High-level Government Officials Research Articles

Chinese Think Tanks, Policy Advice and Global Governance

Soon after leaving his post in the Chinese government, Zeng Peiyan, a former Chinese vice premier, was elected chairman of the executive council of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE), a high-level think that was established 2010 in Beijing. The official press release and the state sponsored media in China announced and then anointed this new organization as China's top think tank and a super think tank. A number of other former high level government officials were recruited to serve on the Board and the think was launched with great fanfare with think tanks and policymakers being invited to the inaugural conference last Spring. CCIEE's initial research agenda is ambitious and includes the continuing financial crisis, the emergence of China and the new world financial order, the strategic cooperation between China and the United States, the decision-making systems of foreign governments and international organizations including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization and finally, the role of think tanks in formulating government economic policy. Other Chinese think tanks such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations have dramatically increased their profiles at international meetings and expanded targeted outreach activities to think tanks around the globe. This paper will attempt to chronicle the rise of Chinese think tanks on the national and international stage. The paper will also attempt to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese think tanks in the domestic and international political context. Finally, the research attempts to make some comparisons to think tanks in other emerging powers such as India and Brazil.

The Impact of the Nicaragua Case on Matters of Evidence and Fact-Finding

AbstractThe Nicaragua case demonstrates the Court's competence in receiving and interpreting evidence, and in making reasoned findings of fact, even in the most complicated evidentiary context, as is often presented in cases involving use of force and armed conflict. The Court applied well-established standards for evaluating the conflicting evidence presented to it. In particular, the Court determined that greater weight should be given to statements against interest made by high-level government officials than to a state's self-serving declarations. The Court also determined that statements by disinterested witnesses with first-hand knowledge should receive greater weight than mere statements of opinion or press reports. In applying these guidelines, the Court found, correctly, that (i) the United States had used military and paramilitary force against Nicaragua both directly and indirectly, by organizing, financing, arming, and training the Contra guerrillas to attack Nicaragua; (ii) the evidence did not support a finding that the United States exercised direct control over the Contras’ day-to-day operations; and (iii) there was no evidence that Nicaragua supplied arms to guerrillas fighting against the government of El Salvador during the relevant period, or carried out an armed attack against that state. While Judge Schwebel's dissent criticized the last of these findings, in fact, the evidence fully supported the Court's conclusion. In subsequent decisions during the past 25 years, the Court has continued to rely on the approach to evidence first elaborated in the Nicaragua case and has continued to demonstrate its competence as a finder of fact, including in cases involving armed conflict (Bosnia Genocide) and complex scientific and technical issues (Pulp Mills).

Armed Conflict and Human Rights in Colombia

Armed Conflict and Human Rights in Colombia

Comment on “Multi-level Governance and Global Climate Change in East Asia”

aepr_1152 108..109 As has been indicated in the title of Schreurs' (2010) paper, "multi-level governance" has become a popular notion to express the current status of climate change policy. Climate governance is observed across all levels, starting from multilateral, regional, national, and down to sub-national levels. One of the major reasons behind such comprehensiveness could be due to the problem's unique characteristics. Many other environmental prob- lems, such as local air pollution and ozone depletion, are caused by pollutants that are emitted from a limited number of point sources. For other types of environmental issues such as the loss of species or of resources, it is crucial to deal with people who are legally or illegally directly involved in the depletion. In either case, policies are directed at those who have stakes in the problem, and the number of the stakeholders could be quite small. On the other hand, climate change involves almost all the people and all types of indus- tries around the globe. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are emitted while people light up and heat their houses and drive their cars. Emissions also come from deforestation and other land-use changes. Each individual could be designated as a "stake- holder of climate change." The climate change problem requires a global solution because it involves everybody around the globe. The involvement of all nations is a strength of the United Nations (UN) system. Agreements achieved under the UN arena affect all nations simultaneously. It is also one of the most reliable and authoritative places to discuss global issues. Nevertheless, the weakness of involving all national governments is that agreements are likely to be the least common denominator of countries' positions. Assuming that countries' positions are more or less the least common denominator of the assertions of stakeholders at domestic levels, the consequence could be international agreements that are far from solving the problem. A variety of channels are established to complement the limitations of the UN system. Even at the multilateral level, non-UN processes such as the G8 and Major Economies Forum (initially the Major Economies Meeting led by the US government), have been taking important roles in facilitating dialogue among high-level politicians and govern- ment officials over the past few years. Furthermore, numerous cooperative agreements are concluded on a bilateral basis. Actions to combat climate change are observed at the local level, not only in East Asia, but also in many other countries. In those countries, it is actually movements of local

