The purpose of this study is to extend research which has looked at moral judgment. Specifically, the study examines the impact of moral judgment on the budget allocations made by government budget officers. Additionally, and as a result of previous research findings, the study looks at the relationship between political ideology, gender, age, profession and moral judgment.Results support prior research which has found an association between political ideology and moral judgment, and between gender and moral judgment.There was no (...) indication that the level of moral judgment among accountants is different from that of other individuals serving as budget officers, or that age is significantly related to moral judgment. Additionally, the study finds that an individual's level of moral judgment has less of an impact on the individual's actions than does political ideology. Study results contribute to an understanding of the relationship of moral judgment to accounting, and the relationship of moral judgment to behavior. The study also adds to research into the relationship of political ideology and moral judgment. (shrink)

According to the Budget Approach proposed by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), allocating CO2 emission rights to countries on an equal per-capita basis would provide an ethically justified response to global climate change. In this paper, we will highlight four normative issues which beset the WBGU’s Budget Approach: (1) the approach’s core principle of distributive justice, the principle of equality, and its associated policy of emissions egalitarianism are much more complex than it initially appears; (2) (...) the “official” rationale for determining the size of the budget should be modified in order to avoid implausible normative assumptions about the imposition of permissible intergenerational risks; (3) the approach heavily relies on trade-offs between justice and feasibility which should be stated more explicitly; and (4) part of the approach’s ethical appeal depends on policy instruments which are “detachable” from the approach’s core principle of distributive justice. (shrink)

Summary From summer 1792 until spring 1797, Alexander von Humboldt was a mining official in the Franconian parts of Prussia. He visited mines, inspected smelting works, calculated budgets, wrote official reports, founded a mining school, performed technological experiments, and invented a miners’ lamp and respirator. At the same time he also participated in the Republic of Letters, corresponded with savants in all Europe, and was a member of the Leopoldine Carolinian Academy and the Berlin Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde. He collected minerals, (...) made geognostic observations, performed chemical and physiological experiments, read the newest scientific journals, and prepared and published texts on mineralogy, geognosy, chemistry, botany and physiology. Humboldt did his scientific investigations alongside his administrative and technical work. This raises the question of whether there were fruitful interactions between Humboldt's technical-administrative work and (parts of) his natural inquiry. I argue that the mining official Humboldt was a late eighteenth-century figure of hybrid savant-technician. Mines and smelting works provided numerous opportunities for studies of nature. Humboldt systematically used inspection tours for mineralogical and geognostic observations. He transformed mines into chemical laboratories, and he transferred knowledge and material items from his natural inquiries in mines to academic institutions. The main objective of this paper is to illuminate the persona of savant-technician (or scientific-technological expert) along with Humboldt's mixed technological and scientific work during his term as mining official. (shrink)

Background: Concerns have been expressed regarding the adequacy of ethics review systems in developing countries. Limited data are available regarding the structural and functional status of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in the Middle East. The purpose of this study was to survey the existing RECs in Egypt to better understand their functioning status, perceived resource needs, and challenges. Methods: We distributed a self-administered survey tool to Egyptian RECs to collect information on the following domains: general characteristics of the REC, membership (...) composition, ethics training, workload, process of ethics review, perceived challenges to effective functioning, and financial and material resources. We used basic descriptive statistics to evaluate the quantitative data. Results: We obtained responses from 67% (12/18) of the identified RECs. Most RECs (10/12) have standard operating procedures and many (7/12) have established policies to manage conflicts of interests. The average membership was 10.3 with a range from 7-19. The predominant member type was physicians (69.5% of all of the REC members) with little lay representation (13.7%). Most RECs met at least once/month and the average number of protocols reviewed per meeting was 3.8 with a range from 1-10. Almost three-quarters of the members from all of the 12 RECs indicated they received some formal training in ethics. Regarding resources, roughly half of the RECs have dedicated capital equipment (e.g., meeting room, computers, office furniture, etc); none of the RECs have a formal operating budget. Perceived challenges included the absence of national research ethics guidelines and national standards for RECs and lack of ongoing training of its members in research ethics. Conclusion: Our study documents several areas of strengths and areas for improvements in the operations of Egyptian RECs. Regarding strengths, many of the existing RECs meet frequently, have a majority of members with prior training in research ethics, and have written policies. Regarding areas for improvements, many RECs should strive for a more diverse membership and should receive more financial resources and administrative support personnel. We recommend that RECs include more individuals from the community and develop a continuing educational program for its members. Institutional officials should be aware of the resource capacity needs of their RECs. (shrink)

From my perspective, as a White House official watching the budgetary process, and subsequently as head first of a health care financing agency and then of a public health agency, I was continually amazed to watch as billions of dollars were allocated to financing medical care with little discussion, whereas endless arguments ensued over a few millions for community prevention programs. The sums that were the basis for prolonged, and often futile, budget fights in public health were treated as (...) rounding errors in the Medicare budget.William Roper. (shrink)

From my perspective, as a White House official watching the budgetary process, and subsequently as head first of a health care financing agency and then of a public health agency, I was continually amazed to watch as billions of dollars were allocated to financing medical care with little discussion, whereas endless arguments ensued over a few millions for community prevention programs. The sums that were the basis for prolonged, and often futile, budget fights in public health were treated as (...) rounding errors in the Medicare budget.William Roper. (shrink)

The latest Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus has itself created a novel situation—bringing attention to the topic of healthcare rationing among hospitalized pediatric patients. This may be the first time that many pediatricians, nurses, parents, and public health officials have been compelled to engage in uncomfortable discussions about the allocation of medical care/resources. Simply put, finite budgets, resources, and a dwindling healthcare workforce do not permit all patients to receive unlimited medical care. Triage and bedside rationing decisions are (...) happening in a range of difficult everyday circumstances both implicitly and explicitly, but in ways not recognized by even the best ethically framed intentions. Clinicians and hospital administrators have largely been left on their own “to flatten the rationing curve” in hopes that resources never have to be explicitly rationed at their facility. Unfortunately, the downstream result is a misinformed and distrustful public (i.e. parents, guardians, and caregivers) filled with people who are already burdened with inflammatory pseudoscience narratives and deficits in health literacy. This paper aims to elevate a more thoughtful conversation about healthcare rationing by analyzing some existing ethical principles/framework developed for rationing decision making during previous emergency responses and drawing from the day-to-day clinical perspectives of a frontline pediatric acute care/hospitalist. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Research Program at the National Human Genome Research InstituteEric M. Meslin (bio), Elizabeth J. Thomson (bio), and Joy T. Boyer (bio)Organizers of the Human Genome Project (HGP) understood from the beginning that the scientific activities of mapping and sequencing the human genome would raise ethical, legal, and social issues that would require careful attention by scientists, health care professionals, government officials, and (...) the public. The establishment of the ELSI (ethical, legal, and social implications) programs at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the Department of Energy (DOE) was thought to be vital to the success of the HGP in the United States. It also provided a novel approach to the simultaneous study of ethical, legal, and social issues and basic scientific issues. Eric Juengst, the first director of the ELSI program, described its origins in a previous issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (Juengst 1991). Now in its seventh year, the ELSI program has accomplished much. This article summarizes the evolution and goals of the ELSI program at NHGRI, outlines the program’s current research priorities with examples of activities within each priority area, and provides a look to the future, including the initiation of a strategic planning process.Evolution and Goals of the ELSI Research ProgramThe HGP’s “genomic” goals are unique: to map and sequence the entire human genome—some 3 billion base pairs that make up approximately 80–100,000 genes—and the genomes of related model organisms by the year 2005. This goal was particularly ambitious since, when it was proposed, the technologies for mapping and sequencing had yet to be developed. When the HGP was first established, its organizers also elaborated a set of ELSI goals, which they saw as vital to the success of the genome project. The original ELSI goals were: (1) to anticipate and address the implications of the HGP for individuals and society and (2) to examine the ELSI consequences of mapping and sequencing the human genome in order to stimulate public discussion. To meet these goals, the NHGRI created its ELSI research program in 1990. Along with mapping, sequencing, [End Page 291] and mammalian genetics, ELSI was one of four original branches in the NHGRI Division of Extramural Research that funded research in those areas. Although the individual “branches” no longer exist, the mechanisms for funding research remain much the same. While the overall goals of the program have not changed, the specific ways of achieving the goals have continued to evolve. The importance of the ELSI program lies not in the collection of a full set of data that will be valuable in and of itself, but in the value of using and interpreting this new set of information.Early on, the NHGRI described a set of somewhat more specific goals: (1) to develop a program to help understand the ethical, legal, and social implications of the human genome project and (2) to identify and define the major issues of concern and develop policy options to address them. These more specific goals have been largely met. As the most recent biennial NHGRI Progress Report notes, “a robust ELSI research and education program has been established, many of the most urgent ELSI issues have been identified, and many policy options to address these issues have been proposed” (NCHGR 1995, p. 21). Between 1990 and 1996, ELSI provided more than $32.5 million in funding through 128 research and education grants in more than 30 states and in Canada (Table 1). The ELSI research budget is unique in that when originally created, it was specifically tied to the amount of money provided for the overall NHGRI budget. The NHGRI originally devoted 3 percent of its extramural budget to fund ELSI projects, but in FY 1991, it increased the ELSI budget to 5 percent, a figure that remains today. Table 2 lists the expenditures for each fiscal year since 1990 and the cumulative expenditures to date. The ELSI research budget at NHGRI this year will be about $7 million. When other sources of funding—e.g., co-funding arrangements with other institutes and agencies and the funding of ELSI... (shrink)

