Ability Of States Research Articles

Natural Disasters and Human Trafficking: Do Disasters Affect State Anti‐Trafficking Performance?

AbstractDespite the oft noted negative connection between natural disasters and human trafficking, no quantitative study has been performed. Natural disasters, like conflict, can destroy homes and the economic security of individuals forcing them to migrate and making them targets for traffickers. This article tests the link between a state's ability to address trafficking and natural disasters, testing the popular prediction that a state's capabilities will be strained as increased natural disasters occur thus producing a negative effect. The findings though demonstrate that states are actually more likely to perform better in their efforts to confront trafficking. I argue that this is because natural disasters actually strengthen and enhance the state, and particularly its security institutions, in responding to these events. I place these findings in the context of other recent quantitative studies of trafficking that have also produced contradictory results when compared with the field's qualitative studies.

Conservation implications of wildlife translocations; The state's ability to act as conservation units for wildebeest populations in South Africa

Wildlife translocations have historically assisted in re-establishing species in areas of extinction and are currently employed in over 50 countries. Ironically, they may also be responsible for the extinction of pure genetic lineages via hybridization, thereby negatively impacting endangered, indigenous, and rare species. Due to recent evolutionary divergence, black wildebeest (Connochaetes gnou) and blue wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) can mate and produce fertile offspring when sympatric. A total of 6929 translocated black and blue wildebeest from 273 private ranches and 3 provincial protected areas protected (PPAs) were documented over 5 years, across 5 South African provinces. We analyzed dispersal patterns and wildlife ranching economics to identify conservation implications and to infer if translocations are likely to persist in their current form. Findings indicate (1) 58.45% of sampled private ranches manage for both wildebeest populations, (2) blue wildebeest males are primarily translocated, (3) wildebeest are introduced across provincial lines, (4) wildebeest are introduced to within and amongst the private and commercial industry from multiple sources, and (5) wildebeest revenue accounted for 20.8% of revenue generated from all wildlife translocations. Unwanted conservation implications concern ecological integrity, genetic swamping, and regulatory efficiency. We caution against risks posed by the game industry upon the PPA's ability to function as nature conservation units and act as stocking sources and the plausibility that black wildebeest populations incorporate varying degrees of introgressive hybrids. Moreover, wildebeest account for 1/5 of revenue generated from all game translocations. This is indicative of its likelihood to persist in their current form, thereby inducing hybridization and facilitating outbreeding depression. We caution that concerns are likely to worsen if no intervention is taken. Lastly, we coin the concept of Ecological Sustainable Network (ESN); we designed a framework for standardizing procedures to advance effective wildlife translocation practices worldwide.

Statewide Payment and Delivery Reform: Do States Have What It Takes?

States' role in payment as well as coverage will be subject to debate as the administration and the Congress decide how to address the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and otherwise reshape the nation's health policies. Acting as stewards of health care for the entire state population and stimulated by concern about rising costs and federal support under the ACA, the elected and administrative leaders of some states have been using their political influence and authority to improve their state's overall systems of care regardless of who pays the bill. In early 2015 we conducted on-site interviews with key stakeholders in five states to explore their strategies for payment and delivery reform. We found that despite these states' similar goals, differences in their statutory authority and purchasing power, along with their leaders' willingness to use them, significantly influence a state's ability to achieve reform objectives. We caution federal and state policy makers to recognize the reality that state leaders' political desire to exercise stewardship may not be enough to achieve it.

WHY ONLY SOME LIFESTYLE ACTIVISTS AVOID STATE-ORIENTED POLITICS: A CASE STUDY IN THE BELGIAN ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT*

Lifestyle politics are often defined as a political strategy used to avoid state-oriented politics. However, recent studies indicate that in some cases, lifestyle activists engage in actions that target the state. This study investigates why some lifestyle activists combine these forms of engagement, while others do not. We explore whether such differences can be explained by variations in activists' perceptions of the political opportunity structure. In particular, we consider whether perceptions of input structures and output structures offer relevant predictors for combining lifestyle politics with state-oriented actions. The article presents an in-depth case study of a Belgian environmental lifestyle movement organization, using a mixed methods approach including participant observation, qualitative interviewing, and surveys. The findings reveal that lifestyle activists' perceptions of the openness of the system matter, but that beliefs in the state's ability to act are more diverse and therefore have a stronger effect on activists' propensity for state-oriented action.

