Material hardship and depression among low‐income households in South Korea: Differences by household type

With the recent trend of growing poverty in South Korea, low‐income households, particularly elderly‐ and single‐headed households, are at high risk of experiencing material hardship and depression. However, less is known about the association between material hardship and depression by household type in Korea. Using data (N = 2,913) from the Korean Welfare Panel Study and employing several methodological approaches to address the omitted variables bias, this study examined: (i) the association between material hardship and depression among low‐income households, and (ii) whether the association differed by household type. We found that experiencing material hardship was associated with a higher likelihood of being depressed. In addition, we also found that the association between material hardship and depression differed by household type. The magnitude of the association was most pronounced in single‐ and elderly‐headed households. Policy implications to improve well‐being among low‐income households were discussed.     

体外胚胎的基因遗传权保护问题探析————兼评“江苏无锡冷冻胚胎案”

体外胚胎作为现代医疗科学技术发展的产物,在改变人类生殖体系的同时,引发了一系列亟待解决的相关法律问题。通过对目前国内相关学者所提出的“主体说”“客体说”和“中介说”等学说的批判性思考,揭示其在理论层面的局限性,从而得以否定以上三种学说的合理性。而后从伦理学、法理以及比较法等角度对该问题进行系统性的论述,揭示体外胚胎的法律地位,即人格利益属性。在该定性的基础之上,借助于有关学者提出的基因权理论,最终将体外胚胎界定为基因遗传权的客体。因此,有必要对江苏无锡冷冻胚胎案的裁判结果予以重新审视。同时,建议在立法层面建立起体外胚胎基因遗传权的法律保护体系,完善侵害基因遗传权的救济措施,以实现对体外胚胎基因遗传权的法律保护。     

实物·实事·通考——由王国维商周礼制研究看民国学者对传统考据的科学化推进

王国维的商周礼制文化研究,包含基于实物材料的器物文字考据,基于实事的礼仪制度考据,基于制度变革的文化通考,在考据中加入现代科学元素,有力推动了礼学考据的科学化,实际破除了三代王统道统的经学观念,促使礼学考据向实证礼学、传统经史之学向现代史学转型。     

Responsive Public Officials and Engaged Citizens: Myth or Reality? A Case Study of Water Rights Policy in Colorado

In the past decade nearly 20 Colorado communities have constructed kayak courses to provide recreational amenities and attract tourists. These projects were followed in some cases by applications for a new form of recreational water rights, which differs dramatically from traditional forms of water rights in Colorado. This paper investigates the role that citizens played in the legal and legislative battles that resulted in this policy change. Findings indicate that citizens demanded the construction of kayak courses across Colorado, to which local officials responded. Citizens generally were indifferent to water rights applications once kayak facilities were constructed, however. Government officials sought the water rights to protect their economic investment and their newfound tourist revenue.

Challenges in framing women's rights as human rights at the domestic level: A case study of NGOs in the post-Soviet countries

This case study examines framing as an essential communication strategy used by women's rights NGOs at international and domestic levels. The article uses a theoretical framework of transnational advocacy networks, originally developed by political scientists Keck and Sikkink (1998), to demonstrate the importance of public relations’ efforts in political communication campaigns of women's rights NGOs around the world. Supported by the United Nations, these NGOs play an important role in democracy building and contribute to women's empowerment efforts. However, an examination of communication strategies used by these NGOs to help implement the Platform for Action—the UN-promoted agenda for women's empowerment—showed that the existing frame of women's rights as human rights may not be successful in all contexts. This study argues that at the domestic level the issue of women's rights needs to be presented in greater detail than the current human rights frame allows it to be.     

