Contested markets: morality,devices and vulnerable populations

While certain contested goods do manage to make their way to the market, others have moved less far in this direction and seem permanently unable to do so. Moral contestation promotes, holds back or blocks the emergence of contested markets. This article examines the conditions that make the operation of these markets possible, and those that block their appearance. Based on a study of organs for transplantation, our discussion will focus on those devices that make transactions possible, and on the ‘vulnerable populations’ that these devices are intended to protect, either from or by the market.     

The Land Question in the Food Sovereignty Project

Abstract

This essay explores the changing landscape of food sovereignty politics in the shadow of the so-called ‘land grab’. While the food sovereignty movement emerged within a global agrarian crisis conjuncture triggered by northern dumping of foodstuffs, institutionalized in WTO trade rules, the twenty-first-century food, energy and financial crises intensify this crisis for the world's rural poor (inflating prices of staple foods and agri-inputs) deepening the process of dispossession. The circulation of food is compounded by global financial flows into enclosing land for industrial agriculture and/or speculation, challenging small producer rights across the world. Under these conditions, the terms of struggle for the food sovereignty movement are shifting towards a human rights politics on the ground as well as in global forums like the FAO's Committee on World Food Security. This includes in particular the need to develop a discursive politics to reframe what is at stake, namely the protection and support of a production model based on social co-operation, multi-functionality and ecologically restorative principles.     

Dispositional Affect and Career Barriers: The Moderating Roles of Gender and Coping

This study examined whether gender and coping efficacy for career barriers moderated the relationship between both positive and negative dispositional affect and perceptions of career barriers. The sample included 294 undergraduate students (195 women, 99 men) from a large, midwestern university. Gender and coping efficacy did not moderate the relationship between negative dispositional affect and perceptions of career barriers. Coping efficacy for career barriers did moderate the relationship between positive dispositional affect and perceptions of career barriers for both women and men in different directions. When investigating women separately, the results revealed a weakening of the negative beta weight between positive affect and perception of career barriers as coping scores increased. An opposite effect was found for men; there was a reduction of the positive beta weight between positive affect and perception of career barriers as coping scores increased. Interventions to address perceptions of career barriers based on gender and dispositional affect are discussed.     

Building evaluation capacity: definitional and practical implications from an Australian case study

Internationally, evaluation capacity-building activities have mushroomed as demands have increased for government-funded programs to demonstrate that they are effective and efficient. Despite this, there is a lack of clarity in the way in which evaluation capacity-building is defined and conceptualized. The current paper presents a case study of a national evaluation capacity building exercise that we are in the midst of conducting in Australia, and discusses the findings in relation to definitional, conceptual and practical issues. Specifically, we describe an evaluation capacity building exercise involving over 100 mental health projects, detailing the methods that we employ, some of the challenges that we have faced, and the benefits we feel we are achieving. Our key message is that definitions of evaluation capacity-building should not only make reference to equipping organizations to routinely conduct evaluations, but should also stress the varied uses to which evaluation findings can be put. In addition, such definitions should acknowledge some of the valuable by-products of evaluation capacity building activities, such as the development of shared understandings of the program or project being evaluated.     

Understanding recent internal migration of small cultural groups in England and Wales*

Taking advantage of the ^** All census data used in this paper are Crown Copyright. The 2011 safeguarded microdata were made available via the UK Data Service and accessed under the terms of its End User Licence. Land Registry house price index, ONS Regional Household Income, and ONS Regional Labour Market data are all Crown Copyright.View all notesavailability of 2011 England and Wales census microdata, and recognising the importance of internal migration in shaping the size and nature of communities, this paper seeks to identify and quantify the underlying determinants of internal migration of small cultural groups. The Jewish group is one of the longest present minority groups in Britain. Three other groups (Arab, Chinese, and Sikh), which have been present in significant numbers for a much shorter period, are also examined. Multivariate binary logistic regression has been applied to data extracted from the 2011 safeguarded microdata files, to understand whether, having controlled for the variables identified, there remain residual unexplained differences between Jewish, other smaller group, and general migration levels. The study shows that the initial wide variation in migration propensity between these cultural groups is partly explained by compositional differences between groups, but that even after controlling for individual-level socio-demographic characteristics, regional location and distance of migration, cultural differences in migration behaviour remain. Overall, the study shows that there are fewer differences between Jewish and white British migration levels than for the other three groups, for whom a small but significant ‘cultural group penalty’, inhibiting migration propensity, remains.     

走向一种为了共同福祉的建设性后现代主义

与现代主义相比,建设性后现代主义更有助于实现生态文明以及人类社会的和谐发展.二者形成鲜明的对比:现代主义把主体自我视为意义和价值的唯一源泉,后现代主义则以群体为先;现代主义是以竞争和支配的模式为基础,后现代主义的核心价值观却是合作;现代主义认为社会为个人而存在,后现代主义者则关心每一个体的幸福;现代主义主张事物之间的机械性关联,后现代主义则强调一切生物间的有机联系;现代主义常常自我鼓吹,否弃传统,后现代主义却能够尊重传统智慧.     

The ‘spirit of the Schengen rules’, the humanitarian visa,and contested asylum governance in Europe – The Swiss case

ABSTRACT

The paper examines why Switzerland along with several other European countries introduced a Schengen visa to substitute for individual applications for asylum at the country’s embassy as a pathway to protect Syrian refugees. The case study highlights the inherent interest asymmetries in a tenuous arrangement of multi-layered governance, revealing a conflict over the interpretation of Schengen law in a collective governance environment – a conflict that was recently resolved by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Drawing on multi-layered governance, the paper discusses why the Swiss divergence from the ‘spirit’, but not the ‘letter’ of the Schengen code (a metaphor used by the EU Commission), could be considered as an example of ‘de-coupling’ from the negotiated, intergovernmental order. Whereas de jure the unity of the Schengen visa code is maintained, the amount of discretion which Switzerland and other Schengen countries have used to interpret the regulatory purpose behind the Schengen humanitarian visa went too far for the CJEU and the EU Commission. The case study illustrates how the interpretation of rules matters in a multi-layered framework of governance, possibly giving the ability to react to changing circumstances, but also bearing the potential for conflict.     

European Regional Populations: Current Trends, Future Pathways, and Policy Options

Europe is currently experiencing an ageing population and slowing population growth of both the total and working-age populations. These trends are likely to continue. Even though population ageing will affect all European regions, different regions will be affected in different ways. Even under favorable conditions, 35–40?% of all NUTS2 regions will face a labor force decline. If economic conditions are poor, some regions may continue to grow, but 55–70?% of the regions will see a labor force decline by 10?% or more. In most regions of Eastern Europe, the labor force may decrease by more than 30?%. To keep regions prosperous (maintaining competitiveness) and to avoid worse inequality (maintaining cohesion), policy-makers must find ways to cope with these challenges through new fiscal and social policies, though policies directly affecting demographic and migratory trends may also be needed.