China’s role as an emerging aid provider and the concept of a social plan in Africa has led to polarised responses in the West. Several say that this “productivist” strategy is much less determined by the concepts of citizenship, legal, social rights, and much more regarding building functions. The purpose of this study is to examine whether the welfare and social policy ideas that characterize Chinese aid in Africa are influencing traditional donors and becoming global. The article utilised (...) a qualitative study that has two main components. First, a comprehensive content analysis of over 50 key Sino-African, Chinese and Western policy documents from 2000 (since cooperation between Beijing and African countries first became institutionalised). Second, there were semi-structured interviews with Chinese, African and Western stakeholders in Addis Ababa, (Ethiopia), who was directly involved in the relationship between China and Africa and related development issues. The result of documentation and interview analyses show that there are currently significant differences between Chinese and Western approaches. China has made much stronger and more explicit links between development aid and economic activity than most Western donors. The aid is usually implemented through specific projects rather than broader programs or policies. (shrink)

Why do some donor governments pursue international development through recipient governments, while others bypass such local authorities? Weaving together scholarship in political economy, public administration and historical institutionalism, Simone Dietrich argues that the bureaucratic institutions of donor countries shape donor–recipient interactions differently despite similar international and recipient country conditions. Donor nations employ institutional constraints that authorize, enable and justify particular aid delivery tactics while precluding others. Offering quantitative and qualitative analyses of donor decision-making, the book illuminates how donors with neoliberally (...) organized public sectors bypass recipient governments, while donors with more traditional public-sector-oriented institutions cooperate and engage recipient authorities on aid delivery. The book demonstrates how internal beliefs and practices about states and markets inform how donors see and set their objectives for foreign aid and international development itself. It informs debates about aid effectiveness and donor coordination and carries implications for the study of foreign policy, more broadly. (shrink)

The traditional military-territorial model of the nation state defines international duties in terms of protecting citizens' property from foreign threats. In this 1992 book about the principles of the US agricultural policy and foreign aid, Professor Thompson replaces this model with the notion of the trading state that sees its role in terms of the establishment of international institutions that stabilize and facilitate cultural and intellectual, as well as commercial, exchanges between nations. The argument focuses on protectionist (...) challenges to foreign aid and development assistance programs, and engages with the views of a variety of economists, commodity organizations, and philosophers on world hunger and development. What emerges is a new interpretation of social contract theory that can determine goals for international trade and development policy. (shrink)

This article addresses the rise of faith-based emergency relief by examining the US President’s Emergency Plan for HIV/AIDS (PEPFAR), a public health intervention focused on the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. It argues that the theological turn in humanitarian aid serves to amplify ongoing dynamics in the domestic politics of sub-Saharan African states, where social services have assumed the form of chronic emergency relief and religious organizations have come to play an increasingly prominent role in the provision of such services. (...) In the context of an ongoing public health crisis, PEPFAR has institutionalized the social authority of the Pentecostal and charismatic churches, leading to a semantic confluence between the postcolonial politics of emergency and the Pentecostal/Pauline theology of kairos or event. Far from being confined to the space of foreign aid, however, the faith-based turn in humanitarianism is in keeping with ongoing reforms in domestic social policy in the United States. While on the one hand the sustained welfare programmes of the New Deal and Great Society have been dismantled in favour of a system of emergency relief, on the other hand the federal government has intensified its moral, pedagogical and punitive interventions into the lives of the poor. The wilful transfer of welfare services to overtly religious service providers has played a decisive role in this process. The article concludes with a critical appraisal of the links between African and North American Pentecostal-evangelical churches and questions the revolutionary mission ascribed to Pauline political theology in recent political theory. (shrink)

BackgroundFollowing the increased presence of the Right-to-Die Movement, improved end-of-life options, and the political and legal status of aid-in-dying around the globe, suicide tourism has become a promising alternative for individuals who wish to end their lives. Yet, little is known about this from the perspective of those who engage in the phenomenon.MethodsThis study applied the qualitative research approach, following the grounded theory tradition. It includes 11 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Israeli members of the Swiss non-profit Dignitas who contemplated traveling (...) to Switzerland for aid-in-dying.ResultsSeven themes emerged from the data analysis, including health and functioning; feelings regarding survivorship and existence; interacting with the health sector; attitudes regarding death and dying; suicide; choosing death; and choosing suicide tourism. A significant portion of the participants had experienced suicidal thoughts and had even previously attempted suicide, some more than once. Most of them referred to chronic illnesses, functional disability, and social isolation. They understand suffering within the subjective dimension, namely only by the person who is actually subjected to the disease, ailments, and disability. Participants regarded aid-in-dying in Switzerland as positive thanks to its guaranteed outcome: "beautiful death", compared to "disadvantaged dying" which places a burden on the participants' loved ones throughout the prolonged dying. Most of them do not necessarily want to have their loved ones beside them when they die, and they see no significant meaning in dying in a foreign country to which they have no emotional or civil attachment.ConclusionThe desirable approval or tragic refusal by Dignitas to participants' requests for suicide tourism enhances the paradox between the perception of aid-in-dying as a mechanism for fulfilling controlled death and its bureaucratic and materialistic characteristics specifically reflected in a paid, formalized approach to aid-in-dying that cultivate dependency and collaboration. (shrink)