Legal Mobilization within the Bureaucracy: Disability Rights and the Implementation of Antidiscrimination Law in Sweden

This article argues that the analysis of legal mobilization needs to give more attention to the state and its relationship with social movements in order to examine how the state either sustains social movements’ demands or is a field of contention for those demands. Focusing on how disability bureaucrats and activists mobilize antidiscrimination law in Sweden, this article shows that two main factors shape legal mobilization within the bureaucracy and alter the state's ability to become a legal mobilization actor: (1) the institutional relationships between social movement organizations and government agencies and (2) the profiles and careers of bureaucrats and activists. It concludes by suggesting several lines for further research on law and social movements in nonpluralist countries.

Iowa's Medicaid Expansion Promoted Healthy Behaviors But Was Challenging To Implement And Attracted Few Participants.

As part of Iowa's Medicaid expansion, the Healthy Behaviors Program was designed to provide members with incentives to complete specified healthy activities in return for waiving monthly premiums. We used claims data and interviews to document the first year (2014) of the program's implementation. Healthy activities completion rates did not exceed 17 percent. Interviews with members and clinic managers revealed low levels of awareness of the program's existence, deficits in knowledge about how the program works, and a variety of barriers to activity completion. Our findings suggest that the lack of knowledge hindered the state's ability to incentivize activities and that it subjected beneficiaries to premium expenses and potential disenrollment. These results should guide federal and state policy makers in devising more effective ways of educating Medicaid beneficiaries and providers about programs that incentivize responsibility for healthy behaviors. The results suggest that efforts by federal and state governments to reform Medicaid by shifting responsibility onto program members for healthy behaviors are unlikely to succeed, especially without careful thought and design of premiums, penalties, and incentives for participants.

Fluid landscapes, sovereign nature: Conservation and counterinsurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir

This article analyzes how environmentalism reinscribed violent forms of state sovereignty in the disputed region of Kashmir in the aftermath of a decade-long uprising against Indian rule. After the return of an elected government, six years after its suspension in 1990, environmental restoration legitimized new forms of state and nature making in Kashmir. Nature rather than territory emerged as an arena of citizen activism, which further strengthened the state's ability to regulate the use and management of Kashmir's water resources. State and civic bodies deployed discourses of history and restoration to create new and imagined ecologies based on visions of nostalgia, commerce, and esthetics. By undermining place-based understandings of nature and ecology, discourses of environmental stewardship and conservation ended up fostering violent mechanisms of social and political control.

Sex on the Front: Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Russia’s First World War

Prostitution flourished during Russia's First World War. Mass mobilisation and the displacement of millions of the empire's population challenged the tsarist state's ability to control both the movement and bodies of those buying and selling sex. In light of this, military and medical authorities shifted their attention more directly onto regulating men's bodies. Wartime social turmoil also increased the visibility of prostitution, which saw many enlisted men lament the apparent ‘moral decline’ that they witnessed on the front. This article examines how the tsarist authorities grappled to control the bodies of its populace on Russia's western front, and how the conflict had an impact upon ideas of morality and sexuality.

Spatializing Politics: Essays on Power and Place ed. by Delia Duong Ba Wendel and Fallon Samuels Aidoo

