bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Interpersonal and Economic Resources as Mediators of the Effects of Health Decline on the Geographic Mobility of the Elderly
Authors: Zimmerman Rick S. , Jackson David J. , Longino Charles F. , Bradsher Julia E.
Published: March 2007

Using data from the 1984 and 1986 waves of the Longitudinal Study of Aging produced by the National Center for Health Statistics, the authors examined the probability of geographic mobility that is associated with declining levels of instrumental disabilities, while controlling for instrumental interpersonal resources and economic resources. This research concerning health and geographic mobility supports the view that instrumental disabilities do put pressure on older persons to change their residence but that the availability of family caregiving is a major buffer to moving. Family income, however, has no independent effect on mobility in the face of declining functional health. These findings provide support for the Litwak-Longino model of elderly migration
Interpretations of Symptoms by Older People
Authors: Stoller Eleanor Palo
Published: March 2007

This article examines interpretations of symptoms experienced by a probability sample of older people living in community settings. Four assessments were included: seriousness, pain or discomfort, interference with desired activities, and causal attributions. Data were collected through structured interviews and daily diaries completed by a probability sample of 667 older people living in a four-county region of upstate New York. Although few respondents believed their symptoms were definitely serious, the majority experienced some uncertainty regarding the potential seriousness of at least one of their symptoms. Three fourths of these respondents incorporated a medical interpretation in explaining their symptoms; medical interpretations, however, were often used in conjunction with a nonmedical interpretation. The analysis indicated that people who experience few symptoms and assess their health positively are more likely to normalize and minimize the potential import of new or unfamiliar symptoms
Relationship between Husband's Health Status and the Mental Health of Older Women
Authors: Simonsick Eleanor M.
Published: March 2007

This study examines the association between husband's health and the mental health of community-dwelling White women 65 to 75 years of age and how the wife's health, socioeconomic and social resources, and marital quality affect this relationship. Husband's health strongly predicts wife's mental health; the negative impact of which is more pronounced when the wife has poor or declining health as well. Marital quality is a strong predictor of the wives' mental health. Analyses examining the independent and joint effects of marital quality and husband's health on wife's mental health indicate that the negative association of illness in a spouse on wife's mental state is, in part, a function of the impact husband's health has on marital intimacy and shared pursuits. Of the socioeconomic and social resources examined, only availability of close friends shows a substantial relationship to the wives' mental health.
Race, Aging, and Functional Health
Authors: Clark Daniel O. , Maddox George L. , Steinhauser Karen
Published: March 2007

This article presents evidence of a Black/White crossover in functional health. Its existence supports the hypothesis, based on selective survival, that older members of socially disadvantaged populations are relatively more physiologically robust and thus exhibit relatively favorable functional capacities. Longitudinal data on 5,150 persons 70 years of age and older shows that within young-old age groups, Blacks are more likely to experience functional status decline over a 6-year period than Whites, whereas within oldest-old age groups, Blacks are less likely to experience decline. The authors also provide confirmation or modification of several hypotheses implicit in the literature on aging, race, and functional health. They find support for the hypothesis that racial differences in age-related changes in mean levels of functional health (i.e., self-care capacity and physical functioning) are age dependent, but do not find support for the hypothesis that social class fully accounts for racial differences in functional status change.
The Buffering Effect of a Computer Support Network on Caregiver Strain
Authors: Bass David M. , Mcclendon Mckee J. , Brennan Patricia Flatley , Mccarthy Catherine
Published: March 2007

ComputerLink was a computer support network for family caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease. In a 12-month experiment, 102 caregivers were randomly assigned to an experimental group that had access to ComputerLink or to a control group that did not. This investigation examined whether caregivers in the experimental group had greater reductions in four types of care-related strain by the end of the 1-year study. ComputerLink reduced certain types of strain if caregivers also had larger informal support networks, were spouses, or did not live alone with their care receivers. More frequent use of the communication function was related to significantly reduced strain for caregivers who were initially more stressed and for non-spouse caregivers. Greater use of the information function was related to significantly lower strain among caregivers who lived alone with care receivers. Overall, ComputerLink appeared to be an effective tool for reducing strain for some caregivers.
A Danish Population-Based Twin Study on General Health in the Elderly
Authors: Christensen Kaare , Holm Niels V. , Mcgue Matt , Corder Larry , Vaupel James W.
Published: March 2007

