcet criterion in two cases: 1) when preferences are single-peaked and, 2) when preferences are single-dipped.

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The Chinese and Indian Automobile Industry in Perspective: Technology Appropriation, Catching-up and Development

The comparison of the automobile industry in China and India allows us to shed light on the economic processes of emergence at large. There is a stark contrast in the capacities of autonomisation and endogenisation of the sector in the two countries. This contrast serves as an analyser of the relationships between the modes of sector opening and the paths of technological catching-up that is at the core of the phenomenon of emergence.

Therapeutic Ambition,Uncertainty, and Psychotherapy with Heterosexually Married Gay Men: A Short Commentary

A Short Commentary on the article 'Staying Put in the Closet: Examining Clinical Practice and Countertransference Issues in Work with Gay Men Married to Straight Women' by Edward Alessi. The focus is upon countertransference issues, especially therapeutic ambition, in working clinically with heterosexually married gay men. The work of the interpersonal school is emphasized as providing a creative approach to therapeutic ambition with Otto Allen Will's concept of the governing principle of uncertainty.

Victims of the Genocidal Mind: Societal Indicators and Individual Case Treatment Considerations

This paper uses the theoretical lens of object relations and takes the position that the paranoid-schizoid position and the related mechanism of projective identification—cornerstone pathology found in the phenomenon of fascism and totalitarianism—are not atypical, but rather live within the seemingly normal individual. Using Rwanda as a case example, the author illustrates the continuum of beliefs and actions that can result in genocide, and then describes some of the treatment considerations facing the clinician dealing with victims of genocide.

The Role of Affect Regulation in a Case of Attempted Maternal-Filicide Suicide: Commentary on an Act of Despair

A case of attempted maternal-filial suicide is discussed from the perspective of trauma, emotional regulation and defense mechanisms. Case details which include childhood sexual abuse, observed parental violence and emotional neglect allow for an illustration of the impact of childhood family experiences on adult intimacy and coping patterns. Domestic violence and the perception of protection are also explored. Emotional regulation in the experience of despair is approached from an object relations perspective. Based on this, implications for prevention and treatment are presented.

The Gender Pay Gap in the US: Does Sector Make a Difference?

Analyses of data from the 2000 US Census show that the gender pay gap differs by sector of employment and according to the part of the earnings distribution that is considered. The gender pay differential in the private sector in the US does not display either the glass ceiling or sticky floor effects that have been reported for many other countries. The government sector is, however, characterized by a distinct sticky floor effect in the female–male pay differential. Regardless of the sector of employment, females have lower hourly rates of pay than men across the entire earnings distribution.

The Therapeutic Palette: A Guide to Choice Points in Integrative Couple Therapy

This article describes the Therapeutic Palette approach to couple therapy. The Palette is organized in terms of three domains: Time Frame (past vs. present vs. future), Degree of Directiveness, and Change Entry Point (emotions, thoughts, behavior, physiology), and assists clinicians to draw from different schools of therapy in a flexible and purposeful way. In contrast to more structured, sequential approaches to integrative therapy, the Therapeutic Palette is designed to allow shifts among different theories and practices within one session. A detailed case vignette illustrates the approach.

Efficient nonanthropocentric nature protection

This paper analyzes nature protection by a social planner under different ‘utilitarian’ social welfare functions. For that purpose we construct an integrated model of the economy and the ecosystem with explicit consideration of nonhuman species and with competition between human and nonhuman species for land and prey biomass. We characterize and compare the efficient allocations when social welfare is anthropocentric (only consumers have positive welfare weights), when social welfare is biocentric (only nonhuman species have positive welfare weights) and when social welfare is nonanthropocentric (all species have positive welfare weights). Not surprisingly, biocentric social welfare calls for suspending all economic activities. It is more important, however, that both anthropocentrism and nonanthropocentrism make the case for nature protection through different channels, though. Our analysis suggests that one may dispense with the concept of nonanthropocentric social welfare provided that in the anthropocentric framework the consumers' intrinsic valuation of nature is properly accounted for.

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Transition and Foreign Aid Policies in the Visegrád Countries: A Path Dependant Approach

The paper argues that the current emerging international development policies of the Visegrád (V4) countries are heavily influenced by the certain aspects of the Communist past and the transition process. Due to these influences, the V4 countries have difficulties in adapting the foreign aid practices of Western donors and this leads to the emergence of a unique Central and Eastern European development cooperation model. As an analytical background, the paper builds on the path dependency theory of transition. A certain degree of path dependence is clearly visible in V4 foreign aid policies, and the paper analyses some aspects of this phenomenon: how these new emerging foreign aid donors select their partner countries, how much they spend on aid, how they formulate their aid delivery policies and institutions and what role the non-state actors play. The main conclusions of the paper are that the legacies of the Communist past have a clear influence and the V4 countries still have a long way to go in adapting their aid policies to international requirements.

On the influence of extreme parties in electoral competition with policy-motivated candidates

We study and compare equilibrium platforms in models of unidimensional electoral competition with two and four policy motivated parties. We first analyze the plurality game, where the party getting the most votes is elected and implements its proposed platform. Restrictions on the set of credible announcements are needed to get existence of equilibria. Comparing equilibria with two and four parties, we obtain that moderate parties react to the introduction of extreme parties by proposing the same or more extreme equilibrium platforms. We then study the proportional system, where the policy implemented is a weighted sum of the proposals, with the voting shares as weights. Here, the existence of extreme parties leads moderate ones to choose more centrist platforms. We finally test the robustness of our results with respect to, first, the enlargement of the strategy space to entry decisions and, second, to asymmetric distributions of voters' blisspoints.

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Conflict-Oriented Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CO-CBT): An Integrative Approach to the Treatment of Bulimia Nervosa Patients

The paper describes an integrative approach to the treatment of Bulimia Nervosa that combines Cognitive Behavioral Treatment (CBT) with short-term dynamic treatment, called conflict-oriented cognitive behavioral treatment (CO-CBT). The need to develop an integrative model emerges from the lack of focus on the underlying emotional dynamics in the traditional CBT approach. This article provides a brief literature review of CBT and short-term dynamic therapy as applied to Bulimia Nervosa patients. It describes the CO-CBT treatment model, followed by clinical examples, and a discussion of the importance of incorporating this additional dimension in order to most successfully treat Bulimia Nervosa.