Reviewed by: Spatializing Politics: Essays on Power and Place ed. by Delia Duong Ba Wendel and Fallon Samuels Aidoo Darren Purcell (bio) Spatializing Politics: Essays on Power and Place. Edited by Delia Duong Ba Wendel and Fallon Samuels Aidoo. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. Pp. 432. $24.95. Writers embracing the spatial turn in several disciplines, including the humanities, often overlook a field engaged with the social processes behind spatial arrangements of power: geography. Fortunately, the editors avoid this myopia by bringing together authors engaged across disciplinary boundaries. Invoking geographical theorists such as Harvey, Massey, Mc-Cann, and Soja, the level of intellectual cross-pollination is refreshing. The editors invoke the term "spatial epistemology" to frame case studies focused on the spatially contingent nature of political power. The essays shed light on varying forms of state power and of resistance efforts in order to articulate dissent over the reconstruction of space that invariably benefits the entrenched interests driving the state. The first two sections cover the themes of contentious politics and the politics of consensus. Margo Shea's take on urban renewal and the spatial politics of governance in Northern Ireland highlights the spatial resistance after implementation of policies aimed at making a space of political resistance more governable. Kerry Chance's examination of South Africa's transit [End Page 1074] camps and the development of new slums as infrastructure highlights efforts to enhance the state's ability to govern an evicted populace. Anh-Thu Ngo provides a discussion of the reworking of Ho Chi Minh City and the contestation of those visions with art and creative energies. Fallon Aidoo's exploration of efforts to contest the reworking of spaces related to railroads that crossed class lines provides insight into how such coalitions can be forged. Biopolitics is the organizing theme for a three-essay section, including Joy Knoblauch's consideration of community mental health centers, their architectural design, and their role in communities. Melany Park looks at North Korea's penal colonies and their practices upon the body through a narrative utilizing texts from various interviews and the stage play Yoduk Story. Disabled bodies and how architecture is designed to accommodate the Americans with Disabilities Act is the focus of Wanda Liebermann's chapter, which highlights how disability was defined and then incorporated into the Architectural Graphic Standards so that only certain bodies' accommodations are addressed. The final section is the politics of expertise. Orly Linovski argues that there are clear issues with the development of a public space through the use of design consultants. Michael Mendez's narrative about Oakland's grassroots environmental efforts shows that they have been effective in articulating climate change issues in such a way as to transform them into tangible, knowable impacts that resonate with communities and drive actions at the city scale. Finally, H. Fernando Burga chronicles efforts to plan Miami-Dade County in the face of changing demographics, immigration trends, and refugee flows, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the Cuban-American political dynamics at the local scale. Two of the essays stand out for their engagement of politics at multiple scales. First is Delia Duong Ba Wendel's work on the 2004 radio program Musekeweya. The program created a fictional version of the challenges facing Rwandan society after the deployment of differences in economic status between the Hutus and the Tutsi nations during the 1994 genocide. The series narrates a parallel history through the use of spatial metaphors and fosters a space of reconciliation and a new spatial conception of the future. The value of a discursive landscape is highlighted by Ryne Clos's essay on the dormant Tiscapa volcano in Managua, Nicaragua, the site of political symbolism on the landscape in two distinct eras, the Somoza and Sandinista regimes. Contrasting Rancièrian approaches to the state with Althusserian ones, Clos highlights Somoza's efforts to insure consensus in what the author terms "… 'his' Nicaragua …" versus the Sandinistas' respatialization through democratization of the Tiscapa. The book as a whole represents a consistent engagement with various forms of spatial politics across scales, but always reminds the reader of individual-scale processes. These chapters are well-theorized case studies, as...

Forceful Self-Help and Private Voice: How Schauer and McAdams Exaggerate a State's Ability to Monopolize Violence and Expression

Frederick Schauer's The Force of Law (2015) and Richard McAdams's The Expressive Powers of Law (2015) are noteworthy contributions. However, both authors exaggerate the importance of law, as opposed to other means of social control. Schauer largely omits the role that self-help measures, ranging from negative gossip to violent self-defense, play in deterring misconduct. Contrary to Max Weber, the state in practice cannot monopolize the legitimate use of physical force. McAdams valuably analyzes law's potentially expressive effects. He might have devoted more attention, however, to identifying the contexts in which state speech tends to be more salient than private speech, such as a statement by the pope or another esteemed private pundit.

