Transnational religion: Hindu and Muslim movements

In this article I deal with transnational Hindu and Muslim movements. I reject the common assertion that migrant communities are conservative in religious and social matters by arguing that ‘traditionalism’ requires considerable ideological creativity and that this significantly transforms previous practices and discourses. I suggest that religious movements, active among migrants, develop cosmopolitan projects that can be viewed as alternatives to the cosmopolitanism of the European Enlightenment. This raises a number of challenges concerning citizenship, integration and political loyalty for governmentality in the nation‐states in which these cosmopolitan projects are carried out. I suggest that rather than looking at religious migrants as at best conservative and at worst terrorist one should perhaps pay some attention to the creative moments in human responses to new challenges and new environments.     

The Migration–Development Nexus Evidence and Policy Options State–of–the–Art Overview

In September 2001, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned a study of the present and potential links between migration and development. In January 2002, the new Danish Government announced a decision to enhance the links between its aid and refugee policies as part of the overall focus on poverty reduction. The present paper provides a state–of–the–art overview of current thinking and available evidence on the migration–development nexus, including the role of aid in migrant–producing areas. It offers evidence and conclusions around the following four critical issues: Poverty and migration People in developing countries require resources and connections to engage in international migration. There is no direct link between poverty, economic development, population growth, and social and political change on the one hand, and international migration on the other. Poverty reduction is not in itself a migration–reducing strategy. Conflicts, refugees, and migration Violent conflicts produce displaced persons, migrants, and refugees. People on the move may contribute both to conflict prevention and reconciliation, and to sustained conflicts. Most refugees do not have the resources to move beyond neighbouring areas, that is, they remain internally displaced or move across borders to first countries of asylum within their region. Aid to developing countries receiving large inflows of refugees is poverty–oriented to the extent that these are poor countries, but it is uncertain what effect such aid has in terms of reducing the number of people seeking asylum in developed countries. Furthermore, such aid may attract refugees from adjacent countries experiencing war or political turmoil. Migrants as a development resource International liberalization has gone far with respect to capital, goods and services, but not to labour. International political–economic regimes provide neither space nor initiatives for negotiations on labour mobility and the flow of remittances. There is a pressing need to reinforce the image of migrants as a development resource. Remittances are double the size of aid and target the poor at least as well; migrant diasporas are engaged in transnational practices with direct effects on aid and development; developed countries recognize their dependence on immigrant labour; and policies on development aid, humanitarian relief, migration, and refugee protection are internally inconsistent and occasionally contradictory. Aid and migration Aid policies face a critical challenge to balance a focus on poverty reduction with mitigating the conditions that produce refugees, while also interacting constructively with migrant diasporas and their transnational practices. The current emphasis on aid selectivity tends to allocate development aid to the well performing countries, and humanitarian assistance to the crisis countries and trouble spots. However, development aid is more effective than humanitarian assistance in preventing violent conflicts, promoting reconciliation and democratization, and encouraging poverty–reducing development investments by migrant diasporas. The paper is a synthesis of current knowledge of migration–development dynamics, including an assessment of the intended and unintended consequences of development and humanitarian policy interventions. We examine whether recent developments in the sphere of international migration provide evidence of a “crisis”, as well as the connections between migration, globalization, and the changing nature of conflicts. We summarize current thinking on the main issues at stake and examine available evidence on the relations between migration and development. Then the consequent challenges to the aid community, including the current debates about coherence and selectivity in aid and relief are discussed and, finally, we elaborate on the four conclusions of the overview.     

The Story of Belle, Minnie, Louise and the Sovjets: throwing light on the dark side of an institution

Our post-modernist story is composed as a narrative analysis of the lived experiences of Belle and Louise--two women with 'learning difficulties'--and our ethnographic field notes while doing narrative inquiry. The narratives mirror a shared construction of meaning and broaden our understanding--throwing light on the dark side of an institution. The narrative analysis points out a clear illustration of power dynamics and discourses in their lives, and shows how the women boast of resilience and offer (hidden) resistance. This paper particularly illuminates the individual, personal and even private celebration of activism and self-empowerment of Belle and Louise. Their vivid stories take us on an enthralling journey, getting to know their world through their eyes.     