Another Ode to Paranoia

The nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center recently conducted Cyber ShockWave, a series of simulated cyberattacks to role play the US government's response scenarios. The simulations included an attack on US cell phone networks and power grids and a scripted series of cascading crises. Former high-level government officials played the roles of senior administration and national security officials in responding to the various events.

A qualitative analysis of environmental policy and children's health in Mexico

BackgroundSince Mexico's joining the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1994, it has witnessed rapid industrialization. A byproduct of this industrialization is increasing population exposure to environmental pollutants, of which some have been associated with childhood disease. We therefore identified and assessed the adequacy of existing international and Mexican governance instruments and policy tools to protect children from environmental hazards.MethodsWe first systematically reviewed PubMed, the Mexican legal code and the websites of the United Nations, World Health Organization, NAFTA and OECD as of July 2007 to identify the relevant governance instruments, and analyzed the approach these instruments took to preventing childhood diseases of environmental origin. Secondly, we interviewed a purposive sample of high-level government officials, researchers and non-governmental organization representatives, to identify their opinions and attitudes towards children's environmental health and potential barriers to child-specific protective legislation and implementation.ResultsWe identified only one policy tool describing specific measures to reduce developmental neurotoxicity and other children's health effects from lead. Other governance instruments mention children's unique vulnerability to ozone, particulate matter and carbon monoxide, but do not provide further details. Most interviewees were aware of Mexican environmental policy tools addressing children's health needs, but agreed that, with few exceptions, environmental policies do not address the specific health needs of children and pregnant women. Interviewees also cited state centralization of power, communication barriers and political resistance as reasons for the absence of a strong regulatory platform.ConclusionsThe Mexican government has not sufficiently accounted for children's unique vulnerability to environmental contaminants. If regulation and legislation are not updated and implemented to protect children, increases in preventable exposures to toxic chemicals in the environment may ensue.