Domestic Violence: The Narrative Architectures of Michael Haneke's Funny Games

Domestic Violence:The Narrative Architectures of Michael Haneke's Funny Games Dale Pattison (bio) On November 8, 2001, President George W. Bush took the stage at the main ballroom of the Georgia World Conference Center to deliver what would become one of his most controversial public addresses on the newly created Office of Homeland Security. Positioning the President within a milieu of firefighters, police officers, and military personnel, the optics of the scene were designed to collapse boundaries between civilian and military worlds, and to use the President as a mediating point between these otherwise distinct realms of American life. The substance of the President's speech mirrored this spatial move, repeatedly emphasizing the ways in which the War on Terror would require Americans living within the country's national borders to "add [their] eyes and ears to [the state's] efforts to find and stop those who want to do us harm." The War on Terror, Bush argued, "must be fought not only overseas but also here at home." The President's speech implied that civilians—not alone the military—would be instrumental in combatting terror and protecting the American homeland. In closing his address, Bush relayed his first orders to the newly conscripted American people, announcing, "we have our marching orders. My fellow Americans, 'Let's roll'" ("Address to the Nation").1 Out of this speech emerged the Presidential Task Force on Citizen Preparedness in the War on Terrorism, a program designed to help Americans "prepare in their homes, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and houses [End Page 197] of worship" for their new roles as protectors of the homeland (Allen A01). Fewer than three months later, in the President's State of the Union Address, Bush established the U.S.A. Freedom Corps, a coordinating council that would assist and train Americans who wished to volunteer themselves for the protection of the homeland. In his address, Bush asked "for every American to commit at least two years, four thousand hours over the rest of your lifetime, to the service of your neighbors and your Nation." Echoing earlier statements on the need for civic engagement in implementing homeland security, Bush went on to remark: Homeland security will make America not only stronger but, in many ways, better. Knowledge gained from bioterrorism research will improve public health. Stronger police and fire departments will mean safer neighborhoods. Stricter border enforcement will help combat illegal drugs. And as government works to better secure our homeland, America will continue to depend on the eyes and ears of alert citizens. ("The President's State of the Union Address") The administration's framing of homeland security as a positive force in shaping American civic life came to fruition in this address. In volunteering for the protection of the homeland, Americans could participate in the advancement of both military and civilian projects, making the country safer and more prosperous all at the same time. The observations above highlight the ways in which the administration mobilized civilians as instruments of state power in the wake of September 11th. As many critics have noted, establishing the rhetorical link between the home and the homeland was vital to the state's ability to advance the politics of homeland security. The deployment of the homeland as a rhetorical device plays upon individuals' attachment to "the home," a concept intimately connected to security, stability, and one's sense of self. The frequent use of the home as a site of political intervention in the two Presidential addresses above reveals the complex engagement with domesticity that undergirds the project of homeland security.2 While the rhetorical figuring of the homeland as a domestic space was critical to how the state shaped public opinion, representations of the home in popular media also [End Page 198] contributed significantly to advancing the politics of homeland security. This essay uses Michael Haneke's Funny Games (2007), a film that appears to have little to do with homeland security, domestic space, or the anxieties that emerged in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center, to examine the ways in which political violence—particularly as a product of the state's mobilization of domesticity—intrudes...

Can the Informal Economy Be “Managed”?: Comparing Approaches and Effectiveness of Day‐Labor Management Policies in the San Diego Metropolitan Area

ABSTRACTDay‐labor hiring sites are found in more than 120 municipalities across the U.S., there is limited research examining the specific drivers that generate direct interventions into the day‐labor market, nor is there any research examining the effectiveness of day‐labor management policies. In what follows, I draw on examples from the San Diego Metropolitan Area (SDMA) to address this gap in policy‐research. The findings demonstrate the pervasiveness of neoliberal ideology in day‐labor management, from policing strategies to social service provision. In each case examined, local governments only took direct action when they believed day‐labor activity threatened local commercial activity or when residents' fear of “illegal immigrant” day‐laborers made them question the state's ability to control space effectively. In each case, I also evaluate the effectiveness and cost of the management strategy. The results of this analysis clearly demonstrate that attempts to eliminate day‐labor activity are costly and expensive while efforts to formalize day‐labor cost less and have a higher success rate.

