Constructive Engagement Research Articles

Tough medicine: Ensuring access to affordable drugs requires fixing trade agreements starting with NAFTA

The negotiation of trade agreements, which is conducted in secret, poses serious risks for the generic/biosimilar industry as the originator industry uses them as a tool to ratchet up the protection of intellectual property rights to broaden and extend their monopolies, and forcing changes in the laws and regulations of the countries as international law supersede national law. The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) demonstrated that the constructive engagement of the generic/biosimilar industry can make a difference in these negotiations to strike a balance that both fosters innovation while ensuring patients’ expedited access to more affordable drugs. The industry needs to be vigilant in the ongoing negotiations for the modernisation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, Mexico and the United States, which will not only affect those three pharmaceutical markets, but also set a precedent for future trade negotiations.

Governing Kurdistan: Self-Administration in the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq and the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria

On 25 September 2017, voters in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and disputed areas controlled by Kurdish forces were given the opportunity to respond ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to the question ‘Do you want the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdistani areas outside the administration of the Region to become an independent state?’ Functioning as an expression of the desire to construct an independent state, the referendum signalled a break with the formal Kurdistan Regional Government position of constructive engagement for greater power and autonomy within a unified Iraq. Meanwhile, on 22 September 2017, the neighbouring population in the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria elected co-chairs for the approximately 3,700 ‘communes’, which form the basis of what is claimed to be a non-state governmental system. In this region of the northern Middle East, therefore, divided by the Iraqi-Syria border and under the influence of two distinct Kurdish movements, two quite different and competing government systems have emerged. One is based on the idea of the nation-state, the other on societal self-organization. The main questions addressed in this contribution is how these two systems of governance differ and what the societal implications are of these differences? Data on the political-administrative practices has been collected on basis of field work in both regions in the period 2015–2017. A main conclusion is that the systems differ strongly in terms of political outlook, with profound implications for the nature of citizenship and inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations.

Lester B Pearson's road to development

ABSTRACTDuring the 1950s and 60s, Lester Pearson came to see international assistance as central to Canada's constructive international engagement. Yet how Canada's greatest diplomat became a key architect of, and advocate for, international assistance remains relatively unexplored. This paper aims to chart the evolution of Pearson's thinking regarding international assistance, in a presentation organized chronologically around the major chapters of Pearson's career. It enhances the narrative of a storied political career, consolidates Pearson's thinking on a critical issue and provides historical insight relevant to contemporary official development assistance policy-making.

Allegory and Ethical Education: Stories for People Who Know Too Many Stories

How can stories contribute to ethical education, when they reach people who have already been shaped by many stories, including ethically problematic ones? This question is pursued here by considering Plato's allegory of the cave, focusing on a reading of it offered by Jonathan Lear. Lear claims that the cave allegory aims to undermine its audience's inheritance of stories. I question the possibility and desirability of that project, especially in relation to ethical education. Some works of contemporary fiction by Jenny Erpenbeck and J. M. Coetzee are discussed as stories that use more complex strategies for ethically constructive engagement with story‐saturated audiences.

Dancing the possible: An extended review of Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers The Faith Project/The Door

In March 2018, the Philadelphia-based Kun-Yang Lin/Dancers (KYL/D) performed The Faith Project/The Door, an hour-long concert dance that taps a long-flowing stream of the American modern dance tradition: its critical, constructive engagement with questions concerning religion. In this piece, artistic director Lin explores the ways in which contemporary modern dance can serve as a resource for promoting mutual understanding among persons who hold different religious beliefs. In both the choreographic process and premiere performances of The Faith Project/The Door, Lin draws upon his own CHI Awareness Practice to help his dance artists understand and enact their own as well as other people’s heart-opening commitment to religious belief and ritual – that is, their faith. This article describes the generative ideas, creative process, and final performances of The Faith Project/The Door to demonstrate how modern dance may help bring forth a world in which humans communicate respectfully across religious differences.

