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Research on intergenerational coresidence in non-Western settings rarely compares the experiences of older women and men across different normative environments. I examine variation in intergenerational coresidence among older women and men in Egypt and Tunisia using data from the WHO Collaborative Study on the Social and Health Aspects of Aging. Findings are consistent with the idea that women?s exchange of kin-keeping tasks for protection from kin in more patriarchal settings gives older women greater access to coresidence with children, even after accounting for differences by gender in need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tensions which arise from the changing nature of the American family often play out in the media. This study examines the media representations of non-custodial parents over the last forty two years in relation to child support and paternity. Trends in the media are shown to shift along with social policy. Media focus on celebrity and individual cases serves to emphasize individual responsibility and conceal the role of government in the welfare of children. While there has been an increase in gender neutral language in relation to non-custodial parents in recent years, public policy and the media continue to focus on fathers and biological parenting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers studying job matching processes have begun to note the labor market advantages received by non-searchers?people who get their jobs without searching?over active searchers. However, a comprehensive comparison between the job outcomes of non-searchers and active searchers has yet to emerge. To remedy this situation, I employ a variety of descriptive and multivariate methods to examine differences between the two groups in terms of job prestige, class, authority and supervisory power, hourly wages, and satisfaction. My analysis focuses on two age cohorts in the 1979 NLSY (17-25 year olds and 33-41 year olds) to assess the payoffs to non-searching in the early and early prime of the work career. The results suggest that non-searchers maintain significant advantages over active searchers on all job outcome dimensions among those age 33-41, but rarely receive advantages (and are often at a disadvantage) when compared to active searchers early in the work career. The results also suggest that, among the 33-41 year olds, the greatest payoffs to non-searching occur among people who have gained the most work experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While contemporary social capital theory traces the propensity to form local-level associations to ?civic traditions? laid down centuries ago, associational life in the Dominican countryside is in fact the product of the concerted effort of varied actors over the course of at least four decades. The institutional actors that have been the ?partners? of local peasant organizations since the end of the Trujillo dictatorship (1961) include the Dominican state, the Catholic church, political parties, transnational non-governmental organizations and even private firms. Each of these organizations has its own definitions, objectives and strategies for rural development. Grassroots organizations in the Dominican countryside arose as the result of political mobilization of the 1960s and 70s. In the 1980s, such activities ceased because of economic crisis, political repression, the transformation of clientelism and the evolution of the development project itself. The overt de-politicization of development processes in the last two decades has served to create precisely the sorts of local organizations that the Putnam/World Bank school of social capital theory espouses. An institutional approach to understanding organizational life allows us to develop a dynamic and fluid model of local social forms. Putnam?s approach, based on cultural scripts and dispositions, emphasizes the stability of such forms and blinds us to other influences on their development and transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious social service agencies operate within a complex organizational framework, responding to the demands of both legal and religious constituencies. Current social climate has led to increased scrutiny of religious discourses of service, accompanied by contestation over boundaries between church and state. Such dilemmas have prompted this research, an ethnographic exploration of one agency?s attempt to preserve the integrity of the religious act while remaining true to legal standards and a pluralistic context of service. Interviews with employees of Los Angeles Catholic Charities? Immigration and Refugee Services Department suggest that discourses of service are ambiguous and contested, negotiated between parallel discourses of religiosity and secularity and variable along organizational level. Analyzed through the lens of organization and secularization theories, findings demonstrate how competing authorities compel organizations to develop an adaptive discourse combining both religiosity and secularity. A complex organizational field funnels two competing discourses down to the ground level of service provision, where new meanings of religion emerge, selectively accommodating the organizational field. Both secularity and religiosity are intertwined and re-defined in service provision, imploring a new language for faith-based social service within a non-religious functional domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper further expands on the idea of a black/non-black racial division, by examining a segment of the non-black group?1.5 and 2nd generation Asian Americans. Drawing from theories of segmented assimilation and the social construction from race, I examine the tactics that this group utilizes to set itself apart from other ethnic minority groups as a part of their assimilation process. I use in-depth semi-structured interviews to address this research question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

General strain theory is employed to delineate the social mechanism leading from economic strain and household strain, two of the most important stressors, to substance abuse among young adults, some attending college and another group pursuing other activities. The 2001 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) data is used to test three general hypotheses. The results, overall, show support for general strain theory, in that both household strain and economic strain lead to greater odds of substance abuse. The negative affect they create, measured by psychological distress, constitutes a mediating variable. However, the strain factors? effects vary for the two young-adult populations. A limited number of economic strain variables were present in the employed secondary data set, and the study models are similarly limited. Future research should collect original data for the specific purpose of testing general strain theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social psychological paradigm used in sociology and the other social sciences is derived almost exclusively from the work of those in European nations and their former colonies, and it unintentionally incorporates