Objectives: To study the relative influence of genetic and environmental factors on self-rated health and hospitalization patterns in the elderly. Methods: Asurvey among all 3,099 Danish twins ages 75 years and older identified in the Danish Twin Registry. An interviewwas conducted with 77% of the twins. The number of hospitalizations in the previous 18 years was obtained through register linkage, thereby obtaining health information on 96% of the study population, including all nonresponders. Results: Structural equation modeling suggested that approximately a quarter of the variation in the liability to self-reported health and the number of hospitalizations could be attributed to genetic factors. The remaining variationwas most likely due to nonfamilial environment. Analyses of the hospitalization patterns of proxy responders and nonresponders suggest that the estimates of the genetic influence on health outcomes in the study are conservative. Discussion: The present study indicates that variation in general health among the elderly is partly explained by genetic factors.
Goals of Home Care
Authors: Kane Rosalie A.
Published: March 2007

This article classifies home care goals into two broad categories: therapeutic goals, in which home care providers strive for measurable improvement on parameters of physical, psychological, or social functioning and compensatory (or empowering) goals, in which home care providers strive to provide services to compensate for functional impairment, thus enabling consumers to pursue their own goals. Therapeutic goals are loosely associated with “medical models” of care and compensatory goals with “social models.” From a consumer perspective therapeutic and compensatory goals are important, and artificial distinctions between the two should be eliminated. However, this merger should be effected in such a way that therapeutic approaches can be incorporated into programs with relatively low unit costs.
Home Sweet Hospital
Authors: Levine Carol
Published: March 2007

Family caregivers, often called “informal” caregivers, are the unpaid relatives, partners, or close friends who provide directly or manage the health care for individuals who are seriously ill or disabled. As a result of changes in the American health care system, family caregivers confront increasing responsibilities, burdens, and challenges. However, there are limits to family responsibility for caregiving, and whereas families may take the first step toward accepting responsibility for home care, professionals and institutions bear continuing responsibility. Public policies and programs have an enormous impact on the availability of home care assistance and services, the family’s ability to afford and provide home care, and a caregiver’s continued participation in the workforce. One of the major goals for the future of home care should be to recognize and respond appropriately to diverse family structures, strengths and limitations, and needs.
A Decade of Service-Related Research: A Map of the Field
Authors: Perry James L. , Imperial Mark T.
Published: March 2007

The 1990s ushered in a new era for service as a problem-solving strategy, with a concomitant expansion in the service-related literature. The authors report the results of a bibliographic survey of the literature that assessed the contents of more than 2,500 abstracts. Service-related research has diffused to a wide array of disciplines and policy fields. However, the common interest across disciplines has not translated into a more coherent understanding of service. The most recent research is fragmented across disciplines and outcomes. In addition, much of the most recent research diverges from traditional definitions of volunteerism. Few attempts have been made to synthesize the latest wave of research results and integrate them with previous research and theory. Recommendations are offered to increase convergence among investigators and improve the quality of service-related research.
Usable Knowledge: A Symposium
Authors: Boris Elizabeth , Fox Daniel M. , Hall Peter Dobkin
Published: March 2007

Celebrating twenty years of the association, and fifteen years of Yale's Program on Non-Profit Organizations, the ARNOVA meetings in New Haven provided an opportunity for assessing the work of the research community concerned with nonprofit organizations and voluntary action. The symposium recorded on the following pages addressed the question of what, if any, usable knowledge had been produced by the research community.
Review Essay: The Scholar Practitioner Gap and the Dilemma of Expertise and Democracy
Authors: Hall Peter Dobkin
Published: March 2007

Despite major efforts, the gap between scholars and practitioners in the fields of nonprofit and voluntary action research remains unbridged. A recent volume by New York University cultural historian Thomas Bender suggests that the problem is due less to the peculiarities of these fields than it is to the institutional configuration of American intellectual life. Changes in occupational structures since the 1 970s that have led people with advanced academic training to seek careers in community-based nonprofit organizations may constitute a basis for reconstructing American public culture.
Portfolio Theory and Nonprofit Financial Stability: A Comment and Extension
Authors: Jegers Marc
Published: March 2007

The contribution of Kingma (1993) to NPO theory is discussed and enlarged. Portfolio theory in interaction with utility theory is shown to be a very useful instrument to model nonprofit organization (NPO) financing. Furthermore, it is suggested that portfolio theory is partially useful to model the NPO investment decision. Some essential elements of such a theory are presented.
Altruism Toward Groups: The Charitable Provision of Private Goods
Authors: Brown Eleanor
Published: March 2007

One form of altruism is the voluntary provision of public goods. Theories of altruism based on the public goods model, however, lead to false predictions of giving only by the very wealthiest members of large groups and of dollar-for-dollar crowding out of private giving by government spending. In this article, donors are assumed to care about the provision of a private good to members of a recipient group. The model is shown to be consistent with widespread giving and less than complete crowding out.
There's no Place Like Home
Authors: HARDEN JENI
Published: March 2007