Manoeuvring wars, rebels and governments: the EU’s experience in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACTThis article outlines the engagement of the European Union (EU) with the conflict between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It analyses the EU’s interventions through a Whole-of-Society (WoS) lens encompassing both comprehensiveness and inclusivity. Gradually the EU became a more articulated actor, attaining a certain degree of comprehensiveness. However, volatile conflict dynamics and hostile government responses restricted the inclusivity of its operations. An increasingly shrinking political and civilian space hampered its access to civil society. By default, the EU’s approach became more circumspect and indirect. Only after a change of government in 2015, the EU’s possibilities for constructive engagement improved. Adopting a WoS approach could have remedied some, but not all of the EU’s challenges in the Sri Lankan context.

Introduction

The articles collected here were first presented at a one-day symposium held at Florida State University in December 2016. Focused on religious and cultural elements of the First World War, the symposium followed on a fall semester seminar that I, along with my colleague Michael Ruse, taught. Given the lively response to the seminar and symposium, it seemed appropriate to seek publication of some of the work presented, and I am grateful to the editors of Soundings for providing a venue.The collection begins with Nigel Biggar's application of the “just war” tradition to the Battle of the Somme. As Biggar notes, the stunning number of casualties resulting from this protracted conflict (fighting raged from July 1 to November 18, 1916) has rendered the Somme “a byword for criminally disproportionate military slaughter.” Since the standard list of just war criteria suggests that proportionality—first in relation to any resort to armed force, and second in relation to the conduct of battle—is an important measure of justice, Biggar takes the occasion to ask just what the tradition requires. How should we think about proportionality in matters of war? Arguing for a complex understanding of the matter in which the number of casualties must be weighed in relation to the threat posed by a particular foe, the likely results of defeat, and other matters, Biggar suggests the standard judgment regarding the Somme may not be right.Cara Burnidge's article on Woodrow Wilson's “Christian internationalism” takes us in a rather different direction. Here, the focus is on the religious roots of Wilson's ideas about international order. As recent discussions of his legacy at Princeton remind us, Wilson was a complex man, and Burnidge provides an insightful account of the conflicting aspects of a president's program.Turning our attention to the implements of war—in this case, the rifle and the hand grenade—Jonathan Ebel shows us how the discourse of and about soldiers treats weapons not only as “things”—that is, tools for inflicting harm—but as “signs,” spoken of in ways that reflect emotional, cultural, and religious values. In the Great War, people spoke about rifles in ways that invoked an idealized American past; by contrast, descriptions of hand grenades connected with baseball and other sports, as well as with ideas about martyrdom.Returning to some of the ideas at stake in Biggar's article, James Turner Johnson reminds us of the ways the Great War posed challenges to the development of international law. Building on early modern notions of a “law of nations” designed to govern the conduct of war, scholars and practitioners in the nineteenth century crafted the outlines of a positive law related to armed force. While combatants ultimately violated many if not most of the provisions of this law between 1914 and 1918, such failure inspired renewed efforts to regulate and even to outlaw war. Following on this historical outline, Johnson concludes with some reflections on the role of religion in more contemporary attempts to regulate resort to and conduct of war.The collection closes with Michael Ruse's discussion of the relationship between Christian and Darwinian discussions of war, particularly with respect to the Great War. Drawing on Nigel Biggar's In Defence of War, among other sources, Ruse argues for a version of the Christian tradition in which war is an evil, but probably inevitable or inescapable aspect of human existence. By contrast, evolutionary accounts of war suggest that while conflict “seems to be natural, part of the evolutionary heritage of us all,” it may be possible for human beings to render war a thing of the past. Concluding with an appeal for more in the way of “constructive engagement” between Christians and Darwinians, Ruse's article, along with the others in this issue of Soundings, suggests the need for continued inquiry into the moral, legal, historical, and cultural aspects of the experience of war.

