Government Efforts (government + effort)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Policy and practice in karst landscape protection: Bohol, the Philippines

THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2001
Peter B. Urich
The karst landscape in the interior of the Philippines' Bohol Province represents one of the world's premier kegelkarst (cone karst) environments. Government efforts to protect some of this karst, exemplified by the establishment of the Rajah Sikatuna National Park and the Chocolate Hills Natural Monument, have proven to be significant catalysts of social conflict. In Bohol there is a long history of traditional land tenure, which has recently been supplanted by a Westernized model. Protected area establishment is a response to deforestation, agricultural exploitation and uncontrolled quarrying. However, the imposition of protective legislation to prevent further degradation has disenfranchized and marginalized many local farmers and residents. The conflict between the obligation of the State to ensure environmental protection and the perceived property rights of landowners and farmers has provoked an escalation in civil unrest and armed conflict. [source]


THE IMPULSE OF PHILANTHROPY

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2009
ERICA BORNSTEIN
ABSTRACT In practices of philanthropy and charity, the impulse to give to immediate others in distress is often tempered by its regulation. Although much of what is written on charity and philanthropy focuses on the effects of the gift, I suggest more attention be paid to the impulse of philanthropy. To coerce the impulse to give into rational accountability is to obliterate its freedom; to render giving into pure impulse is to reinforce social inequality. The only solution is to allow both to exist, and to create structures to encourage them. This essay examines the power of the spontaneous and fleeting impulse to give and its regulation through an analysis of contemporary practices of philanthropy and their relation to sacred conceptions of d,n (donation) in New Delhi. When scriptural ideas of disinterested giving intersect with contemporary notions of social responsibility, new philanthropic practices are formed. On the basis of ethnographic research with philanthropists who built temples, started NGOs, and managed social welfare programs, as well as families who gave d,n daily out of their homes, this essay documents how both NGO and government efforts to regulate one of the most meritorious forms of d,n, gupt d,n (or, anonymous d,n) expresses critical issues in philanthropy between the urge to give in response to immediate suffering and the social obligation to find a worthy recipient for the gift. [source]


Financing Decentralized Development in a Low-Income Country: Raising Revenue for Local Government in Uganda

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 1 2001
Ian Livingstone
Uganda has been engaged for a number of years in an ambitious programme of political and financial decentralization involving significantly expanded expenditure and service delivery responsibilities for local governments in what are now forty-five districts. Fiscal decentralization has involved allocation of block grants from the centre to complement increased local tax revenue-raising efforts by districts and municipalities. This article is concerned with the financial side of decentralization and in particular with an examination of district government efforts to raise revenue with the tax instruments which have been assigned to them. These are found to be deficient in a number of ways and their tax raising potential not to be commensurate with the responsibilities being devolved. Achievement of the decentralization aims laid down, therefore, must depend either on the identification of new or modified methods of raising revenue locally, or increased commitment to transfer of financial resources from the centre, or both. [source]


Developing medical countermeasures: from BioShield to BARDA

DRUG DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH, Issue 4 2009
Jonathan B. TuckerArticle first published online: 12 JUN 200
Abstract The U.S. Congress passed the Project BioShield Act in 2004 to create market incentives for the private sector to develop medical countermeasures (MCMs) against high-priority chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. Two years later, Congress patched recognized gaps in the BioShield legislation by adopting the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006, which established the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). BARDA provides financial and managerial support for companies developing MCMs. This article examines U.S. government efforts in the MCM field and prospects for the future. Drug Dev Res 70:224,233, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Expressive Responses to News Stories About Extremist Groups: A Framing Experiment

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, Issue 2 2006
Michael P. Boyle
With the tension between national security and civil liberties as a backdrop, this study examines responses to news coverage of activist groups. This 2 × 2 experiment presented participants with news stories about government efforts to restrict the civil liberties of an "extremist" individual or group (news frame) advocating for a cause supported or opposed by the respondent (cause predisposition). Willingness to take expressive action was greatest for individual-framed stories about a cause opposed by the respondent and for group-framed stories about a cause supported by the respondent. We contend that when reporters frame stories about extremist groups around individuals, fewer people will speak out in favor of causes they agree with and more will rally against causes they oppose. [source]


