Truth,partial truth,and irreconcilable truths: Reflections on the prospects for truth recovery in Northern Ireland

The issues facing truth recovery work in Northern Ireland arise in the context of a peace process in which there has been no clear winner, where several key issues, such as policing and criminal justice remain unresolved, and where there is a lack of trust between the parties to the conflict. Yet there is a demand for processes that have the potential to uncover the truth about unresolved killings and disappearances. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is often cited in Northern Ireland as a model for truth recovery processes, in spite of its shortcomings and the contextual differences between South Africa and Northern Ireland. While there remains a demand for truth about human rights violations and contested killings, the compromised nature of the Northern Ireland settlement and the culture of silence that prevails within Northern Ireland institutions are obstacles to the progress of truth recovery work there. Nor is Northern Ireland ready for the rewriting of its history, although some argue that truth recovery work could provide an important disincentive to those who would return to violence. The assumption that truth recovery is always a prerequisite for healing is challenged, and painful effects of truth processes in reopening the wounds of the past are pointed out. Yet the role of truth recovery in improving public awareness of the wrongs of the past, and in providing new opportunities for forgiveness and reconciliation is acknowledged. However, truth recovery can inadvertently reinforce a dis‐empowered and unhealthy “victim culture” and may also prejudice future judicial processes. The paper concludes by summarizing the recommendations for truth recovery in Northern Ireland of the Healing Through Remembering Project. They suggest that a range of mechanisms, including some community‐based self‐help processes, are the preferred paths for this work in Northern Ireland.     

Gender training for development practitioners: only a partial solution

This article considers gender training for Oxfam staff working on a development program or project in a particular context where their experience of gender relations and ability to seek gender equality is informed by their hierarchial position, by their national culture, and by the fact that institutions are also gendered. Thus, the article focuses on contextualizing gender training and on the potential of such training to transform institutions. The first section looks at gender training in the Oxfam head office and notes that, although Oxfam identifies itself as a learning organization, the former Training Department has been devolved into separate divisions, so there is no longer any centrally available gender training. The next section describes gender training in the field context where hierarchial positions that may influence the effectiveness of training are created by the age and sex of the trainer and where it is important to distinguish between gender frameworks (what is taught) from pedagogy (how it is taught). Oxfam's present gender training is limited by a lack of documentation of gender training efforts, by trainees' personal resistance to concepts of gender, by language barriers, and by logistical problems. The article then explores Oxfam's use of gender training as a transformative tool and notes that Oxfam focuses on individual rather than internal organizational transformation. It is concluded that gender training is only a partial solution unless its potential for personal and political transformational is recognized and fostered.     

Evaluation of Tweedie exponential dispersion model densities by Fourier inversion

The Tweedie family of distributions is a family of exponential dispersion models with power variance functions V(μ)=μ ^p for . These distributions do not generally have density functions that can be written in closed form. However, they have simple moment generating functions, so the densities can be evaluated numerically by Fourier inversion of the characteristic functions. This paper develops numerical methods to make this inversion fast and accurate. Acceleration techniques are used to handle oscillating integrands. A range of analytic results are used to ensure convergent computations and to reduce the complexity of the parameter space. The Fourier inversion method is compared to a series evaluation method and the two methods are found to be complementary in that they perform well in different regions of the parameter space.     

The "X component" in Shanghai's social security reforms

In 2003, the Shanghai Bureau of Labour and Social Security launched the zhenbao (town insurance) programme, now widely known as 25 plus X. This scheme is regarded as an important experiment in social security reform and has been lauded for extending social security to areas where previously only segments of the population had mandatory coverage. Using data from 103,000 individuals enrolled in 25 plus X, we examine the extent to which the scheme represents an extension in social security coverage. Our analysis suggests that while it does represent an extension of benefits for some, for many it represents a considerable dilution in benefits.     

Partitioned algorithms for maximum likelihood and other non-linear estimation

There are a variety of methods in the literature which seek to make iterative estimation algorithms more manageable by breaking the iterations into a greater number of simpler or faster steps. Those algorithms which deal at each step with a proper subset of the parameters are called in this paper partitioned algorithms. Partitioned algorithms in effect replace the original estimation problem with a series of problems of lower dimension. The purpose of the paper is to characterize some of the circumstances under which this process of dimension reduction leads to significant benefits.Four types of partitioned algorithms are distinguished: reduced objective function methods, nested (partial Gauss-Seidel) iterations, zigzag (full Gauss-Seidel) iterations, and leapfrog (non-simultaneous) iterations. Emphasis is given to Newton-type methods using analytic derivatives, but a nested EM algorithm is also given. Nested Newton methods are shown to be equivalent to applying to same Newton method to the reduced objective function, and are applied to separable regression and generalized linear models. Nesting is shown generally to improve the convergence of Newton-type methods, both by improving the quadratic approximation to the log-likelihood and by improving the accuracy with which the observed information matrix can be approximated. Nesting is recommended whenever a subset of parameters is relatively easily estimated. The zigzag method is shown to produce a stable but generally slow iteration; it is fast and recommended when the parameter subsets have approximately uncorrelated estimates. The leapfrog iteration has less guaranteed properties in general, but is similar to nesting and zigzagging when the parameter subsets are orthogonal.     

Old age pension reform in China's state-owned enterprises

The old-age pension scheme in China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is experiencing a difficult transition period; in the past, SOEs were responsible for providing retirees with pension benefits. However, in the 1980s and 1990s, the financial position of SOEs deteriorated, making it difficult for them to honor their social welfare commitments. The background of the current pension crisis is examined, and recent attempts to improve the funding of pensions in China's state-owned sector are reviewed, focusing on the period since the State Council issued its "Decision on the Establishment of Unified Pension Insurance" in 1997. The article concludes with a review of priorities for further reform.     

British and European Influences on the "Australian Way" from the 1980s

Commonwealth countries share their British social policy legacy in a variety of ways. Autstralia attempted to adopt the postwar "new Fabian" welfare state model at the very time when international economic circumstances undermined its Keynesian foundation. With Labor governments in power from 1983 to 1996, Australia diverged significantly from the neo-liberal reform path adopted in the United Kingdom. Australian governments looked increasingly to European social democracies for alternative social policy models. In a manner anticipating the "Third Way", the tendency was towards mixing neo-liberal economics with social democratic welfare. The Australian "Third Way" which resulted proved unstable. Current social reformers, the paper proposes, ought to revisit a neglected but characteristically British emphasis on the need for a measure of "socialization of investment" to underpin redistributive strategies.