Political settlements: the history of an idea in policy and theory

This paper explores how the concept of ‘political settlement’ in statebuilding arose, identifies its essential elements, the level of consensus around them, and tests out some of its normative content. Abstract Over the past five years, several major international development policy statements and declarations have adopted ‘political settlement’ as a framing concept to guide statebuilding practice in fragile and conflict-affected states, and encouraged efforts towards achieving an inclusive, or inclusive enough, political settlement in order to underpin stability. Despite the policy enthusiasm, the concept itself remains elusive. This discussion paper explores how the concept ‘political settlement’ arose and where it came from, identifies its essential elements and the level of consensus around them and tests out some of its normative content. Finally it considers where the concept might go from here

Unrealistic Weeds of Love and Romance: The Korean Drama and the Flower Boy Genre

The concept of love has intrigued many social critics, and has led them to accuse media of perpetuating unrealistic notions of romance that are unattainable for a healthy and satisfying relationship. Unrealistic expectations of love and romance are a primary cause of relationship dissatisfaction among real couples. It is imperative to critically analyze media sources in order to gain knowledge of how to counter unhealthy notions of romance. Korean dramas (K-dramas) typically present a scenario in which strong mutual love and desire between two people come into conflict with existing sociocultural values. The kkonminam (Flower Boy) genre in particular, caters to young women, and focuses mainly on the romantic lives of young adults, making it a prime genre to analyze Korean portrayals of modern romance. The current study uses Galician’s myths of hegemonic portrayals of love and romance to see if common themes of Westernized “status quo” love can be detected in Korean dramas. The current study examines how love and romance is portrayed in Korean dramas, particularly in the Flower Boy genre, and does so by examining two K-dramas, Boys Over Flowers and Flower Boy, Ramen Shop. This study adds to previous literature on hegemonic ideals of love and romance. Ultimately, this study examines ideas of romance in the media to learn what portrayals present themselves in K-dramas, a form of mass media targeted at a younger audience whose views and expectations on romantic love are still forming, and may be influenced by media depictions

Political settlements: the history of an idea in policy and theory

Over the past five years, several major international development policy statements and declarations have adopted ‘political settlement’ as a framing concept to guide statebuilding practice in fragile and conflict-affected states, and encouraged efforts towards achieving an inclusive, or inclusive enough, political settlement in order to underpin stability. Despite the policy enthusiasm, the concept itself remains elusive.1 This discussion paper explores how the concept ‘political settlement’ arose and where it came from, identifies its essential elements and the level of consensus around them and tests out some of its normative content. Finally it considers where the concept might go from here.AusAI

“The admissibility of real evidence in the light of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996”

Public, Constitutional, and InternationalLL. D

Rules for Growth: Promoting Innovation and Growth Through Legal Reform

The United States economy is struggling to recover from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. After several huge doses of conventional macroeconomic stimulus - deficit-spending and monetary stimulus - policymakers are understandably eager to find innovative no-cost ways of sustaining growth both in the short and long runs. In response to this challenge, the Kauffman Foundation convened a number of America’s leading legal scholars and social scientists during the summer of 2010 to present and discuss their ideas for changing legal rules and policies to promote innovation and accelerate U.S. economic growth. This meeting led to the publication of Rules for Growth: Promoting Innovation and Growth Through Legal Reform, a comprehensive and groundbreaking volume of essays prescribing a new set of growth-promoting policies for policymakers, legal scholars, economists, and business men and women. Some of the top Rules include: • Reforming U.S. immigration laws so that more high-skilled immigrants can launch businesses in the United States. • Improving university technology licensing practices so university-generated innovation is more quickly and efficiently commercialized. • Moving away from taxes on income that penalize risk-taking, innovation, and employment while shifting toward a more consumption-based tax system that encourages saving that funds investment. In addition, the research tax credit should be redesigned and made permanent. • Overhauling local zoning rules to facilitate the formation of innovative companies. • Urging judges to take a more expansive view of flexible business contracts that are increasingly used by innovative firms. • Urging antitrust enforcers and courts to define markets more in global terms to reflect contemporary realities, resist antitrust enforcement from countries with less sound antitrust regimes, and prohibit industry trade protection and subsidies. • Reforming the intellectual property system to allow for a post-grant opposition process and address the large patent application backlog by allowing applicants to pay for more rapid patent reviews. • Authorizing corporate entities to form digitally and use software as a means for setting out agreements and bylaws governing corporate activities. The collective essays in the book propose a new way of thinking about the legal system that should be of interest to policymakers and academic scholars alike. Moreover, the ideas presented here, if embodied in law, would augment a sustained increase in U.S. economic growth, improving living standards for U.S. residents and for many in the rest of the world

HIV-associated structural brain changes as related to cognition

Nearly half of all HIV-positive individuals present with some form of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND). The experiments described in this thesis examined the structural changes that occur in the brain as a result of HIV infection. While previous work has established that HIV targets the basal ganglia and fronto-striatal systems and impacts cortical and white matter pathways, it was unknown whether these changes occur in the absence of HAND. The studies described here focused on cognitively asymptomatic HIV+ individuals (CAHIV+) without HAND as determined by widely accepted neuropsychological performance guidelines. Experiment 1 utilized diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to examine HIV-associated alterations in white matter (WM) fractional anisotropy (FA) in the absence of HAND in 23 HIV+ individuals and 17 control participants (HIV-) matched for age, education, and verbal IQ. The hypothesis was that CAHIV+ participants would show lower FA values than HIV- in the corpus callosum, frontotemporal, and parietal regions of interest (ROIs). CAHIV+ individuals demonstrated higher FA in the frontotemporal region and posterior corpus callosum, but lower FA in parietal WM relative to HIV- individuals. Experiment 2 utilized structural MRI to compare cortical thickness in 22 CAHIV+ individuals and 19 control participants (HIV-) matched for age, education, and verbal IQ. The hypothesis was that CAHIV+ participants would have thinner frontal, temporal, and parietal regions than HIV- participants. Reduced cortical thickness measures were identified in the cingulate and superior temporal gyri, with increased cortical thickness measures in the inferior occipital gyrus, for HIV+ participants compared to HIV-. Experiment 3 examined the relationship between the structural alterations identified in Experiments 1 and 2, neuropsychological performance on tests sensitive to HAND identification, and immunological characteristics in 30 HIV+ participants and 28 HIV- control participants. As hypothesized, regional FA values, cortical thickness, and viral load were related to neuropsychological composite scores for CAHIV+, but not HIV-. Together, results from these three studies suggest that regional FA and cortical alterations identified in CAHIV+ patients may contribute to the cognitive deficits often seen in later stages of HIV disease

University-Community Partnerships: An Action-Humanities Approach to Addressing Homelessness

This dissertation is a study of the function of the 21st century Canadian university and how it engages with communities to address social issues such as homelessness. The study looks at university projects that address homelessness, scholarly literature, websites, and primary data as collected through a survey sent out to project participants across Canadain order to answer the main research question, What role should the 21st century university play in addressing issues of homelessness? The guiding thesis of this dissertation is that in order to address these issues, and to design positive and progressive homelessness-related projects, universities could address homelessness using an interdisciplinary array of resources, taking on an action-humanities approach, which facilitates empowerment of people with lived experiences of homelessness and engages students and faculty in a pedagogy of social responsibility