Trade union rights in Romania during the economic recession

REPORT□ FINANCIAL CRISIS Trade union rights in Romania during the economic recession As a condition fora 20 billion euro loan Romania has implemented austerity measures including25 percentwage cuts AURORA TRIF Islecturer In Human Resource Management atDublin City University Business School In Ireland It global unions is hardly face economic major surprising challenges recession. that during Romanian In 2009, therecent trade the unionsfacemajorchallenges during therecent global economic recession. In 2009, the Romanianeconomy experiencedone of the sharpest annualcontractions withitsGDP falling by 7.1 percent.The RomanianGovernment is relying on a 20billion euroloanfrom theIMF, EU andtheWorld Banktoresurrect theeconomy. In orderto getthisloan,thegovernment agreedto introduce austerity measuressuch as thereductionofpublicsector wagesby25percent inadditionto 15 percent cutbacks on socialbenefits as wellas a significant reduction in thepublicsectoremployment . These austerity measureswere contestedby tradeunions.According to some commentators, theunilateral decisionofthegovernmentto introducethe austerity measures breachedtheprovisions of thecollective agreements ,the Labour Code and the Romanian Constitution. Recent changes inthe situation oftrade unions Tradeuniondensity is estimated tobe around33 percent, whichis above theEU average.Union membership decreasedfrom around90 percent in theearly1990s,butithas been rather steady in the2000s.In contrast to otherEU countries, tradeunion density was higherin the private manufacturing sectors thaninthepublicsector at thebeginning ofthelastdecade. According to a EuropeanFoundation study, in2002,tradeunion density was over75 percent in extractive industries , themetal working industry andinthechemicalsindustry , compared withonly30 percent in publicadministration. This reflects thefactthat manypublicservants did nothave theright to form a tradeunionuntil 2003. The 2003tradeunionlaw recognises therights ofall workers to establish and jointradeunions except high-level government officials, public prosecutors andjudgesandprofessional soldiers. Thisresulted innewunionsbeingestablished in the public administration sector,such as the National TradeUnionof Police and Contractual Personnel, whichnegotiated and concludedits first collective agreement in 2007.The 2003law retainsthe requirement of a minimum of 15 members to form a union,buttheydo nothave to be from thesame enterprise as theprevious law stipulated. This change was expected to boost union recruitment in smalland medium sizedfirms, butithas notyethad anysignificant effect. In 2007,theEuropeanFoundation reported thatuniondensity in theprivate sectorwas declining, whileitwas increasing in thepublic sector. According to the union leaders,one of the majorconsequencesoftheeconomicrecession is themassivedecreasein unionmembership due tojobcuts.Forinstance, around15percent ofthe labourforcein railway sectorwas made redundant in 2009 and 2010, manyof whom were union members.The decrease of fee paying members as wellas thecostsassociated withthe organisation of severalprotests in the lasttwo yearshave weakenedthe financial situation of thetradeunionsand theircapacityto organise further protests. Additionally, thepositions held in thecompanyby thelocal unionactivists are often targeted during therestructuring processof thepublicsectorinstitutions toweakenthetrade unions. In the privatesector,many foreign investors refuse todealwithtradeunions, particularly intheretail sectorand thehotelindustry. Sincethe1990s,there havebeen fivenationally representative trade union confederations whichhavetheright tonegotiate national collective agreements. The largestconfederation is CNSLR-Frätia, followed byCNSCartel Alfa, BNS, CSDR and Meridian. Despitesomepolitical divisions betweenthe confederations, therehave been a number ofattempts to establish a much moreunified unionstructure. The latestattempt to mergefourout of the fiveconfederations (except CNS CartelAlfa)was in 2007, but it resultedin a ratherloose alliance between CNSRL-Frãtia, BNS and Meridian. However,all theunionconfederations expressed strong oppositionto the austerity measuresand the recent changesinthelawregarding thepaysystem and therestructuring ofthepublicsector. The impactofeconomic recession on trade unionrights Whilethefreedom ofassociation intradeunions and the right to strike have not been severely affected by theeconomicrecession, therehave been majorconstraints on the right to bargain and theimplementation ofcollective agreements inthepublicsector. Theprovisions ofthecollective agreementsin the public sector agreed betweentradeunionsand the government for 2009and2010wereviolated bynewlawsregardingthereorganisation ofpublicsectororganisations (Law 329/2009) and theunitary paysystem for public sector employees(Law 330/2009). Basedon thenewlegislation, in2009,publicsectororganisations werelegally required to reduce personnel expensesby 15 percent, primarily by compulsory unpaidleaveup to 10working days. The government startednegotiations withthe tradeunions about the unpaid leave, but no agreement was achieved and the government INTERNATIONAL limon rights Page 16Volume 17Issue 3201 0 imposeditthrough a new law. Additionally, the reorganisation measuresstipulated in the new legislation envisaged massive job cuts(around25 percentof the 1.4 millionemployees),which werenotnegotiated withtradeunions,despite theprovisions oftheLabourCodewhichrequires managers to negotiate withtheunionson issues regarding collective redundancies of morethan fiveemployees. Severalpublicsectorunionfederations started coordinating their actions and 11 ofthem formed a new organisationnamed the Alliance of Budgetary Employees to protest against worseningtheemployment conditions oftheir members. The new alliancerejectedthe law's provisions compelling publicentities toreducetheir personnelexpensesby 15 percent a month. Theyalso refused to takepartin thedebatesofthesocial dialoguecommittees, whose agendas included theapplication ofthenewact.Also,theyorganised a number of protests, including a general strike in October2009-Around750,000public sectoremployeeswere involvedin...

