Nanshin: Budget-Maximizing Behavior,the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Origins of the Pacific War

Inter-service rivalry over budget allocations between the Japanese Imperial Navy and the Imperial Army played a crucial role in the genesis of World War Two in the Pacific. The adoption of a nanshin (southward advance) strategy by the Navy may be explained as an attempt to maximize its budget leading directly to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. To date, this argument has been presented in the form of historical narrative without any explanatory theoretical framework. The present paper seeks to place inter-service budgetary rivalry within the context of public choice theory to enhance understanding of this historical perspective.     

Gender differences in factors that influence time spent planning for retirement

Retirement research has shown that planning activities are influenced by a variety of demographic and psychological variables. However, few investigations have focused on how demographic and psychological factors influence the time and effort men and women allocate to retirement preparation. In the present study, 184 individuals completed a survey designed to assess future time perspective (FTP), worry about retirement, age, and income level. Hierarchical regression techniques were used to examine how these variables influenced the amount of time men and women spent planning for and thinking about retirement. Results revealed that women spent less time thinking about retirement than men, and gender was differentially related to the factors predictive of this activity. From an applied perspective, these findings suggest that separate retirement intervention programs are warranted that meet the unique needs of working men and women.     

Counselling Disabled People: a counsellor's perspective

For many years professionals have assumed that disability is a problem for impaired individuals and that it is the disability that causes emotional or psychological problems. Whether this is true and whether a specific model of counselling is needed to help disabled people to cope with the emotional effects of their disability has not been widely researched and this is examined in this piece of research. The causes of psychological distress are discussed and the ways in which counsellors work are studied. Using a grounded methodological approach, disabled and able bodied counsellors of disabled people were interviewed as this was considered to be the most sensitive way of exploring this area. The findings show that more often than not it is the client's lack of control over their physical and social environment and not the impairment that causes emotional difficulties. Counsellors indicated that, through the facilitation of counselling, a sense of self empowerment in practical, emotional and social areas could be achieved and this was the central theme emerging as the most distinctive aspect of counselling clients with physical impairments.     

Ageing Lesbians: Marginalising Discourses and Social Exclusion in the Aged Care Industry

The provision of services for ageing lesbians in Victoria, Australia, appears, at an initial reading, to be equitable and inclusive. Government polities suggest recognition and respect for diversity, with a focus on equitable provision of all social services. The reality, however, turns out to be both problematic and exclusionary. The researchers explored how dominant discourses around aged care facilities fail to take into account the identities and needs of ageing lesbians. The advertising brochures of aged care facilities were subjected to a critical and feminist discourse analysis, which was then compared with the perceived needs of a group of ageing lesbians from the same region as the aged care facilities. The data revealed marginalizing of non-heterosexual identities through the absence of representation in the brochures and their exclusion in the construction of aged care space. Further, a review of aged care policies that underpin the provision of services found that lesbian needs and identities were not included or mentioned in the special need groups. This limits the potential of the aged care industry to provide services that are culturally sensitive, safe, and inclusive.     

The pipeline: Botswana’s reception of refugees, 1956–68

This paper covers Botswana’s emergence as a place of refuge from its troubled white‐ruled neighbours. Botswana’s reception of refugees is seen as a symptom of, and as a catalyst for, its growing identification as a distinct nation in the region. From 1956, Bechuanaland colonial authorities distanced themselves from apartheid South Africa, and from 1957–58 the country received significant influxes of political refugees. The paper pays particular attention to the ‘pipeline’ that took refugees north across the Zambezi. This was initially protected from local police interference probably by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Nelson Mandela, alias ‘David Motsamayi’, used the pipeline ‘down’ as well as ‘up’ to re‐enter South Africa. Such arrangements continued through independence in 1966 but were almost terminated when guerrilla fighters tried to use Botswana as a refuge in 1966–67. Revaluation of policy towards refugees within Botswana government circles resulted after 1969 in more overt moral support for liberation movements and, boosted by new economic strength, more self‐confident assertion of national sovereignty against neighbouring countries. This set the scene for Botswana to receive a huge influx of refugees as a result of the Soweto rising of 1976.