Pelagic longline fisheries in southeastern/south Brazil. Who cares about the law?

The fishing industry has been facing problems related to catch yields, predatory competition and economic collapse. Management should be based on substantial scientific studies and the state's ability to implement these. In Brazil, the surface longline fishery has been in existence since the 1950s, and remains of great economic importance. This study analyzes 179 legal instruments (1934–2014), divided into restrictive, administrative and promotional, comparing with catches landed (1996–2011). The results show that there was a complete disrespect for the regulations, wherein fleets continued landing prohibited or size limited species, such as Kajikia albida, Makaira nigricans, Alopias superciliosus, A. vulpinus, Carcharhinus longimanus, Galeorhinus galeus and Xiphias gladius. Furthermore, divergent regulatory provisions have hindered understanding/implementation of regulations by all those involved. Being a country of continental proportions and with different longline fisheries along the coast, conducting scientific studies and the development of normative approaches becomes a huge challenge. In a dynamic activity such as fishing, the constant review of these regulations will allow fisheries management to become more accurate and in accordance with the aspirations of the different interests involved. Despite the surface longline fishery having operated for 60 years in Brazil, the existence of incongruous laws makes the management and control of this activity incompatible with the conservation of species. The lack of regulations governing this fishery creates a "gap", increasing the risk of extinction of species (target and bycatch) and the future collapse of this activity.

On the way towards the Energy Union: Position of Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia towards external energy security integration

External energy security has gained importance within the EU due to the current Russian-Ukrainian natural gas dispute, but also because of mid- and long-term issues connected to the availability of energy supply in Europe. The Energy Union proposal is supposed to increase the coherence of the EU in external energy, thus contributing to the energy security of the Community. However, various member states have already expressed different (not always positive) views, concerning this project. In order to shed light on the further development of the Energy Union, the present paper – based on 52 semi-structured interviews – examines members states' support for and opposition to the further deepening of integration in external energy security. By analysing Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, this paper argues that member states' preferences depend at least partly on the decision-makers' perceptions of their state's ability to cope with three energy security challenges (external, internal and business). States whose decision-makers believe that their countries are able to successfully cope with these challenges are more likely to oppose further integration in energy security area, while member states whose decision-makers view these tasks as challenging are more likely to support the transfer of competences to the EU.

The Quantum Mechanics of Israeli Totalitarianism

This article argues that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory represents criminalized state behaviour at the most systematic, intricately planned and executed. Evoking the quantum physics of Israel's matrix of control, the article argues that to understand how it feels to live as a Palestinian today requires the mindset of a particle physicist, not a social scientist. Life in Israel/Palestine involves negotiating a host of forces over which the average Palestinian has as much control as the average electron or proton does over the nuclear and quantum forces determining its path. The power embodied in Israel's matrix of control lies in the state's ability to shift rules, tactics, amplitude and frequency of the forces, strategies and techniques and technologies of occupation. The article argues that the Occupation and the conditions it creates have become normalized, and that maintaining a situation of confusion and ambiguity is key to making the Occupation effectively permanent.

The privatization of spa companies in Poland – An evaluation of policy assumptions and implementation

The aim of this article is to present the course of privatization of spa companies in Poland during the period 2001–2011. We discuss assumptions of the privatization process, as well as actual implementation, having identified the process as chaotic and inconsistent with prior legal provisions. We found that in its applied form the process resulted in limitation of the therapeutic potential of spas, and reduction of the State's ability to implement health policy in a legally determined form. We also found that privatization potentially improved spa infrastructure standards and increases the tourist potential of spa resorts. We recommend that clear eligibility criteria are applied to institutions in the privatization process, as well as the provision of legal guarantees for access to spa services financed from public resources. Such guarantees should be made a public obligation, to ensure the availability of services for insured persons, and there should be an obligation to maintain a specific part of a given institution's potential for the needs of patients funded by public health insurance.