The Political Thought of Sol Tax: The Principles of Non-Assimilation and Self-Government in Action Anthropology

The Political Thought of Sol Tax:The Principles of Non-Assimilation and Self-Government in Action Anthropology Joshua Smith (bio) From the Indian point of view, we are never going to do anything to resolve the problem until we accept, as they do, this obligation, which seems to them both moral and legal, and which seems to us only partially moral and perhaps not at all legal. . . . We must give them control of the money that they require in order to develop in ways that they want to develop. The problem is to convince Indians that we have a policy which will not change every few years. We must also educate the American people to the facts of their history, perhaps by making a speech like the one I am making to a Joint Congressional Committee, if you can imagine that. But, even if we failed with Congress, we would at least have shown the Indians which side we are on. Accept the Indian program, whatever it is, as a starting point; let the Indians organize themselves, if they wish, into a federation on a national scale. I do not know whether this would work or whether Indians would want it, but it might be a way to begin economic development. We might offer to provide the means of development. We might offer to provide the means but to remove experts and administrators from positions of power. Sol Tax (1962:132–33) Sol Tax Is Not a Liberal Few scholars in the history of American anthropology have attained such an enormous persona in the discipline as Sol Tax and yet remained essentially unknown and obscure. Tax's "action anthropology" is a theoretical and methodological innovation in the discipline—an original form of a politically engaged science that is explicitly distinct from the practices of applied anthropology and sought to engage the colonial dimensions of American society decades before the discipline began to scrutinize its practices outside of North America (Asad 1973; Lewis 1973; Pels 1997; Stocking 1991; Trencher 2002). "As observers, they see colonialism as distant from North America . . . [and] as analysts working from a self-reflexive project to stave off the 'crises' in the discipline . . . [they] have [End Page 129] focused their gaze away from North America" leaving the colonization of North America entirely unaccounted for in the literature (Pinkoski 2008:176; Asch 2002). Although not radical in a militant sense, action anthropology was activist in pursuing what Daniel Cobb distinguishes as "reformative goals" through "conventional tactics . . . including writing grants, holding community meetings, convening summer workshops for college students, organizing youth councils, giving testimony at congressional hearings, authoring books and editorials, and manipulating the system from within" (Cobb 2008:2). These are the same strategies Tax incorporated into his bifurcated goals of challenging U.S. government policies and affecting anthropology's role in the colonial enterprise. Action anthropology was a response to the termination era of American government policy; an era marked by the Indian Claims Commission (ICC) and House Concurrent Resolution 108 (HCR 108). Initiated by President Truman in 1946 in order to settle tribal land claims against the U.S. government, the ICC did "not resolve these complex issues because of its limited jurisdiction . . . [and] worked to the advantage of high-level government officials who valued resource development by private enterprise more than Indian legal rights" (Philip 1999:33). HRC 108 was the result of "an aggressive campaign to assimilate Indians" inspired by Commissioner Dilon Myer's "assimilationist program . . . based on the ethnocentric assumption that all Americans should be alike" (Philip 168-169, 172-173, 175). The action anthropology projects Tax implemented directly challenged assimilationist ideals found in both science and politics. Reflective of Tax's theoretical paradigm of cultural persistence, these anthropological projects consequently had a lasting impact upon the historic and political landscape of U.S. Indian policy. A map entitled The North American Indians: 1950 Distribution of Descendants of the Aboriginal Population of Alaska, Canada and the United States was completed under the direction of Sol Tax. The data for the United States were completed by two students, Samuel Stanley and Robert K. Thomas. The note on the fourth edition of the map indicates...

Beguiling Would-Be Serpents

In his classic paper, The Serpent Beguiled Me And I Did Eat, Gerald Dworkin makes the case that, without probable cause, the use of Proactive Law Enforcement Techniques (PALETs) is morally imper missible. Call this prohibition Dworkin's Rule (DR). Here we argue that there are two reasonable exceptions to DR?the use of PALETs, without probable cause, is justified when employed against High Level Govern ment Officials (HLGOs) and High Level Business Officials (HLBOs). Moreover, these exceptions are consistent with Dworkin's notion of Ideal Criminal Sanctioning. Finally, if society were to endorse the use of PA LETs on HLBOs, we might be able to dispose of the current bane of American business, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and let business get back to the business of business.

