Search

In the last two decades, violence in Latin America has taken three times more human lives than the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the Igarape Institute, from 2000 [...]

The growing symmetry in gender roles is a revolutionary change as consequential as technological advances and globalization. We illustrate how the social world in Canada has changed for women and men over the course of the last century, both in terms of greater gender equity and of policies supporting equity. However, some of the significant changes that occurred in the last 100 years have recently stalled, while the overall progress has been uneven for certain subgroups. We suggest reasons for both the stalling and the unevenness and make policy recommendations for reigniting the march to enhanced equality between the sexes. La symetrie croissante des roles lies aux identites sexuelles constitue un changement revolutionnaire, dont les consequences sont aussi puissantes que celles dues aux avancees technologiques et a la globalisation. Nous demontrons comment la sphere sociale canadienne a change pour la femme et pour l'homme durant le dernier siecle, tant au niveau de l'egalite des sexes qu'au niveau des politiques qui soutiennent cette egalite. Toutefois, certains des changements importants qui ont eu lieu durant le dernier siecle ont connu une recente stagnation, et certains changements n'ont pas ete appliques avec le meme effort dans tous les groupes sociaux. Nous proposons des explications pour cette stagnation et pour ces inegalites, tout en suggerant des ameliorations politiques qui viseront a relancer la progression vers une egalite complete entre hommes et femmes., IN 1929, AFTER DECADES of cultural and legal exclusion, the Privy Council of the United Kingdom formally acknowledged Canadian women as 'persons.' Since then changes in gender relations have radically [...]

This research reveals that 19th and early 20th century literary imagery was not only remarkably persistent in the production of narratives about Appalachia's economic and social development; place identity also [...]

THE SCHOLARSHIP ON TWENTIETH-CENTURY REFUGEE MOVEMENT highlights the persecution of national, ethnic, and religious minorities arising from state and nation-building. (2) The very structure and function of modern nation-states made [...]

AMID THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE ABORTIVE RUSSO-OTTOMAN PEACE TALKS at Fokschan in April 1772, Anton Wenzel Kaunitz instructed the Austrian Internuntius in Istanbul, Franz Maria Thugut, to elect a colleague [...]

THINKING ABOUT E.P. THOMPSON and The Making of the English Working Class immediately calls to mind the British left of the 1960s. Its leading figures included many workers and intellectuals, [...]

For a Belgian researcher, the invitation from the Canadian Review of Social Policy (CRSP) to assess Vieillir et vivre ensemble, chez soi, dans sa communaute, au Quebec (ageing and living [...]

En tant que chercheur belge, c'est avec un double interet que nous avons repondu a la sollicitation de la Revue canadienne des politiques sociales d'evaluer la recente politique Vieillir et [...]

Immigrants represent 28% of the Canadian population over 65, and older immigrants--more of them are women--now comprise the majority of the aging population in Canada's large metropolitan cities. Despite ample research about abuse of older adults in general, few Canadian studies have focused on abuse of older immigrant women. This paper reports policy-relevant findings from a project that aimed to develop a shared program of research to prevent abuse of older immigrant women in Canada. The project involved a review of the literature on elder abuse and immigrant women, local meetings with key stakeholders in seven provinces, a public event in Toronto, and a two-day interdisciplinary symposium with provincial stakeholders. Two significant themes emerged from these activities: the value of bringing together professionals representing multiple disciplines and service sectors as well as older immigrant women and the need for changes in social policies to reduce older immigrant women's vulnerability to abuse and support their resilience. This paper examines relevant social policy contexts and highlights the previously-over-looked implications of the ideology of familism within policies concerning prevention of abuse and the importance of intersectoral collaboration. Les immigrants constituent 28 % de la population canadienne de plus de 65 ans. Les immigrants ages, dont la plupart sont des femmes, representent desormais la majorite de la population vieillissante des grandes metropoles canadiennes. Malgre de multiples recherches sur les violences envers les personnes agees en general, peu d'etudes canadiennes se sont concentrees sur les violences envers les immigrantes agees. Ce document presente les conclusions d'un projet visant a elaborer un programme commun de recherche pour prevenir la violence envers les immigrantes agees au Canada. Ce projet comprenait l'examen des publications existantes sur les violences envers les atnes et les immigrantes, des reunions locales avec les intervenants cles de sept provinces, un evenement public a Toronto et un colloque interdisciplinaire de deux jours avec les intervenants provinciaux. Deux themes majeurs ont emerge au cours de ces activites : d'une part l'interet de rassembler des professionnels representant de multiples disciplines et secteurs de services, et d'autre part les immigrantes agees et la necessite de faire evoluer les politiques sociales afin de reduire la vulnerabilite des immigrantes a la violence et de soutenir leur resilience. Ce document etudie les contextes sociopolitiques pertinents et met en avant les implications auparavant negligees de l'ideologie de la famille dans les politiques relatives a la prevention de la violence, ainsi que l'importance de la collaboration intersectorielle., Introduction Canada's population is becoming older and more diverse. Presently, immigrants comprise 28% of the Canadian population aged 65 years or older, and the proportion of older immigrants is larger [...]