On the Edge of the Law: Women's Property Rights and Dispute Resolution in Kisii, Kenya

LAW & SOCIETY REVIEW, Issue 1 2009
Elin Henrysson
Scholars have argued that economic efficiency requires a clear definition of the rights of ownership, contract, and transfer of land. Ambiguity in the definition or enforcement of any of these rights leads to an increase in transaction costs in the exchange and transfer of land as well as a residual uncertainty after any land contract. In Kenya, government efforts at establishing clearly defined property rights and adjudication mechanisms have been plagued by the existence of alternative processes for the adjudication of disputes. Customary dispute resolution has been praised as an inexpensive alternative to official judicial processes in a legally pluralistic environment. However, our research demonstrates that customary processes may also carry a monetary cost that puts them beyond the means of many citizens. This article compares the costs and processes of the formal and informal methods of property rights adjudication for women in the Kisii region of Kenya. The research results suggest that women have weak property rights overall, they have limited access to formal dispute resolution systems because of costs involved, and even the informal systems of conflict resolution are beyond the means of many citizens. [source]


The Role of Philanthropy in Local Government Finance

PUBLIC BUDGETING AND FINANCE, Issue 3 2005
Renée A. Irvin
Nonprofit organizations thrive on the altruism of citizens, and actively court donors for major gifts. Yet individual gifts to government agencies are often unexpected, sporadic, and initiated by the donor. This article introduces the phenomenon of private giving to local governments and tests hypotheses regarding the expected forms of giving to public agencies. Results indicate that philanthropy is and will likely remain a minor and highly variable source of revenue, making it an ill-suited replacement for broad-based tax revenue. However, deliberate government efforts to provide a suitable environment for private donations appear to succeed in attracting more gifts per capita. [source]


,The Great Prohibition': The Expansion of Christianity in Colonial Northern Nigeria

HISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 6 2010
Andrew E. Barnes
Historical research on the spread of Christianity in colonial Northern Nigeria has been hampered by a focus on the wrong issues. The population of the colony was predominantly Muslim, but the colonial territory created by the British contained large populations of African traditionalist peoples. During the colonial era the British government prohibited Christian proselytization of Muslims. Historical research had focused on the battle between colonial administrators and missionaries over entry into Muslim areas, a battle missionaries lost. But during the colonial era Christian missions experienced real success in Christianizing traditionalist peoples. The colonial government also sought to impede this development, significantly by using the same rules that prohibited the proselytization of Muslims to prohibit the proselytization of traditionalists. This article makes the case that the government's efforts to halt the spread of Christianity to traditionalists, not Muslims, should become the focus of new research. [source]


Assembling the "Empire of Morality": State Building Strategies in Catholic Ecuador, 1861,1875

JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 2 2001
Derek Williams
This article studies the efforts of the Ecuadorian government between 1861 and 1875 to construct a "truly catholic nation". It examines the implementation and engagement of centralized initiatives of morality and religiosity, and reflects on its implications for the repositioning of state-society boundaries. Specifically, it considers the government's efforts after 1869 to centrally coordinate the institutions of municipal government and Church, and to redeploy them for national moralizing ends. It assesses the substantial achievements and limits of this model for strengthening state power and for disseminating "national" meanings of citizenship and progress. [source]


An Embryonic Nation: Life Against Health in Canadian Biotechnological Discourse

COMMUNICATION THEORY, Issue 1 2005
Rebecca Sullivan
This article traces the protracted public debate over reproductive and genetic technologies in Canada through an examination of the federal government's efforts to pass legislation in the area. Four attempts were made, in 1997, 2000, 2003, and finally 2004, before a bill was passed that regulated the use of embryos in both infertility treatments and nonreproductive genetic therapies. At stake in the debate was the supremacy of health over life as a fundamental value of Canadian national identity, and the role of biotechnology in ushering Canada into a new era of prosperity and global leadership. Using a feminist cultural framework, the author challenges notions of modernity versus postmodernity in the social construction of bodies, nations, and knowledge. She critiques the legal intrusions on women's bodies in particular for the way that they, perhaps inadvertently, offer some limited form of autonomy for embryos as valuable commodities in scientific progress. [source]