Professor Gostin is a leading authority on health law, whose writing and teaching are among the most authoritative in the United States, as exemplified by his recent work, Public Health Law: Power, Duty, Restraint. Gostin's article in this issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics pays homage to Jonathan Mann by expressing the debt he feels toward this extraordinary doctor and public health official with whom he had collaborated on several projects.As many will remember, Mann held high-level positions (...) at the Centers for Disease Control and worked on AIDS research in Central Africa before setting up the World Health Organization's Global Programme on AIDS, which he ran from 1986 to 1990. Thanks to his profound commitment and consummate communication skills, he achieved the unprecedented feat of raising the budget within two years to almost $100 million from the initial set-up of “himself, a secretary, and one typewriter,” as described by Daniel Tarantola. (shrink)

Evidence from industry reports, labor union data, and interviews with producers and union officials indicates that while the demand for media products and the number of productions continues to rise, much of the increase in demand is in low-budget features and extremely low-budget production for cable networks. In this production environment, the conglomerates are pressuring producers to reduce labor costs and produce a larger number of low-cost products. Producers are using various strategies to reduce costs, including requiring (...) more flexibility from the production workforce with respect to the length of workdays and working conditions. This article examines how production trends, influenced by conglomerate domination of production and distribution, are affecting the media workforce. In particular I look at three tendencies. The first is a widening split between core workers and peripheral workers employed in industry projects. The second is a change in professional and craft identities as a result of technological specialization by freelancers and the loss of union control over production projects, especially at the low end of the budget spectrum. Finally, there is the persistence of `hard-wired' social and economic networks to reduce worker and employer risk. These networks foster and reinforce labor segmentation among women and men, and among ethnic groups, restricting access to job opportunities and careers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IRBs Under the MicroscopeJonathan D. Moreno (bio)The spring and summer of 1998 were seasons in the sun for institutional review board (IRB) aficionados. Rarely have the arcana of the local human subjects review panels been treated to so much attention in both the executive and the legislative branches of government, not only at the federal but also at the state level. And it looks as if the attention will (...) continue for some time. The spate of interest is due to a series of coincidences: a powerful House of Representatives subcommittee held hearings after its chairman learned about the IRB system during a previous session on research in underdeveloped communities; the Department of Health and Human Services’s Inspector General (DHHS-IG) released a report on IRBs; the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Extramural Research completed a report on clinical trial monitoring; the National Bioethics Advisory Commission (NBAC) readied a report on research involving persons with mental disorders; the states of Maryland and New York completed studies of research with subjects who lack decision-making capacity; and advocacy groups protested a psychiatric research project involving inner city children.Underlying these proximate causes for the IRB blitz is a growing realization that the already considerable clinical trial enterprise will expand significantly over the next few years. Congress is talking about giving the politically popular NIH half again the budget it currently receives, which in turn will stimulate more commercially supported research. The director of the National Cancer Institute is considering a five-fold increase in the number of subjects enrolled in oncology studies over the next several years. Phase I cancer studies are among the most ethically sensitive, so IRBs will have more work cut out for them if this goal is reached. Adding to the rush of interest in IRBs are the government’s recent apology to the survivors of the syphilis study in Tuskegee, continuing congressional dissatisfaction with the way the Pentagon handled its vaccine distribution during the Gulf War, and the controversy about AZT trials in developing countries.On the HillCongressman Christopher Shays, the moderate Connecticut Republican who has developed an interest in human research issues, convened hearings on human [End Page 329] subjects research and the IRB system on 11 June 1998. Shays chairs the House Government Reform/Human Resources Subcommittee. The committee’s ranking minority member is Edolphus Towns of Brooklyn, NY, who shares Shays’s interest in this area.The immediate rationale for the hearings was the release that day of the DHHS-IG report, Institutional Review Boards: A Time for Reform. The subtitle was changed from A System in Jeopardy apparently after some people in DHHS expressed reservations about its seemingly alarmist tone, but the IG staffers who testified before Shays’s subcommittee insisted that they stood behind the message that the IRB system is in trouble if considerable reforms are not undertaken. Among the factors in the research environment cited as support for the bleak forecast: managed care, commercialization, multi-site trials, high IRB workloads, minimal IRB oversight of approved studies, conflicts of interest, insufficient training of IRB members and investigators, and lack of IRB self-studies (DHHS-IG 1998).As is normally the case for congressional oversight hearings, the first panel of witnesses consisted of executive branch officials, including Eric Meslin, Executive Director of the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and Gary Ellis, Director of the Office for Protection from Research Risks (OPRR). Shays pressed Ellis on the extent to which OPRR conducts on-site investigations of complaints about abuse of human subjects. Admitting that on-site investigations are rare, Ellis suggested that the agency is inadequately staffed to follow up on complaints as quickly as it might wish. The members of Congress who were present at the hearings generally expressed concern about the DHHS-IG’s findings.The second panel that day, which Shays was unable to attend, set a different tone. Four of the panelists—Paul Appelbaum of the University of Massachusetts at Worcester, Robert Levine of Yale University, Angela Bowen of the Western IRB (a private clinical trials review firm), and I—were invited as authorities on the current condition of the IRB system. Bert Spilker... (shrink)

Heathcare spending, which was almost 13% of the gross national product last year, is estimated to jump to 14% in 1992. For the first time, hosital expenditures are projected to exceed $300 biilion, representing over 38% of the nation's total healthcare bill. In an effort to reduce federal and state budget deficits and to stimulate institutional cost containment, Medicare and Medicaid officials are becoming even more parsimonious in negotitation reimbursement levels.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 13.4 (2003) 393-406 [Access article in PDF] U.S. Defunding of UNFPA:A Moral Analysis Ronald M. Green Ethical decisions made inside the Beltway sometimes have global consequences. Nowhere is this more true than with respect to the decision by Secretary of State Colin Powell on 21 July 2002 to halt $34 million in U.S. funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Behind this decision (...) lay the forces of America's abortion politics as well as tangled issues in law and bioethics.I became involved in this debate when, in early September 2003, I served as a member of a nine-person delegation of U.S. religious leaders and ethicists that traveled to China to meet with those associated with the UNFPA program there. The delegation was assembled by Frances Kissling, of Catholics for a Free Choice, which also provided support and funding for the necessary travel and administrative services. In China, our contacts included UNFPA administrators, Chinese government officials, and ordinary villagers touched by UNFPA efforts. In the middle of its week-long stay, the delegation left Beijing in three separate groups to travel to remote provincial regions (Hubei, Gansu, and Ningxia). Our goal was to respond to the Bush administration's defunding decision by deepening our understanding of the current Chinese population program and UNFPA's relationship to it. In the course of this enquiry, I encountered challenging questions that drew on my own training in ethics in novel ways. Historical Background UNFPA is the world's largest organization providing family planning and reproductive health services. It was established in 1969 as the United Nations Fund for Population Activities. In 1987, the Economic and Social Council decided to rename it the United Nations Population Fund, but to retain the original abbreviation-acronym. UNFPA works to improve access to and the quality of family planning services in more than 140 of the poorest countries in the world. It is also very active in providing services aimed at preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. It does not provide abortion services, but works to prevent abortion through family planning and to help countries provide services for women suffering from the complications of unsafe abortion. [End Page 393]Although UNFPA is officially an agency of the United Nations, its budget, currently about $200 million per year, comes from voluntary payments by donors, including UN member states. U.S. funding has been irregular. In 1985, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a foreign operations appropriations measure that has come to be known as the "Kemp-Kasten Amendment." This measure, which has been repassed in substantially unchanged form every year since, forbids funding for "any organization or program which, as determined by the President of the United States, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization."1 From 1986 on, the Reagan and Bush administrations halted all U.S. funding for UNFPA activities around the world on the grounds that the agency's activities in China caused it to be involved in supporting or participating in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization, and, hence, put it in violation of Kemp-Kasten.Efforts by the People's Republic of China to slow the increase of its population date from the early 1970s when, in a striking departure from classical Marxist theory, which had insisted on the positive value of added labor power and denied the need for demographic controls, the government imposed a policy of delayed marriage and birth spacing. In 1979, these efforts intensified with the advent of the "one child policy." (In fact, this name is misleading since the number of children allowed a couple varies significantly from urban to rural areas, with rural residents and members of ethnic minorities permitted to have larger families.) To implement this program, the government established a National Family Planning Commission (now National Population and Family Planning Commission) which, among other things, set up a network of family planning service centers around the country, where birth control... (shrink)

