Play Nice or Pick a Fight? Cooperation as an Interest Group Strategy at Implementation

The open, multilevel nature of U.S. policymaking enables interest group activity throughout the policy process. At policy implementation, groups attempt to secure benefits or ameliorate legislated effects by devising cooperative or conflictual strategies to influence outcomes, especially when agency officials have discretion to design rules and negotiate agreements. Investigating group “street‐level” activity with respect to the Endangered Species Act, this research finds that policy context and resources shape the degree of information and access available to groups, which influences the strategies groups adopt. Groups with access and specialized information will attempt to change or influence policy outcomes cooperatively. Groups with limited technical information are more likely to fight implementation.     

Funding Faction or Buying Silence? Grants,Contracts, and Interest Group Lobbying Behavior

During the past decade, numerous congressional bills and amendments have attempted to curtail lobbying by nonprofit organizations that receive federal grants. These policy efforts grow out of an assumption that federal funds are encouraging advocacy at levels that are excessive and encourage additional government spending. Using survey data on more than 700 organizations based in Washington, DC, this article tests this assumption. The data show that for the most part, organizations receiving federal grants and contracts lobby no more frequently than similar organizations that do not receive such benefits. The exception is contacting federal agencies, which charitable organizations receiving federal funds do slightly more often than similar organizations without such funds. A multivariate analysis assesses federal funding together with other variables theorized to affect lobbying—federal tax status, resource levels, and the nature of the lobbying issue—confirming that while these other variables affect lobbying levels, federal funding does not.     

织绣文物中的寿字装饰

我国于汉代已经在织锦的铭文中使用寿字.到明清时期,寿字与象征长寿的仙桃、菊花、仙鹤及寓意连绵万代的葫芦、字和寓意喜庆幸福的灯笼、蝙蝠等组成吉祥图案。寿宇的字体也随着时代的发展而不断丰富。本文按时代顺序将寿字的字形排列梳理,不仅可供读者了解其丰富的文化内涵.而且根据寿宇的字形变化.可作为判断织绣文物年代的一种依据。     

Left-behind and Vulnerable? Conceptualising Development and Older Women’s Agency in Rural China

Abstract:

Concern has been growing recently in China about the well-being of children, women and the elderly “left behind” on the farm when family members leave the village in search of waged work. Increasingly, the left-behind are portrayed in academic and policy discourse as a “vulnerable group” of passive dependants, sidelined by modernisation and abandoned by their families. This paper challenges this discourse, arguing that while attention to the well-being of the left-behind is vital, there is an urgent need for a shift in focus from their vulnerability to their agency. The paper focuses on the agency of left-behind women between the ages of 50 and 80. It aims, first of all, to point the way toward an empirically richer understanding of the social construction of older women’s agency and well-being. The second aim of the paper is to suggest how different conceptualisations of “agency” and “older women” might contribute to more ethical and politically effective strategies for development and the improvement of women’s well-being. To further these two aims, the paper draws on fieldwork conducted in rural Ningxia, north-western China, and on critiques of the “capability approach” to development expounded by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.     

The Cultural Queasiness Factor: Intersections of Gender,Sexuality and HIV Prevention in Burma/Myanmar

The Ministry of Health in Burma/Myanmar considers HIV its first priority in disease prevention, and HIV prevention represents a significant element of the work of many of the international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) based in the country (CBI, 2006; Ministry of Health, 2008). Yet inBurma/Myanmar, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, there is a “cultural queasiness” around HIV. This queasiness is a dis-ease of the emotions, transmitted through the ongoing linking of HIV transmission with “bad behaviour” (resulting, in part, from HIV prevention's own repeated use of a “risk group” approach). Indeed, the mere existence of HIV prevention work, inand of itself, sparks waves of cultural queasiness because it transgresses the norms regarding which topics are considered appropriate for public airing, and which are not. Through reference to empirical research involving in-depth interviews and observation of field work practice, this article demonstrates how the desire to minimise this queasiness can result in disavowal of the experiential and emotional complications so deeply embedded in HIV prevention and HIV transmission. Thus HIV prevention both is affected by, and reinforces, cultural queasiness.     

Smart Growth Policy Choice: A Resource Dependency and Local Governance Explanation

Smart growth is a planning and land use policy objective that generally focuses on where development should occur and how best to protect natural resources. What explains the adoption of smart growth policy by local government? This study focuses on a cooperative intergovernmental program that seeks to enhance local government abilities to work toward achieving state goals on sustainability. Extant research suggests that local interest group preferences shape policy decisions. However, much of the evidence on the influence of local interest groups on smart growth policy is presented within the coercive intergovernmental context. This article argues that resource dependency influences local decisions in pursuing a smart growth agenda when state incentives are provided. The findings suggest that fiscal capacity and the characteristics of local governing institutions are significant predictors in the decision to take part in an intergovernmental program. Business and neighborhood interest groups have a significant effect on policy adoption, as do local characteristics depending on the smart growth functional area.     

新形势下青海省农牧区改革发展的态势分析

积极推进农牧区改革发展,是全面建设小康社会和实现现代化的重大战略任务。本文围绕总体目标任务,应用态势分析方法,对新形势下青海省农牧区改革发展的内部条件和外部环境进行分析,提出了促进青海农牧区改革发展的策略。     

明代地域商帮兴起的社会背景

In the mid-Ming Dynasty, the means of transportation were greatly improved; commodity production became more developed; silver was gradually monetized; commercial taxes became lighter; and social attitudes towards merchants changed. All these developments created a favorable environment for the formation of regional merchant groups. Meanwhile, social factors at the regional level—characteristics of local commodity production, favorable natural environment and production structures, as well as Ming government’s practice of border defense, border trade, foreign policy, local customs, and the interpretation of commercial activities of local people—all contributed to the emergence of merchant groups. Translated by Wu Yanhong from Tsinghua Daxue Xuebao 清华大学学报 (Journal of Tsinghua University), 2006, (5): 81–94     

A possible case of ‘poll‐evil’ in an early Scythian horse skull from Arzhan 1, Tuva Republic,Central Asia

Occipital bone lesions on an Iron Age horse cranium from the burial mound of Arzhan 1, Tuva, Central Asia, are described and interpreted. Cavitations around the nuchal ligament attachment site on the skull are interpreted as foci of inflammation and necrosis following local infection. It is suggested that the pathology represents a case of ‘poll‐evil’, most likely due to a bacterial infection. The significance of such an interpretation is discussed, including its implications for disease ecology and the possible infection risks to contiguous animal and human communities of the first millennium BC in Central Asia. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spondylolysis and lifestyle among prehistoric coastal groups from Brazil

Southern Brazilian prehistoric coastal series were examined for the presence of spondylolysis. All defects occurred at the pars interarticularis, most at L5 (51%), with the vast majority bilateral and complete (86.2%). Frequencies decreased from young adulthood (54.2%) through mid‐adulthood (33.3%) to older adulthood (12.5%), suggesting differential mortality among affected individuals. The high overall prevalence (29.6%) demonstrates that these groups experienced a strenuous lifestyle, with activities that required repetitive and vigorous movements of lumbar hyperextension and rotation. Archaeological data provide support to interpret this pattern. Throwing harpoons, rowing and wrestling fishing nets were likely the main activities associated with the defect among men. Continuous loading of weight, including plant resources, mollusks and nursing children, were probably the tasks associated with spondylolysis in women. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.