Criticism of Care Propels Study of Georgia's MH System

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Government NewsFull AccessCriticism of Care Propels Study of Georgia's MH SystemRich DalyRich DalySearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:5 Oct 2007https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.42.19.0013aGeorgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) ordered a study of state services for residents with mental illness in August. The effort follows critical media reports and the launch of a federal investigation.The study will be carried out by the state's Mental Health Service Delivery Commission, which will examine “conditions, needs, and issues associated with the services to those with mental illness and substance abuse,” according to a statement issued by his office.The commission will address long-standing concerns about “perceived or actual lack of sufficient funding, inadequate staffing and service delivery systems, overcrowding, treatment practices that unnecessarily separate consumers from their families, and the need for ongoing and effective advocacy on behalf of those children and adults living and receiving behavioral health services.”Creation of the commission in early August followed a Department of Justice announcement in July that it would inspect Georgia state psychiatric hospitals in September to see whether poor conditions violate patients' civil rights.“It is critical that we take a comprehensive look at Georgia's delivery of services to citizens who live with mental illnesses and substance abuse,” Perdue said.The commission also was appointed in the wake of media reports concluding that more than 100 state psychiatric hospital patients died under suspicious circumstances from 2002 to 2006, and nearly 200 other patients were physically or sexually abused.Earlier Perdue had vetoed a similar commission approved by the Georgia General Assembly because it did not include members of the executive branch, who oversee the state's hospitals and the mental health system. Supporters of the commission said they thought that including officials from the Department of Human Resources, which operates the state hospitals, would create a conflict of interest.Nora Haynes, president of the board of NAMI Georgia, met with Perdue in August to discuss the turmoil in Georgia's mental health care system.“Things have been pretty bad around here, and I don't think the governor realized how bad things were,” Haynes said in an interview with Psychiatric News.Mental health advocates have questioned the large number of state officials placed in charge of reviewing the problems and offering solutions, Haynes said, but they have withheld opposition in the hope that the governor's effort will improve the system.Among the leading problems in the state's publically funded mental health system, according to Haynes, is that the responsibility for the care of people with psychiatric conditions is split among many government departments.“There's a lot of money out there, but there's not a lot of coordination,” she said.The governor's commission will have the authority to recommend changes during next year's legislative session, and it is supposed to submit a final report by next June.The commission's charge includes identifying the “best use of public and private resources to relieve overcrowding in state facilities and to further consider methods to develop a full continuum of services and effective supports so that Georgia's citizens who live with mental illness and substance abuse may live and work when possible close to their families.”Haynes said she hopes the commission will address Georgia's lack of a community-based mental health system to offer alternatives to hospitals, jails, or homelessness.The public mental health system will never improve, she said, without better pay for its nurses and physicians. Better compensation is needed to raise Georgia's near-bottom rank as 44th nationally in state spending on mental health, according to NAMI.The order establishing the commission also directed it to report on the sufficiency of health insurance coverage for those with mental illness, including substance abuse.The panel's work will coincide with the Department of Justice investigation of the state hospitals. The federal inquiry is investigating allegations of civil rights violations at the seven state psychiatric hospitals.The state's human resources commissioner separately ordered a team of high-level government officials to take over management of the state psychiatric hospital in Atlanta in mid-August to reverse clinical problems that critics said have contributed to patients' deaths.The new management team's tasks includes setting new performance standards for employees, arranging for enhanced training and supervision, and creating methods to track progress.Information on the Mental Health Service Delivery Commission is posted at<www.gov.state.ga.us/press/2007/press1505.shtml>.▪ ISSUES NewArchived

‘National Machineries’ and Authoritarian Politics

Why do authoritarian states adopt ‘state feminist’ policies, and what are the effects of these initiatives? This article expands our understanding of state feminist institutions in non-democracies by examining the development of a women's national machinery in Cameroon. It argues that the Cameroonian state has adopted a national machinery because: (1) it provides low-cost international legitimacy; (2) it attracts international assistance; (3) this assistance fuels domestic patronage networks; and (4) the national machinery channels women's activism toward state-delineated projects and goals. These motives undercut its ability to promote women's advancement. National machineries in authoritarian contexts are not just plagued by technical problems and funding shortages but also by competing agendas within the state apparatus and a lack of a commitment by high-level government officials to improving women's status in society.

