Land use conflict after the wildlife and countryside act 1981: the role of the farming and wildlife advisory group

As the conflict between agriculture and conservation in Britain continues, the farming and landowning lobby has placed increasing emphasis on the Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group (FWAG). This paper examines the development of FWAG as a mechanism for self-regulation through a voluntary and co-operative approach to conservation within the farming community. FWAG, until recently accorded little attention either by farmers or government, now enjoys considerable patronage, and new-found financial support from the Countryside Commission. As the National Farmers' Union (NFU) and Country Landowners' Association (CLA) seek to contain the tide of criticism of activities in the countryside FWAG, essentially a practical advisory body, has assumed a crucial ideological importance in the presentation of the farmers' traditional case of ‘stewardship’ and ‘good husbandry’. The paper concludes by stressing the dilemma facing the NFU and CLA as they seek to satisfy the wishes of their own members, government and the conservation lobby.     

CONSUMPTION, WEALTH, AND FINITE HORIZONS: TESTS OF RICARDIAN EQUIVALENCE

We find strongly non-Ricardian results when we re-estimate Evans's [1988] model using a better approximation of the market value of wealth. We also examine the long-run properties of the data and find results consistent with our regression evidence when we allow for declining labor income as modeled by Gali (1990]. Our findings in support of non-Ricardian behavior by consumers stand in sharp contrast to those of both Evans and Gali.     

璀璨夜明珠

钻石般的光芒。闲烁于光滑的皮革之上。像是颗颗熠熠生辉的宝石，平添了几许灵动。     

协商民主制度化: 民主创新与协商体系

协商民主如何实现制度化,尤其是如何通过民主创新直接吸收公民参与政治过程,这一问题受到了学界的广泛关注。认识、理解和分析协商民主制度化能够为当前有关协商民主体系的争论提供一个重要的、批判性的视角。以往任何一种制度都无法包容所有价值,协商民主的价值有时会相互冲突,权衡和妥协在制度设计中是必要的,只有实现各制度之间的配合才能最大限度地调和这些价值。因此,探讨如何使协商民主能更有效地嵌入整个政治系统,并与其他制度形成配合,是当前研究工作所面临的重要挑战,而其中最关键、最具实践意义的便是对制度化策略的研究。     

Spirit Possession and Exorcism in the Treatment of a Bedouin Psychiatric Patient

A male Bedouin psychiatric patient was initially misdiagnosed and treated as a paranoid schizophrenic. The modern mental health care system correctly understood the form of the patient's symptoms, auditory and visual hallucinations. It did not however at first appreciate their content, or cultural significance. The patient had unresolved anger toward his family which was manifested in an angry exchange with his mother. This exchange created guilt and the belief that the patient had sinned against God and was possessed by demons. A psychiatric social worker was able to reconcile the patient with his mother and to incorporate a traditional Bedouin healer, the Dervish, to exorcise the patient. The patient was cured by the Dervish, re-diagnosed as a neurotic by the modern system, and continued successfully with both systems for several months in follow-up treatment before being discharged.     

Maintaining the Gains: What Worked in the Year after Brief Family Therapy

Brief family therapy, including single session therapy, is widely used to provide a timely and responsive service for children with emotional and behavioural problems. However, there is surprisingly little information about how these children and families fare in the longer term. The brief family therapy program described here was directed toward children with problems of moderate severity. Child Behaviour Checklists (CBCL) were completed by parents before, three months after, and twelve months after therapy; 110 parents also participated in semi‐structured telephone interviews twelve months after therapy. Parents' CBCL ratings showed a significant decrease in children's problems after therapy, which were maintained over the subsequent year, although some children continued to experience difficulties. Parents generally found brief therapy a helpful experience. Ways to strengthen the preventive possibilities of brief therapy work will be identified at both a practical and conceptual level.     

Between Church and State: a Christian Brotherhood’s Faithful Claims to Secularity in Mexico City

Qualitative Sociology - The Good News Businessmen’s Brotherhood (GNBB) is a Christian organization with evangelical commitments, charismatic practices, and whose members insist that their...     

‘Fuck It,Shit Happens (FISH)’: a social generations approach to understanding young people’s imaginings of life after school in 2016–2017

ABSTRACT

This article uses a social generations approach to explore the lives of young people transitioning to life after schooling. Drawing on ethnographic research in England during the geopolitical uncertainty of 2016–2017, we track the trajectories and narratives of six individuals. The research begins with final year pupils in schools talking about their futures, during and after their A-Level exams. We then follow these individuals on routes to Higher Education and employment, exploring how they are socialised into imaginings of the future and/or struggle to inhabit these futures. A deeply ingrained, modernist, neoliberal reckoning of future time is normalised through experiences of schooling. However, this logic is troubled profoundly in the transition to life after school. Young people’s experiences in an unpredictable present run in stark contrast to the ordered trajectory of future action they have been socialised to expect. Amidst this uncertainty, ambivalence towards shaping the future (‘Fuck It, Shit Happens’) can in some ways feel like the most agentic stance to take. Furlong et al.’s (2011) social generations approach to understanding youth transitions reveals how we must critique the very concept of ‘the future’ if we are to understand the reality of youth transitions in the present.     

Taste uncertainty and status quo effects in consumer choice

We use reference-dependent expected utility theory to develop a model of status quo effects in consumer choice. We hypothesise that, when making their decisions, individuals are uncertain about the utility that will be yielded by their consumption experiences in different ‘taste states’ of the world. If individuals have asymmetric attitudes to gains and losses of utility, the model entails acyclic reference-dependent preferences over consumption bundles. The model explains why status quo effects may vary substantially from one decision context to another and why some such effects may decay as individuals gain market experience.