a wide range of Western cultural assumptions and biases. This paper presents the main principles of what is arguably the world?s most developed non-western psychological system?Yogacaran Buddhism. Parallels and contrasts between these two traditions are drawn, and suggestions for constructing a less Eurocentric social psychology are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While scholars have emphasized the process of economic reform undertaken by most nations in the last couple of decades, only a small literature has begun to explore the counterpoint to these activities: nations? policies that run counter to the reform process. This phenomenon is particularly evident in the area of trade liberalization where nations have reduced tariffs but have simultaneously introduced non-tariff policies such as antidumping (AD) that impede the free flow of goods. While the preponderance of scholarship suggests that the particularistic demands of firms or sectors greatly condition trade policy outputs, scholars are beginning to explore the possibility that governments use AD and similar policies as a component of broader development strategies. Using original data for AD case outcomes in South Africa, I assess whether or not the decision calculus guiding these trade policy decisions is determined more by the inherent characteristics and particularistic demands of private economic interests, or national-level development strategies. I find evidence that overarching political and economic goals most condition the decision-making process: cases that involve industries that are under capacity yet demonstrate signs of potential growth are more likely to receive protectionist decisions. Surprisingly, and contrary to previous research, characteristics of the specific actors in a case, including overall size and the composition of the board of directors, do not appear to matter. More generally, the findings also challenge the conventional view that African economic policies are being driven by private interests and rent-seeking behavior ? the classic African ?neopatrimonialism? ? rather than strategic development objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes data from the Bay Area News Media Survey (2002), which posed questions about media use, language capability, ethnic and panethnic community, political participation, and other characteristics of 1,662 immigrants and native-born whites, Latinos, Chinese and Chinese Americans, and African Americans in the 7-county San Francisco Bay Area. The analysis examines relationships between media use for news—ethnic vs. general-market media—and political participation and attitudes. A central naïve assumption about the non-English ethnic media is that they tend to keep immigrants separate in their own language communities. Respected journalists have written that parts of the ethnic media constitute a “news ghetto,” even that the ethnic media as a whole constitute a “Tower of Babel” that erodes a “community of discussion” and thus undermines an assumption of democracy by preventing discussion between groups separated by language and language-based media use. Analysis of the survey data does not support these claims. The ethnic media do not constitute a “news ghetto” for most users. Most consumers of ethnic media also use the general-market (“mainstream”) media, so if there is a “community of discussion” that is accessible through the general-market media, they are not isolated from it. The central question of this paper is whether use of ethnic or general-market media is associated with more or with less political participation and with the attitudes and knowledge that support participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the recent literature that investigates turnout and voter mobilization finds little or no impact on turnout as a result of get-out-the-vote phone drives. This paper describes three field experiments embedded within get-out-the-vote phone drives conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area in November 2002 and October 2003 (the gubernatorial recall election), all of which focused on new registrants. Two of the drives were explicitly partisan (Democratic), and the other was strictly non-partisan. These experiments were designed to investigate whether get-out-the-vote phone drives are effective tools for increasing turnout. Neither of the partisan get-out-the-vote phone drives had no detectable effect on voter turnout. There was a positive effect on turnout from non-partisan calls, but it was only effective on Democratic registrants, and then only when the caller was representing a local organization, rather than a national one. The overall results raise continued questions about the efficacy of registration movements. The surprising finding regarding new Democratic registrants may provide insight on different dimensions of voters' party identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study that examined the way anticipated governance costs affect the decision to initiate war. Examination of articles and research related to the topic; Conditions under which war will occur; Information on the Formal Theory about post-war considerations.

Previous research has found that members of the minority use floor debate more heavily than members of the majority (Maltzman and Sigelman 1996; Morris 2001; Rocca 2003; Rocca 2002; Rocca, Sala, and Greenwald 2003). There are two competing explanations for the finding. One camp argues that minority members turn to floor debate more often because they are ignored during other forms of legislative action. This argument fits squarely with Hall's (1996) theory of legislative participation. I argue, on the other hand, that members of the minority gain more benefit from floor action than do members of the majority because of a negativity effect. In this paper, I derive competing hypotheses from these theories regarding how members use floor debate. The latter theory suggests that minority members are more likely to use floor debate to attack the majority than the converse. The former suggests that they should use the forum for positive reasons such as promoting their party's agenda. I use an original dataset of content analyzed non-legislative debate, in the form of one-minute speeches and special order addresses, to test the hypotheses. My findings indicate support for the negativity effect theory of floor debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on epistemic communities, transnational advocacy networks, and sociological intstitutionalism all suggest non-state actors can sometimes convert knowledge into power. However, it is less clear how and under what circumstances NGOs are influential and why some are more influential than others. One recurring theme is that NGOs are influential through their technical expertise or rational analysis of existing problems and pragmatic solutions. Another claim is that NGO statements grounded in appeals to widely accepted moral principles carry persuasive normative force. This paper develops a method for analyzing the discursive practices of NGOs in the context of larger transnational debates involving states and inter-governmental organizations [IGOs]. NGO’s discursive practices are assessed