En mai 2012, trois ministres du gouvernement quebecois annoncaient une nouvelle politique gouvernementale, Vieillir et vivre ensemble, qui vise notamment a << mieux soutenir les personnes ainees a domicile et dans la communaute>>. En depit du rehaussement annonce des credits des services a domicile (SAD), on peut se demander si cette politique intersectorielle favorisera davantage le soutien des aines dans leur milieu de vie que les politiques precedentes du secteur de la sante et des services sociaux. Dans cet article, nous nous concentrerons sur une des lacunes de ces politiques anterieures, soit leur dificulte a doter les SAD d'une valeur intrinseque en mesure de rivaliser avec celle dont beneficient les services medico-hospitaliers. Nous montrerons d'abord que la hausse des depenses en SAD observee au fil des ans a en bonne partie servi a donner a domicile des soins dispenses jusque la a l'hopital, reduisant ainsi la capacite d'offrir des services d'aide a domicile a long terme, selon l'intensite requise, auxpersonnes agees souhaitant vieillir chez elles. Nous montrerons ensuite que cette priorite accordee aux soins post-hospitaliers s'exprime dans les indicateurs utilises par le ministere de la Sante et des Services sociaux pour rendre compte de ce que les SAD reussissent, ou ne reussissent pas. En adoptant ces deux angles d'analyse, nous tentons de degager quelques pistes pour accentuer ce virage, depuis longtemps annonce, qui ferait du domicile le lieu a partir duquel serait pensee l'organisation des services aux aines en perte d'autonomie. In May of 2012, three Quebec government departments announced a new policy, Aging and Living Together, intended largely to "improve support to seniors at home and in the community." Despite the announced increase in credits for home support services (HSS), there are grounds for wondering whether this interdepartmental policy will actually promote support to seniors, in their own living environment, more than previous policies in the health and social services sector. In this article, we will concentrate on one weakness of these previous policies, namely the difficulty of endowing HSS with an intrinsic value to rival that enjoyed by health care and hospitals. We will start by demonstrating that the increase in expenditures on HSS over the years has in large part been used to provide home care services that were previously delivered in hospital, thus reducing the capacity for offering long-term home support services, at the required level of intensity, to seniors who wish to grow old at home. We will then show that this prioritization of post-hospital care is expressed in the indicators used by the Department of Health and Social Services to report on the success--or lack thereof--of home support services. By analyzing HSS from these two angles, we will attempt to identify steps that can be taken to reinforce this long-heralded change in direction toward making the home the focal point in thinking about the way we design services for seniors who face the loss of some of their independence., Au printemps 2011, le premier ministre du Quebec annoncait un budget additionnel recurrent de l'ordre de 200 millions de dollars par annee pour financer un << nouveau plan de services [...]