This article explores children's theorizing around risk and safety in relation to the public/private distinction. While there has been considerable debate within sociology over the different meanings and applications of the public/private dichotomy, little consideration has been given to the ways in which children construct their lives around this distinction. In this article it is argued that children reflexively construct their landscapes of risk and safety around concepts of private, local and public. While the private sphere of the home was described by the children in terms of safety and security, they expressed concerns about their vulnerability in public life. The children's accounts also define an intermediate sphere between private and public - the local sphere - which was identified in terms of proximity to the home and familiarity with places and people.
Children's Independent Spatial Mobility in the Urban Public Realm
Authors: O'BRIEN MARGARET , JONES DEBORAH , SLOAN DAVID , RUSTIN MICHAEL
Published: March 2007

This article examines children's spatial mobility in urban settings. Through data from a study of children living in contrasting urban environments, London and a lower-density new town, the article focuses on how children move around in the public realm. The data show that there are significant variations in how contemporary children use their public spaces. Children's freedom to move around their neighbourhood was greatest in the new town. Girls and minority ethnic children were more restricted in their use of urban space. Comparison with previous research suggests a decrease in independent use of public space for 10/11-year-old English children since the 1970s. It is argued that future debate about children's place in the city should move away from `the unitary public child'. Lack of attention to the different ways children use their cities will hinder advances in social policies designed to enhance participation for all children.
Small is Powerful
Authors: KJ ØRHOLT ANNE TRINE
Published: March 2007

As a participant at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, Sharon Stephens highlighted her experiences of children's participation at the conference: `Many of the young people at the conference expressed frustration with the official convention negotiations and felt that, while their presence was desired as a sign of the importance conference organizers placed on the participation of children and youth, in fact their views were not really taken seriously.' Her sensitive observations highlight the importance of analysing discourses on `children and participation' in a historical cultural context, and question the current, flourishing interest in those discourses. The aim of this article is to contribute to a discussion on how discourses on `children and participation' are deeply embedded in discursive fields other than children and their rights. Studies of participatory projects in Norway illuminate in particular an interrelatedness between constructions of childhood and constructions of sustainable local communities in Norway in the 1990s.
Life Paths of Urban Children and Youth in Comparative Perspective
Authors: BLANC CRISTINA S. , PORIO EMMA , MEHTA PRATIBHA , MOURA WILSON
Published: March 2007

The life paths of young boys and girls and their families in cities in the Philippines, India, Brazil, Kenya and Italy provide a first analysis, often in the children's own words, of the multiple overlapping crises that lead them to situations of distress. Such situations include running away to live in the streets and/or progressively falling into high risk behavior, such as dropping out of school, abusing different kinds of substances, engaging in sex for money or protection, and peddling drugs. Their life histories illustrate their resilience. But they also illustrate how the quality of their relationships to meaningful adults is being increasingly threatened and how painful and disruptive that is for these developing young people, who need the caring presence and reassuring validation of key adults, both within and outside their families, as they enter into an adult world.
Child Domestic Workers
Authors: BLAGBROUGH JONATHAN , GLYNN EDMUND
Published: March 2007

This article discusses the nature of child domestic work (where children are employed as servants in the households of families other than their own) based on the experience of Anti-Slavery International and its partners and illustrates how this gives rise to the problems encountered in attempts to protect children from abuse. In particular, it demonstrates how the failure of previous international standards has occurred as a result of their failure to recognize the significance of societal perceptions of the problem. Rather than merely banning all forms of domestic work, new standards (such as the ILO's proposed convention on `intolerable' child labout) must be able to set practical and achievable targets, in order to set practical and achievable targets, in order to have any effect on the way in which child domestic work is perceived throughout society. The article concludes by suggesting a number of practical steps that can be taken to ensure that, at least in the first instance, child domestic workers are afforded a measure of protection which they do not currently receive.
Child Labour
Authors: McKECHNIE JIM , HOBBS SANDY
Published: March 2007

Child labour has been discussed mainly within the context of the economically underdeveloped countries. In reporting British research findings the article challenges this bias and argues that child employment is evident within the developed countries, but that it has become largely `invisible'. It is argued that by researching child workers in the developed countries, our understanding of this phenomenon globally will be enhanced. This is discussed with reference to the positive and negative effects of employment, challenges to the child labour/child work dichotomy, and the debates about the underlying causes of employment among children.
The Challenge of Childhood
Authors: LEE NICK
Published: March 2007