in terms of their rationality using the standards of communicative action theory. This method can be used to evaluate the claim that NGO efficacy is related to the rationality of the empirical and normative assertions advanced by these groups. Assessing the rationality of NGO’s discursive practices by the standards of communicative action theory requires paying attention to the political and linguistic context of discursive practices. This method was developed and applied in a book length treatment of the negotiations leading to the establishment of the International Criminal Court. From that case it appears that rational NGO discourse may be particularly efficacious in the context of constitutional moments when actors representing states tend to take a long term view of their interests. The shared Western legal background of decision-makers on the ICC issue also provided a set of background conditions that was particularly receptive to reasoned argument. In this case, NGO’s discursive practices led powerful states to cede some sovereignty over decisions about the operational definition of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The efficacy of NGO discourse is important because NGO participation in transnational politics has been hailed as a possible solution to the democratic deficit that characterizes most international decision-making. NGO voices offer a counterweight to powerful state’s hegemonic influence over the definition and conceptualization of global political problems. However, others see NGO voices as fragmentary, contributing to a cacophony of isolated voices that represent only narrow special interests or the privileged sectors of mass publics. The method of discourse analysis detailed in this paper provides a systematic approach to analyzing these issues by assessing the communicative rationality of NGO’s discursive gambits in their global political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a new field of research in international relations: The studies on the role and potential of the corporate sector in global violent conflicts. It offers a literature review on the topic and a discussion of current research in Switzerland on the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-proliferation in 2004 is characterised by: 1) the end of Cold War arms control diplomacy dominated by treaties negotiated between the two super-powers 2) residual Cold War WMD stockpiles requiring agreement 3) the advent of rogue states and global terrorism leading to American pre-emptive armed force to disarm them 4) the common approach by 25 EU member states in determining regional and global agenda. The nadir of these features gives necessity to build up existing literature to analyse and critic trans-Atlantic consensus and differences. Specific issues prevail such as Treaty negotiation (CBW, BWC, NPT, CFE), relations with Russia and other organisations (NATO, OSCE), the role of EURATOM and specific proposals (Dayton Accords, ESDP/CSFP, PSI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides comparative analysis, based upon field research, into the thinking of South African and Indian leaders and strategists about regional hegemony. Both countries are well-positioned to be hegemons, with GDPs many times larger than the rest of the states in their region combined. South Africa acted as an interventionist regional hegemon during the apartheid era but has been a reluctant hegemon since majority rule was established in 1994 and has often acted within a regional organization, the Southern African Development Community. Exploiting this reluctance, Zimbabwe has challenged South African regional leadership since 1994. From 1947 to 1962, India was a reluctant regional hegemon, due to the pacifist leanings of Nehru. After losing to China in the 1962 border war, India began to assert regional hegemony, especially with its 1971 invasion of East Pakistan and the establishment of Bangladesh. However, Indian hegemony in South Asia has been continually challenged by Pakistan in alliance with China. Through comparative analysis, conclusions are drawn about the exercise of hegemony and the resistance that is most always encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the current state and future prospects of nuclear arms control. It does so within the context of the current unipolar security environment. Among the questions this paper will consider: Is nuclear arms control possible with a hegemon? With this hegemon? What are the prospects for significant nuclear arms control in the current security environment? Does the framework for analysis match that for conventional arms control? If not, what are core differences in the analytic framework? This paper will also evaluate some potential risks of the current nuclear arms control environment, including political, economic, and military factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research on unregulated population movements suggests that illegal migration and undocumented migration for labor and other purposes is on the rise in Northeast Asia, and is demanding the attention of regional policy-makers. The last decade has also witnessed an increase in the criminalization of migration in the lucrative form of human trafficking, often related women and girls for prostitution. This paper reviews the scholarly debate on the linkages between security and migration, including how illegal migration has been incorporated into the discussion on traditional and non-traditional security, and human security. The emergence of illegal migration as a security issue in the European Union is discussed before a consideration of whether, and how, illegal migration has been defined as a "security" issue among politicians and policy-makers in Northeast Asia. The so-called Copenhagen School?s framework of "securitization" is discussed in relation to how securitization could be applied to specific cases of illegal migration and unregulated population flows within and from Northeast Asia. Finally, the paper draws some conclusions regarding the implications and lessons for regional cooperation on illegal migration in Northeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine the Japanese financial policy between 1990 and 1998 to address the following two questions. The first question is on why the Japanese government was delayed in developing institutions to secure stability in the financial system after the Japanese financial system has begun to be unstable following the collapse of the bubble economy in early 1990s. The second question is on why it was delayed in dissolving financial institutions that were virtually bankrupt. To address these questions, I focus on preferences of the relevant actors in formulating financial policy, namely, the politicians of the ruling parties, the leaders of the ruling parties, and the Ministry of Finance. The government was delayed in developing such institutions to secure financial system as the ruling parties politicians tried to free ride other politicians’ efforts and as the leaders of the ruling parties, in particular, the LDP, and the Ministry of Finance were reluctant to admit past policy failures. Likewise, the government was delayed in dissolving virtually bankrupt financial