The "age-friendly cities " concept proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) is a multi-sectoral policy approach to address demographic aging in urban settings. Canadian governments at all levels, seniors' organizations and non-governmental organizations have embraced this model for creating environments to support healthy, active aging. This paper describes how Canadian governments and partners have advanced the Age-Friendly Communities (AFC) initiative starting with the original development by WHO in 2006-07 to its current status five years later, involving the federal government, eight provinces, and 850 municipalities. With evidence of actions taken at the three levels of government, it is argued here that the successful evolution of AFC in Canada is the fruit of the national, collaborative leadership role played the Public Health Agency of Canada, the commitment of provincial partners to implement AFC fully in their jurisdiction, and the engagement of municipalities in creative and comprehensive community development with and for seniors. Le concept de << villes-amies des aines >> propose par l'Organisation mondiale de la Sante (OMS) est une approche politique multisectorielle qui vise a repondre au vieillissement demographique en milieu urbain. Tous les ordres de gouvernement au Canada, les organismes s'occupant des aines et les organismes non gouvernementaux ont adopte ce modele pour creer des milieux propices a un vieillissement actif et en bonne sante. Ce document decrit comment les gouvernements canadiens et leurs partenaires ont fait progresser l'initiative des communautes-amies des aines, depuis sa creation par l'OMS en 2006-2007 jusqu'a la situation actuelle, cinq ans apres, avec la participation du gouvernement federal, de huit provinces et de 850 municipalites. Compte tenu des mesures mises en place par les trois ordres de gouvernement, ce document explique que le developpement reussi des communautes-amies des aines au Canada est le fruit de plusieurs facteurs : le role moteur national et collaboratif joue par l'Agence de la sante publique du Canada, l'engagement des partenaires provinciaux a mettre pleinement en place le concept de communautes-amies des aines sur leur territoire, et l'implication des municipalites en faveur d'un amenagement creatif et global de leur collectivite pour et avec les aines., Introduction Population aging and urbanization are two of the most significant trends shaping the 21st century. The number of persons aged 60 and over as a proportion of the global [...]

Punitive penal policies are often justified on the assumption that members of the public demand punitive responses to crime. The current study employed a contingent valuation survey design to assess the extent to which this is true in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The survey investigated public willingness to pursue crime control policies that rehabilitate offenders versus those that punish. Using a quota-based telephone survey, 1885 taxpaying residents in the state of New South Wales, Australia, were asked how much additional tax they would be willing to pay to produce a 10 per cent reduction in serious crime. A 2x2 randomised factorial design was employed, with one factor being the means offered to reduce crime (rehabilitation versus imprisonment) and the other factor being the population under study (adults versus juveniles). There were no significant differences in willingness to pay for crime reduction across any of the four resulting groups. The findings suggest that the NSW public are equally disposed to reducing crime by rehabilitating offenders as they are to imprisoning them for longer. There would therefore seem every reason to pursue rehabilitation with greater vigour, especially in light of the relative cost-effectiveness of rehabilitation programs over incarceration. Keywords: contingent valuation, willingness to pay, crime reduction, public punitiveness, Introduction One of the most common findings from research on public attitudes to sentencing is that, at face value, members of the public are very punitive. When asked broad questions [...]

There are classes of problems that free markets simply do not deal with well. --Thomas Schelling (1) At first blush, disaster relief belongs to a class of problems ill suited [...]

Over two decades ago, China launched the spectacular Reform and Open Up Policy to promote economic growth, and enforced the One Child per Family Policy to reduce the population density. [...]

In the fall of 2004, our work with teacher candidates (TCs) at Buffalo State College (BSC) involved facilitating a literacy methods course/practicum at an urban-based professional development school (PDS). As [...]

This article focuses on a little-known episode: the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's (JDC) package program on behalf of Soviet Jewry in the post-Stalinist Soviet Union, from its inception through the Six Day War in 1967. The article reveals JDC clandestine activity on behalf of Soviet Jewry, in cooperation with the Israeli government, when the JDC was officially banned from working there. This package program was an expression of Western Cold War policy to support discriminated-against Soviet ethnic and religious minorities. I explore the dimensions and dynamics of the package program, its share of the total JDC East European aid and its unique style of administration, its outreach and impact, and the response of the beneficiaries. Soviet policy regarding Western aid to its citizens was often guided by pragmatic rather than ideological considerations; therefore, the stream of packages was never entirely stopped. This article reveals that both Israeli and "establishment" American Jewish organizations' activities on behalf of Soviet Jewry were considerably greater than American grassroots organizations claim. The story is also an encouraging example of mutual involvement of the three largest Jewish communities in the world, even when one of them was behind the Iron Curtain. Key words: American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Israeli Nativ, Soviet Jewry, Cold War, American Soviet relations, philanthropy, The dispatch of relief parcels--or, less frequently, money--to needy relatives in Eastern Europe was a widespread phenomenon among American Jewry throughout the twentieth century. These parcels (pekelach in Yiddish, posylki [...]