Comparing national home-keeping and the regulation of translational stem cell applications: An international perspective

A very large grey area exists between translational stem cell research and applications that comply with the ideals of randomised control trials and good laboratory and clinical practice and what is often referred to as snake-oil trade. We identify a discrepancy between international research and ethics regulation and the ways in which regulatory instruments in the stem cell field are developed in practice. We examine this discrepancy using the notion of ‘national home-keeping’, referring to the way governments articulate international standards and regulation with conflicting demands on local players at home.Identifying particular dimensions of regulatory tools – authority, permissions, space and acceleration – as crucial to national home-keeping in Asia, Europe and the USA, we show how local regulation works to enable development of the field, notwithstanding international (i.e. principally ‘western’) regulation. Triangulating regulation with empirical data and archival research between 2012 and 2015 has helped us to shed light on how countries and organisations adapt and resist internationally dominant regulation through the manipulation of regulatory tools (contingent upon country size, the state's ability to accumulate resources, healthcare demands, established traditions of scientific governance, and economic and scientific ambitions).

تفويض السلطات الاتحادية إلى المحافظات غير المنتظمة في إقليم:, دراسة في التطبيق العراقي

Delegation of ‎Federal Authorities to the Governorates not Organized in a Region A study in the Iraqi Application Despite of the importance of the application of the delegation of authority style from the federal government to the provinces that are not organized in a region, but the actual fact that there is some federal and local authorities are trying to impede the process of the transfer of competencies, in addition to the prevalence of financial, administrative and political corruption, it will reduce the chances of success in the delivery of basic services to citizens. The research concern to answer questions about the legal delegation of authority and organization in Iraq. The most important findings of the research is that in Iraq Article 123 of the 2005 Constitution Give the right to both the federal government and the provinces the right to delegate some of their powers . Then issue a law No. 21 of 2008 that establish a supreme body for coordination between the provinces of Its duties was to consider the mandate of the federal authorities required by the local governments from the federal government . That regulation was developed in the second amendment to the Law No. (21) of 2008 by law No. (19) for the year 2013. And complementary step to complete the legal framework for the authorization process was proposed delegation of authority, which was read in the House of Representatives (2015). One of the main proposals made by the research are: to urge the Iraqi parliament to speed up legislation the law of Delegation of ‎Federal Authorities to the provinces in order to strengthen the state's ability to provide basic services to citizens. And that the provinces rely on the scientific and technical competencies and the universities and institutes in the implementation of competences transferred to it from the federal authorities, and that the fight against financial and administrative and political corruption, and the activation of the legal control methods.

The Rationales for the First Joint Accounting Efforts for US Prisoners of War/Missing in Action in Laos: A Lao Perspective