Educating and Training Japanese Government Officials: Current Trends and Policy Study Aspects

We explain the recruiting and promoting system for high-level Japanese government officials showing the trend of numbers of applicants for the recruitment examination, those who passed the examination, and also those who were employed by some ministries in the last 17 years. We describe the major characteristics of the promotion system for Japanese government officials. Educating and training Japanese government officials in the area of policy studies have been conducted in both university schools, governmental training centers, governmental schools and colleges. An education and training system for government officials needs to be developed so that each government official is equipped with a certain specialty and expertise. A formal system for evaluating individuals and programs has not been common in Japan, especially for evaluating individual work and contribution. We need to “invent” an evaluation system that will make the government officials’ decision-making system work more efficiently. Public and private universities, in particular, have been very active in creating many policy-related schools and departments in the last 20 years. Policy studies, which have been conducted in various schools in the university and government research institutes, are described in detail with their objectives, curriculums, and requirements.

Anthrax 2001: observations on the medical and public health response.

THIS ARTICLE DESCRIBES ASPECTS of the medical and public health response to the 2001 anthrax attacks based on interviews with individuals who were directly involved in the response. It has been more than 18 months since B. anthracis spores were discovered in letters sent through the U.S. postal system. The specific purpose and perpetrator(s) of these attacks remain unknown. A total of 22 people developed anthrax as a result of the mailings, 11 suffered from the inhalational form of the disease, and 5 of these people died. Thousands of workers—including health care, public health, environmental, and law enforcement professionals—participated in the response to the attacks. Thousands more were directly affected, including individuals working in facilities contaminated by the attacks and their families. The immediate and continuing medical and public health response to the anthrax attacks of 2001 represents a singular episode in the history of public health. After-action assessments of the response to the anthrax attacks could offer invaluable opportunities to better understand and remedy the systemic vulnerabilities revealed by America’s only experience with an anthrax attack. Yet there still has been no comprehensive published analysis of the response to these events. In December 2001, the Center for Strategic International Studies convened a meeting, which included high-level government officials directly involved in managing the crisis, to discuss the response and review lessons learned. The report describing this meeting has been withheld from public distribution by the Department of Defense, which supported the meeting, on the grounds that the document contains sensitive information.1 The “response” to the anthrax attacks was extremely complex, and any analysis that purports to assess the response must account for this complexity. The unprecedented nature of the attacks and the context in which the response occurred are also crucial to understanding what happened and why. The long-standing neglect of federal, state, and local public health agencies, and the highly stressed condition of U.S. medical facilities, which routinely work at the limits of their capacity, are acknowledged by virtually all informed observers. That the medical and public health institutions involved in the response functioned as well as they did is a tribute to the extraordinary efforts of the individuals involved. Despite the commitment and hard work of the individuals in these professional communities, what was revealed by the anthrax attacks was an unacceptable level of fragility in systems now properly recognized as vital to national defense. Too many citizens, elected leaders, and national security officials still have limited understanding of the degree to which 22 cases of anthrax rocked the public health agencies and hospitals involved in the response to this small bioterrorist attack. Most of the vulnerabilities in the medical and public health systems revealed by the response remain unaddressed. It is not the purpose of this article to praise or criticize individuals who responded to the 2001 anthrax attack. The emphasis here is on how to improve response systems. The article seeks to identify the strategic and organizational successes and shortcomings of the health response to the anthrax attacks so that medical and public health communities as well as elected officials can learn from this crisis. The recent international spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is illustrating once more the importance of effective public health response systems. Initial impressions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s response to SARS indicate that the agency has improved several aspects of epidemic response that were problematic in the aftermath of the 2001 anthrax at-

Development Control in Post-Reform China: the Case of Liuhua Lake Park, Guangzhou