Photo by AbsolutVision on Unsplash INTRODUCTION Social media, news headlines, and podcasts implicitly and explicitly remind us of the digital misinformation maelstrom we navigate every day to understand the truth of current events. Misinformation feeds off the topics that impact our lives and draw our attention – war, health, politics, identity, fear, and empathy. Misinformation has a digital reach faster and wider than true information based on its nature of novelty and emotional instigation.[1] It draws from data leakages, twists the (...) truth, incites emotional responses, and can undermine real efforts to protect and aid vulnerable communities. Many of the places and events targeted by misinformation are sites of humanitarian crises such as Gaza, Yamen, and Ukraine among many others. Humanitarian groups conceived to provide relief to vulnerable communities are susceptible to personal harm and impeded aid because the organizational structure is not equipped for misinformation and data security breaches. While propaganda and misinformation did not emerge in the contemporary, their scope, speed, and impact have exponentially increased as the world’s use of digital media for communication developed. The current state of misinformation and data leakages are threats to humanitarian efforts, especially the vital and nuanced task of humanitarian medical aid that now simultaneously relies on the digital information ecosystem. ANALYSIS Humanitarian efforts center on the four main principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and operational independence. The United Nations Refugee Agency specifies that ‘humanity’ refers to addressing human suffering wherever it is found to ensure health and respect, ‘neutrality’ is to not engage in political, racial, religious, or ideological controversies, ‘impartiality’ is to provide aid based on need alone without bias and priority, and ‘operational independence’ is to conduct aid autonomous from agendas or actors in sectors such as political, economic, or military.[2] Medecins Sans Frontieres explicitly states neutrality, impartiality, independence, bearing witness, and accountability in their code of principles. Their statement on medical ethics is much more vague. It aims to “carry out our work with respect for the rules of medical ethics, in particular the duty to provide care without causing harm to individuals or groups. We respect patients’ autonomy, patient confidentiality, and their right to informed consent.”[3] Confidentiality is mentioned, but in the nondescript sense that could refer to confidentiality outlined in any number of medical ethics contexts. Three most commonly referred to ethical codes in Western medicine are the Declaration of Helsinki, the Belmont Report, and the Code of the American Medical Association (AMA). The Declaration of Helsinki places confidentiality in the context of research and was written pre-digital age in the 1960s.[4] The Belmont Report does not mention confidentiality or patient privacy in its summation of medical ethics from 1978.[5] Lastly, the AMA’s Code of Medical Principles upholds that physicians “shall respect the rights of patients, colleagues, and other health professionals, and shall safeguard patient confidences and privacy within the constraints of the law.”[6] This AMA principle was adopted in 1957 and revised in 2001, still before the onset of widely accessible digital media. These three medical ethics codes are the standard of Western medicine, and yet they are decades obsolete when facing the harm of digital misinformation and data leakages. Humanitarian aid organizations cannot afford to rely on outdated medical ethical codes amid digital misinformation and data leakages. Medical humanitarian relief groups such as Medecins Sans Frontiers, the International Medical Corps, the WHO Global Health and Peace Initiative, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, rely on the medical ethics defined in the aforementioned guides in addition to their humanitarian foundation. These codes, while useful, were written prior to the digital age. And, as our methods of communication, medical delivery, and global action have evolved and digitized, the ethics guiding medical practice should be updated to reflect this dramatic change. Humanitarian medical organizations need the digital ecosystem to store metadata for medical services such as patient history, blood type, metrics on locations in need of aid, missing person searches, and funding. The levels of data vulnerable to misconstruction and hacking exist on the personal and organizational levels. Individual providers and the organizational body should prioritize confidentiality. Thus humanitarian medical ethics should adapt to the reality of the digital age to not endanger the populations receiving aid and to not propagate harm. Misinformation and data leakage can lead to microtargeting, defamation, provider endangerment, and other harms preventing medical service. The European Data Protection Supervisor details how the personal information collected by organizations, such as medical, can be stolen or misconstrued to affect microtargeting, placing individuals in the direct path of echo chambers, digital tracking, and manipulation.[7] The International Broadcasting Trust released a report in 2018 detailing the extent to which misinformation was impacting the humanitarian aid groups it broadcasts to.[8] For example, the report shared that rumors spread by right-wing political groups in 2017 falsely circulated that humanitarian groups in the Mediterranean were collaborating with child trafficking rings.[9] After causing defamation, the right-wing group sent a boat to block and detain the humanitarian group’s search and rescue boat. This was one incident among many where providers and patients were put in harm’s way through misinformation and the misuse of location data. Other disinformation campaigns can be carried out by governments as well; in Syria and Ukraine, the Russian government has been specifically targeting Red ross and White Helmets.[10] Beneficial medical services cannot be delivered if providers and patients are targeted. In January of 2022, the International Association of the Red Cross was hacked. Approximately 515,000 vulnerable persons’ data was leaked and became inaccessible to the IARC providers.[11] If an organization cannot protect access to its digital ecosystem, humanitarian medical aid efforts can be rendered ineffective. Additionally, misinformation and breached data cause the less immediate but more widely impactful harm of distrust. Stakeholders and funding sources can withdraw from supporting medical humanitarian aid organizations. Beneficial medical services cannot be offered if there is no monetary backing. Providers and patients also have their own digital devices and means of communication which can lead to sensitive information being shared online or with non-neutral parties. If a patient cannot trust their provider or the organization a provider acts in the name of, medical services can be refused. Beneficial medical service cannot be conducted if the trust of the patient is compromised by humanitarian groups failing to prioritize patient confidentiality. Confidentiality should be prioritized in humanitarian medical aid to safeguard against the extended harms of data leakage, misinformation, and malintent. Some critiques may postulate that due to the uniqueness of each community aided by medical humanitarian organizations, over-standardization from rigid ethical codes may occur, that standardization can lead to inflexibility with communities and render aid strategies ineffective. However, the reality is that ethical frameworks make sure that individual actors are not monolithic – they allow for collaboration and joint work. The WHO Global Health and Peace Initiative’s recent adoption of conflict sensitivity, along with other organizations’ additions of similar language, ensure that there is a feedback loop incorporated into the ethical code to mitigate unintended harm. Thus, ethical codes are helping providers to respond in unprecedented situations with consciousness to harm propagation. In events of limited time and of crisis, comprehensive ethical codes are especially beneficial because we rely on habits and pre-established information banks. CONCLUSION Humanitarian medical ethics should include a specific guide for confidentiality. Without forethought and the integration of traditional and digital confidentiality as a main tenant, medical humanitarian organizations will continue to act retrospectively. Trust in stakeholder-provider-patient relationships will continue to disintegrate. The current status quo of medical ethics in the humanitarian aid sector poses multiple risks for providers and patients whereas adopting stronger confidentiality language is a tangible step towards the protection of vulnerable communities from the harms of digital misinformation and data leakage. - [1] Vosoughi, Soroush, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral. “The Spread of True and False News Online.” Science 359, no. 6380 (2018): 1146–51. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559. [2] “Conflict Sensitivity and the Centrality of Protection.” The Global Portection Cluster, March 2022. https://www.globalprotectioncluster.org/sites/default/files/2023-03/220318_gpc_-_conflict_sens.pdf. [3] “Our Charter and Principles.” MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES - MIDDLE EAST. Accessed December 24, 2023. https://www.msf-me.org/about-us/principles/our-charter-and-principles#:~:text=We%20give%20priority%2 0to%20those,of%20governments%20or%20warring%20parties.&text=The%20principles%20of%20impartiality%20a nd%20neutrality%20are%20not%20synonymous%20with%20silence. [4] “WMA - The World Medical Association-WMA Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects.” The World Medical Association. Accessed December 24, 2023. https://www.wma.net/policies-post/wma-declaration-of-helsinki-ethical-principles-for-medical-researc h-involving-human-subjects/. [5] Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP). “ The Belmont Report.” United States Department of Health and Human Services, September 27, 2022. https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/belmont-report/read-the-belmont-report/index.html. [6] American Medical Association. “The Code.” AMA principles of Medical Ethics. Accessed December 24, 2023. https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/principles. [7] “EDPS Opinion on Online Manipulation and Personal Data.” European Data Protection Supervisor. Accessed December 24, 2023. https://edps.europa.eu/sites/edp/files/publication/18-03-19_online_manipulation_en.pdf. [8] Robin. “Faking It: Fake News and How It Impacts on the Charity Sector.” International Broadcasting Trust, March 13, 2020. https://www.ibt.org.uk/reports/faking-it/. [9] Reed, B. “Charities Colluding with Traffickers? Fake News.” The Guardian, February 15, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/feb/15/charities-aid-agencies-fake-news-says-rep ort. [10] Sant, Shannon Van. “Russian Propaganda Is Targeting Aid Workers.” Foreign Policy, August 1, 2022. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/01/russia-disinformation-ukraine-syria-humanitarian-aid-workers/. [11] International Committee of the Red Cross. “Hacking the Data of the World’s Most Vulnerable Is an Outrage.” International Committee of the Red Cross, October 27, 2022. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/hacking-data-outrage. (shrink)