institutions mainly because the leaders of the ruling parties, in particular, the LDP, and the Ministry of Finance were reluctant to admit past policy failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The minority party’s disadvantages in the House of Representatives are well documented (Binder 1997; Cox and McCubbins 1993; Rohde 1991). According to Hall (1996), members of the minority emphasize ‘formal’ participation more heavily because they are excluded from ‘informal’ activities (i.e. behind-the-scenes activities). One such formal activity, the so-called ‘safety-valve’ of congressional activities (Maltzman and Sigelman 1996), is non-legislative debate (NLD) in the form of one-minute speeches and special order addresses. Drawing from Rocca (2002), this paper reexamines the use of non-legislative debate in the House of Representatives. I present and test an alternative theory for non-legislative participation. My theory is simple: unlike off-floor activities where minority members receive fewer benefits than majority members, minority members receive more benefits than majority members during NLD (and floor activities in general). From this theory, I derive my central, testable hypothesis that rank-and-file minority members are more likely to deliver policy oriented speeches during NLD than the majority. The results support my theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foundations and Hegemony: The Velvet Glove Joan Roelofs, Professor Emerita Keene State College jroelofs@keene.edu Liberal foundations have served as ‘gatekeepers’ for political science research and have guided social and political change. Their goal has been to maintain the power structure, while fostering many necessary, useful, and beneficial reforms. In accordance with Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, they absorb and transform dissenting ideas, organizations, and leadership, and thereby promote consensual support for the democratic-capitalist system. In recent years, techniques which have proven useful for domestic system-maintenance have been exported, and serve the interests of United States international hegemony. One example is the ideology, creation, and funding of "civil society" institutions worldwide. Currently, the situation is Byzantine, with projects co-sponsored by private foundations; government foundations (e.g., National Endowment for Democracy); government agencies (e.g., Agency for International Development); corporate foundations; German political party foundations; and European Union, NATO, and World Bank grantmaking agencies. Sorting all this out might take a few lifetimes, yet political scientists must not flinch from examining these philanthropic institutions and the roles they play in regime change and transitional societies. How does the massive infusion of foreign money and technical assistance to create political, social, cultural, and educational institutions in rather poor countries comport with the theory of democracy? (We were brought up to believe that even a tiny drop of ‘Moscow gold’ was un-American and subversive.) The study includes a general introduction to the issues aforementioned, followed by discussion of foundation initiatives in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and South Africa. These will include the creation of policy institutes, human rights organizations, and charities mollifying "shocked" economies. Whatever their contribution to democracy (Rousseau and Hegel thought otherwise) civil society institutions provide status and salaries for intellectuals and other potential dissenters to United States hegemony. Furthermore, these civil societies may be made of imported materials, directed by foreign managers, and assembled by local workers on an overseas payroll. Liberal foundations (e.g., Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie) used similar techniques to support and guide the U.S. civil rights movement and the South African transition from apartheid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The one-vote ballot structure in legislative elections in Mexico discourages strategic voting. However, several scholars have found strategic voting in some legislative elections. In this paper, I argue that such voting is not strategic voting (because of the ballot structure) in terms of the classic Duvergerian non-wasting the vote proposition. If voters keep voting for a party other than the most preferred one it must be for reasons different from the classic strategic voting motivations (a la Duverger). Consequently, I introduce a logistic regression model to explain this electoral behavior. The results show that 584 people vote sincerely, and 99 people vote non-sincerely in the 1997 election, for an accuracy of about 78 percent. A person having extreme pro-non-sincere voting values on the 3 statistically significant variables has a probability of 59.68 of voting non-sincerely in 1997, while a person having the extreme pro-sincere voting values on the three variables has a probability of 68.94 of voting sincerely. For the 2000 election, 1171 people voted (as stated) sincerely, and 95 people voting non-sincerely, to be correct 80.5 percent according to my model. The expected probability of a non-sincere voting by a person having the extreme pro non-sincere voting values on the independent variables (included in the model) is 52.63, while for a person having the extreme pro-sincere voting values on the 5 variables, his/her probability of voting sincerely is 15.97. By increasing the number of parties, sincere voting indirectly has an impact on democratization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the recent literature that investigates turnout and voter mobilization finds little or no impact on turnout as a result of get-out-the-vote phone drives. This paper describes two field experiments embedded within get-out-the-vote phone drives conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area in November 2002, both of which focused on new registrants. One of the drives was explicitly partisan (Democratic), and the other was strictly non-partisan. These experiments were designed to investigate whether get-out-the-vote phone drives are effective tools for increasing turnout. The partisan get-out-the-vote phone calls had no detectable effect on voter turnout. There was a positive effect on turnout from non-partisan calls, but it was only effective on Democratic registrants, and then only when the caller was representing a local organization, rather than a national one. The overall results raise continued questions about the efficacy of registration movements. The surprising finding regarding new Democratic registrants may provide insight on different dimensions of voters’ party identification worthy of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-Cold War era, climate change, landmines, debt relief and a number of other issues emerged to re-shape the agenda of decision-makers in the advanced industrialized world. The primary advocates of these normative issues are motivated not by their own material self-interests but broader notions of right and wrong. What is the primary logic that contributes to the domestic acceptance of these moral commitments? International