The initiation of administrative and economic reforms in China has not only led to the introduction of market mechanisms in allocating urban land resources, these reforms have also created new socio-economic demands, which have to be satisfied through spatial restructuring. To offer effective guidance over land use changes and development, formal development control mechanisms are established. However, land use planners in China continue to face an uphill battle in controlling development within a society with little respect for rules and regulations. Development control mechanisms are not effective because of the absence of well-established planning-related institutions with clearly defined duties. Planners' role in monitoring spatial change is constantly challenged by the arbitrary intervention of high-level government officials on one hand, and widespread illegal land transactions and land use developments on the other. This paper discusses these issues with reference to an “illegal” restaurant development in the Liuhua Lake Park in Guangzhou.

Environmental information disclosure and stakeholder involvement: Searching for common ground

In a recent national summit hosted by The Vanderbuilt Center for Environmental Management Studies, high level corporate, environmental, and government officials came together to discuss the growing trend towards the disclosure of environmental information as a tool to increase public accountability. Both regulators and environmentalists showed interest in continuing to utilize and, in many cases expeand, existing environmental information disclosure programs. The summit was viewed as a catalyst in the ongoing national discussion of the efficacy of this evolving area of government policy. This article highlights some of the key results of this event and offers suggested next steps to address credibility and effectiveness in environmental information disclosure.

Executive Insights: The Super Sales Force—Politicians in the World Market

Exporting has become a popular means for businesses to augment sales and profitability and for countries to improve their gross domestic product and balance of trade. As a complement to export selling, high-level government officials increasingly are providing export promotional assistance to their nations’ industries. Much of what is known about this “high-level government selling, “ however, is based on conventional wisdom and anecdotal evidence. This article reports the results of a study that examined non-U.S. politicians’ export selling efforts. Data were obtained from surveys of foreign embassy diplomats in the United States. Findings offer insights into what government officials are doing to stimulate sales of their countries’ exports.

Aaron Wildavsky: A Man and Scholar for All Seasons

The conventional wisdom in academia is that great scholars, once they have achieved international reputation for work in their fields and success in attracting research sponsorship, feel little motivation to spend time in the classroom explaining the mundane basics of their areas of expertise. After all, academic and professional incentive structures provide rewards for additional research and publication, writing winning proposals for large research grants presenting research findings at institutions all over the world, delivering keynote addresses at professional conferences and special presentations to high-level government officials or business leaders at exclusive, invitation-only meetings held in exotic settings. For academic luminaries of this status in the profession, there may be a career point at which there no longer remains a need to conduct ambitious research; it is sufficient merely to reap the rewards that gravitate to an established reputation. However, despite the temptations presented by academic stardom, some university faculty choose another career path after they have achieved significant professional recognition. Some find the lifestyle of the star long on accolades and travel but short on substance to stimulate intellectual curiosity and creativity. For some stars, the desire remains to conduct research and to write, to work with colleagues and students - propelled by an intellectual drive to express one's views, by no small amount of ego and pride in one's work, and, for some, by a moral obligation to colleagues, students, and the institution. The motive to return to research, writing, and teaching may emanate from the intrinsic reward that academics receive from grappling with and maybe resolving some of the difficult problems of their fields of study. By the mid-1970s Aaron Wildavsky had reached an academic stature that would have permitted him to simply travel and speak, visit at various institutions over the world, and to consult with government without ever returning to teaching and research again. In fact, Aaron stated this quite bluntly and with some amazement to me in the summer of 1978 in New York as he was contemplating leaving his position as president of the Russell Sage Foundation. However despite the opportunity to become an academic ambassador at midpoint in his illustrious career, Wildavsky returned to Berkeley, and resumed his position as professor of political science with all the attendant responsibilities of classroom teaching, undergraduate and graduate student advising, university committee work, and public service. Above all, as his incredible curriculum vita reveals, Wildavsky returned to continue to conduct research and write. What Aaron Wildavsky liked to do most was to think, to talk with colleagues and students, and to write. He loved to write to figure out what he thought, and he wrote well and continuously. This helps to explain his prodigious output ranging from a shelf full of scholarly books and academic articles to government reports, newspaper articles, and even pieces contributed to campus newsletters. Fundamentally, Aaron cared most about teaching and learning, in word and deed, and doing so in an honest and straight-forward attempt to make the world a better, more humane and equitable place for his fellow citizens. It was because he cared so much that he was a great leader in the field of public administration, public policy, and political science. Aaron Wildavsky had an amazingly broad set of interests in the social sciences and public policy. The topics covered in his writings reveal the incredible spectrum of the man's curiosity and knowledge. His work encompasses budgeting and fiscal policy (domestic and international); political culture; community power and leadership; risk analysis and safety; environmental policy; the American presidency; presidential elections; American diplomacy; U.S. off and gas policy; the art and craft of policy analysis; policy implementation; how to conduct research, read, and write; academic collaboration; development and evolution of the social sciences; political and religious philosophy; Moses as a political leader and Joseph as an administrator; the politics of religion; the experience of his father as a youth in Poland; academic leadership and administration; communism and morality, the Declaration of Independence; the Articles of Confederation; and more, much more. …