This article describes the public discourse and debate in the early 1950s over the shaping of the new Israeli citizen. That discussion included the concept of 'pioneering' (halutsiyut) as a leading tenet that would ensure citizenship not only as a set of entitlements but first and foremost as an obligation. Educators, public figures, adolescents and young adults, and Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion all tackled questions that dealt with various aspects of citizenship and the challenges of citizenship education. The debate centered on the question of the very possibility of creating a 'pioneer-citizen.' The article examines the earliest criteria of good citizenship in Israel, which did not settle for the perfunctory duties of voting, paying taxes, and abiding by the law. Key words: citizenship, pioneering, Jewish national movement, David Ben-Gurion, In the first half of the 1950s, Israel publicly debated the question of the desired model of citizenship. Educators, public figures, adolescents and young adults, and the first prime minister, [...]

Social scientists, especially sociologists and economists, are paying increasing attention to the concept of social capital. The expansion of its use has been so rapid that it has led some [...]

The largest group of migrants in Germany is the Turkish people, many of whom have low skills levels, are Muslim, and are slow to integrate themselves into their host communities. German immigration policy has been significantly revised since the early 1990s, and a new Immigration Act came into force in 2005, containing more inclusive stances on citizenship and integration of migrants. There is a strong rhetoric of acceptance and open doors, within certain parameters, but the gap between the rhetoric and practice is still wide enough to allow many migrants, particularly women, to fall through it. Turkish-Muslim women bear the brunt of the difficulties faced once they have arrived in Germany, and many of them are subject to domestic abuse, joblessness and poverty because of their invisibility to the German state, which is the case largely because German immigration policy does not fully realise a role and place for women migrants. The policy also does not sufficiently account for ethnic and cultural identification, or limitations faced by migrants in that while it speaks to integration, it does not fully enable this process to take place effectively. Even though it has made many advances in recent years towards a more open and inclusive immigration policy, Germany is still a 'reluctant' country of immigration, and this reluctance stops it from making any real strides towards integrating migrants fully into German society at large. The German government needs to take a much firmer stance on the roles of migrant women in its society, and the nature of the ethnic and religious identities of Muslim immigrants, in order to both create and implement immigration policy that truly allows immigrants to become full and contributing members to German social and economic life, and to bring it in line with the European Union's common directives on immigration. Keywords: ethnicity; European Union; exclusion; Germany; guest workers; immigration; immigration policy; Turkish-Muslim women., Introduction Germany has recently implemented a new Immigration Act (2005) after a lengthy process of negotiation and debate, and has been struggling with issues of self-definition related to whether or [...]

Although justification and implementation of human rights are typically dealt with as separate issues, the lines between them become particularly opaque when dealing with contested rights claims, particularly those made by immigrant groups. The relevant lessons from Europe seem to indicate that in these sorts of cases, questions of justification can become embedded in deliberative practices that lead to their greater institutional entrenchment. The heterogeneity of deliberative practices out of diverse Member State administrative contexts can be turned into an epistemic virtue when including additional perspectives that increase the likelihood of avoiding error and alleviating bias. With a focus on immigrant rights in the EU, I first give a stylized rendition of the shortcomings of three views--post-national rights theorists, liberal nationalists, and cosmopolitans. In contrast, experimentalists highlight the democratic potential of realizing rights on a pragmatic model of the Open Method of Coordination that better responds to regional problems not necessarily tied to a single site of sovereignty. Since immigrants in the EU are party to multiple overlapping political communities, the democratic justification of rights in contested cases can be directly tied to this novel institutional implementation, forging a modified social imaginary in the process for all affected actors. Keywords: cosmopolitanism; democratic experimentalism; European Union; human rights; immigrants; Open Method of Coordination, Introduction In a world of overlapping institutional networks for various right protections, philosophical defences of basic rights for immigrants must address two distinct issues. The first concerns the justification of [...]

