A Candid Conversation With James Edward Cheek

This interview with then- Howard University President James E. Cheek was conducted by Abdul- kadir N. Said, editor of New Directions, and Harriet Jackson Scarup

Track-two diplomacy in South Asia

This is the second edition of the article

The Problem of Enforcing Nature\u27s Rights under Ecuador\u27s Constitution: Why the 2008 Environmental Amendments Have No Bite

In 2008, Ecuador became the first nation to give rights to nature when it ratified constitutional amendments (new articles 71-74) that grant the environment the inalienable right to exist, persist, and be respected. Environmentalists hope Ecuador’s amendments will lead to improvement in a country devastated by resource exploitation, and that other countries will follow. Yet, many wonder whether the amendments will be enforced. This comment argues that—all things considered—successful execution of the amendments is unlikely. Ecuador’s President has not demonstrated a sincere intention or ability to implement the amendments. Further, plaintiffs who sue under the amendments face significant legal barriers, such as Ecuador’s lack of a standing doctrine and a history of judicial corruption and dysfunction. To counteract these problems, Ecuador should grant lifetime tenure to its constitutional court judges, codify a standing doctrine, create an independent enforcement body, and create an independent environmental tribunal with criminal contempt power

Bioregional planning in southeastern Tanzania : the Selous-Niassa corridor as a prism for transfrontier conservation areas

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-247).This thesis uses the Selous-Niassa wildlife corridor as a lens through which the process of constructing bioregions can be understood and the effects of that process on society properly evaluated. It specifically investigates the corridor as a cog in the creation of a bioregion in southeastern Tanzania, namely, the Selous-Niassa transfrontier conservation area. The study was motivated by claims that the creation of bioregions across international borders places the protection and conservation of biodiversity at the appropriate scale, and that bioregions of this type are beneficial for nature conservation and society. Though the study appreciates the ecological rationales for trans-border conservation, its focus is on the social side of the process. The main social claims for bioregions in general, and transfrontier conservation in particular, are that the establishment of cross-border protected areas, including transfrontier conservation areas, leads to the removal of colonial borders which disrupt ecological systems and local communities

The Defence of Ethnic Identity in Malaysia

The changing dynamics of interstate conflict in the post-Cold War environment led scholars to debate the relevance of established security theory. While traditionalists maintained that the state-centric theory should retain its primacy, others argued for a security agenda, not only broadened or widened to include other sectors, but one deepened or extended to include the individual and larger societal groupings as referent objects of security. In the 1990s, the Copenhagen Peace Research Institute developed a reformulated and expanded security agenda which recognized five dimensions of security – political, military, economic, environmental and societal. Societal security has been defined as the defence of identity with identity accepted as the way in which communities think about themselves and the manner in which individuals identify themselves as members of a particular community. The Institute’s research on societal security was further expanded by Paul Roe in his 2005 study on ethnic conflict in the Balkan states. The determination of successive Malaysian governments to inculcate Islamic values throughout its infrastructure and society was borne from the inter-communal violence in May 1969, a civil reaction to the unexpected election results. The loss of parliamentary majority, for so long the domain of the Malays, confirmed a significant shift in political power and the increasingly influential role of the non-Malay voice in the political process. The inter-ethnic hostility resulted in a Federation-wide state of emergency and the suspension of parliamentary democracy for 20 months during which time the country was led by the National Operations Council under the leadership of Tun Abdul Razak. The National Operations Council and subsequent administrations progressively introduced policy to restore Malay political supremacy and redress societal imbalance. Despite the obvious success of Malaysia’s social transformation, research has indicated that policy introduced to lessen the economic and social inequality of the Malays has, in effect, led to a polarising of ethnicities. Political historians and analysts are mindful that increasing ethnic tension along with tacit ethnic segregation are salient reminders of the violence of the 1969 ethnic riots. With the theoretical framework on societal security provided by the CPRI, this thesis proposes to analyse the impact of the post-1969 political paradigm on Malaysian society with particular focus on inter-societal relations