Current economic conditions have coincided with the implementation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and forced public health officials to consider how to ethically incorporate compliance into their already strained budgets, while maintaining the integrity and intent of the legislation.As of April 14, 2003, the HIPAA Privacy Rule provides a new federal floor of protections for personal health information. The Privacy Rule establishes standards for the protection of health information held by many physicians’ offices, health plans, and (...) health care clearinghouses. The Rule protects personal health information by establishing conditions regulating the use and disclosure of individually identifiable health information by these entities, also referred to as covered entities. The Rule does not prevent the daily operations of health care establishments. (shrink)

Zakat is a monetary form of religious worship that establishes a bridge between a rich and a poor, helps those who are in need and contributes to peace and tranquillity within a society. When zakat is collected properly under a government control and transmitted to those who deserve, it helped to decrease the gap between the poor and the rich, supported activities of social solidarity and revived the economy as well. Malaysia after its independence in 1957 has developed an interest (...) in Islamic practices by drawing attention to a distinctive practice with the public zakat system. Even though a national- central system of zakat could not be established due to the federal structure of the country, the collection and distribution of zakat has been centralized on a state level. Parts of the practice are being criticized, reviewed and new regulations are introduced. Unlike Malaysia, the zakat practice in Turkey is out of state control, thus it hinders zakat from achieving its real purpose. There is a need to make use of the well-functioning zakat systems around the world and establish a public zakat system in our country so that we can make the most of the benefits that zakat has for individuals and societies. This article aims to be a step in that direction. -/- SUMMARY Zakat is one of the main forms of worship and is at the same time one of the main sources for the state budget in Islam. It aims at making sure that the rich –those with higher wealth and income– protects the poor and the powerless and through this it contributes to the peace in the society. In the Islamic creed wealth in reality belongs to Allah; therefore, those who live an affluent life should not attribute their wealth to themselves alone and help those who, for whatever reason, are unable to meet their needs. Because there is a social dimension to this form of worship, it is the duty of the head of state to collect the zakat and distribute it to the right people. Historically this duty has taken different forms and today, many Muslim countries sustain this collection and redistribution under state supervision. Malaysia is a country where zakat is collected and distributed officially at the state level. In each state, there is an Islamic council responsible for taking care of activities related to Islam and is semi-independent from the government that organizes the zakat process. Some of these do the collection and distribution together, some do it separately. In some states, the process has been totally privatized. Constitutionally, each state is dependent on its own sultan in religious affairs, thus each has its own mufti and partially different zakat practices and eac collect and distributes its zakat within that state. Because religious affairs have been codified as the privilege of the sultans of each state in the constitution during Malaysia’s foundation, there is no attempt at centralizing religious affairs and a centralization of zakat practices; the establishment of an institution to achieve this is not possible. Moreover, the secular character of the federation does not seem yet compatible with making zakat obligatory. However, due to the dominant Shafi‘i tradition and the convention in the country, people see it as imperative to hand over the charity and tithe to state institutions. Furthermore, there are local fatwas – which are considered as legal regulations in Malaysia – that require people with an income over a certain amount to pay zakat. Those who have the most are expected to give it voluntarily. In the 19th century, when wealth sources such as palm oil, cacao, rubber, tin were discovered, Malaysian officials were not able to extend the tithe to these; however, in the last twenty-five years, based on fatwas that income should be taxable under zakat has led to a boom in zakat. In all states, the largest portion of zakat is collected through income, usually automatically deducted from payroll. An influential factor in this outcome is that individually paid zakat can be deducted from income tax. From 2005 on, there have been other regulations to make it possible for legal personalities to deduct zakat from taxes. To increase zakat payment, especially publications have been produced to inform and encourage people, and modern opportunities to make payment easy have been developed. The most often used method is direct deduction from payroll. The second most common method is payment through zakat machines in different parts of the city by cash, check, Islamic credit card and, debit card. In addition to these, online, internet banking, telephone banking, ATM machines, post offices, kiosk machines, sms-zakat options are all available. The distribution of zakat differs from year to year and state to state. In general, there is an observable effort to pay all groups from zakat, but because there are no slaves in some states no payment is done under this category. There are both direct transfers and indirect transfers, such as through the construction of houses for poor people. There have been cases where poor people who had projects were supported with funds and those later returned in zakat. There is support for students in terms of scholarships through fuqarā’, fī sabīl allāh and ibn al-sabīl classes. For the muallafa al-qulūb class, there is a foundation to encourage local people to convert to Islam and help them for food, shelter, clothes and education. For Muslims who suffer as minorities in other countries help is provided through the riqāb, muallafa al-qulūb, fī sabīl allāh and ibn al-sabīl classes. In the ghārimīn class, especially victims of natural disasters such as flood and earthquake are supported. For those who have a right to receive zakat be able to receive it, the state has to side with the powerless and help zakat fulfill its social and individual functions. The way zakat is spent requires state policy and will. For this reason, zakat should be institutionalized and all activities should be organized by a single institution with state power behind it. Determining the recipients and the zakat-payers, and using the funds efficiently is easier with the coordination of state institutions. Extensive zakat councils that include state institutions should consider the ijtihāds in the area of zakat anew and make decisions to create a just and consistent zakat system. For these decisions to be applicable, the question of what kind of a system could be founded in our country should be on the agenda in these councils. Once an institution – official or autonomous but with state power behind it- is created, solutions can be found as they arise in the way. (shrink)

The timing of the Japanese Government's acceptance of the United Nations multilateral treaties governing several environmental concerns indicates Japan's priorities: biodiversity, global warming, and depletion of the ozone layer. Banning transboundary movement of hazardous wastes is the least prioritized, as indicated by Japan's failure to accept the Ban Amendment to the Basel Convention. The Japanese Environment Agency's policy statements and budget allocations between 1985 and 2000, as well as other official statements and programs, likewise indicate the same priorities. Moreover, (...) of the three priorities, global warming is the top. (shrink)

Tax payments stimulate business enterprises to choose tax management through tax avoidance activities, which is the legal practice to reduce the amount of tax payable. In developing economies, taxation is considered more critical for budget and revenues of a country. This paper investigates whether various business strategies influence corporate tax avoidance decisions of firms by adopting business strategies. Besides, it explores how gender diversity can ease this relationship. This study has chosen a sample of organizations from non-financial sector in (...) Pakistan. The time frame is 5 years, including once a year. The present model employed a generalized moment method and tested the proposed hypothesis to draw the results. The study has taken the size, leverage, and business profitability as control variables of firms. The study outcomes by using the GMM method demonstrate that the presence of female directors reduces tax avoidance behavior in prospector companies. This study provides insight into future research for stakeholders, government officials, tax authorities, and policymakers. The findings offer valuable recommendations and practical insights and implications. The findings provide future directions for research to test different frameworks to attain beneficial results to promote the responsibility of tax payment culture. (shrink)