Grime: Criminal subculture or public counterculture? A critical investigation into the criminalization of Black musical subcultures in the UK

This article sets out to (re-)introduce Black urban musical subcultures as valuable forms of creativity and public expression in an attempt to resist, criticize and expose their criminalization by the London Metropolitan Police. Focusing primarily on grime, a host of unfair and illegitimate practices adopted by the London Metropolitan Police will be discussed. This will demonstrate how the routine monitoring, surveillance and curtailment of Black people’s public identity (re)produces stereotypical associations of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups with violent, criminal and problematic behaviour. In order to challenge openly discriminatory attitudes towards Black urban cultural forms by the police, a counterargument which calls for their understanding as viable sources of positive and constructive public engagement will be offered.

Translating the ICAP Theory of Cognitive Engagement Into Practice.

ICAP is a theory of active learning that differentiates students' engagement based on their behaviors. ICAP postulates that Interactive engagement, demonstrated by co-generative collaborative behaviors, is superior for learning to Constructive engagement, indicated by generative behaviors. Both kinds of engagement exceed the benefits of Active or Passive engagement, marked by manipulative and attentive behaviors, respectively. This paper discusses a 5-year project that attempted to translate ICAP into a theory of instruction using five successive measures: (a) teachers' understanding of ICAP after completing an online module, (b) their success at designing lesson plans using different ICAP modes, (c) fidelity of teachers' classroom implementation, (d) modes of students' enacted behaviors, and (e) students' learning outcomes. Although teachers had minimal success in designing Constructive and Interactive activities, students nevertheless learned significantly more in the context of Constructive than Active activities. We discuss reasons for teachers' overall difficulty in designing and eliciting Interactive engagement.

Institutional Investor Engagement: How to Create a 'Stewardship Culture'

In order to encourage meaningful and constructive engagement, countries have promulgated and published stewardship codes. The distinctiveness of such codes is the attempt to create more responsible and purposeful investor engagement. In particular, institutional investors must be viewed – and view themselves – as “stewards” of a company. This paper argues that stewardship codes do matter. Looked at in isolation, the impact of regulatory initiatives aiming to mobilize institutional investors can often seem underwhelming in their effects and might easily be perceived as failing, in some sense. In general, regulatory interventions don't seem to have an immediate or significant impact on the incentives and actions of investors. Nevertheless, the process of designing and then implementing regulatory measures can play a crucial role in triggering interest in, and discussion around, the need for a more engaged relationship between institutional investors and the companies that they own. It is in this less formal mode — via a process of “spotlighting” — that regulation can play a crucial role in fostering a corporate culture in which all of the stakeholders in a company become more engaged with senior management.

Traumatic exposure, acculturative stress and cultural orientation: the influence on PTSD, depressive and anxiety symptoms among refugees.

Acculturation studies conducted with refugees have predominantly concentrated on investigating the impact of acculturative stress on mental health, and have neglected to investigate the impact of cultural orientations towards the host and ethnic cultures. Furthermore, exposure to traumas is highly prevalent in refugees and strongly associated with mental health outcomes, however, rarely included in investigations of acculturative process of refugees. Using structural equation modelling, this study tested an integrated model of the relationship between traumatic exposure, acculturative stress, host and ethnic cultural orientations and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety symptoms among 138 Bosnian refugees resettled in Australia and Austria. The model showed an overall good fit and noteworthy amount of variance indicating that traumatic exposure is the strongest direct and indirect predictor of PTSD, depression and anxiety symptoms. Furthermore, acculturative stress was identified as a significant risk factor influencing host cultural orientation, mediating the effect of traumatic exposure on all mental health outcomes. Acculturative stress and cultural and social stressors that are related to acculturation need to be addressed alongside provision of effective psychotherapy, especially since they are significant impediments to host cultural orientation and constructive engagement with mental health services in refugees.