Three case studies of the position of children within adult institutions are reported. Each study examines the difficulties that surround children speaking for themselves. The studies focus on three different scales of analysis, moving from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to a regional crisis in child protection in the UK, to the constraints and opportunities for children as witnesses in UK courtrooms. At each scale of analysis it is argued that rather than making clear and univocal assumptions about children's capacities, adult institutions display an inability to decide on what status they should accord to children's utterances. As bearers of `childhood', children cut an ambiguous figure within adult institutions. An explanation of this ambiguity is offered in terms of adult institution's characteristic means of procuring their own legitimacy. Childhood's ambiguity, which is at once a product of, and a hindrance to, institutional legitimacy is typically `managed' by institutions by deferring the moment of its resolution. Childhood ambiguity is thus open to distribution and redistribution. Deferral can push the burden of ambiguity onto children's shoulders. It is through this deferral of ambiguity that children's ability to speak for themselves in adult institutions is made problematic. The implications of these case studies for social studies of childhood that aim at increasing children's opportunities for self-representation within adult institutions are explored.
The Foundations of Eclecticism
Authors: Sil Rudra
Published: March 2007

The heated debates between proponents of rational-choice, culturalist, and structuralist (or historical institutionalist) analysis over method and substance derive from differences over philosophical issues. This article relates these differences between ideal-typical rationalist, culturalist and structuralist analysis to their positions on two fundamental problems in social theory: (i) the epistemological significance of structural principles vis-a-vis agency; and (ii) the relative significance of the material and ideal dimensions of social processes. This suggests that many recent efforts at `synthesis' (e.g. through `analytic narratives') end up being rhetorical gestures since the fundamental assumptions identified with a given approach are not significantly relaxed. A more pragmatic position has been outlined in `structurationist' perspectives that build on Weber's social theory. Such perspectives are consciously agnostic about epistemological first principles in order to permit more question-driven analysis. Structurationism does not represent a novel paradigm for comparative analysis, but its epistemological flexibility makes it an ideal foundation for eclectic scholarship intended to transcend and engage the debates among rationalist, culturalist, and structuralist analysis.
Stabilization and Cutbacks
Authors: Hood Christopher
Published: March 2007

This paper examines twelve major families of explanation of long-term government growth. Its aim is to explore the extent to which theories of government growth can also predict a diminution of government size in some circumstances. Although reversal of government growth has been little discussed, the conclusion is that nine out of the twelve families allow for reversibility, and to that extent the development of a body of literature, separate from the government growth literature, explaining government cutbacks would appear to be intellectually redundant. The nine reversible groups of government growth theory differ according to whether reversibility of growth is contingent (requiring the conditions of growth to be reversed) or automatic (requiring only a continuation of the conditions of growth), and one group may be termed `super-auto-reversible' in that it specifies conditions in which several separate theories of government growth will go into reverse.
Towards a New Model of Generic Fascism
Authors: Eatwell Roger
Published: March 2007

The vast academic literature on fascism can usefully be divided into conceptual and theoretical approaches. The former tries to unravel fascist ideology, the latter seeks more to explain its support. Most approaches have focused on the latter. This stems from the view that fascist ideology tends to be incoherent, and the belief that support-based models are more `scientific'. However, the result has been that different forms of movement/regime are often lumped together. A conceptual approach is therefore proposed called the `spectral-syncretic', which sees the essence of fascism as a series of syntheses around four main themes. The import of this approach is to undermine the view that fascism was essentially a feature of inter-war Europe, but without allowing the term to degenerate so that it can be applied to large numbers of significant non-European movements/regimes. Differences of interpretation over the syntheses, and especially national contextual factors, also make it difficult to place fascism on the left-right spectrum.
The Ladder of Abstraction
Authors: O'Kane Rosemary H. T.
Published: March 2007

Sartori's arguments about conceptual logic have generally either been ignored by political scientists in practice or they have produced vehement objections based on abstract reasoning. Through examination of recent statistical analyses of African coups d'état it is shown that Sartori's worst fears have been confirmed. The purpose of comparison has been defeated, comparison for difference and similarity has been obscured by cases being turned into `no difference', and the research has been not only wasteful but also misleading. The demonstration that the inadequacy of these studies follows from conceptual logic confirms Sartori's recommendation for the use of the `ladder of abstraction'. What is true for coups serves as a clear warning for the practice of political science as a whole.
Legislation and Constitutional Jurisdiction in Hungary
Authors: Kerekes Zsuzsa
Published: March 2007