relations scholars identify persuasion as the primary way in which states are ‘convinced’ that a norm-based policy is worth accepting. How should we characterize this process of persuasion? Is this the right term to describe the actions of transnational protest movements? Through a case study of the Jubilee 2000 campaign for developing country debt relief, I offer an account of persuasion based on strategic framing by advocates to get the attention of decision-makers. This paper emphasizes the rhetorical and framing strategies that are used to try to tip the political balance in support of normative agendas but ultimately ascribes these a different character than either coercion or Habermasian communicative action. Such strategic but not narrowly self-interested activity allows weak actors to leverage existing value traditions to build broader coalitions of political support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars and policymakers argue that targets of transnational terrorism should retaliate against the hosts of such groups with military force. Yet, empirical tests demonstrate that military force does not successfully reduce terrorist attacks. This paper addresses three questions based on these observations. First, given its poor record of success, why do states employ force against host states of terrorism? Second, what are the conditions under which military force is likely to achieve the intended result of decreasing terrorist activity? Finally, given the threat of military force, why do hosts of transnational terrorists continue to allow such groups to operate? Using a game theoretic approach, I conclude that target states resort to violence against hosts of transnational terrorist due to the inability of certain host states to fulfill obligations to control indigenous terrorists. I further conclude that threats to use military force in response to terrorism fail to deter hosts from allowing terrorists to operate. These hypotheses are tested through an examination of Arab/Israeli interactions from 1950-1993. Though the statistical analysis is preliminary, the data support several of the theoretical expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of violence by non-state actors is not a new feature of the international security environment, yet theories of IR have had little to say about the role of non-state actors who use violence. This paper sets out a framework for analyzing the activities of non-state actors who use violence by proposing that non-state actors draw on a common set of strategies of transnational mobilization as a means of projecting power in the international system when they violently challenge the political status quo. Borrowing from the literatures on social movements and contentious politics, the paper discusses three strategies used by non-state political entrepreneurs and then traces how they were used in two cases of violence conflict: the Algerian War of Liberation (1954-1962) and the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey (1984-2000). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the end of the Cold War and the independence of the Central Asian Republics from the Soviet Union, two groups of non-state actors quickly entered post-Soviet Central Asia, each seeking to promote their own normative agendas. The first group consisted of western liberal NGOs and democracy assistance organizations, which were part of a larger U.S. and European-funding effort to promote democracy and the rule of law in the postcommunist world. The second group consisted of a variety of non-western Islamist organizations from countries as diverse as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. These organizations funded religious and educational institutions, and promoted the Islamicization of Central Asian societies and states. This paper examines the process of competitive norm mobilization that occurred in Central Asia between 1991-2001, by examining the relationship of different sets of norm entrepreneurs in the region to global structures of Liberalism and Political Islam. The paper proposes a framework for situating the norm promotion activities of individual agents within broader structures of meaning in the international system, as a way of overcoming the liberal bias that currently dominates the study of international norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a systematic and comprehensive survey of peer-reviewed publications, this synthesis of studies examines whether there is an evidenced-based consensus in the published literature on performance differences between private for-profit and private nonprofit hospitals in the U.S. since 1980. A second objective is to learn the proportion of all research assessing for-profit and nonprofit health care providers that is devoted to hospitals compared to all other providers. The third goal is to discover how any trends in observed performance differences among hospitals compare with trends among other provider types. Computerized bibliographic searches of all relevant databases yielded 75 studies (93 assessments) that compared the performance of for-profit and nonprofit hospitals four performance criteria (access, quality, cost/efficiency, and/or amount of charity care). Author’s reported findings on performance were coded in one of three ways: for-profit superiority, nonprofit superiority, or inconclusive. Most studies (60 percent-) reported that nonprofit hospitals have better relative performance than for-profit hospitals, clear evidence to their organizational effectiveness. Thirty-one percent were inconclusive and 8 percent- reported the for-profits were best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To fit some data to models during tests, it is often necessary to adjust the data during the fitting process in order to approximate reasonable solutions. Sometimes this produces changes that alter important properties of the matrices. In some cases this has desirable consequences and the losses are minimal; in others losses exceed benefits. How can we distinguish between the two? In this paper, we discuss ways to achieve what we seek, while minimizing changes that have unsought effects. We also restrict our argument to special kinds of matrices. Advice is somewhat counterintuitive: subtract a tiny decimal from an eiagenvalue that is relatively widely separated (in size) from the other eigenvalues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project will look at race/ethnic differences in non-marital fertility, and at the role that community context plays in this relationship, paying particular attention to the high levels of non-marital fertility among Mexican American women. Drawing from theory based on blackwhite differences, I will look at the role that structural and economic factors play in maintaining group differences in non-marital fertility as well as the role of race/ethnic segregation. Additionally I will explore whether a more familistic culture among Mexican Americans protects them from the deleterious effects of neighborhood disadvantage. This research will use the NSFG and the NSFG-CDF to extend research on race/ethnic differences in non-marital fertility by including Mexican Americans. This, in turn, will contribute