Evaluating Wikipedia as a Self-Learning Resource for Statistics: You Know They'll Use It

ABSTRACTThe role of Wikipedia for learning has been debated because it does not conform to the usual standards. Despite this, people use it, due to the ubiquity of Wikipedia entries in the outcomes from popular search engines. It is important for academic disciplines, including statistics, to ensure they are correctly represented in a medium where anyone can assume the role of discipline expert. In this context, we first develop a tool for evaluating Wikipedia articles for topics with a procedural component. Then, using this tool, five Wikipedia articles on basic statistical concepts are critiqued from the point of view of a self-learner: “arithmetic mean,” “standard deviation,” “standard error,” “confidence interval,” and “histogram.” We find that the articles, in general, are poor, and some articles contain inaccuracies. We propose that Wikipedia be actively discouraged for self-learning (using, for example, a classroom activity) except to give a brief overview; that in more formal learning environments, teachers be explicit about not using Wikipedia as a learning resource for course content; and, because Wikipedia is used regardless of considered advice or the organizational protocols in place, teachers move away from minimal contact with Wikipedia towards more constructive engagement.

Biopolitics and the emergent self-reflexive Maghribi subjectivity in Laila Lalami's Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits

ABSTRACTCommonsense discussions about illegal immigration in the Maghreb point the finger in the direction of authorities on both sides of the Mediterranean. The EU is reproached for closing its borders and North African governments for exploiting the problem by diverting attention elsewhere and downplaying its gravity. The Moroccan writer, Laila Lalami, through her collection of short stories Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005), prefers to focus more on the harraga populations themselves; it is their unthinking proclivities that exacerbate the problem and allow the ruling machinery to become biopolitical entities, working less for the interest of the impoverished populations and more for staying in power, no matter how.Through characters and narrative situations, Lalami shows that illegal immigration is a trap. For, even when the harrag makes it to the host country and starts sending remittances, as Aziz does, to family back at home, he remains a loser. The middle-class ideal of a steady income and improved living standards lifts the Maghrebi's spontaneity and turns him or her into a superfluous commodity, seeking always to behave, not to think. Unlike Aziz or Larbi then, Murad failed to make it to Spain. His prolonged joblessness becomes an extension of his romantic character. Shaking that romanticism off allows him eventually to reverse the biopolitical reality by embracing the art of ‘story telling’. Readers find him expertly selling artworks in souvenir shops in Tangier. Success in this context is not capitalistically driven; it involves organically connecting self-important American tourists with the artwork. The tourism industry becomes less of a recognition of already ordered reality, and more of an encounter with a new one: money matters but does not determine or control the encounter. The self-reflexive Murad assumes now a constructive engagement with the world.

Readers’ thoughts on science and religion

Readers’ thoughts on science and religion

Sport, Thatcher and Apartheid Politics: The Zola Budd Affair

On 23 March 1984, Afrikaner teenage running sensation Zola Budd boarded a KLM flight at the Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg bound for Britain. Through the manoeuvrings of the London-based Daily Mail newspaper, Budd fled apartheid South Africa for the opportunity to compete on the international stage under the representative colours of Great Britain. To forward his own commercial agenda, Sir David English, chief editor of the Daily Mail and a personal friend of the British Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, pressured the Home Office into awarding British citizenship to the 5000-metre world-record holder. This article seeks to examine the Zola Budd affair in four interrelated ways. First, we argue that it should be read within the context of the Thatcher government’s pursuit of ‘constructive engagement’ with South Africa and its concomitant opposition to growing international calls for economic sanctions and firmer cultural boycotts against the country. Second, the Zola Budd affair revealed the growing tensions in the British Conservative Party and among officials within different branches of government regarding engagement with the South African regime. Third, the government’s handling of Zola Budd exposed an arbitrary and unfair immigration system that legislated in favour of white migrants from the Old Commonwealth. Under the government’s redrawn immigration policies, Zola Budd fitted seamlessly within the racial and cultural image of Thatcher’s modern Britain. Finally, this article argues that the Zola Budd affair further aligned anti-apartheid and anti-Thatcher activists who grew to become virtually synonymous with one another during Thatcher’s premiership.

