Human Poverty in Transition Economies: Regional Overview for HDR 1997

human development, poverty, empowerment

Trust and Betrayal in the Medical Marketplace

The author argues in this Comment that disingenuity as first resort is an unwise approach to the conflict between our ex ante and our later, illness-endangered selves. Not only does rationing by tacit deceit raise a host of moral problems, it will not work, over the long haul, because markets reward deceit\u27s unmasking. The honesty about clinical limit-setting that some bioethicists urge may not be fully within our reach. But more candor is possible than we now achieve, and the more conscious we are about decisions to impose limits, the more inclined we will be to accept them without experiencing betrayal

Reflections on Philippine Sociology in the 1990s

This paper shares initial reflections on Philippine sociology in the 1990s. It takes off from previous assessments of the state of the social sciences as well as from observations regarding the current involvement of Filipino sociologists and the substantive and methodological developments in their discipline.sociology

Reflections on Philippine Sociology in the 1990s

This paper shares initial reflections on Philippine sociology in the 1990s. It takes off from previous assessments of the state of the social sciences as well as from observations regarding the current involvement of Filipino sociologists and the substantive and methodological developments in their discipline.sociology

Tackling unemployment in China: state capacity and governance issues

This paper considers China's state capacity and changing governance as revealed through its policies to tackle unemployment. Despite high levels of growth, economic restructuring has resulted in rising unemployment over the last decade. The Chinese state has been able to manage job losses from state enterprises, demonstrating some state capacity in relation to this sector and some persistent command economy governance mechanisms. However both design and implementation of policies to compensate and assist particular groups among the unemployed have been shaped by weak state capacity in several other areas. First, capacity to gather accurate employment data is limited, meaning local and central governments do not have a good understanding of the extent and nature of unemployment. Second, the sustainability of supposedly mandatory unemployment insurance schemes is threatened by poor capacity to enforce participation. Third, poor central state capacity to ensure local governments implement policies effectively leads to poor unemployment insurance fund capacity, resulting in provision for only a narrow segment of the unemployed and low quality employment services. Although the adoption of unemployment insurance (and its extension to employers and employees in the private sector), the introduction of a Labour Contract Law in 2007, and the delivery of employment services by private businesses indicate a shift towards the use of new governance mechanisms based on entitlement, contract and private sector delivery of public-sector goods, that shift is undermined by poor state capacity in relation to some of these new mechanisms

Negotiating livelihoods: an analysis of rural household resources and their utilisation in Nyamira District, mid South-Western Kenya

The failures of rural development policy to bring about widespread improvement of rural livelihoods have never been adequately examined and explained. There exist knowledge gaps on how poor people arrive at livelihood priorities and deal with concomitant policies as well as how they perceive, mould and use resources to service their livelihood priorities and lifestyles. Hence this exploratory study has been designed to examine poor people's livelihood priorities, the relevant policies and their responses to those policies. Furthermore the study will explore the poor people's perceptions, production and co-production of resources and how they use them to service their livelihood priorities. Following that the study will from the poor people's perspectives isolate and explain viable and non-viable livelihood outcomes. The study is stimulated by the theoretical and practical challenges in understanding the multiple meanings of resources and the implications of those to rural livelihood construction. The theoretical challenge stems in part from the now dominant view in livelihood studies that resources constitute five capitals on the bases of which, specific outcomes including increased income, food security, optimal natural resource use and well-being are sought. This study goes beyond and challenges this materialist view of rural life (based on the livelihoods approach) to investigate villagers' material and non-material resources and how these are moulded to earn a living. This way the study explores the observation that livelihood is about more than just material resources and outcomes. The practical challenge that this study responds to relates to the relative ignorance about poor peoples' resources and lifestyles. What do the rural poor have and what do they pursue in life? Thus, poor peoples' livelihoods should be demystified and their resources and lifestyles explored to capture their view of viable livelihoods and how they seek them. This study proceeds on the premise that villagers create and re-create resources through naming and re-naming them, but also struggle to extend resource meanings while defending existing ones and hence, embrace new opportunities and as a result get involved in more complex relationships, identifications and lifestyles. This is not a phased process but often a contemporaneous one. Accessing resources is therefore, more dynamic and at times more subtle than implied in the livelihoods approach. On the basis of this theoretical position, the study holds that actors struggle with and within institutions as well as negotiate the entry of modern technology, the state and markets in their everyday lives. These nodal points then constitute arenas of contests over resources and thus sites of inquiry