New! Improved? The Transformation of the Global Agrifood System*

Abstract The last decade has witnessed a dramatic rise in global trade in food and agricultural products. While much analysis has focused on the role of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in this process, we argue that other forms of regulation are of far greater consequence. In this paper, we examine changes in the agrifood system made possible by the WTO and we assess the rise of global private standards. We argue that the new global rules, regulations, and institutions implemented by the WTO have facilitated the ability of the private agrifood sector to consolidate and expand internationally. Of particular importance is the growing influence of food retailers as they rapidly become more global and oligopolistic. The article concludes that today it is the private sector, and retailers in particular, together with private standards that are at the center of the transformation of the global agrifood system.     

Are Gay and Lesbian cohabiting couples really different from heterosexual married couples?

Both partners from gay and lesbian cohabiting couples without children were compared longitudinally with both partners from heterosexual married couples with children (N at first assessment = 80, 53, and 80 couples, respectively) on variables from 5 domains indicative of relationship health. For 50% of the comparisons, gay and lesbian partners did not differ from heterosexual partners. Seventy‐eight percent of the comparisons on which differences were found indicated that gay or lesbian partners functioned better than heterosexual partners did. Because the variables that predicted concurrent relationship quality and relationship stability for heterosexual parents also did so for gay and lesbian partners, I conclude that the processes that regulate relationship functioning generalize across gay, lesbian, and heterosexual couples.     

全球修辞学史研究

今天,我演讲的是关于共性和个性的问题.我想讨论当下全球修辞学史研究的多样性,学术研究为何因国家不同而变化,思考该研究多样化的原因.我今天的论点是,我们的研究方法不止一种,在一个国家行得通的方法,在另一个国家未必行得通.     

Confidence in selected institutions in 1975: An attempt at replication across two national surveys

A comparison of responses to four attitudinal items included in two national surveys reveals significant differences between surveys in the marginal distributions of all four items. These discrepancies are attributed to differences in survey ‘context’ (i.e., the nature of the questions which preceded the items of interest in the interview schedules). Despite the differences in marginal distributions, however, the four items showed identical relationships in both surveys to five background characteristics of respondents in 18 of 20 tests. Although the generalizability of these findings to other attitudinal items is an open question, they do suggest the inadvisability of combining data collected in surveys using markedly different interview schedules into a time series of subjective social indicators. Contextual effects are apparently less critical in cross-sectional analyses of survey data.     

Improving financial management

Financial Management for Nonprofit Human Service Organizations, 2nd ed., by Raymond Sanchez Mayers. Spring.eld, Ill.: Charles C Thomas, 2004. 354 pp., $79.95 cloth, $55.95 paper.     

Manpower and unemployment in the U.K.

The subject of the changing pattern and levels of unemployment in the United Kingdom is a matter which has been receiving much attention. This paper examines some of the underlying trends and the related factors which have been creating those trends. The author does not only concentrate on the economic factors but also on the educational and social factors which have led to changes in the supply of and demand for labour. Indeed, some of the more interesting aspects of the relationship between the public and the private sector and the relative patterns of demand and supply of labour, and the causes of that supply are also examined. The author places the study in an international context and, albeit rather gloomily, does show us that this is not a problem unique to the U.K. Finally, the paper examines some of the possible remedies to the situation and outlines the need for examining rather more clearly the balance between capital and labour and, perhaps more fundamentally, the growing problem of the concentration of British industry. This paper does not aim to answer all the questions created by a relative economic decline and the growing problems of unemployment, particularly amongst the under-25 age group, but it does set out the problem and some possible solutions.