Since 1990, the allocation of foreign development aid has come to be shaped by donors' concerns about promoting "good government" in developing countries. Yet the aid donors adopt a wide variety of implicit and actual definitions of "good government.".

Does public condemnation or shaming of human rights abuses by the United Nations influence foreign aid delivery calculus across Western donor states? I argue that countries shamed in the United Nations Human Rights Council encourage donor states to channel more aid via international and local non-governmental organizations. Furthermore, I find this effect to be more pronounced with increased media coverage. The findings of this paper suggest that international organizations do influence advanced democracies’ foreign policy. Moreover, the paper also (...) finds that donor governments do not punish recipient leaders by scaling back on government-to-government aid, which is more fungible, despite public condemnations of their human rights practices owing largely to strategic concerns. These results are robust to a number of alternative data and estimation techniques. (shrink)

Thinking of AIDS as an 'emerging disease' inevitably raises questions of comparison. In the United States, we see three main phases in understanding AIDS, with each having very different implications for health and social policy. In the first, AIDS was conceived of as an epidemic disease, a 'gay plague', by analogy to the sudden, devastating epidemics of the past. In the second, it was normalized as a chronic disease, similar in many ways to diseases such as cancer. In the (...) third, we outline a new understanding of AIDS as a slow-moving, long-lasting pandemic, a chronic infectious ailment manifested through myriad specific HIV-related diseases. This new paradigm emphasizes, like the plague model, the etiology, transmission, and prevention of disease; like the chronic disease model, it is concerned with the clinical management of protracted illness. We do criticize, however, both the infectious and chronic disease models for their individualistic conceptions of disease and their narrow strategies for disease prevention. We further suggest that the traditional distinction between, and approaches to, infectious and chronic diseases are problematic and need to be rethought for AIDS and other diseases. (shrink)

In the past decade donor commitments to health have increased by 200 percent. Correspondingly, there has been a swell of new players in the global health landscape. The unprecedented, global response to a single disease, HIV/AIDS, has been responsible for a substantial portion of this boon. Numerous health success have followed this windfall of funding and attention, yet the food, fuel, and economic crises of 2008 have shown the vulnerabilities of health and development initiatives focused on short term wins and (...) reliant on a constant flow of foreign funding. For too long, the international community has responded to global health and development challenges with emergency solutions that often reflect the donor's priorities, values, and political leanings, rather than funding durable health systems that can withstand crises. Progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals has stalled in many countries. Disease specific initiatives have weakened health systems and limited efforts to improve maternal and child health. As we enter this era of scarce resources, there is a need to return to the foundations of the Alma Ata Declaration signed thirty years ago with the goal of providing universal access to primary healthcare. The global health community must now objectively evaluate how we can most effectively respond to the crises of 2008 and take advantage of this moment of extraordinary attention for global health and translate it into long term, sustainable health improvements for all. (shrink)

By 1910 the Cambridge University physiology department had become the kernel of British physiology. Between 1909 and 1914 an astonishing number of young and talented scientists passed through the laboratory. The University College department was also a stimulating place of study under the dynamic leadership of Ernest Starling.I have argued that the reasons for this metropolitan axis within British physiology lie with the social structure of late-Victorian and Edwardian higher education. Cambridge, Oxford, and University College London were national institutions attracting (...) students from all over England and Wales. In contrast, the provincial colleges drew their clientele from relatively narrow geographic radii. Generally, also, these institutions were regarded as socially inferior to the longer-established universities.A brief survey of the biographies of some British physiologists demonstrates how physiology, as an occupation, became, over the later decades of the century, socially elite. The scientists who achieved full-time posts in the 1870s generally came from somewhat marginal backgrounds. Foster, like his mentors T. H. Huxley and William Sharpey, came from a non-conformist family. Edward Schäfer was also a dissenter and, like Foster, began his professional career as a general practitioner.Physiologists of the succeeding generation, however, came from wealthy families with established intellectual traditions. John Scott Haldane, nephew of John Burdon Sanderson, was the brother of the politician R. B. Haldane and uncle of the historian A. R. B. Haldane.71 Joseph Barcroft was one of the most affluent of all physiologists.72 His family's wealth derived from linen manufacturing. He attended the Ley's School Cambridge, where his schoolmates included Henry Dale, later Director of the National Institute for Medical Research; F. A. Bainbridge, who eventually became Professor of Physiology at St. Bartholomew's Hospital; and the Cambridge historian J. H. Clapham. A. V. Hill, Professor of Physiology at Manchester and, subsequently, London, married Margaret Keynes, sister of John Maynard Keynes and niece of Sir Walter Langdon Brown, Professor of Physic at Cambridge. Margaret Keynes's younger brother, the surgeon Sir Geoffrey Keynes, married a granddaughter of Charles Darwin; their son Richard Keynes also became a physiologist at Cambridge.These families were part of a new class emerging during the late Victorian period, descendants of the great reforming radicals of the 1830s, who had begun to achieve power through positions in the universities, the professions, and the civil service. Their social prestige rested upon their intellectual expertise. Physiology was an appealing research discipline to these groups because of its clear dissociation from industry and commerce. And because physiology's “practical” face was medicine, its acceptability was reinforced by professional ties.The nature of the Physiological Society confirms this image of physiology as an elite science. By the turn of the century the Society had taken on some of the characteristics of a dining club. The scientific meetings were generally followed by dinner: if the Society met at Oxford, they were entertained at Burdon Sanderson's college, Magdalen.73 Through a “black ball” system, unwanted candidates could be excluded. In 1912, when the question of admitting foreigners was discussed, E. H. Starling wrote to Edward Schäfer: “the Society has very much in it the nature of a club, and a certain amount of personal knowledge of the candidate is always desirable.”74.The developing institutional structure of physiology in late Victorian Britain indicates, therefore, that we must look beyond the achievements of individuals and departments to understand why physiology flourished. The discipline became part of a new social order in which the professional middle classes assumed increasing power. These groups valued intellectual skill, especially in the pure scienes, as forces both for self-advancement and for progress within society. (shrink)