Separation of power is the key issue of the Hungarian political transition today. In the last two years the Constitutional Court has become one of the protagonists of the `constitutional revolution'. The main subject of this article is the legal relationship between the National Assembly and the Constitutional Court. The activities of the new Constitutional Court have resulted in interesting legal and political conflicts.
States of Underdevelopment
Authors: Leftwich Adrian
Published: March 2007

This article surveys and compares major theories of the state in the third world. At first sight, few of these theories identify states which have any or even some of the characteristics of modern states as expressed in the two main traditions of state theorizing in Western political science, derived from the classics of Marx and Weber. All these theories, however, despite their variety and specificity, can be shown to confirm the continuing analytic utility of key aspects of both the Marxist and Weberian approaches. Moreover, those few economically successful third world societies illustrate in many crucial respects both the Marxist and Weberian conditions for an effective developmental state.
7. The Conditions for Successful Collective Action
Authors: Libecap Gary D.
Published: March 2007

The purpose of this paper is to summarize some of the bargaining issues involved in collective action to address local common-pool problems and to illustrate them in three empirical cases. The importance of timing or the sequence of coalition building and the heterogeneity of the participant's preferences, information and stakes in the problem are emphasized. Two of the empirical cases involve traditional CPR problems and efforts to resolve them in fisheries and oil fields. The third involves collective action by private firms to obtain government assistance to control orange shipments so as to fix prices. Although the cases are quite different, with one involving a non-renewable resource, another a renewable resource and a third addressing cooperation for provision of an industry public good, the bargaining problems encountered among heterogeneous parties are very similar. This condition allows for generalizations to be drawn about the conditions for successful collective action.
A Comprehensive Decision-Making Exposition of Coalition Politics
Authors: Doron Gideon , Sherman Martin
Published: March 2007

The question of the size of political coalitions is readdressed from the point of view of an `Expected Utility Maximizer' (EUM) framer who has to choose a certain formation in a given political environment. Three subjective utility profiles or aspirational motives are identified for the framer: aspiration regarding political return, aspiration regarding political stability and aspiration regarding political greatness. These are matched against five objective polity parameters: polarization, dimensionality, dichotomy, discreteness and plurality. Taken together they form a complex functional relationship. A change in any of the function specified variables would affect the size of the formed coalition.
The `Noncompensatory Principle' of Coalition Formation
Authors: Mintz Alex
Published: March 2007

This paper introduces the `noncompensatory principle' of coalition formation. This principle states that in a choice situation, a negative or low score on the political dimension cannot be compensated for with a positive score on other dimensions (see Mintz, 1993; Mintz and Geva, 1994a, b; Mintz et al., 1994). The link between the `noncompensatory principle' and the size of coalitions is then discussed. Based on the `noncompensatory' logic I propose that ceteris paribus, intra-party rivalry is likely to lead to the formation of coalitions larger than necessary to win, whereas inter-party conflict is more likely to lead to the formation of narrow coalitions. The Israeli examples of 1988 and 1990 demonstrate the applicability of this theme to real-world situations.
The New (Final) South African Constitution
Authors: Kotzé Dirk
Published: March 2007

Democratization in the South African context is essentially a state-building process, in which constitution-making plays an important part. The transition from apartheid manifested itself in two concurrent processes, namely establishing a power-sharing, interim period as well as negotiating a new constitution. The first phase in the transition process, consisting of two phases, to a large extent has determined the outcome of the final constitution in the form of 34 Constitutional Principles. The second phase is directed by the elected Constitutional Assembly (CA), which has become an institutionalized process largely detached from the population. Two concurrent processes in the final transitional phase, in addition to the CA, are the quest for white, ethnic self-determination deliberated by the statutory Volkstaat Council, and the call for international mediation by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). Mediation is viewed by the IFP as an alternative negotiating strategy in order to circumvent the CA in which it has a weak bargaining position. The negotiating process has also been characterized by political violence in which the IFP is prominent. Violence in the South African context could be viewed as symptomatic of the transition (political development), but could also be interpreted as part of a negotiating strategy.
The Electoral System
Authors: Faure Murray
Published: March 2007

This article provides an overview of South Africa's electoral arrangements. It consists of three sections. The first sketches the historical background of the present system and some of the important events that led to the adoption of the interim constitution and the election of 27 April 1994. The second section highlights the salient features of the electoral system and briefly comments on the results that it yielded in the April 1994 election. The section also points out the weak and strong points of the system. The third section is prescriptive in nature. It argues how the present arrangements could be improved in terms of constitutional principles that govern the drafting of the `final' constitution, and the recently adopted guidelines of the African National Congress on this matter.
South Africa's Changing External Relations
Authors: Muller Marie
Published: March 2007