Building a Better Bar Exam

In the wake of declining bar passage numbers and limited placement options for law grads, a new bar exam has emerged: the UBE. Drawn to an allusive promise of portability, thirty-six U.S. jurisdictions have adopted the UBE. I predict that in a few years’ time, the UBE will be administered in all states and U.S. territories. The UBE has snowballed from an idea into the primary gateway for entry into the practice of law. But the UBE is not a panacea that will solve the bar passage problems that U.S. law schools face. Whether or not to adopt a uniform exam is no longer the question. Now that the UBE has firmly taken root, the question to be answered is: “What can be done to make sure that the UBE does less harm than good?” This Article will, in four parts, examine the meteoric rise and spread of the UBE and the potential costs of its quick adoption. Part I will survey the gradual move away from state law exams to the jurisdictionally neutral UBE. Part II will identify correlations between recent changes to the multistate exams and a stark national decline in bar passage rates. Part III will address the limitations of the UBE, including the misleading promise of score portability and the consequences of forum shopping. Part IV will propose additional measures that can coexist with the UBE to counterbalance its limitations to make a better bar exam for law graduates and the clients they will serve

End of Program Evaluation: 2011-13 'Countering Extremism, Promoting Peace & Religious Tolerance' Grants Program in Pakistan

USIP commissioned the evaluation of 07 grants as unified program named 'Countering Extremism and Promoting Peace and Religious Tolerance (CEPPRT)' to AAN Associates, an Islamabad based development consulting firm, specializing in evaluations (www.aanassociates.com). The evaluation is 'Formative' in nature with an expressed purpose to accumulate learning and inform future programming. Moreover, it expected evaluators to assess the USIP grants making processes and systems, recommend changes and facilitate USIP develop an enabling grants development and management system. The evaluation has been carried out using mixed method approach. The overall methodology for the evaluation was based upon a customized modification developed by the consultants of the Systems Dynamic Model (SDM) approach developed by William Ddembe1 . The approach was a practical adaptation of two management cycle models – the Waterfall Model (Sorensen, 1995), and the Research & Development Model (Murphy, 1989). The evaluators gathered relevant secondary and primary information by undertaking extensive secondary sources review and applying multiple yet complementary primary information techniques entailing key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and field visits

Block Grants, Early Childhood Education, and the Reauthorization of Head Start: From Positional Conflict to Interest-Based Agreement

In early 2003, the Bush administration proposed and Congress considered two types of highly controversial structural reform to Head Start, the federal program that since 1965 has provided early education and comprehensive health and social services to low-income preschoolers and their families. First, the proposal would begin funding Head Start through federal block grants to the states rather than through direct federal grants to local agencies. Second, the proposal would shift oversight of Head Start at the federal level from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the Department of Education (ED). Variations on these two proposals have been offered many times since Head Start was created, and each time Head Start advocates have successfully lobbied against them. This time is no different: neither the version of the reauthorization bill approved by the House in September 2005 nor the version of the bill currently awaiting consideration by the Senate contains either of these structural reforms. That these proposed reforms are no longer under active consideration has been held out as a victory by Head Start advocates, led by the National Head Start Association (NHSA) and joined by a variety of other advocacy organizations. This article questions that conclusion, and instead argues that Head Start advocates would do well to reconsider their long-held opposition to both changes. Much of the opposition to these changes stems from reflexive reaction and a history of mistrust instead of dispassionate policy analysis. The policy needs and doctrinal context that led to the original structure of the program -- for example, the need to bypass racist state governors who were willing to close down school systems to avoid integration, in an environment of almost limitless federal authority to create civil rights legislation -- are increasingly out of place in today\u27s world. In fact, Head Start is now an outlier with respect to other social welfare and education programs, which are largely funded by the federal government through block grants to the states; educational authorities are now turning towards comprehensive service delivery models that are the hallmark of Head Start programs; and the Supreme Court has sharply curtailed the atmospherics of limitless federal power in which context Head Start was created. This article proceeds in four parts. Section I traces the history of the conflict over proposals to change Head Start\u27s funding and organizational structure. I conclude that the dispute cannot easily be reduced to partisan politics and that the substance of the opposition has changed very little over the years, even though the particular proposals for structural change have been quite different. Section II examines the policy and doctrinal changes relevant to Head Start over the last forty years, arguing that the needs and expectations of the 1965 program have a very different resonance in the new millennium. Section III considers why the advocates have been so resistant to structural change, given these changed circumstances. The literature on negotiation theory and practice offers a helpful lens. through which to analyze the problem, especially in the literature\u27s distinction between positions -- the particular and opposing outcomes to which each side stakes a claim -- and interests -- the underlying reasons why each side finds its desired outcome appealing. I explore the benefits of paying attention to interests over positions, the perils of focusing on narrow positions, and the barriers to an interest-based process. Finally, Section IV proposes a way forward, offering an inclusive and participatory consensus-based process to help the parties consider and respond to the underlying interests behind their positions. The article concludes that an honest assessment of the role of Head Start in the country\u27s early childhood education and care movement could lead to structural experimentation that would benefit all concerned