The Migration–Development Nexus: Evidence and Policy Options

Migration and development are linked in many ways – through the livelihood and survival strategies of individuals, households, and communities; through large and often well–targeted remittances; through investments and advocacy by migrants, refugees, diasporas and their transnational communities; and through international mobility associated with global integration, inequality, and insecurity. Until now, migration and development have constituted separate policy fields. Differing policy approaches that hinder national coordination and international cooperation mark these fields. For migration authorities, the control of migration flows to the European Union and other OECD countries are a high priority issue, as is the integration of migrants into the labour market and wider society. On the other hand, development agencies may fear that the development policy objectives are jeopardized if migration is taken into consideration. Can long–term goals of global poverty reduction be achieved if short–term migration policy interests are to be met? Can partnership with developing countries be real if preventing further migration is the principal European migration policy goal? While there may be good reasons to keep some policies separate, conflicting policies are costly and counter–productive. More importantly, there is unused potential in mutually supportive policies, that is, the constructive use of activities and interventions that are common to both fields and which may have positive effects on poverty reduction, development, prevention of violent conflicts, and international mobility. This paper focuses on positive dimensions and possibilities in the migration–development nexus. It highlights the links between migration, development, and conflict from the premise that to align policies on migration and development, migrant and refugee diasporas must be acknowledged as a development resource.     

Distal and Proximal Factors in Domestic Violence: A Test of an Integrated Model

We employed 4,095 couples from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to test a model of couple violence drawn from several theoretical perspectives. The outcome distinguishes among nonviolent couples and those experiencing either physical aggression or intense male violence. According to the model, background characteristics of couples are related to relationship stressors, which affect the risk of violence via their tendency to promote verbal conflict. Considerable support for the model was found. Couples were at higher risk for one or both forms of violence if they were younger at union inception, had been together for less time, were both in their first union, had only one partner who was employed, had a nontraditional woman paired with a traditional man, had at least one partner who abused substances, had more children, had more frequent disagreements, exhibited a more hostile disagreement style, or lived in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood. Moreover, the effects of stressors such as the number of children and couples' employment status disparities appear to be mediated by disagreement frequency and disagreement style.     

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Approach Six Years On: An Examination of Principles and Practice in Uganda

It is over six years since the World Bank and the IMF started promoting a PRS approach to development management in low‐income countries. The 2005 review endorsed the approach, but highlighted the need for a renewed focus on the principles underpinning it: country ownership; results orientation; comprehensiveness; partnership focus; and long‐term outlook. Uganda is often hailed as one of the best PRS performers. This article finds that Uganda's Poverty Eradicaton Action Plan (PEAP) has brought significant gains to development management, but that its performance against several of the PRS principles is disappointing. A return to these principles could improve the practice of the government and development partners around the PEAP – a finding likely to be applicable to many countries implementing a PRS.     

A Numerical Solution to the Nonhomogeneous Two-Stage MVK Model of Cancer

In this article, we describe a straightforward method for solving the probability of at least one malignant cell by time t, and the associated hazard function, in the general (i.e., nonhomogeneous) two-stage Moolgavkar-Venzon-Knudson (MVK) model of cancer. The method consists of solving four coupled ordinary differential equations derived from the Kolmogorov backward equations for this process. The relationship of this method to previously proposed solutions is discussed.     

Pilot study results: the psychiatric RN case manager.

1. It is important to examine client and staff satisfaction with the RN case management (RNCM) model to enhance the quality of care in psychiatric settings. 2. Ninety-two percent of clients surveyed ranked the RNCM care as "excellent" or "above average." Clients valued most the humanistic role of the RNCM and repeatedly commented on the importance of the nurse being caring, genuine, and supportive. 3. RNCMs expressed high satisfaction with their role, which they described as collaborative with the psychiatrist, yet also professional and independent. Psychiatrists expressed a high degree of confidence that clients were receiving excellent care by competent nurse professionals.     