Self-reported Barriers to Professional Help Seeking Among College Students at Elevated Risk for Suicide

Abstract

Objectives: This study sought to describe self-reported barriers to professional help seeking among college students who are at elevated suicide risk and determine if these barriers vary by demographic and clinical characteristics. Participants: Participants were 165 non–treatment seekers recruited as part of a Web-based treatment linkage intervention for college students at elevated suicide risk (from September 2010 through December 2011). Methods: Data were collected using Web-based questionnaires. Two coders coded students’ responses to an open-ended question about reasons for not seeking professional help. Results: The most commonly reported barriers included perception that treatment is not needed (66%), lack of time (26.8%), and preference for self-management (18%). Stigma was mentioned by only 12% of students. There were notable differences based on gender, race, and severity of depression and alcohol abuse. Conclusions: Efforts aimed at reaching students at elevated risk for suicidal behavior should be particularly sensitive to these commonly described barriers.     

Elder Abuse and Neglect in South Africa: A Case of Marginalization,Disrespect, Exploitation and Violence

ABSTRACT

The problem of elder abuse and neglect in South Africa is widespread, but the definition of abuse remains problematic. An expanded typology is needed to classify certain types of abuse reported commonly, such as marginalization, disrespect, exploitation and violence. The history of elder abuse and responses is traced, relevant legislation and selected intervention programs are reviewed, and research and the status of elder abuse are evaluated. Interventions to address sociostructural factors that impact elders' settings, increase their vulnerability, and diminish their ability to realize human rights can contribute to an improvement in their condition and a reduction in abuse and rights violations in the long-term.     

Totalitarian Paranoia in the Post-Orwellian Surveillance State

Most commentary on the Edward Snowden affair and other recent accounts of government spying leaked in the media has focused on individual privacy concerns, while overlooking how contemporary neoliberal modernity has created a social order in which new surveillance technologies grant the state a degree of power unthinkable to past generations – exceeding in reach and complexity even the totalitarian state imagined in Orwell's dystopian account, 1984. Any critical analysis of the modern surveillance state must move beyond documenting abuses of state power to address how government repression has been allowed to proceed unchecked, and even to flourish, through its support of an antidemocratic public pedagogy produced and circulated via a depoliticizing machinery of fear and consumption. In the USA, repression works through the homogenizing forces of the market as well as a corresponding loss of public memory and political identity to encourage the widespread embrace of an authoritarian surveillance culture. The state and corporate cultural apparatuses now collude to socialize everyone into a surveillance regime, even as personal information is willingly given over to social media and other corporate-based sites as people move across multiple screens and digital apparatuses. It is no longer possible to address the violations committed by the surveillance state without also analysing this broader regime of security and commodification. The authoritarian nature of the corporate–state surveillance apparatus in the USA can only be fully understood when its ubiquitous tentacles are connected to wider cultures of entertainment, commerce and punishment, and the increasing labelling of democratic dissent as an act of terrorism. If democracy is to have a future in America, then it is imperative to organize social movements capable of recovering public memory and reclaiming dissent as essential features of responsible citizenship.     

Intellectual disabilities,violent conflict and humanitarian assistance: advocacy of the forgotten

This article examines the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities in violent conflict who have been neglected in practice and academia. Such invisibility, combined with the disabling impact of society, their low priority, and the nature of their impairments, results in a disproportionately negative impact of conflict on people with intellectual disabilities. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including humanitarian workers, this article examines their experiences and analyses how much consideration has been given to people with intellectual disabilities in humanitarian assistance policy and practice in light of their increased need and vulnerability. Lack of awareness and recognition of their diverse experiences can result in their needs failing to be adequately met, which compounds their disproportionately negative experience of conflict. It is important to finally start paying attention in order to ensure their inclusion in humanitarian responses.     

Non-Abstinence-Based Supportive Housing for Persons with Co-Occurring Disorders: A Human Rights Perspective

Surveys of providers of social services in Portland, Oregon, in 2003 and 2007 revealed a significant policy shift in meeting the housing needs of chronically mentally ill, homeless persons with ongoing substance-abuse problems. The shift in policy, taking place in Portland, Seattle, Washington, Minneapolis, and other U.S. cities, from a sobriety-first requirement to a housing-first philosophy has occurred largely because of cost-effectiveness. Only when such housing is provided as a human right can we say that a true paradigm shift has occurred.