continent. 1.4 (2011): 242—252. Introduction The following two works were produced by visual artist Jonas Staal and writer Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei during a visit as artists in residence at The Bag Factory, Johannesburg, South Africa during the summer of 2010. Both works were produced in situ and comprised in both cases a public intervention conceived by Staal and a textual work conceived by Van Gerven Oei. It was their aim, in both cases, to produce complementary works that could (...) be read “through each other,” in which the movement of artistic construction would be imitated by textual deconstruction and vice versa. Both works deal with the way in which capital, apartheid, and monumentality are interwoven in South-African society. The Missing Link addresses a monument for democracy, erected on the premises of a private corporation running both an amusement park and the Apartheid Museum franchise. The textual intervention accompanying this public intervention investigates the limits of the inclusiveness of the anti-discrimination section in the South-African constitution, itself a monumental work of democracy. The Monument for the Distribution of Wealth deals with the history and eventual dissolution of a monumental square, commemorating the Soweto Uprising, in one of the poorest townships of Johannesburg. The history accompanying this public dismemberment of memory is equally fragmented, which is expressed by the many voices recounting uncertain and perhaps even irrelevant “facts” about the genius loci, the way in which the memorial space has actually entered into the memory of the inhabitants surrounding it. Next to their individual practices, Staal and Van Gerven Oei have worked together on a number of projects ever since 2007, including several art residencies. Their work involves an investigation of the different interfaces between art, politics, and public space in media ranging from theater and public interventions, to video installations and (co-authored) textual works. The Missing Link Missing Link (1) Missing Link (2) Missing Link (3) Intervention on the monument entitled The Seven Pillars of the Constitution , part of the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Seven Pillars represent the constitutional values propagated in South Africa since the abolition of the apartheid regime. The monument and museum were built by the Gold Reef Resorts corporation, which is also responsible for the theme park and casino next to it. By placing the word “capitalism” on the wall surrounding the museum, the capitalist system and the constant social divisions that it implies are interpreted as sophistic continuations of apartheid politics. Through the capitalist system, apartheid is still operational within South African society. Whereas during the apartheid regime, the separation clearly ran along race divisions, in the current, “democratic” system, the same actual separation is sustained without it being an explicit element of the foundations of the country, i.e. the constitution. This intervention foregrounds the constant role of capitalism is both periods. At the same time the intervention acknowledges that contemporary Western artisthood is a mirror of the privileges that are offered by the capitalist system, and the type of artist that it produces. The intervention initiates a critical discourse concerning the capitalist system situated within the disaster of capitalism itself, in other words: through the desire to break with the presumption that art would be able to operate outside the capitalist system and to confirm that art—and the artist himself—is in fact modeled on this system. The public intervention by Staal was supplemented by a textual intervention by Van Gerven Oei: a proposition to alter the seventeenth amendment of the South African constitution. Even though the anti-discrimination legislation in South-Africa is one of the most stringent and inclusive in the world, one factor—wealth—remains outside its scope, thus continuing the schisms along racial lines produced during the apartheid regime: §9.3. The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language, birth, and wealth. Monument for the Distribution of Wealth Intervention concerning the June 16 Memorial Acre in Central Western Jabavu, one of the poorest townships of Johannesburg. The monument comprises a park on which different are placed recalling an important protest the black population against the former apartheid regime. In 1976, from a school adjacent to the park, they started a massive protest against the introduction of Afrikaans in the school curriculum. The police reacted violently, and shot several hundreds of students. The construction of the June 16 Memorial Acre was started in 2005, and from the start was the paragon of corruption. Coordinated by local politicians, some family members of the protest leader from 1976 gained control of the realization of the monument, outside the regulation through external institutions. The available budget of 41 million rand (at that time well over 5 million euro) was largely embezzled. In the meantime, the monument has become fully dilapidated and defaced. The park has become overgrown with weeds and covered in a layer of dirt, and the local population is slowly plundering the square to use the material for the construction and decoration of their own houses. The Monument for the Distribution of Wealth develops the dynamics already existent around the June 16 Memorial Acre. Without obtaining official permission in advance, several local inhabitants were hired to break down the monument, sort the materials, and offer it to the neighborhood. Thus, the redistribution of wealth after the fall of the apartheid regime is finally taking place, albeit from the mere remains of the capital that was once invested in the community. The words “monument” and “for free” are spray-painted on the stacks of material, both in English and Zulu, as these are locally the most common languages. Van Gerven Oei supplemented Staal’s public intervention with an account of the history of the monument based on a series of interviews. The account clarifies how the different interests within the protest 1976 are reflected in the exceeding decay of the park, and how in the end those interests were represented by the June 16 Memorial Acre. Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 1: Removing stones Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 3: Pulling down statues Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 4: Offering the material Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 5: Offering the material Monument for the Distribution of Wealth 6 The next day A Fragmentary History of the Monument for the Distribution of Wealth, Formerly Known as the June 16 Memorial Acre in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei The following text, based on interviews and online research aims to provide parts of a history of the park in front of Morris Isaacson High School in Central Western Jabavu, Soweto. The idea for the transformation of the park into a memorial site has its source in the events of June 16, 1976: the start of the the student uprising in Soweto. The development of the park was started in the early 1980s, and the actual transformation into a memorial site, the June 16 Memorial Acre, was initiated in 2005. Over the last few years, several monumental additions have been made to the park: A marble monument with three pillars was revealed on June 16, 2006. A sculpture of a book and several billboards on June 16, 2008. A sculpture of student leader Tsietsi Mashinini on June 16, 2010. The park was transformed into the Monument for the Distribution of Wealth on August 3, 2010. According to the entry “Youth Struggle” on the website South African History Online, the Bantu Education Act was introduced in 1953 . In 1954 , Dr Verwoerd, Minister of Native Affairs, stated: “What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? That is quite absurd.” According to the entry “Soweto uprising” on Wikipedia, the Afrikaans Medium Decree was issued in 1974 , forcing all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50-50 mix as languages of instruction. The Regional Director of Bantu Education (Northern Transvaal Region), J.G. Erasmus, told Circuit Inspectors and Principals of Schools that from January 1, 1975 , Afrikaans had to be used for mathematics, arithmetic, and social studies from standard five (7th grade). English would be the medium for general science and practical subjects. Indigenous languages would be used for religion instruction, music, and physical culture. According the entry “Soweto uprising” on Wikipedia, on April 30, 1976 , students from the Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike, refusing to go to school. Their example was followed by other schools in Soweto. A student from Morris Isaacson High School, Toboho “Tsietsi” Mashinini, proposed a meeting on June 13, 1976 to discuss further action. According to Weizmann Hamilton’s article “The Soweto Uprising 1976,” which appeared in the September 1986 edition of Inqaba Ya Basebenzi (Fortress of the Revolution), on June 13, 1976 , the South African Students’ Movement called a meeting at the Donaldson Community Center in Orlando. 300-400 Students representing 55 schools decided to hold a mass demonstration on June 16. According to Brian Mokhele, member of the Joint Community Safety Forum, Dr Edelstein was the first victim of the Soweto uprising and killed the day before the march on June 15, 1976 . Edelstein was an administrator at the pass office in Jabavu and gave golf courses to the local community. Edelstein was put in a garbage bin and pierced by pickaxes. The garbage bin was left at the very spot of the murder for many years. A few years ago, a child was beheaded at the same spot, and the basketball court next to it has been abandoned since. According to Marcus Neustetter, founder of the Trinity Session, this story is untrue. According the entry “Soweto uprising” on Wikipedia, on June 16 , Tsietsi Mashinini led students from Morris Isaacson High School to join up with others who walked from Naledi High School. A crowd of between 3,000 and 10,000 eventually ended up near Orlando High School. According to Raymond Marlowe, a local photographer, Tsietsi Mashinini was heading the march. According to the entry “Hector Pieterson” on Wikipedia, Dr Edelstein died on June 16, 1976 , stoned to death by mob and left with a sign around his neck proclaiming “Beware Afrikaaners.” The first child to die that day was called Hastings Ndlovu. According to Pat Motsiri, Orlando West is claiming struggle heritage through the Hector Pieterson Museum, while Hector Pieterson was from Jabavu. According to Pat Motsiri, his generation effectively struggled between 1980 and 1991, forcing the release of Nelson Mandela and negotiations with the apartheid regime while the 1976-generation was safely in exile. Nevertheless, this has not been recognized in any monument. After the abolition of apartheid, the generation from 1976 returned from exile, occupied important government and ANC positions, creating an abundance of 1976 memorials and refusing to acknowledge that this was only possible because of the younger generation’s struggle. He calls this a generational conflict. According to Archibald Dlamini, the park officer responsible for the Memorial Acre, he started working for the municipality in 1978. In 1981/82 , Isaac Makhele from Pimville, who used to work in the cemetery business, was the first developer of the park. It used to be just a normal park until City Parks decided to develop the Memorial Acre in 2006. In 2007 the work was stopped by the community. According to Brian Mokhele, he left the country in 1989 after he participated in the riots of 1986. But when he returned in 1999 he found that nothing had changed. He says that they were promised to be protected by the Constitution, but that reality is different. The police uses fear to suppress them so that they don’t come out to talk openly. He has been arrested twice, both times harassed and tortured by the police, but in the end always released without indictment. He says that this is their way to threaten communities to back off from politics. According to Moses, who is sitting outside rolling a joint, Brian knows everything. He tells Brian to tell me everything he knows. According to Brian Mokhele, Tsietsi Mashinini was possibly murdered in 1990 during his exile in New York. Two weeks before he was supposed to return to South Africa, his papers in order, he was found dead under mysterious circumstances. His coffin was sealed when he was buried. According to Pat Motsiri, he came up with the idea for the Memorial Acre in 2003 . He submitted the documents for the proposal to the council, which sidelined him as soon as the budget came out in 2005 . According to Brian Mokhele, there was on estimation R 41,000,000 spent to redesign the park and turn it into the Memorial Acre. The millions were divided by Amos Masondo, the mayor of Soweto, the local councilor Bongani D. Zondi, and the director of the city of Johannesburg, Pat Lephunya. They were dividing the money between several contractors: Tsietsi Mashinini’s brothers were involved in the development of the park, they got the tender to do the green areas, the landscaping. Construction was done by other companies, some did the paving, the toilets, etc. EMBA, a private company appointed by the municipality was in control of the money flow, but the money was quickly gone. According to Raymond Marlowe, the contractor bought a BMW with the money. According to Archibald Dlamini, the Mashinini brothers got the tender, so the space would look more like the other places around in Soweto. It was agreed that after they were done, they would return the property to the municipality. They did whatever they could do. According to Mafaisa, a member of the Jabavu business community, he was one of the contractors for the landscaping and the pavement under Mpho Mashinini, one of the brothers. He says that I should contact Mavi for information on Mpho. According to Poi Stuurman, a local youth worker, Mafaisa is one of the guys who ran away with the money. According to Mavi, Mpho Mashinini was never a contractor. The contracts were organized by Sbu Butelezi, the former head of the Gauteng Department for Public Works. The June 16 Foundation and the Mashinini brothers will be the beneficiaries of the park when it is finished. According to Brian Mokhele, City Parks did not accept the Memorial Acre because it was not finished. The rest of the year, the unfinished park is not maintained, as should have happened. This was done deliberately so that in the end they can just clean the whole thing up and have a reason to redo the whole park. According to Brian Mokhele, the Mashinini brothers now work for the government. People that manipulate for money purposes always come from the government’s side. Because the park was left unfinished, the people from the neighborhood are taking away the stones to decorate their own homes with. According to Archibald Dlamini, because City Parks doesn’t accept responsibility of the park, he officially has nothing the guard, except for his cottage, which is municipal property. The thieves come at night and destroy the park, but he cannot do anything because he is sleeping. According to the website of the Thanda Foundation on June 16, 2006 a bronze statue of Hector Pieterson, the first child to die in the 1976 protests, made by Kobus Hattingh and Jacob Maponyane was unveiled in the Maponya Mall in Soweto. The statue is sculpted after the famous image shot by Sam Nzima of Mbuyisa Makhubo carrying the dead body of the boy. The sculpture was sponsored by the Thanda Foundation, founded by the Swedish entrepreneur Dan Olofsson and South-African entrepreneur Matthews Phosa. According to the official website of the City of Johannesburg, the Memorial Acre and Artwork were unveiled in 2006. According to a blog post on sowetouprisings.com, the Memorial Acre was still under development on July 24, 2006. According to Archibald Dlamini, City Parks only cleans up the park once a year just before the June 16 celebrations. Everybody is waiting for the Mashinini brothers to finish their job. The last time he talked with them was in 2007 . According to a sign on the school grounds of the Morris Isaacson High School, the June 16 Trail will be finished in 2008 . According to a blog post on sowetouprisings.com, the Memorial Acre contains another monument erected in Tsietsi’s honor. The monument was created as part of the Sunday Times Heritage Public Art program. Its physical form resembles a giant book which symbolizes the crisis in education experienced in 1976. On the face of the book is the map of the route taken by the students from Morris Isaacson High School in Central Western Jabavu to Phefeni Junior Secondary in Orlando West (currently the site of the Hector Pieterson Museum), while the back cover of the ‘book’ is inscribed with a tribute to Tsietsi Mashinini. The monument was revealed on June 16, 2008 . According to Marcus Neustetter, the billboards on the Memorial Acre were part of a school project realized in 2008. Following several workshops, the students from different high schools along the June 16 Trail were invited to work with artists on the billboards, while the neighborhood community was invited to watch the process during the festivities on June 15 and 16, 2008 . The billboards were supposed to be removed because of construction works on the Memorial Acre, which never ended up happening. According to Brian Mokhele, the former toilet facilities were converted into a house for the park officer. This park officer has been working for city parks for more than 12-15 years, but does nothing here, because the park, including the new toilet buildings, is not finished. The government is now moving around looking for people to take this job because they stopped it. They confronted everybody who was going in and chased them away. According to John, in 2009 , some girls, around 16 or 17 years old, were raped by four men who had been drinking in a local shebeen. When the bar quit they said that they would go home by car, but instead raped the girls on the Memorial Acre nearby. This happened in the unfinished toilets, because the doors couldn’t be closed. According to Brian Mokhele, there used to be some fences around the park because of the construction work that was eventually stopped, but these were also stolen. According to Archibald Dlamini, people from the neighborhood started about two and a half years ago, and the last piece was stolen near the end of 2009 . Sometimes he would catch someone with a roll of fence, and then use it for his own cottage. According to the official website of the City of Johannesburg, a statue of Tsietsi Mashinini by Johannes Pokhela was revealed on June 16, 2010 , “Youth Day.” According to Shirley Makutoane, deputy principal of Isaac Morrison High School, the statue of Tsietsi Mashinini, funded by the June 16 Foundation, has temporarily been placed within the school perimeter. The statue will be moved to the Memorial Acre when it will be finished, in 2011 . According to Brian Mokhele, beside the June 16 Foundation, there is also a June 16 Memorial Acre Foundation. Both foundations are quarreling about the money involved in the Memorial Acre project. Nobody knows who’s involved in them. According to Marcus Neustetter, the June 16 Foundation consists of people that were part of 1976 protest movement, local government officials, representatives of the Hector Pieterson Museum, and the council. According to students from the Isaac Morrison High School, the statue of Tsietsi Mashinini is on the school ground because on the Memorial Acre it would be vandalized by youths from White City, an adjacent neighborhood. Accorcing to Brian Mokhele, the statue of Tsietsi should eventually be mounted on the Memorial Acre. It is wrong that the statue is in the school at the moment, because it is not a public school. He wants the statues to depict the massiveness of the force that was coming into Soweto after the protests. According to Brian Mokhele, City Parks, City of Jo’burg, City Lights, and SAPS are making some sort of plan to take the plan back. They want to remove the trees from the Memorial Acre, and redesign the Memorial Acre into a relaxing park, without political content. They want to depoliticize the square. In doing so,they will have their own employment and not use local workforces. According to Brian Mokhele, the community wants to remove the monuments, amphitheater, and sculptures from the Memorial Acre because they do not resemble anything. The sculptures should be depicting the truth of what happened, because the Memorial Acre is a political heritage site. He wants to involve the people that actually participated in the struggle to make the monument so that everyone can enjoy it and get a better understanding of the struggle heritage. Therefore, he proposes collective ideology in which everyone has a say. This would prevent future vandalization of the monument. According to Pat Motsiri, the sculptures must depict the event around June 16, 1976. Like the story of Dr Edelstein, who was pierced by pickaxes, forced into a garbage bin and burned alive. According to Jonas Staal, the Memorial Acre should be destroyed, its elements stacked on pallets, thus forming the Monument for the Distribution of Wealth . According to Mafaisa, his men can do the work quickly. He has about twenty men working under him. (shrink)