to the refinement of theory, which is largely based on black-white differences in family formation processes. This research will employ multilevel event history models in order to appropriately identify the effects of macro-level characteristics at the county level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of studies of nursing homes indicate that facility profit status impacts several aspects of facility behavior, notably quality of care. This paper presents preliminary analysis from a larger project testing competing models of organizational behavior in for-profit and non-profit Florida nursing homes. State-specific facility level data were obtained from the national OSCAR database. We conducted multivariate regression analyses to test for differences in responses to deficiency citations over time. Consistent with other studies, we found that for-profit nursing homes had significantly lower levels of staffing than non-profit nursing homes, and higher overall levels of reported deficiencies in for-profit facilities. However, there was no reason, a priori, to expect that for-profit and non-profit nursing homes would respond differently to deficiency citations, once staffing is taken into account. Our findings show that non-profit and for-profit facilities do respond similarly to deficiency citations in the short term, with both facility types less likely to be cited for deficiencies in the next reporting period. However, in subsequent reporting periods, the average number of deficiency citations in for-profit facilities was higher than in non-profit facilities, suggesting differences in long-term responses to deficiency citations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines union formation in mostly low-income unmarried couples who share a child using couple data from the Time, Love, Cash and Caring in Couples study, a qualitative study linked to the nationally representative Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study of non-marital births. The paper is based on the finding that while couples express a strong desire to marry they seldom do. I investigate why marriage is so attractive by asking the following questions: 1)What is their criteria for marriage? 2) What are the perceived costs and benefits of marriage? and 3) How are marriage and cohabitation different? I find that marriage is seen as a chance for an ideal relationship and personal fulfillment, and can only occur after meeting certain financial and relational conditions. Both men and women want to marry in high numbers and identify the same obstacles to marriage. Benefits to marriage include personal fulfillment, emotional and financial stability, and unconditional love and commitment. Costs are the risk of divorce, new obligations and expectations, and sacrifice and compromise. Marriage and cohabitation are viewed differently. Marriage is a choice to be considered for years, while cohabitation is something that "just happens", although it is important to live with a partner before deciding to marry. Obligations and commitments associated with marriage and cohabitation are also different. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although most non-marital childbearing in the U.S. involves mothers with low educational attainment, a small but growing share of single mothers are college educated. The factors that explain non-marital childbearing may differ for this group of mothers since they are unlikely to be affected by lack of marriageable men, poor opportunities for women or welfare benefits, the causes often cited to explain non-marital childbearing generally. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey, a longitudinal birth cohort study of 5,000 children born between 1998 and 2000, to evaluate three possible explanations for non-marital childbearing among the twenty percent of unmarried mothers who have some college education. The arguments about why these women become single mothers include the claims that they (1) feel pressured by their biological clocks, (2) hold negative views of marriage and men, and (3) have problems finding suitable marriage partners. We find some support for each of these explanations. We also find that the applicability of these explanations varies by race and ethnicity. All three explanations appear to have some merit for white, non-Hispanic mothers, among whom college education and single status are associated with placing less value on marriage as well as with increased odds of racing the biological clock and of having a male partner who has a major problem like drug addition or who does not treat the mother well. For highly educated African-American and Hispanic mothers, however, difficulty finding equally well-educated partners is the most persuasive explanation for non-marital childbearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The argument has been made that environmental movement organization should concentrate more effort toward affecting political discourse related to the environment (Burns and LeMoyne 2001). In this article, we revisit this argument and provide empirical evidence regarding the importance of social movement participation in global discursive processes. Through utilization of NUD*IST 4 and NVivo software packages, we analyze transcripts of the first annual U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on industry and sustainable development. The analysis illustrates that non-state actors, including social movement organizations, play a critical role in the articulation and extension of world models related to the achievement of sustainable development. Although the actors do not always agree on all dimensions of the models under negotiation, they draw upon a foundation of commonly accepted definitions and goals. In so doing they facilitate the expansion of models by addressing the concerns of various participating actors. The results of our examination illustrate that multi-stakeholder processes within global institutions can promote the negotiation of universally accepted solutions to the challenges surrounding sustainable development. Because processes like the UNCSD dialogues include governments, the global discursive communities that result from such dialogues can directly impact nation-state behavior as well as the direction of policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various methods have been used to study elite structure, but among the most common has been analyses of interlocking corporate directors in U.S. corporations. This research has demonstrated considerable overlap on the boards of large corporations. In this paper, we expand analyses of overlapping directors or trustees to include major nonprofit organizations and government advisory boards as well as large corporations. Our central concern is to examine the placement of nonprofit organizations-especially charities-within this three-sector network. This research utilizes our newly constructed Elite Directors Database. This database is composed of the Directors/trustees for the largest organizations in the business and nonprofit sectors in 1997-98 as well as individuals holding positions on government advisory committees during this period. We use measures of network centrality and subgroup