Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The politics of television exports

Globalization developments are presenting television programme-makers with the possibility of expanding programme sales on the international market. This article focuses on the various initiatives of the UK government to support an export-led strategy, and evaluates the consequences of such a strategy on domestic programming. Highlighting the current trend towards the sale of programme formats, the article further considers whether the increased circulation of television programmes around the world points to a model of interconnectedness and heterogeneity or whether it reinforces unequal patterns of media flows. Drawing on interviews with government advisers and regulators, the article concludes that the promotion of an export-led strategy is economically and culturally flawed and is linked to the UK government's strategy to liberalize trade in services rather than a commitment to increase cultural diversity.     

Watershed-scale analysis of pollutant distributions in stormwater management ponds

Stormwater management ponds have become a common Best Management Practice in urban and suburban landscapes. Stormwater management ponds are designed to hold runoff from impervious surfaces and allow the settling of sediments and associated pollutants. Various semi-aquatic and aquatic wildlife species have been documented using stormwater management ponds as habitat, but these wetland-like systems are not managed to adhere to freshwater habitat pollutant guidelines. To address the potential for pollutant exposure for wildlife, we used a random sample of 68 stormwater ponds and estimated the proportion of ponds in a third-order watershed that exceed toxicity guidelines for trace metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in sediments and chloride in surface waters. Ninety-six percent of ponds exceeded consensus-based threshold effect concentrations for at least one trace metal. Concentrations of at least one of the PAHs measured exceeded the threshold effects concentration in 63% of the ponds. Nine percent of ponds exceeded chronic toxicity levels of chloride on all sampling dates, and 21% exceeded acute toxicity concentrations on at least one sampling date. More studies are needed to evaluate toxic effects of pollutants in stormwater management ponds and the potential for interactive effects of pollutants on wildlife.     

Gender Equality and Corporate Governance: Policy Strategies in Norway and New Zealand

Advancing gender equality in the labour market continues to be a policy objective in many OECD countries. Wide national variations are evident in strategies and accomplishments towards improving gender equality at all levels of the labour market, including senior management and corporate governance roles. This article compares policy strategies in Norway and New Zealand directed towards achieving gender equality in the governance of corporate institutions. A principal feature of the New Zealand strategy has been a soft regulation approach in the form of advocacy and encouragement of equal employment opportunity policies, awareness‐raising and benchmarking. For Norway the use of legislation in the form of quotas and affirmative action programmes has been the predominant strategy. Using empirical data collected in 2004–2005 on women's perceptions and experiences of corporate governance participation, this article critically examines these different policy strategies.     

Pension reform in the Baltic States: Convergence with “Europe” or with “the world”?

Abstract The Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – join the European Union in 2004. This paper examines pension reform in the three countries over the past decade in the light of the “European social model” and the “World Bank model”. Part one seeks to define these two models. It shows how the former emphasizes income adequacy and solidarity while the latter stresses fiscal sustainability, savings and economic growth. Part two looks at reforms made and proposed. Initial reforms involved raising the retirement age and relating benefits more closely to earnings and service. This resulted in the establishment of pension systems similar to those in many European countries. Subsequent reforms involved attempts to shift from a publicly financed, purely “pay‐as‐you‐go” system to one based upon “funding” and private, individual accounts. Such systems have been promoted by the World Bank. The appropriateness of this approach – its high transition costs, potentially high administration costs, and longer‐term implications for the relative income status of retired people – is questioned. Part three draws conclusions. In the short and medium term, policymaker should safeguard income adequacy rather than seek the doubtful advantages of funding – in other words, look more to “Europe” than to “the world”.     

A Bourdieusian analysis of employment services workers in an era of Workfirst

This article draws on qualitative research which focused on worker experiences of Workfirst activation during the Job Services Australia (JSA) contract of employment services. The Workfirst orientation of Australian labour market programmes created imperatives for activation workers to monitor job seeker compliance with activity tests. As part of the broader cohort interviewed in the study, activation workers were interviewed about the way sanctions were used to discipline job seekers in street‐level exchanges. These workers had experienced the transition from the Job Network to JSA and had observed how a shift to Workfirst became institutionalised in organisational practices and culture. Concepts from Bourdieu's field theory are used to situate activation workers in the employment services field that became more managerial during the transition to Workfirst and where sanction‐based practice was mainstreamed. Drawing also on Peillon's sociology of welfare, employment services are described as part of the welfare field in which the activation workers experienced the misrecognition associated with Workfirst, which is described as a structure of domination. The analysis employs the concept of intersubjective recognition to draw attention to the subjective and objective co‐construction of street‐level interactions. This study has implications for understanding how welfare reforms affect activation workers, the contributors to the erosion of employment services capability, and the need for investment in workforce development in the employment services sector.     

Hepatitis C knowledge among staff in U.S. drug treatment programs

Staff in drug treatment programs are in an optimal position to support the hepatitis C related needs of their patients. To do so effectively, however, staff need to have accurate information about the hepatitis C virus (HCV). This article examines the HCV knowledge of staff (N= 104) in two drug-free and two methadone maintenance treatment programs (MMTPs) in the New York metropolitan area. Five of 20 items on an HCV Knowledge Assessment were not answered correctly by the majority of the participating staff, and total scores on the Assessment averaged 70%, 71%, and 45% among the medically credentialed staff, non-medically credentialed staff in the MMTPs, and non-medically credentialed staff in the drug-free programs, respectively. The majority of those in the latter group had never participated in a training specifically devoted to HCV. Results suggest the need for effective HCV-related training for all staff in drug treatment programs.     

Coping among victims of relationship abuse: a longitudinal examination

This longitudinal study examined the associations between relationship abuse, coping variables, and mental health outcomes among a sample of battered women obtained from shelter and nonresidential community agencies (N = 61). Sexual aggression was a stronger predictor of poorer mental health than was physical assault. Engagement coping strategies were generally predictive of positive mental health, and disengagement coping strategies were generally predictive of poorer mental health. Results highlight the complexity of the associations between different forms of relationship abuse, coping strategies, and mental health among this population.     

Population Composition,Public Policy,and the Genetics of Smoking

In this article, we explore the effect of public policy on the extent to which genes influence smoking desistance. Using a sample of adult twins (n _mz = 363, n _dz = 233) from a large population registry, we estimate Cox proportional hazards models that describe similarity in the timing of smoking desistance among adult twin pairs. We show that identical twin pairs are significantly more likely to quit smoking within a similar time frame compared with fraternal twin pairs. Importantly, we then show that genetic factors for smoking desistance increase in importance following restrictive legislation on smoking behaviors that occurred in the early and mid-1970s. These findings support the social push perspective and make important contributions to the social demography and genetic epidemiology of smoking as well as to the gene-environment interaction literatures.