The nation’s nuclear power industry is in trouble. The number of operating reactors continues to decline, while only one new plant is scheduled to open and it is well behind schedule and 50% over budget. The article will investigate the possibility of a nuclear revival in this country by first analyzing the troubled history of the light water reactor, a technology that dates back to the 1950s, and one the federal government choose to pursue to ensure America’s technological leadership, (...) and one the nuclear manufactures heavily promoted to ensure profitability. All of this resulted in a rush to nuclear power in the 1960s, but abruptly ended a little more than a decade later, due largely to the exorbitant costs of constructing a nuclear plant. The article then discusses the chances of a nuclear comeback, focusing on new reactor designs, which are less complex and cheaper to construct but will be dependent upon how seriously global warming is viewed by the public and elected officials. (shrink)

Source: Author: Leonila C. Crisostomo, Ma. Teresa G. Generales, Amelita L. de Guzman The primary purpose of this study is to ascertain the benefits of the National Service Training Program implementation and to identify the problems encountered by its implementers. Results showed that the benefits derived from the program were topped by enhancement of skills on basic leadership with emphases on the ability to listen and ability to communicate which were rated very important and very much benefited among other training (...) aspects of the program. Results also revealed that students are aware of the importance of physical, mental and social health as well as the observance of proper hygiene for overall sense of well-being. Although recreation is one aspect that the respondents find important, appreciation of it underscores the need to have more time for assignments and projects as most of the respondents are enrolled in their respective courses with 29 units, making them unable to appreciate the perks of involving themselves into various recreational activities. Problems in the implementation showed lack of provision of materials and equipment and of budgetary allocation which rendered full implementation weak as students and faculty involved in the community immersion have to rely on their own resources, in addition to the indifference and passivity of the local government officials. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended that: the school administrators need to allocate adequate budget for materials and equipment; periodic faculty development trainings and; to look into the passive attitude of the local officials to ensure that implementation NSTP projects will benefit both clients and implementers. ]]>. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Eminently Practical Mr. Hume or Still Relevant After AU These Years Nancy Davlantes The practice, therefore, of contracting debt will almost infallibly be abused, in every government. It would scarcely be more imprudent togive aprodigal son a credit in every banker's shop in London, than to impower a statesman to draw bills, in this manner, upon posterity. (David Hume, Political Discourses, 1752) If we do not act promptly, (...) the imbalances in the economy are such that the effects ofthe deficit will be increasingly felt and with some immediacy. (Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, 1988) When David Hume penned his essays some 250 years ago, he was concerned that Britain's rising national debt — a debt fueled by war andpoor debt management that saw fit to mortgage thepublic revenues, and to trust that posterity will pay offthe incumbrances contracted by their ancestors — would eventually bankrupt the country. What the poor man might think ofa country facing a budget deficit of $155 billion, a trade deficit of some $130 billion, and a national debt — can you count the zeroes? — of a staggering $2.6 trillion, one can only imagine. Now imagination, as it happens, plays a central role in Hume's science ofman — it is the imagination, after all, that is free to separate, combine, and transpose its ideas — but asking it to conceive ofthe U.S. economy as it nears the end ofthe 20th century might indeed by asking too much. Was Hume particularly prescient? Probably not. What he was was a keen observer of the human experience who believed the principles of human nature formed the foundation of the four sciences of logic, morals, criticism, and politics. And in those four sciences, he wrote, is comprehended almost every thing, which it can any way import us to be acquainted with, or which can tend either to the improvement or ornament ofthe human mind. It is within the science of politics that considers men as united in society, and dependent on each other (T xv) that Hume wrote his nine Volume XVI Number 1 45 NANCY DAVLANTES economie essays, all but one ofwhich were published in 1752 under the title?? Political Discourses. Before taking a look at the essays themselves, some consideration should be given to Hume's place in the history of economic thought, to his contributions to that "dismal science," and especially to some of the underlying principles in his science of Man. The World as Hume Knew It David Hume wrote in an England in which much of the groundwork had been laid for the Industrial Revolution that was officially to begin in the latter 18th century. It was a time oftransition, between the dying years of a guild system controlled by artisans and a rising merchant class that both owned the materials and marketed the finished goods, between a primarily agrarian society of landowners and tenants and one increasingly urban as the centers ofindustry andproduction moved into the cities. Hume, while it is unlikely that he foresaw the enormous social and economic upheavals that were to come with the mechanization of industry and the development of an extensive factory system, was certainly aware that an evolution was taking place in society, and one he was emphatic in his approval of. As he himself says in his essay, "On Interest," But when men's industry encreases, and their views enlarge, it is found, that the most remote parts ofthe state can assist each other as well as the more contiguous, and that this intercourse ofgood offices may be carried on to the greatest extent and intricacy. Hence the origin of merchants, one of the most useful races ofmen... Merchants... beget industry, by serving as canals to convey it through every corner ofthe state. In praise of the merchant class he differed from his close friend Adam Smith, for whom "merchants were more often anti-social monopolists than beneficent promoters of well-being." That is not to say that Hume thought all was rosy — indeed, as quoted above, he was alarmed at the Britain's mounting public debt, and no doubt realized that a growing landless class would bring with it a host of social issues and... (shrink)