SummaryThe importation of Spencerism and Social Darwinism into Japan in the early Meiji era (from 1868 to the early 1880s) occurred against a background of rapid economic and industrial change which provoked widespread political unrest. This accelerated modernization was forced by Western demands for trade liberalization and the threat of Western imperialism. In this context, selected elements of Western scientific naturalism and liberalism could provide a prestigious ratification of élite agendas for the management of change, provided they could be made (...) culturally recognizable. It is suggested that traditional and Western knowledge claims were combined by key Meiji intellectuals in such a way that the product, Meiji Social Darwinism, supplied both the prestige of Western scientific positivism and the familiarity conferred by traditional resources. The clear differentiation between the constituents which made up Meiji Social Darwinism enables us to identify the distinct cultural functions performed by each of these sets of resources. In this study, these cultural functions emerge as elements in an élite class strategy. (shrink)

Bioethical discourse on organ donation covers a wide range of topics, from informed consent procedures and scarcity issues up to ‘transplant tourism’ and ‘organ trade’. This paper presents a ‘depth ethics’ approach, notably focussing on the tensions, conflicts and ambiguities concerning the status of the human body. These will be addressed from a psychoanalytical angle. First, I will outline Lacan’s view on embodiment as such. Subsequently, I will argue that, for organ recipients, the donor organ becomes what Lacan refers to (...) as an object a, the ‘partial object’ of desire, the elusive thing we are deprived of, apparently beyond our grasp. Within the recipient’s body an empty space emerges, a kind of ‘vacuole’, once occupied by a faltering organ. This space can only be filled by a ‘gift’ from the other, by an object a. Once implanted, however, this implant becomes an ‘extimate’ object: something both ‘external’ and ‘intimate’, both ‘embedded’ and ‘foreign’, and which is bound to remain an object of concern for quite some time, if not for life. A Lacanian analysis allows us, first of all, to address the question what organ transplantation has in common with other bodily practices involving bodily parts procured from others, such as cannibalism. But it also reveals the basic difference between the two, as well as the distance between the ‘fragmented body’ of Frankenstein’s ‘monster’—as an aggregate of replaceable parts—and the multiple organ recipients of today. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Procreative Liberty, Biological Connections, and MotherhoodMargaret Olivia Little (bio)Given the complex and dramatic array of issues currently facing us in reproductive ethics, bioethicists working on the topic might be forgiven feelings of trepidation when they cast their minds toward the next century. Currently, technologies such as artificial insemination by donor (AID), once the source of intense controversy, are used on a routine basis; mainstream newspapers carry advertisements offering “excellent (...) compensation” to ova “donors;” courts are arguing whether women who serve as gestational or “surrogate” mothers have any parental rights; and proposals resurface to jail pregnant women who take street drugs. Sorting out which developments are to be welcomed and which are to be resisted—and why—will require us not only to clarify some of our most basic value commitments, but also to reflect on our understanding of concepts, such as motherhood, that we previously had the luxury of thinking obvious. Let me highlight two issues I think we will be forced to confront as we try to navigate the ethics of reproduction into the twenty-first century—namely, the value of biological connection and the meaning of motherhood.Procreative Liberty and the Value of Biological ReproductionPeople who are unable to conceive a child or to carry one to term now face a variety of extraordinary means of procreative assistance: they can buy sperm and ova, undergo in vitro fertilization, or contract another woman to gestate and give birth to the baby. Those who are enthusiastic about these new technologies [End Page 392] and arrangements often explain their support in terms of many people’s deep desire or even right to bear children biologically related to them; those who are suspicious of the techniques often explain their resistance by criticizing our culture’s “pronatalist” emphasis on biological rather than social relations with children. Focusing on such clear-cut positions, though, undersells the complexity and difficulty of the issues involved. Few want to dismiss altogether the importance of biological connection; but the question remains, what measure of importance should it be granted? Or again, while most agree that procreative liberty is one of our most fundamental rights, the question remains, whose procreation, in what context, and by which means? The truly difficult questions, that is, pertain to how we are to value biological relatedness and how we are to draw the contours of procreative liberty.One perspective emerging in current debates urges an expansive answer to these questions, arguing that the new reproductive technologies and arrangements deserve constitutional protection. Procreative liberty is deeply important, it is urged, given how fundamental the decision to have or to refrain from having children is to our sense of dignity, identity, and meaning of life. But if we recognize a right to reproduce coitally, it is claimed, we should also recognize a right to reproduce noncoitally: people with infertile partners should no more be barred from exercising their right to “beget, bear, and raise” children biologically linked to them by using surrogate arrangements or AID than those who are blind should be barred from exercising their right to written information by using Braille texts. 1The fundamental question is whether the value of biological reproduction persists when pursued outside of the intimacies of marriage and family that form its traditional home. The new reproductive technologies and arrangements, after all, represent a departure not simply because they are noncoital but because they involve reproduction with strangers, under contract, and for pay. One question that demands our reflection, then, is whether the procreative liberty we value attaches to individuals atomistically, as it were, or to individuals only insofar as they are in relationships of an intimate and ongoing nature.Other developments on the horizon sound a restrictive note about procreative liberty. Many IVF clinics, for instance, have denied services to would-be single parents or to gay or lesbian couples. Some legislators have proposed making certain welfare payments for women conditional upon their use of contraceptives such as Norplant—an odd view if one regards procreative liberty as a fundamental right. After all, we do not usually make the receipt of public aid contingent on waiving a constitutional right. (Imagine the government stipulating that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dogs and MonstersObservations on the Evacuation of Afghanistan and the Intersection of Human Rights and the AnthropoceneK. M. Ferebee (bio)On August 28, 2021, former Royal Marine and charity worker Pen Farthing was evacuated from Afghanistan with almost two hundred dogs and cats that his Kabul animal charity, Nowzad Dogs, had rescued. The role of the British government in this evacuation remains hotly contested: At the time, the British Ministry (...) of Defence tweeted (Fig. 1) that Farthing's escape had been assisted by the British military, but Farthing later disputed this claim and argued that his rescue was not the result of high-level intervention in the British government. In January 2022 controversy erupted around the emergence of documents suggesting that Prime Minister Boris Johnson had lied to Parliament about the personal role that he played in just such an intervention. Notably, Nowzad's Afghan staff members were not evacuated alongside Farthing and the animals, though they would eventually escape to Pakistan. Following Farthing's escape, the British government failed to evacuate hundreds of British citizens and residents (Merriman and Ghouri), as well as many more Afghans who had worked on behalf of British forces. The Nowzad Dogs evacuation became a site of symbolic struggle over Britain's respect (or lack thereof) for human rights. "What a story to tell the world: Britain values dogs more than Afghan people," the headline of an opinion piece in the Guardian (Hinsliff) read.The story of Nowzad Dogs is interesting to me not only as a tale of human-nonhuman relations, but also because I was, at the time it occurred, volunteering within the Afghan aid community to assist relatives of a friend, British Afghans who had been visiting Kabul when the government [End Page 52] collapsed. The family repeatedly asked for assistance from the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—assistance that never appeared. Ultimately, due to the generosity of donors and the coordination of a volunteer team, the family was able to flee to Pakistan, where they boarded a commercial flight to London. This case was a particularly stark and powerful illustration of the negotiations of rights and value that took place during and following the evacuation. It seemed nonsensical, in August 2021, to suppose that British citizens, including British children (the family I worked with included a six- and an eleven-year-old who were British citizens), would be abandoned while Afghan dogs had their rights prioritized. As I hope to demonstrate here, however, such an incident becomes comprehensible and even logical when it is understood as part of a specifically Anthropocene manifestation of subjectivity.Upendra Baxi suggests that 1948's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) marks a broad shift from the era of "modern" (42) human rights (which began with the American and French Revolutions) to the era of "contemporary" (42) human rights. His periodization links these eras in human rights to shifts in the ideology of capitalism and empire. The "modern" era of human rights, he writes, "signals a whole variety of ideological 'justifications' for colonization and world domination" and "provides a register of major development in industrial capitalism" (42), while the "contemporary" era of human rights "is based on the premise of radical self-determination" (46). Such a periodization also brings human rights into close alignment with the Anthropocene, which is rooted in the capitalist-colonial Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, yet often dated most concretely to the circa-1950 shift that some (such as J. R. McNeill and Peter Engelke) label the "Great Acceleration." Indeed, one could reasonably appropriate Baxi's terms and speak of "modern" and "contemporary" Anthropocenes mapped identically onto the global timeline.I propose to use the 2021 Afghan evacuation as a site from which to explore how human rights and the Anthropocene have together coproduced certain forms of subjectivity that are essential for the continued smooth functioning of world-ecological capitalism. These new forms of subjectivity are necessary to sustain the important fiction of individual [End Page 53] agency and value and conceal the ways in which the Anthropocene moment renders this fiction meaningless. Ultimately, I paint a picture of an Anthropocene without any human agency at all. I want... (shrink)