cohesion to analyze these data. We find that nonprofits are important components of the overall network that we have documented. Their presence appears to increase corporate elite integration and interaction by reducing the organizational and social distance between corporations and government advisory boards. Similarly, government boards, particularly a small number of these with especially prominent members, serve as meeting grounds for national leaders in the for profit and not-for-profit sectors. If interlocking directorate analyses neglect to include nonprofits and federal advisory boards, the results may seriously distort the actual degree of network cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines "violence" in the North American anti-globalization movement. It indexes actual practices (revealing that rigid violence/non-violence dichotomies are untenable), explores the relationships between militant activities in the movement and major social movements theories of violence and non-violence, discusses the ways in which the conflict is being dealt with in the movement, and discusses what is at stake in the international differences around definitions of non-violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young Americans' non-engagement in politics has been raised as a critical issue for the last 10 years. People claim that young people today are more ignorant, apathetic, and cynical about politics than at any other time in the past. A recent report from the Washington Post quoted a young voter from Arkansas as saying, "The young people don't feel connected to the candidates, because they don't campaign to them. And the candidates don't feel connected to the young people, because they think they don't vote." Using the National Election Study (NES) data, this study seeks to discover the relationships between various factors that influence voting behavior and voter turnout among young people aged 18 to 35 in the 2000 presidential election. Using the hierarchical regression, this study tried to predict how much of variance in voter turnout among young Americans was explained by certain factors. This study further develops a profile of the young people who are likely to turn out to vote on an election day using the discriminant analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstact Using the ethnography methodologies, this paper examines how U. S. college students employ tattooing as non-verbal communication to establish their identities and create personal meanings. Over a two-month period, the author did in-depth interviews with more than 20 college students at a Midwestern university who had gotten tattoos. The author argues that although tattooing among college students was a form of cultural consumption, these tattooed students also tried to transform tattoos into signifers distinguishing themselves from others, and freeze a special moment in time or a relationship as an antidote to postmodern fluidity. The author also found that these young students got tattoos as a form of non-verbal intra-personal communication, which means the tattoo is more than a visual signifer open to other people’s interpretations; it also serves as a signifer with special signifed meaning to the tattooed persons themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study utilized the relational dialectics approach of Baxter and Montgomery to examine the phenomenon of intercultural communication (ICC) in the non-romantic, same-sex relationships of twenty (20) culturally diverse roommates at a Midwestern U.S. university. Using one-hour qualitative interviews as a means of data collection, the stories that were told uncovered aspects of the dialectic of privilege and disadvantage that emerged as the intercultural partners navigated the centripetal and centrifugal dynamics of the dorm room heteroglossia. This study seeks to discern a clearer understanding of the dialectical influences of power and the chronotope on intercultural relationships and the ways that ICC is enacted in the daily lives of ordinary people living on the intercultural borderland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined organizational identification in the context of two Thai non-profit organizations: government-run Community Development Department (CDD) and private-run Population and Community Development Association (PDA). The degree to which CDD members identified with CDD and PDA members identified with PDA was assessed by using the Organizational Identification Questionnaire constructed by Cheney (1982). Comparison of PDA and CDD scores on Cheney's OIQ provided findings that mirror those of previous studies of organizational identification. Specifically, the level of organizational identification among those employees who work for the privately run social cause organization was significantly higher than was true of the employees who work for the government organization. Thus, the private organization appears to be more effective than the government organization in successfully fostering employee identification. However, while factor analysis of the Cheney instrument revealed three dimensions, they were not the three dimensions theorized by Cheney. Instead, within the context of Thailand, the dimensions describing organizational identification appear to reflect: Life values (Pride in Membership), Social values (Fit with Organization), and Personal values (Comfort Zone). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research employs 2000 NES data to assess the affects of civil rights laws on public attitudes. If a resondent lives in a state or local jurisdiction where it is illegal to discriminate in private employment on the basis of sexual orientation, a variable indicating the number of years that law has been in effect is added. The indicator could take on values from 0 to 28. The findings suggest that the presence of nondiscrimination policies improve public evaluations of the marginalized group and help to legitimate the policy itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper’s objective is to examine recent reforms in China’s foreign trade regime and the rationales for the reforms. It asks following questions: How and why has China reformed its foreign trade regime before China’s accession to the WTO? What commitments has China made in its accession to the WTO? How will China’s accession to WTO change its foreign trade regime? Will China abide by its commitments in its accession to the WTO? What will be the implications of China’s trade reforms and accession to WTO for China’s trading relations with the United States? