Socializing Development: Transnational Social Movement Advocacy and the Human Rights Accountability of Multilateral Development Banks

As Multilateral Development Banks increasingly gained influence in shaping global development, transnational social movements pushed to hold them accountable for their human rights impact towards communities. The author presents a novel causal mechanism of movement advocacy towards MDBs, combining disruptive and conventional tactics. Systematically comparing the evolution of human rights standards and complaint mechanisms over the last three decades, he reveals how the combination of 1) declining US hegemony, 2) counter-mobilization by China and 3) movement cooptation by the World Bank bureaucracy led to a dilution of human rights accountability in the 2010s

The Case of Food Security

International organizations (IOs) are confronted with a twin challenge in areas of limited statehood (ALS). On the one hand, IOs are governmental organizations qua mandate. Their usual approach – providing a range of services to their members and working with or for a given state – may, however, either be blocked or prove unsustainable in ALS. On the other, ALS present numerous challenges to IO governance, ranging from insecurity to a lack of meta-governance. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how IOs operate in these contexts, and, in particular, which modes of governance they choose for which purposes. How can IOs attain the twin objectives of acting in accordance with their mandate, which gives primacy to governments, and responding to ALS-specific challenges in order to effectively provide food security? This paper addresses IOs’ choice of distinct modes of governance, ranging from bargaining to persuasion. It investigates how different types of IOs use and combine these modes in light of varying ALS-challenges. The empirical observations presented in this paper stem from interviews with IOs (ECHO, FAO, IDB, WFP, and the World Bank) at the level of headquarters and country offices (in Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, Niger, and Sierra Leone), as well as from organizational documents

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

Nurses' perceptions of aids and obstacles to the provision of optimal end of life care in ICU

Contains fulltext : 172380.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Socializing Development

As Multilateral Development Banks increasingly gained influence in shaping global development, transnational social movements pushed to hold them accountable for their human rights impact towards communities. Leon Valentin Schettler presents a novel causal mechanism of movement advocacy towards MDBs, combining disruptive and conventional tactics. Systematically comparing the evolution of human rights standards and complaint mechanisms over the last three decades, he reveals how the combination of 1) declining US hegemony, 2) counter-mobilization by China and 3) movement cooptation by the World Bank bureaucracy led to a dilution of human rights accountability in the 2010s

International political authority: on the meaning and scope of justified hierarchy in international relations

Traditionally, states were widely believed to be the only institutions claiming political authority. More recently, though, a number of authors have argued that we find various instances of political authority on the international level. We discuss three prominent proposals for conceptualizing international authority: Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore's account of the authority of international bureaucracies, David Lake's extension of 'relational' authority to the international realm, and Michael Zürn's recent proposal for 'reflexive' authority. These authors provide a nuanced and empirically rich picture of hitherto mostly overlooked forms of power in world politics. Yet, we argue that in doing so they lose sight of the distinctly normative character of political authority relations: these relations are built on the explicit normative claim to the right to rule. When such a claim is considered to be justified, authority relations generate content-independent reasons for compliance. Thus understood, authority serves an important function, namely, to facilitate broadly accepted and normatively justified forms of hierarchical coordination. From a normative perspective, therefore, broadening the concept of authority to include various other forms of power deprives us of a critical yardstick against which international organizations should be evaluated. Moreover, it creates a distorted picture of the scope of international authority. Our world is shaped by highly problematic power relations. Yet, in order to meet current challenges of global governance, we need more, not less authority. To illustrate this argument we examine the case of the World Bank, an organization that exercises considerable power while explicitly avoiding any claim to political authority

Fluoxetine increases suicide ideation less than placebo during treatment of adults with minor depressive disorder

10.1016/j.jpsychires.2013.05.025Journal of Psychiatric Research4791199-1203JPYR