Arguments for the provision of foreign aid to help relieve the blight of developing countries have traditionally centred on obligations of benevolence and a duty to help those less fortunate.1 However, the War on Terror has resulted in a significant shift in how foreign aid is perceived. International prosperity and stability are now recognized as key elements in a fight to ameliorate the conditions that give rise to terrorism. Public support for foreign aid in general, normally unpopular, (...) has increased since 11 September 2001 due to greater public understanding of its role in combating terrorism.2 In particular, the need to address attitudes of foreign civilians toward the United States has become more widely recognized as a key component of efforts to reduce the ferment of the terrorist mindset. These strategies have assumed particular importance in light of the non-traditional nature of the threat posed by contemporary terrorism: a threat posed not by states or armies, but by individuals and groups who blend into, garner both the implicit and explicit support of, and are recruited from general civilian populations. (shrink)

Many western industrialized countries are currently suffering from a crisis in health human resources, one that involves a debate over the recruitment and licensing of foreign-trained doctors and nurses. The intense public policy interest in foreign-trained medical personnel, however, is not new. During the 1960s, western countries revised their immigration policies to focus on highly-trained professionals. During the following decade, hundreds of thousands of health care practitioners migrated from poorer jurisdictions to western industrialized countries to solve what were (...) then deemed to be national doctor and nursing 'shortages' in the developed world. Migration plummeted in the 1980s and 1990s only to re-emerge in the last decade as an important debate in global health care policy and ethics. This paper will examine the historical antecedents to this ethical debate. It will trace the early articulation of the idea of a 'brain drain', one that emerged from the loss of NHS doctors to other western jurisdictions in the 1950s and 1960s. Only over time did the discussion turn to the 'manpower' losses of 'third world countries', but the inability to track physician migration, amongst other variables, muted any concerted ethical debate. By contrast, the last decade's literature has witnessed a dramatically different ethical framework, informed by globalization, the rise of South Africa as a source donor country, and the ongoing catastrophe of the AIDS epidemic. Unlike the literature of the early 1970s, recent scholarship has focussed on a new framework of global ethics. (shrink)

This paper investigates the efficiency of application of medical ethics principles in the practice of artificial insemination by donors in China, in a culture characterised by traditional ethical values and disapproval of AID. The paper presents the ethical approach to AID treatment as established by the Reproduction and Genetics Hospital of CITIC-Xiangya in the central southern area of China against the social ethical background of China and describes its general features. The CITIC-Xiangya Approach facilitates the implementation of ethical relations (...) between clinicians and patients participating in AID treatment procedures in Hunan-Yale. (shrink)