The international community has adopted and endorsed an ambitious global development agenda for the period 2015–2030 in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 2 seeks to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. This reflects a broad international consensus on the unacceptability of hunger articulated previously at the 1996 World Food Summit and reiterated at the 2008 High-Level Conference on World Food Security. In 2009, at their L’Aquila Summit, the G8 heads of state and government (...) pledged a significant expansion of aid to agriculture, in order to address the global food-price spike of the preceding year. However, serious global policy incoherence severely undermines this apparent political will to end hunger and boost developing-country agriculture. In particular, although official development assistance to agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa (hunger’s center of gravity) doubled between 2003 and 2012, the share of total global aid going to agriculture, at just 5% in 2014, is well below the 20% share of the mid-1980s. In addition, donor-country agricultural trade and security policies often undercut support for agricultural development in the Global South. Furthermore, there is incoherence within donor policies on aid to agriculture, which tend to focus more on promoting commercialization and exports than on boosting smallholder productivity and the economic empowerment of women farmers. For their part, developing-country governments have not fulfilled pledges to increase their own agricultural development budgets (as seen in the African Union Declarations of Maputo and Malabo), and the bulk of those budgets go to recurrent expenditure rather than development investments. In Sub-Saharan Africa, military expenditures account for a greater share of public funds. This paper suggests that while policy makers in both the Global South and North treat food security and agricultural development as priorities, these remain in a relatively low position on policy agendas because other concerns respond to much stronger constituencies. (shrink)

American policymakers delegate the administration of many welfare programs to states, where officials implement them in increasingly diverse ways. Welfare state scholarship has little to say about this subnational policy divergence, and it portrays the complexity of delegated governance as a barrier to nonelite legislative influence. Drawing on an ethnographic study of one state’s Medicaid program, this article shows that delegated governance offers ample opportunity for nonelite influence and policy divergence, but through regulatory governance rather than legislative advocacy. Medicaid (...) is opaque to politicians, whose inability to monitor program details creates conditions of bureaucratic autonomy and even activism: health-care agency personnel sequence regulatory tweaks to protect and expand entitlements. But budget cuts, outsourcing, and fraught provider relations also deprive bureaucrats of street-level know-how, and bureaucrats depend on beneficiaries’ advocates who selectively illuminate a path to reform. A full rendering of subnational divergence in American federalism requires attention to underexamined factors such as bureaucratic activism, agency advocacy, and regulatory governance. (shrink)

The foregoing proposals are examples of inexpensive projects in science and technology in the developing countries; they are feasible even in a time of shrinking budgets. Although they are based on actually perceived needs, none of them is a certainty. They are no more than efforts to open the path of exploration, put forward with the intention of arousing the imagination and will of scientists and officials, governmental and academic.We still know little about the institutional workings of science. There (...) is no body of systematically studied experience available to us in such a domain as that discussed above. It is mainly through interest, enthusiasm, and above all a dogged perseverance and incessant readiness to try new things that we can make progress towards the goal. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Realm Without Angels: MENCs Partnerships with Disney and Other Major Corporations Julia EkIund Koza University of Wisconsin-Madison My interest in partnerships between the MENC: The National Association for Music Educators and major corporations such as Disney dates back to 1996 when I was invited to attend a free premiere screening of the movie Mr. Holland 's Opus.1 Never one to turn down anything free, in January of that (...) year I joined more than twenty-fivethousandmusiceducators, administrators, and friends ofthe arts, who gathered at fiftyone locations across the nation to watch the movie. Sponsored and promoted by theNational Coalition for Music Education, ofwhich MENC is a member, in cooperation with the National AcademyofRecordingArts and Sciences Foundation, the American Music Conference, and Hollywood Pictures (a Disney subsidiary), the promotional screening was the result of an education/business partnership. I did not like the film much even though I agreed with its message that public schools and public school music should be adequately funded, and I was sorry that MENC had entered into a partnership to promote it. Part ofthe problem may have been timing. I had recentlyreturned froma parental leave during whichIhad sufferedseriouspostpartumcomplications and had struggled fornearly a yearwithpoor health. January 1996 found me trying to figure out how I would manage a full-blown academic career, my still fragile health, and a lively child. Ibristledatthevisionsofprofessionalismfostered by Mr. Holland's Opus, recognizing that I would never again have the luxury he did of indulging myselfuninterruptedly in my career; I knew that I might never again be seen as a "real professional " even though I was more exhausted and working harder than I ever had. From my perspective the film's images of teachers, teaching, andprofessionalismwereprofoundlymasculinist; I also knew that a popular film can play a powerful role in shapingpublic imaginaries. Who tends tobenefit fromtheperpetuationoftheseimagesof teachers, teaching, and professionalism, I wondered? Who tends to be harmed? So my first step on this journey was to write a critique of Mr. Holland's Opus. I soon discovered that the film itselfwas but one small part of a much larger story about MENCs deepening involvement in education /business partnerships. One of the main themes of Mr. Holland's Opus is that budget cuts can have devastating effects on music programs. The education/business partnership forged to promote Opus and the manner in which the film was promoted suggested that the corporate world is socially responsible and genuinely concerned both aboutthe quality ofAmerican education and the demise of music education. In no way did they intimate that corporate practices may be at least partially responsible for any declines in the quality ofpublic schooling. I was also aware, however, of a corpus of scholarship suggesting that recent trends toward corporate partnerships and philanthropy are window-dressing at a time when corporations are sneaking out the back door carrying everything else in the store. Critics contend that on the one hand, corporationsengageinmuchpublicizedacts of gift-giving or school partnership, which cost the corporations relatively little (or in the case of Opus, result in considerable financial profit for the corporation), while on the other hand, they chisel away at the financial infrastructure of©Philosophy ofMusic Education Review 10, no. 2 (Fall, 2002): 72-79. Julia Eklund Koza 73 schools with unrelenting demands for special corporate tax cuts, breaks, and incentives. This practice is especially detrimental to the arts because, relegated to the feminized status of "frill," they may be among the first subjects to suffer. Tax breaks are but one example of what critics term "corporate welfare." John Hood, in Policy Review, provides a list ofincentives states use to attract and keep corporations. In addition to tax abatements and tax credits, Hood mentions land giveaways, releases from infrastructure costs, the issuanceoftax-exemptdevelopmentbonds, offers to promote products, and job training packages. These deals are unfair to existing businesses, Hood argues, especially small ones that can never hope to receive such treatment, and he concludes that there is no clear-cut evidence these forms of corporate welfare benefit state economies.2 Accordingto JayTaylor, school-business partnerships have become increasingly popular; they quadrupled between 1982 and 1992 as financially strappeddistricts found themselves "dredgingfor dollars."3 Taylor explains that "school officials... (shrink)