This article traces, through both a geographically defined, actor-oriented and an issue-oriented lens, the most important changes which have taken place in South Africa's external relations since the internal transformation process started in 1990. Previously, the one overriding theme in South African foreign relations had been its internal policy of apartheid. This has changed completely. However, the process of change is not complete: certain continuities exist and further changes can be expected. These are also reviewed.
Majority Voting with Bribes Does Not Eliminate Voting Cycles
Authors: Pun Wing-Chung
Published: March 2007

This paper shows that majority voting with bribes cannot generate voting cycles when voters' preferences are separable in alternatives and money. When preferences are not separable in alternatives and money, voting cycles are possible under majority voting with bribes.
Rational Voters and Strategic Voting
Authors: Ordeshook Peter C. , Zeng Langche
Published: March 2007

Is the rational-choice paradigm more than a mere tautology when applied to the study of voting or can it generate refutable propositions that cannot be deduced or inferred from other approaches? This is the question we address empirically in the context of three-candidate presidential elections. Although we reconfirm the conclusion that the decision to vote is largely a consumptive one, we also establish that once in the voting booth, voters act strategically in precisely the ways predicted by a Downsian model of voting. That is, although expected-utility calculations and the like and little to our understanding of the decision to vote, those same calculations have a significant influence on the decision for whom to vote, over and above such factors as partisanship.
Types of Democracy
Authors: Kaiser André
Published: March 2007

Discussion of concepts in empirical democratic theory has proceeded down two main lines: in terms of theory, from classical institutionalism to new institutionalism; in terms of substance, from the traditional notion of the separation of powers to ever more refined versions of that doctrine. The article contrasts three stages of development and discusses their relevance for contemporary research: the conventional types of parliamentary vs presidential democracy; consociational democracy as a behaviouralist conception; and Arend Lijphart's differentiation of majoritarian and consensus democracy. It is argued that, although these types remain valuable frameworks in some respects, they are unsatisfactory tools for the sort of research which has come to the fore in recent years: the effects of different types of democracy on policy outputs; the structural implications of political institutions for political action; and political institutions as outcomes of constitutional engineering processes. For purposes like these a new institutionalist framework for analysis is proposed which develops further the idea of veto points.
Who speaks and who replies in human science scholarship?
Authors: Gergen Kenneth
Published: March 2007

Intelligibility in the human sciences, as elsewhere, is born of tradition. The present inquiry is into the traditions currently deployed in the human sciences to achieve credibility. In particular, how are we to understand the character of voice in human science writings such that they achieve rhetorical power, and how do these writings variously position their readers? Four traditions of voice are identified: the mys tical, the prophetic, the mythic and the civil. These modes of annunci ation are contrasted with two additional genres of more recent, postmodern vintage: the autobiographical and the fictional. Illustra tions are provided from major scientific writings. The modes of voice are contrasted in terms of the functions served within the sciences, along with their limitations in communicative capacity, and the cultural forms of life which the author-reader relationships variously invite.
Can We Inhabit the Moral Universe of Dante's Divine Comedy?
Authors: Horne Brian
Published: March 2007

This paper maintains that, for all his ethical interests, his philosophical and theological essays, political treatises and linguistic studies, Dante was primarily a poet; a poet who, moreover, believed that poetry could change the world, and that the Comedy must be read, first, as a poem. This is not a trivial point, because the Comedy remains a text that is endlessly fascinating to philosophers and theologians as well as moralists who read it for its philosophy, theology and ethics and who sometimes fail to see that a poet's imagination, even one as egregiously rational as Dante's, is synthetic rather than analytic. This paper offers an examination of the moral universe of the Comedy, paying particular attention to his presentation of the virtues. It endeavours to show how Dante's entry into the moral universe is by way of beauty through the operation of love, and considers how, for Dante, the inevitability of beauty, when properly understood, opens out on to truth and goodness, which, in turn, fold back upon beauty as the Beatific Vision is reached.
The environmental problems associated with India's major cities
Authors:   Centre for Science and Environment, India
Published: March 2007

The environmental problems associated with India's major cities are examined within the city (air and water pollution and solid wastes), the city-region and in people's homes and workplaces. Examples illustrate each environmental problem. The final section discusses the relationship between cities' resource use and rural problems, including deforestation, the annexing by government of common land formerly used by poorer groups, and unsustainable cash crop production.
Aspects of the growth of Montevideo, Uruguay and its environmental implications
Authors: del Carmen Queijo María , Montañez Margarita , Panario Daniel
Published: March 2007