In this paper, I have a twofold aim: First I wish to show to what extent the Husserlian Theory of Intersubjectivity can be relevant for contemporary empirical research and for ancestral wisdom traditions, both in their experiences and in their conceptual tools; and secondly I intend to rely on some empirical results and experiential mystical/practical reports in order to bring about some more refined phenomenological descriptions first provided by Husserl. The first aim will be the main concern here, while the (...) second will only be broached by way of initial steps towards further development. -/- I will proceed in two stages: in the first place I will give some evidence for Husserl's relevance by giving an account of his original conceptions of (a) egoic subjectivity, (b) genetic phenomenology, and (c) lived empathy. In the second place, my purpose is to indicate how much Husserl's view on infants/children, animals/ beasts, mad people/the insane and aliens/foreigners/strangers may be of some interest for scientific empirical conceptions and for practical paths of spiritual self-development. In so doing, I hope to be able (1) to confirm the accuracy of Husserl's own intuitions and analysis, and (2) to suggest some refinements in the way Husserl described such experiences. -/- Throughout this paper I will focus on two main Husserlian discoveries: (1) subjectivity is from the very start intersubjectivity; (2) infants, animals, the insane and aliens are subjects in a full sense, precisely because they are from the very beginning always already intersubjective subjects; besides, they are limit-subjectivities, who compel me in a kind of feedback to enlarge and to deepen my own subjectivity. (shrink)

Background: Organ donation and transplantation represent one of the most important scientific advances over the last decades. Due to the complexity of these procedures and related ethical–legal aspects, however, there are a lot of doubts and uncertainty about the brain death diagnosis and the maintenance of potential organ donor. Aim: To identify and discuss the different meanings and experiences of registered nurses and physicians from an adult intensive care unit in relation to the diagnosis of brain death and the maintenance (...) of potential organ donors for transplantation purposes. Study Design: Participants were registered nurses and physicians from an adult intensive care unit at a University Hospital from Brazil. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using content analysis. Ethical considerations: This study was approved by the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto College of Nursing Research Ethics Committee. Results: Two main categories emerged from the analysis: (1) brain death diagnosis and its implications and (2) maintenance of the potential organ donor and its repercussion in the donation–transplantation process. Six subcategories were also identified: (1.1) understanding the brain death diagnosis as a tool to aid decision-making; (1.2) diagnosis as guarantee of rights; (1.3) difficulties encountered to establish the diagnosis; (1.4) clinical criteria adopted in Brazil and related ethical–legal aspects; (2.1) specificities of care to the brain dead person and outcomes; and (2.2) nurse’s duties toward the brain dead person. Conclusion: Although the brain death diagnosis is scientifically and legally defined in Brazil and the maintenance of the potential organ donor for transplantation purposes has been addressed during the last years, there are still some doubts about the subject, as its understanding varies according to the personal beliefs, culture, and educational background of individuals, including those who work in this scenario. (shrink)

The number of women living with HIV/AIDS is increasing worldwide, and there is an urgent public health need to develop new user-initiated HIV prevention methods, including microbicides. Although funding for microbicide development has increased since 2000, financial support is provided predominantly by governmental agencies and private foundations. Many donors, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), have policies that restrict how research funds may be used. Among these are the now-rescinded Mexico (...) City Policy, elements of the US Foreign Assistance Act, and restrictions on non-study-related care. The effect of these restrictions on the design and conduct of clinical research is poorly understood. As part of a recent mapping exercise conducted by the Global Campaign for Microbicides, we reviewed the impact of donor restrictions on seven HIV prevention trials. We found considerable confusion within the HIV prevention field as to whether and how Mexico City and other policies affect the use of research funds. We also found that these donor-imposed policies limited the level of care provided to trial participants and the types of capacity building projects undertaken. (shrink)

The number of women living with HIV/AIDS is increasing worldwide, and there is an urgent public health need to develop new user-initiated HIV prevention methods, including microbicides. Although funding for microbicide development has increased since 2000, financial support is provided predominantly by governmental agencies and private foundations. Many donors, including the US Agency for International Development and the US National Institutes of Health, have policies that restrict how research funds may be used. Among these are the now-rescinded Mexico City Policy, (...) elements of the US Foreign Assistance Act, and restrictions on non-study-related care. The effect of these restrictions on the design and conduct of clinical research is poorly understood. As part of a recent mapping exercise conducted by the Global Campaign for Microbicides, we reviewed the impact of donor restrictions on seven HIV prevention trials. We found considerable confusion within the HIV prevention field as to whether and how Mexico City and other policies affect the use of research funds. We also found that these donor-imposed policies limited the level of care provided to trial participants and the types of capacity building projects undertaken. (shrink)

Emergency declarations are a vital legal authority that can activate funds, personnel, and material and change the legal landscape to aid in the response to a public health threat. Traditionally, declarations have been used against immediate and unforeseen threats such as hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, and pandemic influenza. Recently, however, states have used emergency declarations to address public health issues that have existed in communities for months and years and have risk factors such as poverty and substance misuse. Leaders in these (...) states have chosen to use emergency powers that are normally reserved for sudden catastrophes to address these enduring public health issues. This article will explore emergency declarations as a legal mechanism for response; describe recent declarations to address hepatitis A and the opioid overdose epidemic; and seek to answer the question of whether it is appropriate to use emergency powers to address public health issues that are not traditionally the basis for an emergency declaration. (shrink)

Although interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in emerging markets has increased in recent years, most research still focuses on developed countries. The scant literature on the topic, which traditionally suggested that CSR was relatively underdeveloped in emerging markets, has recently explored the context specificity, suggesting that it is different and reflects the specific social and political background. This would particularly apply to local companies, not so much to foreign subsidiaries of multinationals active in emerging markets. (...) Thus far, empirical research that systematically documents a range of CSR activities of local companies and their performance has been scarce. This paper reports the results of a survey conducted among companies in the Mexican auto industry. CSR performance was investigated across three dimensions: environmental, labor, and community, using measures from existing research and global, ' Western' standards of practice, to identify the type of CSR activities and the level of CSR performance that exists, if at all, in the emerging-market context. Results show that local companies do engage in the type of CSR activities commonly associated with CSR in developed countries. To the extent that comparisons could be made, our findings also indicate that CSR activities and levels among the sample are comparable to what is known about CSR in developed-country settings. Moreover, six of the nine CSR dimensions are intercorrelated, which suggests that CSR in the Mexican auto parts industry is more structural than incidental. (shrink)

With the continued expansion and commercialisation of fertility treatments, the selection and matching of donors have become more sophisticated and technologised. As part of this landscape, new form of genetic screening: ‘expanded carrier screening’ (ECS) is being offered as a technique to avoid the risk of donors passing on genetic conditions to future offspring. Allowing donors to be tested for hundreds of genetic conditions simultaneously, ECS marks a considerable departure from traditional ‘family history’ models of screening, which rely on (...) an individual's knowledge of family health. There is growing evidence of a drive towards the use of ECS within the fertility sector, and a growing number of clinics are offering it for a fee, as part of an egg or sperm donation cycle or as an add‐on to IVF treatment. In this article, we use methods of critical reflection to synthesise data from two studies to explore how ECS is being used to avoid genetic risk in IVF treatment using donor gametes. We suggest that ECS is a new form of repro‐genetic selection—a selective reproductive technology—with specific and important implications for donors, recipients and clinicians and with the potential to reconfigure the scope and application of gamete donation. We examine these implications and conclude that the existing policy blind spot relating to this development in fertility treatment practice needs to be urgently addressed. (shrink)