Universal access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) in Chad was officially declared in December 2006. This presidential initiative was and is still funded 100% by the country’s budget and external donors’ financial support. Many factors have triggered the spread of AIDS. Some of these factors include the existence of norms and beliefs that create or increase exposure, the low-level education that precludes access to health information, social unrest, and population migration to areas of high economic opportunities and gender-based discrimination. Social (...) forces that influence the distribution of dimensions of well-being and shape risks for infection also determine the persistence of access barriers to ART. The universal access policy is quite revolutionary but should be informed by the systemic barriers to access so as to promote equity. It is not enough to distribute ARVs and provide health services when health systems are poorly organized and managed. Comprehensive access to ART raises many organizational, ethical and policy problems that need to be solved to achieve equity in access. This paper argues that the persistence of access barriers is due to weak health systems and a poor public health leadership. AIDS has challenged health systems in a manner that is essentially different from other health problems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Blossoming of Bioethics at NIHEzekiel J. Emanuel (bio)The establishment of the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has coincided with a burgeoning of interest and activity related to bioethical issues at NIH. The department has precipitated a reexamination and revitalization of existing bioethics activities in the Clinical Center and has launched new programs especially in the (...) areas of education and research. In addition, the department contributes to the work of others throughout NIH who address bioethical issues.The Organizational Location of the Department of Clinical BioethicsBefore describing the history and current activities of the Department of Clinical Bioethics, I will say something about it administrative location. Comprehension of the department’s organizational location is essential to understanding its history, role, and function. Prior to interviewing for the position of chair of the department, I did not—and, if truth be told, still do not fully—understand the details of the organizational structure of NIH. I therefore assume that many other bioethicists outside of the Institutes, especially those who do not regularly receive NIH funding, may not fully grasp its organizational intricacies.The Department of Clinical Bioethics is a department within the Warren G. Magnuson Clinical Center, which is NIH’s “hospital.” Hospital is in quotes because all of the patients at the Clinical Center must be enrolled in a research protocol and, therefore, are research subjects. The Clinical Center is where NIH’s clinical researchers admit their research subjects or see them in the out-patient setting. The Department of Clinical Bioethics reports directly to the Director of the Clinical Center, John I. Gallin, M.D., and receives its finances, space, and other resources from the Clinical Center.In this way, the department is part of NIH’s intramural (“inside”) program. People employed by NIH conduct intramural research, training, and other initiatives. The extramural program, which receives approximately 87 percent of NIH’s budget, funds research at institutions outside NIH. The extramural program awards grants and contracts for research, training, and conferences conducted [End Page 455] by investigators who are not affiliated with NIH. The National Human Genome Research Institute’s ELSI (Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications) program, for example, is part of NIH’s extramural program. As part of the NIH intramural program, the Department of Clinical Bioethics is not empowered to fund independent initiatives of people outside of NIH through grants and contracts. However, the department can collaborate with bioethicists and others on research, educational, and other programs outside of NIH and has some funds to support these collaborations.In addition, it is important for bioethicists to understand that NIH is a collection of 24 institutes and centers. Although there is coordination and collaboration between the institutes and centers, each is funded separately, and each has its own scope, programs, administrative structures, research agendas, training priorities, boards of advisors, and so forth. In this sense, NIH is more like a university that has many distinct schools, each with its own dean, faculty, budget, and fund raising office, than one that is tightly integrated and centrally-administered. Within NIH’s diffuse administrative structure, the Department of Clinical Bioethics is located within one of the centers (the Clinical Center) and has defined authority and responsibility only for bioethics within that center; in addition, because the Clinical Center’s mission is to support clinical research at other institutes, the department’ mission includes supporting the work of those institutes as well. Intellectual exchanges and relationships with other institutes and centers are neither pre-ordained nor administratively established; such relationships must be developed case-by-case, topic-by-topic, and initiative-by-initiative.The History and the Development of the Department of Clinical BioethicsThe Department of Clinical Bioethics was launched in late 1996. Although the department’s creation marked a major commitment to bioethics by the Clinical Center, and especially by its director, Dr. Gallin, it was formed on a pre-existing foundation of bioethics activities at NIH. 1In 1977, John Fletcher, Ph.D., was appointed by then Director Mortimer Lipsett as the bioethicist at the Clinical Center; his official title was Assistant for Bioethics... (shrink)

The urgent need to address climate change poses a range of complex moral and practical concerns, not least because rising to the challenge will require cooperation among countries that differ greatly in their wealth, the extent of their contributions to the problem, and their vulnerability to environmental and economic shocks. This thesis by publication in the field of climate ethics aims to characterise a range of national responsibilities associated with acting on climate change (Part I), and to identify proposals for (...) fulfilling those responsibilities through fair and feasible institutional arrangements (Part II). I aim not only to address substantive gaps in scholarly understanding of those responsibilities, but also to strengthen the ability of climate ethics to engage meaningfully with climate policy. Chapter 2 addresses the question of whether wealthy countries owe a “climate debt” to poor countries. It finds that even if climate debt (suitably interpreted) may provide a coherent and morally plausible concept, its political value as a discursive frame that can provide a basis for cooperation is limited. Chapter 3 investigates the role that equity may play in negotiations on a long-term climate change agreement. It argues that developed and developing countries may reach a “principled bargain” if both converge on a way of differentiating their responsibilities that places less emphasis on a rigid dichotomy between the two groups and more emphasis on objective criteria relating to their contribution to the problem and capacity to address it. Chapter 4 explores a question largely overlooked in climate ethics, namely whether wealthy countries owe compensation to those who are adversely affected by the climate policies which they enact. I find that enacting countries have responsibilities to compensate both domestic and foreign citizens who would suffer disproportionate losses from the effects of policies. Chapter 5 assesses whether wealthy countries may legitimately adopt unilateral (or “fragmented”) rather than multilaterally coordinated approaches to raising climate finance for developing countries. It finds that coordinated target-setting, effort sharing and oversight arrangements are essential, but that a mix of unilateral and coordinated approaches to raising funds will be necessary for securing legitimacy. In Chapter 6, through addressing the broader question of what should count as official aid, I consider whether wealthy countries may draw on aid budgets to support developing countries’ efforts to address climate change. I find that the current definition of official aid should be retained but supplemented by specified exclusions from eligibility in order to preserve the aid regime’s integrity. Nevertheless, some climate finance may justifiably be counted as aid provided that concerns relating to the diversion of aid funding are addressed. In addressing these research questions, the thesis seeks not only to make original theoretical contributions to climate ethics but also to strengthen broader scholarly understanding of the ways in which ethics and international public policy may inform one another, particularly by highlighting the role of framing considerations (Chapter 2), feasibility considerations (Chapter 3), and the ways in which principles of fairness and legitimacy map onto institutional functions (Chapters 4, 5 and 6). (shrink)

We analyse solidarity as a mixture of social justice on the onehand and a set of cultural values and ascriptions on the otherhand. The latter defines the relevant sense of belonging togetherin a society. From a short analysis of the early stages of theDutch welfare state, we conclude that social responsibility wasoriginally based in religious and political associations. In theheyday of the welfare state, institutions such as sick funds,hospitals or nursing homes became financed collectively entirelyand became accessible to people of (...) all denominations. Solidaritywas transformed in a more general category, related to the statusof Dutch citizenship. Responsibility was transformed tocollective responsibility.Financial pressures on the Welfare State have resulted in adebate on choices in health care and in a number of systemreforms, so far relatively small. In the surrounding discourse,justice was linked to private responsibility. Both fromgovernment officials and from participants in the societaldebate, moralistic overtones could be heard concerning the threatof overburdening of the health care system by citizens.In this paper, we develop a concept of reflexive solidarity thatlinks elements of social justice to conceptualisations ofresponsibility that address policy makers and health careinstitutions as well as citizens, in their role of carereceivers. A short analysis of the phenomenon of personal budgetsin care services should prove that our concept of reflexivesolidarity is not empty. Linked to, but beyond the concept ofjustice, issues of social responsibility can be addressed withoutmoralistic overtones. (shrink)

Introduction. The scientific literature notes that in countries with significant revenues from oil and gas production, there is less economic growth. This paradox has been called the «resource curse». The abundance of hydrocarbons negatively affects the domestic political situation: it worsens the quality of public administration, preserves autocratic rule and corruption. The presence of such natural resources significantly increases the threat of armed conflict, civil war. M. Ross stated that the country’s oil and gas wealth prevents women from participating in (...) the official workforce and reduces their political influence. His argument is based on three statements: in low- and middle-income countries, women usually get jobs in low-paid export-oriented factories; preserving these jobs can expand women’s opportunities for self-realization in social and political terms; the presence of significant reserves of oil (or other minerals) in the state makes such traditional branches of industrial industry unprofitable and, more broadly, does not encourage women to work outside the home. As a result, hydrocarbon wealth in low- and middle-income countries tends to close an important path to gender equality. -/- The purpose of the work is to test M. Ross’s hypothesis. The author seeks to get an answer to the following research question: what impact do hydrocarbons have on the level of representation of women in the labor force and the deputy corps of legislatures of the subjects of the Russian Federation? Is there a «gender resource curse»? -/- Methods. Regression analysis has become the method of data analysis. The source of information for panel data is Rosstat data. -/- Scientific novelty of the research. This study contributes to the academic debate on the factors of women’s representation in politics and the economic sphere. -/- Results. The conducted research showed that M. Ross’s thesis about the «oil patriarchy» and the «gender Dutch disease» on the statistical data of the subjects of the Russian Federation has not been empirically verified. -/- Conclusions. The author has outlined several explanations for this result. It is shown that this is due to the difference in the operationalization of the independent variable. Secondly, the analysis is carried out at the subnational level, when revenues from the activities of oil and gas companies go to the federal budget. Finally, there is an impact of socio-cultural factors. (shrink)