This research note presents the findings of an expert-based survey on regional human rights cooperation in Southeast Asia. The survey was conducted to explore the views of different actors in the region regarding the establishment of the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). The survey also examines the case for a selective approach to establishing a regional human rights court for a selected number of Southeast Asian countries. The survey's findings have important implications and enable a deeper understanding of the process by which regional human rights cooperation is being institutionalized in Southeast Asia. As the survey results suggest, although the establishment of the AICHR represents a step forward, it may not substantially contribute to the development of a strong and effective mechanism to protect human rights in Southeast Asia. Respondents conclude that while the proposal for u human rights court for a selected number of regional countries is a good idea, significant challenges lie ahead and there is still a long way to go before the idea of u strong regional human rights system can be realized. Key words: Human rights, Southeast Asia, ASEAN, ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights, regional human rights protection., Background: The Survey, Methods and Responses At the 13th Summit of the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Singapore in November 2007, ASEAN leaders agreed to adopt the ASEAN [...]

The Australian Government has stated an unconditional commitment to reduce greenhouse, gas emissions by five percent on year 2000 levels by 2020. However, in the absence of new abatement measures, [...]

"A common resettlement instrument should be created. Resettlement programmes should be used strategically to complement and encourage additional durable solutions in host countries (local integration) and countries of origin (return) [...]

In recent years the United Nations Environment Program, UN Conference on Environment and Development, and other international organizations have acknowledged the importance of civil society for engaging stakeholders in environmental change--especially at the local community level--and in promoting democracy. (1) In Russia, efforts by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote reform since 1991 have aimed at achieving both objectives and face numerous political, legal, and attitudinal hurdles. This article examines these hurdles and the factors that facilitate development of an environmentally conscious civil society in Russia through analysis of the views of 100 representatives of environmental NGOs, news media, scientific community, corporations, and public agencies. We also investigate three abbreviated but illustrative vignettes that illuminate civil society impediments. Our thesis is that successful efforts to ensure adequate protection of Russia's environment require a strengthening of civil society. KEY WORDS: civil society, energy, environment, governance, pollution, Civil Society and Environment in Russia--Context and Perspective The importance of a robust civil society (2) for democratization and policy reform is gaining recognition among students of post-Communist polities struggling [...]

Depuis 1992, le gouvernement du Quebec developpe des politiques et des programmes afin de renforcer l'education culturelle des eleves. Comment le discours officiel justifie-t-il ce tournant culturel? Comment definit-il la [...]

BY THE TIME he left office, President Bush's faith-based initiative had become a kind of stand-in for his entire presidency. Whenever something went wrong on Bush's watch it was tarred [...]

This article deals with the place of the oriental Jewish immigrant question within the matrix of policy debates and political dilemmas faced by Mapai in the early years of the state. Its main argument is that conflicts over the oriental Jewish immigrant question were, in part, a manifestation of a conflict-ridden political culture, which fluctuated between two poles: centralism and egalitarianism. Alongside support and endorsements of a policy that would encourage paternalism, dependency, and patronage in the relationship between the government and the country's new immigrants, we can also find clear, well-articulated, and not infrequent protests against the promotion of passivity in political life. These oppositional voices sought to advance a distinct vision of their own that called for giving real political power to immigrants in order to transform them from a controlled public into an active partner in government. Key words: Mapai, oriental Jews, immigration, Zionist-socialism, Hundreds of thousands of immigrants arrived in Israel from Islamic countries following the Jewish state's independence in 1984. These "oriental" Jews constituted approximately half of a mass of newcomers who [...]

In 1951, the United Nations defined a refugee as a person who 'owing to well-founded fear of being-persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group [...]

As the enlargement of the European Union (EU) increases the scope and population of Europe, social integration has been pushed to the forefront of political debate. Over the past decade, [...]

I am a child of a Confessor, born in 1956, the same year the McCarthyesque Chinese Confession Program was sanctioned. Its purpose, simply put, was to seek and flush out [...]