The author argues that in spite of its pro-European makeup, the AKP stands within the tradition of political Islam. The party supports Turkey’s integration with the EU, foreign investments and privatization, but at the same time it undermines secularism, the fundamental constitutional principle of the Turkish state. It uses its pro-Western rhetoric and pro-business attitude as an instrument to achieve its political goals. It attempts to replace the secular identity of Turkey with an Islamic religious identity. It thus opens (...) the gate for the country’s complete transformation, from a secular to a religious state. Without secularism that the Kemalist establishment defends, Turkey will be neither democratic nor truly pro-European. Hence, the author claims, the AKP does not deserve the support it gets from the Western press and EU politicians. (shrink)

Many of the most important properties of human groups – including properties that may give one group an evolutionary advantage over another – are properly defined only at the level of group organization. Yet at present, most work on the evolution of culture has focused solely on the transmission of individual-level traits. I propose a conceptual extension of the theory of cultural evolution, particularly related to the evolutionary competition between cultural groups. The key concept in this extension is the emergent (...) group-level trait. This type of trait is characterized by the structured organization of differentiated individuals and constitutes a unit of selection that is qualitatively different from selection on groups as defined by traditional multilevel selection theory. As a corollary, I argue that the traditional focus on cooperation as the defining feature of human societies has missed an essential feature of cooperative groups. Traditional models of cooperation assume that interacting with one cooperator is equivalent to interacting with any other. However, human groups involve differential roles, meaning that receiving aid from one individual is often preferred to receiving aid from another. In this target article, I discuss the emergence and evolution of group-level traits and the implications for the theory of cultural evolution, including ramifications for the evolution of human cooperation, technology, and cultural institutions, and for the equivalency of multilevel selection and inclusive fitness approaches. (shrink)

Increasing international cooperation and interdependence are important features of the contemporary globalized world. In the present age, foreign aid is a very peculiar type of transaction in the sense that its focus is to satisfy the objectives of the donor and the recipient, which are not always the same. This paper attempts to analyse the situation of US and British aid to Pakistan’s education sector. The role of international donors in the development of the education sector in Pakistan cannot (...) be underestimated. They have been even more important for this developing country which has faced financial crises, particularly during the 1990s. These financial hardships faced by the country were mainly the outcome of the changed regional, political, as well as the geostrategic situation which also caused the change in the behaviour of international donors. It is especially true in the case of the USA and the UK where the aid to Pakistan was seriously affected by the changed situation in Afghanistan, political changes within the country, its nuclear programme and more recently the events of 9/11. This discussion reflects that the potential benefits of the aid were not reaped adequately due mainly to disruption and resumption of aid on the grounds of the geo‐political situation and strategic interests of donors. (shrink)

In this essay, I offer a critical analysis of one of the most provocative aspects of Heidegger’s unfinished confrontation with Aristotle’s thinking. Over the course of his lifelong engagement with Aristotle’s texts, Heidegger rarely failed to notice the constitutive ambiguity of the ancient Greek philosopher’s position within the history of being. On the one hand, Aristotle appeared to be the founder of the Western metaphysical tradition of ontotheology, whereby God was understood as the supreme principle and being of all beings. (...) But on the other hand, there were traces or echoes of a more originary thinking in Aristotle’s texts that, according to Heidegger, could be developed for the sake of another beginning. In this essay, I draw on this constitutive ambiguity by focusing on Heidegger’s partial translation of Metaphysics Λ 6, where Aristotle most explicitly discusses the being (οὐσία) of the unmoved being. Using Heidegger’s translation as an aid, I argue that Aristotle’s account of the unmoved being in Metaphysics Λ 6 is perhaps best understood as of- fering an enigmatic description of the origin of movement and time as an act of pure temporalizing (reine Zeitigung), which is how Heidegger translates the notion of ἐνέργεια. In the conclusion of this essay, I suggest that the temporal account of being and time as pure temporalizing offers a possible way to reappropriate Aristotle’s thinking in a phenomenological context. (shrink)

This book describes the foreign policy of John Rawls and Amartya Sen while building up towards a policy recommendation. By redirecting some military spending to development goals, the core needs of more civilians can be better met – while simultaneously advancing human security.

The historical criticism of the Book of Proverbs has substituted the pre‐Enlightenment view that Solomon was the real author with the finding that Israel’s post‐exilic sages added the name and prestige of the wisest of kings to their work. However the pre‐Enlightenment commentators of Proverbs recognised that the name Solomon is integral to the text of Proverbs. This article recognises this textual datum and reads Prov 1–9 from an unusual angle today, namely as if Solomon were the author and principal (...) speaker. In such a reading of Prov 1–9 the portrait of Solomon emerging from within the text is sharpened by a comparison with the depiction of Solomon in 1 Kgs 1–11.The article seeks to make the point that the character of Solomon so construed in a textual comparison of Prov 1–9 and 1 Kgs 1–11 is but one of a number of diverse portraits made of Solomon in Proverbs throughout the centuries of commentary. In the first part of the article we study three early commentaries, those of Bede, of Hugo Grotius, and of Augustin Calmet. We show that the portrait of Solomon discovered in our own reading of Prov 1–9 in the second part of the article takes its place alongside numerous others. However we today are able to be more faithful to the biblical text than the early commentators because we need not harmonise Proverbs with 1 Kings, as the early commentators felt obliged to do. A contemporary intertextual study of Prov 1–9 can recoup a valid aspect of the ancient literary tradition, that of making Solomon integral to Proverbs. The Solomon we have discovered in Prov 1–9 is the one that spoke through Proverbs at its first publication. In Prov 1–9 the royal attribute is set aside. Solomon is represented as an Israelite teaching parent. (shrink)