Aspects of the growth of Montevideo, Uruguay and its environmental implications examines the historical relationship between a growing urban area and its surrounding natural environment. River pollution dates from the late 18th Century. Repeated attempts to guide the city's growth have usually failed. Inadequate infrastructure and land speculation are among the main causes behind the degradation of the environment and the natural landscape.
Urban management in Kenya
Authors: Bubba Ndinda , Lamba Davinder
Published: March 2007

Local government in Kenya describes the history of municipal administration, its current structure, and its revenues and expenditures. It considers in detail the administration of urban services in Nairobi, and its shortfalls and inadequacies. The f inal sections describe the scale and importance of the informal sector, of community organizations and NGOs, urban-rural links, and women in urban management; and notes that conventional urban management gives little attention to these.
Our planet, our health
Authors:   WHO Commission on Health and the Environment
Published: March 2007

Health is often ignored in discussions about the environment and development. Our planet, our health attempts to redress this imbalance. It argues that current trends in respect of the environment threaten the health and survival of current and future generations, and shows that without health, development and a protected environment can be of little value, and that development can only be realized through the contributions of healthy people.
The right of the individual to environmental protection: a case study of Nigeria
Authors: Adewale O.
Published: March 2007

The right of the individual to environmental protection: a case study of Nigeria considers whether this right of the individual has been adequately secured. It describes the provision for environmental protection in Nigeria and the circumstances under which individual rights cease to be effective or where enforcement has proved ineffective at controlling pollution.
The housing loan programme of the Catholic Social Services in Karachi
Authors: Ghouri Naeem Shahid , Nihal Hector
Published: March 2007

The housing loan programme of the Catholic Social Services in Karachi explains how the programme was established and has developed and how it now operates. The authors also describe complementary services provided by the organization to poorer households who have taken on loans.
"The go-between": CENVI, a habitat NGO in Mexico City
Authors: Connolly Priscilla
Published: March 2007

The "go-between": CENVI,a habitat NGO in Mexico City describes the work of the Centre for Housing and Urban Studies in Mexico, especially its workwith and on behalf of community based organizations and how its role is likely to change in the light of current and recent political changes in Mexico.
Psychosis: from mental disorder to disease concept
Authors: Beer M. Dominic
Published: March 2007

This article traces the development of the concept of psychosis from its being coined as a general term for mental disorder in 1845 by the Austrian psychiatrist Ernst von Feuchtersleben until its reification as a disease concept in the twentieth century by the German psychiatrist and pupil of Kraepelin Kurt Schneider.
The concept of 'delusion' in Spanish psychiatry
Authors: Lázaro José , Beer D.M.
Published: March 2007

The history of the concept of delusion can be used to explore the general history of psychiatry in Spain and assess the contribution of her most distinguished practitioners. As this paper shows, the latter have not been as creative as their fellow artists or writers. Nonetheless, the ideas on delusions that some of them formulated deserve attention. The history of Spanish psychiatry (qua science) can be divided into four historical periods.

(1) The native origins (up to the end of the eighteenth century).

(2) The introduction of European psychiatry (nineteenth century).

(3) The period of consolidation (first third of the twentieth century).

(4) From the Civil War (1936-39) to the present.

These four periods provide a framework within which theories about delusion can be explored. Aspects of these four stages have been dealt with in earlier papers .1
US Media Discourse on South Africa: The Development of a Situation Model
Authors: Downing John D.H.
Published: March 2007

This article provides a developmental analysis of discursive treatment of South Africa in two key US news media, Time and Newsweek. In so doing, it investigates the role of media in relation to political memory and public participation in foreign policy-making in the United States. A brief template of `ideal' media discourse on South Africa is set out in the introduction to enable a contrast with actual media output, and then a detailed analysis is presented of news magazine discourse concerning three key moments in modern South African history.
Mass Media and Discourse on Famine in the Horn of Africa
Authors: Sorenson John
Published: March 2007

Mass media coverage of famine in the Horn of Africa is examined. Analysis reveals imposition of a narrative structure through the use of standard rhetorical techniques to construct famine as an ideological parable. This parable demonstrates the abuse of western charity by treacherous Third World regimes allied with the Soviet Union. Media reports are related to other discursive constructions of Africa which offer a similar narrative structure.
`Oh Wise Women of the Stalls...'
Authors: Cole Caroline M.
Published: March 2007

