Civil Society Opposition to Nonferrous Metals Mining in the Philippines

Abstact Drawing on a range of fieldwork interviews, this paper discusses the opposition of civil society to nonferrous metals mining in the Philippines. The efforts of the Philippine government to enhance development by encouraging the extraction of the nation's mineral resources by foreign corporations is discussed, as is the opposition of Philippine civil society to these efforts. This opposition to nonferrous metals mining has involved protests, litigation, administrative proceedings, and implementation of mining moratoriums by local governments. The paper concludes with an examination of the respective costs and benefits of a mining-based development paradigm in the context of the way in which many Filipinos view foreign extraction of their nation's resources.     

The Profile of Board Membership in Israeli Voluntary Organizations

This study of 161 nonprofit organizations in Israel was aimed at exploring the composition of boards, the methods employed to recruit new board members, and the selection criteria of board members. The results suggest that boards tend to be closed, elitist circles. Most organizations use mainly informal means to recruit new board members. The most important selection criteria were those related to interpersonal relationships, willingness to contribute time, and expressing an interest in working for the organization.     

Comparing Thistles and Roses: The Application of Governmental–Voluntary Sector Relations Theory to Scotland and England

Typologies of government–voluntary sector relations mostly categorize nation-level situations, and omit consideration of intra-national differences. They are also rarely subject to empirical testing and subsequent theoretical development. This paper reports on research to apply Kuhnle and Selle's (2002) relational typology, which characterizes the experience of “Britain,” to a study of Scottish and English voluntary organizations' relations with government. Contrary to Kuhnle and Selle, the paper demonstrates — through survey data — a divergence between Scotland and England, within the “British” context, and advances the case for further testing of such conceptual typologies. The methodological challenges in moving from a theoretical framework to a research design capable of field application, using survey methods, are illustrated and discussed. Further directions for theoretically led work are suggested.     

Altruistic Individualists: Motivations for International Volunteering Among Young Adults in Switzerland

Modernization theory posits a change from traditional or “collective” forms to modern or “reflective” forms of volunteering. In a research project using a combined qualitative–quantitative approach, the motivation of 118 young Swiss adults who showed an interest in international volunteering was investigated. Qualitative analysis revealed 12 different motives which could be categorized into three different groups: A first group called “Achieving something positive for others,” a second group named “Quest for the new,” and a third group of motives labeled “Quest for oneself.” Motivations of young Swiss adults for international volunteering clearly show the characteristics of “reflexive” volunteers. Most respondents displayed a combination of motives while for only 11% of them altruism (“Achieving something positive for others”) was the one and only driving force behind their interest in international volunteering. The inductively constructed typology of motives can be a useful planning device for organizations that run or intend to set up an international volunteering program for young adults.     

Nonprofit Development in Hong Kong: The Case of a Statist–Corporatist Regime

This paper adapts Salamon, Sokolowski, and Anheiers social origins theory to argue that the nonprofit regime in Hong Kong can be characterized as statist–corporatist. This statist–corporatist regime displays the hybrid character of both a statist and a corporatist regime: its statist character can be seen in the high degree of autonomy of the state, its tendency to limit freedom of association, and the low commitment to social provision. Its corporatist character is evident in the high level of participation by designated nonprofit organizations in selected areas of social provision under state funding. It is shown how the development of this nonprofit regime was historically shaped by four factors; namely, the interest of the colonial state in maintaining domination, economic and public financial policy, the historical formation of the welfare system, and political regime change. The findings illustrate the distinct historical forces and the path of development in an Asian state that might affect nonprofit development.     

Newcomers and oldtimers: Do classification methods matter in the study of amenity migration impacts in rural America?

Rural, high-amenity areas in the USA continue to attract significant numbers of migrants. A common approach to investigating the potential consequences of rural in-migration is to contrast the characteristics, attitudes, and/or actions of migrants and non-migrants (or “newcomers” and “oldtimers”). However, no consensus exists on the distinctions (or the lack thereof) between these two groups in the existing literature, in part because previous research used a variety of methods to classify residence status. Drawing on household survey data from nine communities in north-central Colorado, this study illustrates how different categorizations may yield different conclusions. Categorizing resident groups by the 1970/1980 cutoff or 5-, 10-, or 20-year length of residence substantially altered the differences and similarities between newcomers and oldtimers in selected sociodemographic, perceptual, and behavior indicators. It is recommended that researchers choose the most appropriate classification approach based on specific research questions and objectives as well as important transitions in the migration patterns of their study areas. These findings have direct implications for future research on rural demographic change and socioeconomic restructuring.     

Livelihood Assets and Vulnerability Context of Marine Park Community Development in Malaysia

This study assesses the community’s standard of living using the well-known Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA) as an analytical framework within the Marine Park Areas (MPAs) in Peninsular Malaysia. We focus on livelihood sustainability and environmental issues challenging MPAs. In order to protect and conserve vulnerable marine life, our efforts assess the residents’ wellbeing and identify major environmental issues associated with MPAs. The major findings of this study indicate that social and physical assets of the societies within the Marine Park Island improved with economic development, but they continue to lack in human capital, and financial and environmental assets. It is expected that this study would assist policy makers to formulate enhanced policies for conserving marine diversity as well as to improve the socio-economic status of the communities that reside therein.     

Model-based hierarchical clustering with Bregman divergences and Fishers mixture model: application to depth image analysis

Model-based clustering is a method that clusters data with an assumption of a statistical model structure. In this paper, we propose a novel model-based hierarchical clustering method for a finite statistical mixture model based on the Fisher distribution. The main foci of the proposed method are: (a) provide efficient solution to estimate the parameters of a Fisher mixture model (FMM); (b) generate a hierarchy of FMMs and (c) select the optimal model. To this aim, we develop a Bregman soft clustering method for FMM. Our model estimation strategy exploits Bregman divergence and hierarchical agglomerative clustering. Whereas, our model selection strategy comprises a parsimony-based approach and an evaluation graph-based approach. We empirically validate our proposed method by applying it on simulated data. Next, we apply the method on real data to perform depth image analysis. We demonstrate that the proposed clustering method can be used as a potential tool for unsupervised depth image analysis.