Assistive technology for promoting adaptive skills of children with cerebral palsy: ten cases evaluation

Objectives: To extend the use of assistive technology for promoting adaptive skills of children with cerebral palsy. To assess its effects on positive participation of ten participants involved. To carry out a social validation recruiting parents, physiotherapists and support teachers as external raters.Method: A multiple probe design was implemented for Studies I and II. Study I involved five participants exposed to a combined program aimed at enhancing choice process of preferred items and locomotion fluency. Study II involved five further children for a combined intervention finalized at ensuring them with literacy access and ambulation responses. Study III recruited 60 external raters for a social validation assessment.Results: All participants improved their performance, although differences among children occurred. Indices of positive participation increased as well. Social raters favorably scored the use of both technology and programs.Conclusion: Assistive technology-based programs were effective for promoting independence of children with cerebral palsy.Implications for RehabilitationA basic form of assistive technology such as a microswitch-based program may be useful and helpful for supporting adaptive skills of children with cerebral palsy and different levels of functioning.The same program may improve the participants' indices of positive participation and constructive engagement with beneficial effects on their quality of life.The positive social rating provided by external experts sensitive to the matter may recommend a favorable acceptance and implementation of the program in daily settings.

The Orthodox Church: Back to Progress

There is an increased tendency inside the Orthodox Churches to reject the socio-cultural changes brought about by postmodernity and seek the restoration of an idealized past. In this article, I argue against this trend and set the premises for a constructive Orthodox engagement with secular postmodernity. Initially, I point out that in the patristic frame of thought, the movement of history receives a positive value as part of God’s plan to lead humankind to deification. In order to show how this motion towards deification can be discerned in a modern setting, I turn to Dumitru Stăniloae, who interpreted and applied the patristic vision of history in the context of communist Romania. Using Stăniloae’s criteria for evaluating the communist regime, I suggest that Orthodoxy and postmodernity might have more in common than what was initially thought and argue for a re-evaluation of the Orthodox approach to the major tropes of postmodernity.

Human Rights Reporting: Rights, Responsibilities, and Challenges

This essay critically examines the intersections between news media and human rights in the context of the existing human rights framework. A survey of the fundamental provisions of international human rights law and of the evolving case law of human rights organs relating to media freedom and responsibilities reveals that existing gaps and underspecified obligations render problematic the normative guidance offered by the framework in addressing the pertinent human rights issues. However, this is part of the story. The problems associated with normative guidance are compounded by media practitioners’ contending approaches on the role of the media as “promoters of human rights.” The interplay between these factors is then examined through the prism of the two communities’ converging commitment to “truth-seeking.” This commitment can provide entry points to a more constructive engagement between the news media and the human rights community.

China's Engagement in Afghanistan: Implications for the Region

China, over past few years, has increased its engagement with Afghanistan particularly moving towards a stronger economic and commercial partnership. It was not the case in initial decade or so period subsequent to the US attack on Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 incident. Bilateral trade and investments from China have seem considerable augmentations, recently. China's constructive engagement with Afghanistan is not only going to help the war-torn nation in its journey towards reconstruction and rehabilitation but would also play a role in stability at regional level.

Can We Talk? What We Have Learned About How to Have Productive Conflicts About Family Policy and Family Law

How we handle professional conflicts affects our capacity to help others in conflict. Two AFCC dialogues, one about domestic violence, the other about shared parenting, illustrate the challenges of taking on professional differences. The former resulted in considerable consensus. The latter involved a frank exchange of differences but little overall consensus. It was, however, an important beginning of a critical conversation. Other issues calling out for constructive conflict engagement, include the crisis in providing access to justice for family litigants who cannot afford legal representation. Professional groups must move beyond defending their own self interests to addressing this crisis.