Observations from the Point of View of the Relationship between Economy and EthicsThe main goal of this review is not to discuss the different lectures one by one in order of appearance. In my opinion, it will be much more interesting to analyze the symposium thematically. First, I will discuss the way in which the problem of external debt as such has been presented. Secondly, I will focus on the different points of view from which the problem has been discussed. (...) Finally, I will reflect on the different arguments that have been formulated.The problem of external debt as such was presented by Prof. Garcia . He provided a detailed factual analysis of the problem, well illustrated and presented in its different aspects. Via official figures he showed the implications of external debt for the Third World countries as well as for the First World countries. What are the economic implications for both parties? For HIPC countries, the amount of total debt is situated between 200 and 300 percent of their annual export value and between 3 and 6 times their total annual GNP. For First World countries on the other hand, the cost of debt cancellation is equal to 1/6 of the UK military budget, to one-year's expenditure on cinema in the USA, or to one-year's expenditure on chocolate in the UK.On the social level he points to the following: nowadays, payments by the southern countries, corresponding to the external debt, are four times the official development aid sent by the northern countries. As a result of these payments, public expenditure on basic goods and services for the poorest population of the world is dramatically reduced. From a political point of view this means that the poorest and most excluded people of the world are paying the price for contracted loans about which they did not have anything to say. These were decisions made by the elites and most of the time guided by bad management or even by corruption. The poorest people have never benefited from these decisions, but at present they are undergoing the consequences of the debt. Garcia also shows that the problem of external debt in the South is not a matter of private, commercial affairs, but a matter of the public sector and of social justice. This means that debts are an issue of international politics and debt reduction a matter of international political willingness. (shrink)

Participatory Budgeting has by now been widely discussed, often celebrated, and is now instituted in at least 1,500 cities worldwide. Some of its central features—its structure of open meetings, its yearly cycle, and its combination of deliberation and representation—are by now well known. In this article, however, we critically reflect on its global travel and argue for more careful consideration of some of its less well-known features, namely the coupling of the budgeting meetings with the exercise of power. We disaggregate (...) PB into its communicative and empowerment dimensions and argue that its empowerment dimensions have usually not been part of its global expansion—and this is cause for concern from the point of view of emancipation. We thus discuss the specific institutional reforms associated with empowerment in the original version as well as its analytic dimensions. We also address some of the specific dangers of a communication-only version of PB as well as some suggestions for reintroducing empowerment. (shrink)

Consider the following two (hypothetical) generic causal claims: “Living in a neighborhood with many families with children increases purchases of bicycles” and “living in an affluent neighborhood with many families with children increases purchases of bicycles.” These claims not only differ in what they suggest about how bicycle ownership is distributed across different neighborhoods (i.e., “the data”), but also have the potential to communicate something about the speakers’ values: namely, the prominence they accord to affluence in representing and making decisions (...) about the social world. Here, we examine the relationship between the level of granularity with which a cause is described in a generic causal claim (e.g., neighborhood vs. affluent neighborhood) and the value of the information contained in the causal model that generates that claim. We argue that listeners who know any two of the following can make reliable inferences about the third: 1) the level of granularity at which a speaker makes a generic causal claim, 2) the speaker’s values, and 3) the data available to the speaker. We present results of four experiments (N=1,323) in the domain of social categories that provide evidence in keeping with these predictions. (shrink)

This paper presents a preliminary analysis of the first participatory budgeting experiment in the United States, in Chicago's 49th Ward. There are two avenues of inquiry: First, does participatory budgeting result in different budgetary priorities than standard practices? Second, do projects meet normative social justice outcomes? It is clear that allowing citizens to determine municipal budget projects results in very different outcomes than standard procedures. Importantly, citizens in the 49th Ward consistently choose projects that the research literature classifies as (...) low priority. The results are mixed, however, when it comes to social justice outcomes. While there is no clear pattern in which projects are located only in affluent sections of the ward, there is evidence of geographic clustering. Select areas are awarded projects like community gardens, dog parks, and playgrounds, while others are limited to street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs, bike racks, and bike lanes. Based on our findings, we offer suggestions for future programmatic changes. (shrink)

Publication date: 21 March 2019 Source: Author: Viktoriia Varenyk Budget safety, as a component of financial security, depends on the results of the implementation of an effective state financial and economic policy as the basis for the achievement of national interests. Effective using of the budget, namely, effective management of the state's cash flows, should ensure the regulation of economic and social processes in the interests of society, and create stable conditions for economic development of the country. (...) class='Hi'>Budget policy is an integral part of the state's financial policy and as one of the driving forces of Ukraine's development implies further stabilization of public finances, ensuring economic growth and raising standards of living for the maintenance of balanced development of the state. In today's conditions of development, the state faces the task of ensuring the balance and stability of the state budget against adverse external influences, establishing effective management of the country's cash flows, establishing effective budget and monetary policy, as well as long-term fiscal sustainability and stability. In recent years, to overcome this task, control over the activities of financial institutions has intensified, as a result they guided by the principles of responsible management of public finances, aimed at introducing the principles of medium-term financial planning, the availability of a system of forecasting budget parameters, ensuring the feasibility of economic forecasts, and creating and maintaining necessary financial reserves. (shrink)

The budget-voting paradox states that, when social alternatives are proper subsets of a finite set of decisions, choosing decision-wise according to the majority rule may select an alternative that is covered in the majority tournament among alternatives. Individual preferences are defined on single decisions, and are extended to preferences over the alternative set by means of a preference extension rule. We prove the existence of the paradox for any rank-based, monotone, and independent extension rule.

While researchers have identified numerous problems with food systems, sustainable, just, and workable solutions remain scarce. Recent developments in the food justice literature, however, show which local food movements favor sustainability and justice as problem-solving measures. Yet, some of the ways that these approaches could work in concert are overlooked. Through focusing on how they are compatible, we can understand how such endeavors can improve the conditions for community control and reduce the detrimental effects of agribusiness. In this paper, the (...) author proposes a participatory budgeting project that involves a relatively new process called “vertical agriculture” to alleviate some of the harm that current agricultural practices cause. In turn, we see how such a measure can improve the integrity of municipal governance and reshape the power structures that control food systems. (shrink)

In late 2019, He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who created the world's first gene‐edited babies, and two embryologists were sentenced to prison and fined. Thirteen months earlier, when the world first learned about the experiment, He and his colleagues drew swift and nearly uniform international condemnation for prematurely moving to human trials, for the risks they took with the children's health, and for He's secrecy. The organizing committee for the second genome editing summit said the experiment failed to conform with (...) international norms.” In the United States, the legal picture is complex. No doubt the specific experiment He performed would have run afoul of long‐standing research regulations due to its problems with informed consent and ethical review. But other laws also affect this kind of work, in particular, a budget rider that for the past four years has been included in federal appropriations legislation. (shrink)

This paper poses a puzzle for contemporary Kantian political philosophy. Kantian political philosophers hold that the state’s purpose is to secure the conditions for people’s innate right to equal freedom, while at the same time claiming that innate right does not give a determinate set of conditions that the state is to bring about. Officials, then, have to make decisions in cases where the considerations of innate right provide no further guidance. I argue that, intuitively, in such cases there (...) are (i) some further considerations that officials may appeal to and (ii) some further considerations that officials may not appeal to in order to decide among the options consistent with people’s innate right and then raise difficulties for the ability of current Kantian accounts to explain how they can accept both (i) and (ii). I conclude by suggesting one potential path forward for Kantians to address this puzzle. (shrink)

Revered by over a billion Muslims and studied by generations of scholars, the Qurʾān has been translated from classical Arabic into several dozen languages.

The extent of our duties to mitigate climate change is commonly conceptualized in terms of temperature goals like the 1.5°C and the 2°C target and corresponding emissions budgets. While I do acknowledge the political advantages of any framework that is relatively easy to understand, I argue that this particular framework does not capture the true extent of our mitigation duties. Instead I argue for a more differentiated approach that is based on the well-known distinction between subsistence and luxury emissions. At (...) the heart of this approach lies the argument that we have no budget of substantial, net-positive luxury emissions left. In a world in which dangerous climate change has begun, we must expect all further substantial, net-positive luxury emissions to cause harm. Since they lack the kind of justification needed for them to be nevertheless permissible, I conclude that we must stop emitting them with immediate effect. I also briefly discuss the difficult case of subsistence emissions and offer some first thoughts on the morality of a third category of emissions, what I call ‘transition emissions’. (shrink)