Children's poverty has long been a central concern for policy makers and policy researchers. The body of extant research conducted and the range of programmatic interventions undertaken by successive governments in this and other countries is extraordinary. Nevertheless, children remain in poverty. Clearly there are many reasons for this, not least of which is the maintenance and intensification of market capitalism with its attendant blatant inequalities. Even so, the moral, political, social and economic imperatives for developing workable responses to children's poverty remain. This paper argues that we, in Australia, should adopt an approach increasingly taken in the UK. Drawing on, among other things, the new sociology of childhood, this approach begins not with the expertise of adult researchers and policy makers, but with that of children. In doing so, the case is made for why children's perceptions and experiences of poverty are key concerns for policy. The paper outlines in theoretical terms why children's voices matter. Invoking the new sociology of childhood and the sociology of identity, a conceptual framework for understanding why policy scholars and makers should carefully attend to the voices of their subjects is sketched--in this case, the subjects are children. Finally, some methodological implications of this for undertaking policy research informed by this approach are outlined. Key Words: social policy, children, identity, Introduction The existence and persistence of poverty is, arguably, one of the most important issues to confront contemporary policy. Children's poverty in particular has an enduring capacity to disturb us, [...]

Abstract This paper updates an earlier analysis that examined children's likelihood of being included in a benefit at different ages. We find that up until 2007, children born between 2000 [...]

Abstract New Zealand's approach to retirement incomes profoundly changed with the recent introduction of KiwiSaver and its associated tax incentives. Previous policy reduced lifetime inequality, but KiwiSaver and its tax [...]

Abstract KiwiSaver is the world's first national auto-enrolment savings scheme. So far only one other country--the United Kingdom--has committed to auto-enrolment on a national scale. Both schemes aim to increase [...]

Abstract The introduction of the defined contribution KiwiSaver scheme into the New Zealand retirement income policy landscape has caused some expressions of concern, particularly in the light of the associated [...]

The federal government adopted several measures during the mid-1990s to address concerns about race-based and class-based disparities in environmental protection. This article examines whether these measures affected the pattern of state enforcement of three federal pollution control laws. Using differences-in-differences models to estimate the effects of the federal policy adoption, I find evidence of increases in state enforcement of the Clean Air Act in large African-American communities, but declines in enforcement in communities with large poor and Hispanic populations. Similarly, there is evidence that state enforcement of the Clean Water Act decreased in poor and African-American communities, but there were no real changes in enforcement of facilities regulated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Collectively, the analysis suggests that the federal policy had minimal positive effects on state regulatory enforcement. KEY WORDS: environmental justice, regulatory enforcement, state policy, federalism, Introduction Mounting evidence that minority and low-income groups faced disproportionate environmental risks led governments at all levels in the 1990s to undertake actions in attempt to remedy such inequities. The [...]

On a brisk, bright afternoon in late March 1953, Anita Brown, a thirty-one year old housewife, left her apartment in the Bronx River Houses, boarded a city bus and traveled [...]

Abstract The police in Germany is mainly a matter of the federal states, called 'Lander', and only the Federal Police (Bundespolizei) and Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt) have nationwide, though limited powers and are the responsibility of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior. Because of the important role of the Lander the focus in this article is on one state. North Rhine-Westphalia was chosen as it is the state with the largest number of habitants and of police officers. In the article three main topics are described and analyzed. The first part focuses on the police system and its reform in recent years. The second part shows some more aspects of the modernisation of the police since the 1980s, like the integration of women and ethnic minorities in the police, the different activities to enhance the status of police officers for example by better payment and better training. Also the shifts in the police programme, especially including community policing and crime prevention, are discussed. In the third, the steering of the police will be looked at. In the early 1990s the New Public Management was implemented--but was confronted with great difficulties. The reform in 2007 changed the concept of steering and now favours measuring inputs and outputs instead of outcomes, and benchmarking between the 47 police authorities. Over all it will be shown that the police in North Rhine-Westphalia proceeded with modernisation, civilisation, pluralisation and professionalization. But the challenges for further reforms can be seen already, for example because of changes in the security situation or the future new security architecture., 1 Introduction If one concerns oneself with questions of the organization and reform of the police from a political-science perspective, then it is appropriate to analyze these as aspects of [...]

1 Introduction The previous articles described police systems and reforms implemented in three countries. In this final article, we explore the similarities and differences in the police systems of these [...]