Lessons from Latin America's neo‐liberal experiment: An overview of labour and social policies since the 1980s

Introducing the six country studies that follow, this analytical overview shows that the social and labour policies inspired by the Washington Consensus – implemented across much of Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s – consistently failed to deliver the expected improvements. Labour flexibilization, decentralization of collective bargaining, pension privatization and other measures to increase market provision of welfare typically resulted in growing informality, widening inequalities and shrinking social protection coverage, while also failing to stimulate employment growth. But the lessons have been learned: many such policies have recently been reconsidered and there are signs that a more balanced policy approach may be emerging in Latin America.     

An emergent cosmopolitan paradigm? Asylum,welfare and human rights1

This paper addresses the recognition in cosmopolitan debate of a possible disjuncture between the normative ideal of cosmopolitanism and its realization in practice. Taking as its focus the potential conflict between human rights commitments and national concern about immigration control, it reflects on a series of legal challenges to UK government attempts to withdraw support from asylum seekers who do not claim on entry into the country. Set in the context of socio‐legal theory, these cases are analysed for signs of a ‘national’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ paradigm in judicial interpretation, and considered as a possible instance of reflexive judgment, espoused as a feature of cosmopolitanism.     

Democratically Elected Aristocracies

The article suggests a formal model of a two-tier voting procedure, which unlike traditional voting systems does not presuppose that every vote counts the same. In deciding a particular issue voters are called in the first round to assign categories of their fellow-citizens with differential voting power (or weights) according to the special position or concern individuals are perceived to have with regard to that issue. In the second stage, voters vote on the issue itself according to their substantive view and their votes are counted in the light of the differential weights assigned in the first round. We analyze formal and philosophical reasons that support the model.     

Consumer Risk Perceptions Toward Agricultural Biotechnology, Self-Protection, and Food Demand: The Case of Milk in the United States

This study is an econometric systems approach to modeling the factors and linkages affecting risk perceptions toward agricultural biotechnology, self-protection actions, and food demand. This model is applied to milk in the United States, but it can be adapted to other products as well as other categories of risk perceptions. The contribution of this formulation is the ability to examine how explanatory factors influence risk perceptions and whether they translate into behavior and ultimately what impact this has on aggregate markets. Hadden's outrage factors on heightening risk perceptions are among the factors examined. In particular, the article examines the role of labeling as a means of permitting informed consent to mitigate outrage factors. The effects of attitudinal, economic, and demographic factors on risk perceptions are also explored, as well as the linkage between risk perceptions, consumer behavior, and food demand. Because risk perceptions and self-protection actions are categorical variables and demand is a continuous variable, the model is estimated as a two-stage mixed system with a covariance correction procedure suggested by Amemiya. The findings indicate that it is the availability of labeling, not the price difference, between that labeled milk and milk produced with recombinant bovine Somatotropin (rbST) that significantly affects consumer's selection of rbST-free milk. The results indicate that greater availability of labeled milk would not only significantly increase the proportion of consumers who purchased labeled milk, its availability would also reduce the perception of risk associated with rbST, whether consumers purchase it or not. In other words, availability of rbST-free milk translates into lower risk perceptions toward milk produced with rbST.     

The mental health status of Latino children in the public child welfare system: a look at the role of generation and origin

As the number of Latino children in public child welfare continues to grow, it is necessary to understand how their mental health is faring. The paper examines emotional and behavioural needs among Latino children who had contact with the public child welfare system. The purpose of this longitudinal study was twofold: to examine the severity of emotional and behavioural problems, and to assess the predictive role of generation status and Latino origin. Latent growth models were completed using the National Survey on Children and Adolescent Well‐Being. The predictive model for the externalizing CBCL scale revealed that generation status and Latino origin were significant predictors. At baseline, Puerto Rican children exhibited higher rates of externalizing problems compared with Mexican children. Over time children who were first/second generation tended to have lower scores compared with the third‐plus generation children. Implications for practise are discussed.     

Robust effects of stress on early lexical representation

This study aims to elucidate the factors that affect the robustness of word form representations by exploring the relative influence of lexical stress and segmental identity (consonant vs. vowel) on infant word recognition. Our main question was which changes to the words may go unnoticed and which may lead the words to be unrecognizable. One‐hundred 11‐month‐old Hebrew‐learning infants were tested in two experiments using the Central Fixation Procedure. In Experiment 1, 20 infants were presented with iambic Familiar and Unfamiliar words. The infants listened longer to Familiar than to Unfamiliar words, indicating their recognition of frequently heard word forms. In Experiment 2, four groups of 20 infants each were tested in each of four conditions involving altered iambic Familiar words contrasted with iambic Unfamiliar nonwords. In each condition, one segment in the Familiar word was changed—either a consonant or a vowel, in either the first (unstressed) or the second (stressed) syllable. In each condition, recognition of the Familiar words despite the change indicates a less accurate or less well‐specified representation. Infants recognized Familiar words despite changes to the weak (first) syllable, regardless of whether the change involved a consonant or a vowel (conditions 2a, 2c). However, a change of either consonant or vowel in the stressed (second) syllable blocked word recognition (conditions 2b, 2d). These findings support the proposal that stress pattern plays a key role in early word representation, regardless of segmental identity.     

Ross B., Segal C., (2021) Making the Ask: The Artful Science of High-Value Fundraising. Practical Inspiration Publishing

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Redundancy and patterns of household finance1

This paper examines the nature and implications of different patterns of income flow within households in the critical situation of redundancy for the male main earner. In a sample of forty households a number of different patterns of resource allocation were found, and may be divided into four general types: one based on female control, two on male control, and one on dual control. A normative tendency to attach priority to items of collective household expenditure was detected, together with a division of labour which left the woman largely responsible for domestic affairs. I argue that given these circumstances, the lower the household income, the greater the need for unitary control, and the greater the likelihood that this control will be exercised by the woman. The paper goes on to examine the implications of the different patterns of income flow for marital relations, outlining the way in which the renegotiation of personal and domestic needs will have implications for, and also be influenced by, the nature of the marital relationship, the degree of both spouses' involvement in extra-household networks, the characteristics of these networks, and the resources which they make available.     

Local social networks and domestic organisations: a study of redundant steel workers and their wives1

This paper applies the seminal insight of Elizabeth Bott (1957) to an analysis of the domestic organisation and local social networks of 40 redundant steel workers and their wives. Certain methodological problems which arose in the course of the research prompted a reconsideration of particular aspects of existing work in this field, and a more detailed specification of the possible patterns of interaction resulting from the independent and joint activities of husband and wife. The paper outlines three models of social interaction which emerged from the research data, and uses these models as a means of highlighting certain aspects of independent male and female social activity. Finally, the work discusses the implication of different social patterns for the organisation of domestic life and the management of household finance.