Citizen radicalism and democracy in the Dutch Republic

Conclution In this article I have investigated one of the supposed founder-members of R. R. Palmer's Age of Democratic Revolution, the Dutch Patriot movement of the 1780s. My purpose was to show that this movement, even though the Patriots made extensive use of such standard items of the democratic vocabulary as popular sovereignty and representation, did not envisage a political system that might be reasonably fitted into the revolution that Palmer had in mind.Instead, the Patriots stood within a long tradition of urban middle-class opposition politics. They held on firmly to both form and content of that tradition. What was new about them was the intensity and thoroughness with which they worked toward their goal of remedying the, as they saw it, corruption of the political system. We might even speculate that they had carried this particular tradition of urban corporatist republicanism to its logical extremes; that is to say, to a point where an even more radical step would be necessary to overcome the resistance of the established powers. They might, for example, have considered to take popular sovereignty at its face value, and over-come their distaste of democracy, so as to include the lower classes into their movement. That step, however, would have taken them outside the tradition that provided them with a specific brand of political liberty. Before the intervention of Prussian troops in the fall of 1787 they were not prepared to make such a momentous decision. For this would have implied a dropping of much that was essential to the corporatist ideology, which had been the prime motivation for their actions in the first place.Corporatism was deeply rooted in the Dutch society of the Old Regime. Economically, it provided major sections of the middle class with some sort of protection against the vicissitudes of conjunctural fluctuations and other uncertainties besetting the small but independent merchant or craftsman. Socially, it made these people into a community, in which they had some sort of social status. Politically, it gave the whole of the middle class a claim on the authorities, while at the same time keeping the lower classes at bay.Corporatism was not unique to the Dutch Republic. We have seen that German towns knew a similar middle-class ideology and similar political movements. French towns too had their privileges and their guilds. Nevertheless, they did not produce anything like the kind of political protest that was voiced by the Dutch and German middle classes. Against the idea of a single democratic revolution I have pitted the differentiated model of European state-formation, and tried to link an investigation of a particular form of collective action to that model. The pattern of a politically vital urban middle class in Germany and the Netherlands on the one hand, and its absence in France - and Britain, for that matter - on the other, in fact seems to coincide very well with the model of a commercial versus agrarian (or feudal) zone. These conclusions may lead us to some further speculations, both on the theoretical level, as well as in regard to this particular piece of Dutch history.When we look forward, toward the Batavian Republic that was founded in the wake of the French invasion of 1794–95, the ensuing struggles between moderates and radicals about political reforms - deemed necessary by all parties - do not so much present themselves as a clash between conservatives and revolutionaries, but as one between two different strands of reform. The moderates kept to the traditions of localism and corporatism, and strove for a return to the roots of the old republican constitution. The radicals on the other hand, had come to the conclusion that the problems of the Dutch state were of a magnitude that could only be overcome by wiping the slate clean and starting all over again, this time along the lines that had been suggested by the French example. The fact that many Dutch radicals had lived in exile in France in the years after 1787, where they had first-hand experience of a revolution in a completely different setting from the one at home, may perhaps in large part account for their specific brand of politics. At the same time, they can serve as prime examples of the revolutionaries-as-statemakers that Theda Skocpol has drawn attention to.This leads us to the second point. This investigation has, once more, suggested the importance of state formations in the analysis of political processes. The Dutch state had come into being in its specific form because this form served the interests of both the indigenous ruling class, that resented interference by centralizing bureaucracies, and the commercial community, that resented interference by anyone. For the local oligarchs it was of prime importance that the state's power should derive from theirs, instead of the other way. The merchants wanted the state to provide them with protection against foreign aggression and nothing more. Against this coalition any centralizing institution would have to muster an equally formidable coalition of its own. The attempt was hardly ever made.The state, being the way it was, refuted some ideologies and institutions, while supporting and legitimating others. Of course, the latter were generally concomitant with the larger make-up of the state. They did, however, leave room for maneuver as both ideologies and institutions tended to be two-sided: The stress on self-government by the local patricians, for example, might be taken up by other parts of the populace as well, and turned against patrician dominance. In the same vein, the militias that should preserve public order, might turn into vehicles for rebellion. Thus, the state could not prevent opposition, but it dictated the forms it would take - the demands put forward, the means of popular mobilization. Even though the Dutch state, in terms of organization, did not seem equal to these tasks at all, it held sway over both its supporters and its discontents.     

Can we rationally learn to coordinate?

In this paper we examine the issue whether individual rationality considerations are sufficient to guarantee that individuals will learn to coordinate. This question is central in any discussion of whether social phenomena (read: conventions) can be explained in terms of a purely individualistic approach. We argue that the positive answers to this general question that have been obtained in some recent work require assumptions which incorporate some convention. This conclusion may be seen as supporting the viewpoint of institutional individualism in contrast to psychological individualism.