Graffiti are frequently considered mere vandalism or aimless ramblings on a wall, yet closer examination of washroom graffiti shows otherwise. Studies of graffiti in women's lavatory stalls at the University of Illinois indicate that graffiti are an alternative means of expression for women and that the writers are actually participating in a form of communication similar to that found in consciousness-raising (CR) groups. Though the perpetrators of the graffiti never meet one another, many elements of CR groups (i.e. politeness, chaining, humor, filling in, typing together and serializing) are present nonetheless. This article examines how women can and do: voice opinions; solicit advice; support, console and encourage each other; and, upon occasion, call male dominance into question in a society that otherwise silences them.
Rhetoric and the Spread of the Discourse of Thatcherism
Authors: Phillips Louise
Published: March 2007

This paper puts forward a model of processes of discourse and rhetoric as a way of understanding the attempt of Thatcherism to create a new common sense in British society. The theoretical model is first presented. This includes a notion of the role of a special type of rhetoric (consisting of key words and formulaic phrases) in discursive processes and a notion of the active part played by language users in reproducing and transforming discourses. The aim is to draw a link between macro-processes of social and cultural change and micro-processes of everyday language use. The roots of the rhetoric in the genre of the everyday world facilitate take-up by the mass media and the public and thus the penetration of the discourse of Thatcherism into the language of individual language users. The empirical study which is then presented focuses on the role of one key word, choice, in reproducing and restructuring the discourse of Thatcherism in different sociopolitical domains: official Conservative Party texts and official Labour Party texts (speeches by Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet members to the Annual Party Conferences in 1991), print and broadcast news media (news coverage of the Conferences), the arguments of grass-roots Labour Party members (1991) and grass-roots Conservative Party members (1991 and 1992). It was found that in all the domains studied, the discourse of Thatcherism was reproduced and transformed through the selective use by language users of choice in collocation with other rhetorical terms. A degree of resistance to the discourse was also found. The paper concludes with a short account of the fate of Thatcherist discourse in the UK since the time of the study.
`Hate Speech' and `First Amendment Absolutism' Discourses in the US
Authors: DOWNING JOHN D.H.
Published: March 2007

This article argues that the First Amendment to the US Constitution, seen inside and outside the USA as a historical high water-mark of discursive freedom, has suffered from an ideological refusal to acknowledge its dangerous implications for the growth of hate speech, whether against people of color or other subordinated groups. This refusal has led in turn to a virtual vacuum in intelligently conceived strategies to combat hate speech. First, issues in the `absolutist' position are reviewed, and then four problems are discussed in greater depth: the actual remit of the First Amendment in practice; its international reference points; whether `race' is the only vector at stake; and the deficiency of purely legal conceptualizations of the issue. The article continues with a brief note on critical legal theory and critical `race' theory, and concludes by considering two different angles of vision on the subject, one that of appropriate, sociologically informed administrative responses to hate speech within an institution, the other Charles Husband's statement of the need to plan for the `right to be understood' within a multi-ethnic public sphere.
Informational and Interactional Functions of Slogans and Sayings in the Discourse of a Support Group
Authors: BARTON ELLEN L.
Published: March 2007

This article investigates repetition in institutional discourse by describing the multiple functions of the repeated use of slogans and sayings in the discourse of a support group for parents of children with disabilities. The repetition of slogans and sayings serves both informational and interactional functions: slogans and sayings serve the informational functions of disseminating information and a perspective on that information, and they serve the interactional functions of establishing solidarity among participants and managing the complicated floor of a group meeting.
An Alternative Metaphor in the Study of Judgment and Choice: People as Politicians
Authors: Tetlock Philip E.
Published: March 2007

Researchers who study judgment and choice have assumed it is useful to think of people as either intuitive psychologists or economists who strive either to understand the people around them or to maximize subjective expected utility. This article proposes that it is also useful to think of people as intuitive politicians who strive to please the diverse constituencies to whom they feel accountable. The article specifies two hard-core assumptions of a political research program on judgment and choice and a testable middle-range theory (the social contingency model). The article also explores both the descriptive and normative implications of shifting from the psychologist and economist metaphors to the politician metaphor. At a descriptive level, the political research program highlights a variety of social and institutional variables that moderate (either attenuate or exacerbate) response tendencies that have been labelled as errors or biases. At a normative level, the political research program highlights an alternative set of criteria for labelling effects as errors or biases. Response tendencies that look flawed from one metaphorical perspective often look quite reasonable from another. The politician metaphor suggests more normatively generous ways of viewing several effects, including the fundamental attribution error, the dilution effect, ambiguity aversion, the attraction effect and the status quo effect.
What is Real in Psychology
Authors: Harré Rom
Published: March 2007

I have two main differences with Greenwood's (1992) position as expounded in his paper. I find his account of scientific realism unsatisfactory and his criticisms of social constructionism directed too narrowly. In both cases the problems I have with his treatments of these important topics stem from his drawing on too restricted a diet of authors.