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is part of a larger project designed to understand the dynamics of contemporary social movements through an examination of the environmental justice movement. Led primarily by working-class women of color in urban environments, this movement seeks policy redress for unjust distribution of toxic waste sites and industries with toxic emissions. Civic engagement and contemporary political activism has a new face-activists must compete for media exposure and negotiate political and economic interests. This is especially difficult for women who occupy the space where minority, working-class, and gender status meet. The urban context, along with the characteristics of the grassroots leadership, calls for a reconsideration of traditional social movement theory. The rise in prominence and power of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the anti-globalization, environmentalism, and environmental justice movements adds a new wrinkle to the process by which movements are built and sustained. Non-governmental organizations may serve as mediators between activists and their targets, and they may also lend credibility to grassroots leaders. This research explores how grassroots activism, the junction of race, class, and gender, the politics of place, economic incentives, and the involvement of NGOs affect the relative success of such movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze the cultural infrastructure of the Israeli use of force against its own citizens, as demonstrated in the violent clashes between Arab protesters and police officers during the events of October 2000. In contrast to other approaches attempting to explain this phenomenon, in this analysis we assume a socio-cultural rather than an institutional point of view. We argue that the entrenched anti-liberal characteristic of Israeli society and political culture carry the potential for exclusion, condemnation and even outright use of force towards social groups perceived as being outside the Israeli consensus, especially if they do not belong to the dominant ethnic community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous scholars argue that democracies make especially reliable commitment partners. Why and how, then, do democracies abandon their international pledges, especially to close strategic friends and allies? In this paper, I argue that liberal humanitarian norms activated within democratic legislatures often stand at the center of this process. More specifically, I contend that the combined force of two variables ? norm violating behavior by commitment partners and the pressure of social activist groups -- explains why these norms inspire legislative de-commitment steps when they do. I demonstrate the validity of the argument in U.S. termination of military aid to Chile and Argentina during the 1970s. In addition to approaching this unexplored question in an age when democratic commitments underwrite most of international stability, the argument and its findings also suggest ways to interject liberal norms into the growing discussion on democratic commitment politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars and policymakers argue that targets of transnational terrorism should retaliate against the hosts of such groups with military force. Although several terrorist experts accept this argument, empirical tests demonstrate that military force does not successfully reduce terrorist attacks. This paper addresses two questions based on these observations. First, given its poor record of success, why do states employ force against host states of terrorism? Second, what are the conditions under which military force is likely to achieve the intended result of decreasing terrorist activity? Using a game theoretic approach, I conclude that target states resort to violence against hosts of transnational terrorist due to the inability of certain host states to fulfill obligations to control indigenous terrorists. I further conclude that the strategy to use force against host states should precipitate an increase in the level of terrorist activity faced by a target state. The paper concludes with suggestions for further theoretical development and empirical testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the long-distance or "extra-systemic" political participation of immigrant communities in Europe. As opposed to primordialist, statist-institutionalist or globalization explanations for transnational political activities, the paper proposes a model of transnational political mobilization by non-state political entrepreneurs to account for this phenomenon. Transnational mobilization by non-state political entrepreneurs involves the formation of a transnational constituency, the extraction of material resources from that constituency, and the building of transnational networks and organizations. Two case studies of transnational mobilization are examined: the Algerian FLN in France and the Kurdish PKK in Germany. The paper demonstrates the utility of building a bridge between the world systems literature on global migration processes and the state-based literature on immigrant incorporation and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than two decades ago, the authors of Political Action (Barnes et al., 1979) predicted that what was then called ?unconventional political participation? would become more widespread throughout advanced industrial societies, because it was part of a deep-rooted intergenerational change. Time series data from the 1974 Political Action survey, together with data from four waves of the World Values Surveys demonstrates that this change has indeed taken place?to such an extent that petitions, boycotts and other forms of direct action are no longer unconventional but have become more or less normal actions for a large part of the citizenry of post-industrial societies. This type of elite-challenging actions also played an important part in the Third Wave of democratization?but after the transition to democracy, most of the new democracies subsequently experienced a post-honeymoon phase of disillusionment with democracy, in which direct political action declined. This paper analyzes data from more than 70 countries containing more than 80 percent of the world’s population, interpreting the long-term dynamics of elite-challenging political participation in both established democracies and new democracies. Our interpretation implies that the current decline in direct political action in the new democracies is a ?post-honeymoon? period effect; in the long run, we expect that elite-challenging activity will move on an upward trajectory in most of the new democracies, as has been the case in virtually all established democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the perspective from which we should select moral principles to guide states as they decide whether or not to engage in humanitarian intervention. I distinguish between first person and legislative perspectives. In the former, agents select principles as the best for them to interpret and apply; in the latter, they select principle for themselves as well as others. I argue that, given the non-ideal world in which we live, a legislative perspective is superior. I suggest how the legislative point of view sheds light on three different "non-ideal facts" about the world (the bias and fallibility of human agents, the lack of correlation between justice and power, and the unpredictable contingency of political outcomes) as they relate to the problem of humanitarian intervention. The legislative point of view can account for the main arguments about how a principle of humanitarian intervention should be articulated. The legislative point of view will generally direct us toward a more cautious principle of intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]