One‐gun‐a‐month: Measuring public opinion concerning a gun control initiative

AbstractState lawmakers in Virginia recently approved a measure to limit to one the number of handguns a person can purchase within a thirty day period. In the months preceding the law's approval, a survey was conducted to measure the level of public support for the proposed initiative. The results of the survey were provided to lawmakers and other high level government officials in an effort to provide policymakers with objective data for gauging support (or non‐support) for the proposal. Past public opinion polls which have measured attitudes concerning gun control reveal differences in the levels of support with regard to such factors as individual gun ownership and region of residence. The following research reveals the sentiment of one State's citizenry toward a specific handgun control measure by focusing on how responses varied across selected sub‐groups within the sample.

Transformation of Family Ideology in Upper-Middle-Class Families in Urban South Korea

processes and class processes (Fraad, Resnick, and Wolff 1989), this study analyzes the historical development of the inter-relationships between two major social institutions (that is, the family and the state). It also investigates the ways in which the structure of the upper-middle-class family and women's experience of family life have been transformed as late-industrial capitalism has developed in South Korea. The study is based on ethnographic research of 72 upper-middle-class families conducted in 1990 in Seoul, Korea. I established contacts with these families through personal networks, such as relatives and friends. Without these personal networks, this study would have been impossible due to the reluctance of the families in this social category toward any type of public examination. Throughout this article, the term, class, is used in the Weberian sense of status more than according to the Marxian conception of class. Upper-middle-class families in this study live in expensive condominium complexes that are recently established in the Kangnam (south of the Han river) area and share a variety of social status indicators, such as income and occupation of the male head of the family, ownership of family property, size of the condominium, monthly household budget, educational level of family members, and life-styles. The majority of the male heads of the families I studied are white-collar workers, such as managers or executives of private companies (46.5 per cent), entrepreneurs (25.6 per cent), professionals (13.7 per cent), high-level government officials (6.8 per cent), and other (7.4 per cent). Every family in my sample has one or more kinds of family property, such as stocks, cash savings, land, second homes and condominiums, and office buildings. Seventy-five per cent of the families live in the condominiums that are valued at more than half a million U.S. dollars. They are spacious and roomy condominiums, relative to the South Korean standard; i.e., larger than 40 pyung (1,212 m2) up to 61 pyong (1,848 m2), and have more than four bedrooms. Monthly household expenses of the families, which are primarily based on the income of male heads, is well above the average household budget of the

The Atomic Bomb Suppressed: American Censorship in Occupied Japan.

This reader presents a balanced collection of 16 administrative profiles of high-level government and nonprofit officials for course use. They were originally published as part of a series for Public Administration Review and provide rich, in-depth examples of the work performed by high-level public servants and the factors that contribute to their effectiveness. The book begins with an extensive introduction to the use and importance of administrative profiles. The profiles themselves cover a wide range of public service professionals at the local, state, and federal levels, and are written by a distinguished cast of authors. A concluding chapter by Norma Riccucci pulls together and synthesizes the various themes of the profiles.