This article outlines the reasons behind the Lao People's Democratic Republic's (LPDR) decision to reach agreement with the United States in 1985 for the purposes of initiating joint efforts to account for US Prisoners of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) lost in Laos during the Vietnam War. The article attempts to explain why LPDR's domestic security concerns, as well as the government's desire to demonstrate autonomous decision-making in the conduct of the country's foreign policy, were the two main drivers of the 1985 agreement. Domestic concerns arose from the perceived threat of violence from American-supported Thai-based anti-LPDR resistance groups and private groups entering Laos illegally in search of alleged live POWs. (1) Moreover, the LPDR required from the United States mutual respect for its independent foreign policy-making: in other words, the LPDR wanted to be seen as acting as an independent sovereign entity in handling the POW/MIA issue. For the purposes of this article, sovereignty is broadly defined as state's ability to control actors and activities within and across its border (2) and to project authoritative decision-making. (3) As regards the LPDR's sovereignty concerns, the operationalization of this concept is relatively unexplored in studies pertaining to the POW/MIA issue. Examining the LPDR's sovereignty concerns enables one to better understand Lao's role in POW/MIA negotiations; a role that is clearly marginalized, given that it is the concerns and viewpoints of American scholars and policymakers that dominate the discourse. The Secret in Laos and the POW/MIA Issue Before examining the 1985 US-LPDR agreement, it is useful to briefly recount the activities of the United States and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV or North Vietnam) in Laos during the Vietnam War. (4) Although prohibited by the 1962 Geneva Accords --which supposedly legalized the neutrality and independence of the Kingdom of Laos--both the United States and North Vietnam secretly conducted military activities against each other inside Laotian territory. On one side, the United States conducted covert military operations, including an extensive air campaign, to disrupt and destroy North Vietnam's logistical supply lines--known colloquially as the Ho Chi Minh Trail--which ran through parts of Laos. On the other side, North Vietnam supported the communist Pathet Lao forces which aimed to overthrow the US-supported Royal Lao Government (RLG). (5) This secret war in Laos ended in December 1975 when the Pathet Lao took control of the country and renamed it the LPDR. Although US military personnel were supposed to have been active in Laos during the Vietnam War, the US Department of Defense (DoD) recorded 575 men as Missing in Action (MIA) in Laos as revealed in Table 1 below. Table 1 shows the number of American MIAs from the Vietnam in four countries--Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and China--and the record of repatriation and identification which is conducted by DoD's Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) based at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii. Data for those lost in Laos is recorded under Americans Lost in the Vietnam War rather than the secret war in Laos. Since the 1985 agreement, the US government has tried to resolve the 575 MIA cases in the LPDR. Between 1985 and 2015, 135 joint field activities were conducted in Laos. According to the DPAA, only 270 cases, or less than half, including 23 no further pursuit category, (6) have been repatriated and identified. Presently, approximately 50 US personnel, together with their Lao counterparts, conduct four joint field activities each year in the LPDR. The origins of the joint US-LPDR accounting efforts are still little understood. This is surprising given the continued importance to Washington of the on-going field excavations, and counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism cooperation between the United States and LPDR, (7) as well as the need to better understand the background of the current bilateral relationship. …

Local sustainability and scaling up for user fee exemptions: medical NGOs vis-à-vis health systems.

Free healthcare obviously works when a partner from abroad supplies a health centre or a health district with medicines and funding on a regular basis, provides medical, administrative and managerial training, and gives incentive bonuses and daily subsistence allowances to staff. The experiments by three international NGO in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have all been success stories. But withdrawing NGO support means that health centres that have enjoyed a time of plenty under NGO management will return to the fold of health centres run by the state in its present condition and the health system in its present condition, with the everyday consequences of late reimbursements and stock shortages. The local support given by international NGOs has more often than not an effect of triggering an addiction to aid instead of inducing local sustainability without infusion. In the same way, scaling up to the entire country a local pilot experiment conducted under an NGO involves its insertion into a national bureaucratic machine with its multiple levels, all of which are potential bottlenecks. Only experiments carried out under the "ordinary" management of the state are capable of laying bare the problems associated with this process. Without reformers 'on the inside' (within the health system itself and among health workers), no real reform of the health system induced by reformers 'from the outside' can succeed.The problems relating to the sustainability of public policies in Africa, especially when the policies benefit from development aid, in the area of health among others, are familiar to researchers and policy-makers. However, as far as user fee exemptions are concerned, debates about these problems have extended well beyond the narrow circle of experts and into the public domain in the countries concerned. Throughout our research, we have observed that the sustainability of free healthcare policies is a major concern of all the actors (health workers, users, managers and senior administrative staff), and an issue that has generated widespread scepticism, especially in Mali and Niger [1,2]. There is general unease about the state's ability to reimburse health centres and to provide essential inputs. The scepticism is fuelled by a two-fold negative experience: decades of incoherent public policies at national level, plagued by bad management and uncertain funding, on the one hand; and the endless U-turns by donors, the double binds of frequent contradictions in their funding policies and the short-term nature of the programmes they enact, on the other [3].The first years of exemption policies, which were beset by late reimbursements and more or less chronic stock shortages, only added to the scepticism. The disquiet appears to be justified: despite their positive impact in terms of health centre attendance, without funding guaranteed over time, efficient management, secure supply channels and motivated staff, free healthcare policies fall foul of a host of adverse effects at every level of the health pyramid.