An artwork in one culture and form, say European classical music, cannot be evaluated in the context of another, say Hindustani music. While a person educated in the traditions of European music can rationally evaluate and discuss her response to a string quartet by Beethoven, her response to music in a foreign culture is merely subjective. She might "like" the latter, but her response is merely subjective. In this paper, I discuss the role of artforms: why response can be (...) "objectively" discussed within artforms, but is nonetheless subjective across them. My discussion falls into two parts. First, I offer a psychological account of aesthetic response to art: cultural learning stabilizes this response across individuals who are educated in an artform. Second, I offer a cultural-evolutionary account of the diversity of artforms, adapting Darwin's Principle of the Divergence of Character to explain the multiplicity of art forms. (shrink)

This paper traces back the sources of our present legal system and of market economy to Medieval Europe which itself benefited from Hellenistic and Roman legal culture and commercial practices. Roman provinces placed Rome in the wider Greek cultural and commercial world. If Aristotle was already transcending the narrow polis-based conceptions of his predecessors, after him Hellenistic Civilization saw the emergence of a new school of philosophy: Stoicism. The legal thought in the Latin West will hence be characterized by Cicero’s (...) writings and its Stoic sources. The Roman legal system was similar to the later northern European customary law and the English common law; Roman law was evolutionary and customary. The rise of Western individualism, whether it dates back to St. Augustine in the fifth century, or to the two Papal Revolutions of Gregory I (establishing the nuclear family as the core of individualism) and of Gregory VII, also played a crucial role in shaping the western legal tradition. The paper describes the main forces that led to this second (Gregorian) revolution. Monasticism is one of them. Benedictine monasticism plaid a leading role in the Peace of God Movement. Hence collective oath-taking by groups in the name of peace was essential in the founding of cities and in the formation of guilds. Europe’s economic resurgence in the Eleventh Century was on the basis of the creation of the rule of law by the Peace of God movement. This movement also allowed for Europe’s agricultural economy to progress. Indeed, the European Middle Ages is one of the major periods of technological innovation in the history of the world. The Gregorian Revolution itself was supported and financed by the Commercial Revolution: Italian bankers sustained Papal reformers against the Emperors. The independence of the Italian cities and provinces reveals one of the most important consequences of the Gregorian Revolution: the polycentricism of Western Europe. This Revolution also witnessed the first large number of political pamphlets in European history; the Gregorian clergy emphasizing a compact theory of government. Soon after, the order of Cistercians was founded (1098) and underwent spectacular growth during the next two centuries. The Cistercians accepted no rents or labor services from feudal donors but would take only full possession of land to do with it as they wished.These monasteries were the most economically effective units that had ever existed in Europe, and perhaps in the world, before that time. Finally, the Magna Carta (1215) that will be so influential on modern political thought can be seen as a direct consequence of the Gregorian Revolution. (shrink)

The presentation of a cloak (mandyas) as a symbolic act of the Patriarch-elect’s confirmation by the Byzantine Emperor was one of the ceremonial traditions of the Church. In a similar way, the capstone of a Greek clergyman’s investiture by Ottoman officials was the presentation of the hil‘at caftan, the symbol of social status and prestige par excellence. This intentional or coincidental interweaving of Byzantine and Ottoman traditions has been noted in foreign travelers’ accounts, indicating a wide understanding of the (...) entanglement. Official Ottoman documents, in contrast, provide more reliable information on the type of hil‘at given and the position of the clergymen who received it. The evidence of vestments preserved in Greek sacristies suggests that this fundamentally bureaucratic practice might have substantially affected dress used in religious rituals and processions. Supporting this hypothesis is a discussion of relevant textile remnants, many of which were reused. The article opens up the discussion of this aspect of the ceremonial use of textiles in the search for how the Ottoman secular aesthetic influenced Greek ecclesiastical material culture from the fifteenth century and beyond. (shrink)

As its title is meant to suggest, this paper is a reply to Sir Tim Lankester’s article “International Aid: Experience, Prospects and the Moral Case”, published in the World Economics last year 1 . Therefore, I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude for the author’s responsiveness to my interest and queries in the area of development economics. The main point of Sir Lankester’s article was, I believe, to strengthen the case for international aid by showing first, that it (...) was not just a theoretical matter 2 and second, that its efficiency was not a self-evident fait accompli, but a still-to-achieve objective, entirely contingent upon human and institutional factors such as the will, interests, and past experience of donors, as well as the system of governance and existing policies from the recipient countries. Moreover, the human factor is actually two-fold, in the sense that one can focus either on the external part engaged in the aid mission – the donor –, or on the internal one – the recipient. Sir Tim Lankester looks into what motivates the former, whereas I intend to unpack the life-experience of the latter, for I strongly believe that what ultimately decides the success or failure of development projects has more to do with understanding their life situation, than with the actual quantum of aid. Although the two cases grounded on the above-mentioned claims may seem completely separated in Tim Lankester’s article for he allocates distinct sections to them, I have reasons to believe that they are not only inter-connected, but also deeply inter-dependent, which is crucial for the kind of existentialist scenario that I intend to outline here. In order to prove this, I am going to combine two sets of argumentative tools: one will be logical, the other – empirical. The former will help us address the issues at stake in Tim Lankester’s moral case, and find ways of strengthening it; the latter will help reminding the real goal of this attempt – which is to improve the prospects of aid missions in real-life scenarios, rather than in theory. The first, rather theoretical section will consist of an extended analysis of the moral case that Sir Lankester started to build. The focus will be not only on the supposedly fruitful aspects of social justice theories, but also on their potential risks; both heroes and villains will emerge from the analysis, and new leads will be discovered. The main criterion for testing whatever findings will remain the pragmatic one: questioning their implications on the life-experiences of the poor. The other approach that I have mentioned will consist of providing a description of life in a particular community, which I have known and learnt from. In this case, the ‘empirical’ obviously means more than just the use of examples – which can be invented, or refined: it actually involves relying on a set of personal experiences and convictions, thereby testifying in – rather than just advocating – the case for aid and development projects, under discussion here. Again, the purpose will be not so much to prove that my claim has the sort of objective validity that a theoretician would normally seek to achieve, as to enforce it by whatever relevant testimonies – be them contextual, perhaps even biased; in this case, the ‘biased’ aspect consists of using an example derived from lifeexperiences in a particular developing country: my own. And it is exactly what I regard as the strength of it; indeed, I would not be writing this, had I not learnt that lesson. (shrink)

The present article discusses the Department of Kalam, its foundation, academic structuring, philosophy, and contribution to religious thought at the national and international level since the establishment of Ankara University Faculty of Divinity. The process regarding the field of Kalam since the establishment of Ankara University Faculty of Divinity in 1949 has been studied over two historical periods. The first is the period from its being taught as a course under the Chair of the History of Islam and Sects during (...) the establishment of the Faculty of Divinity to 1974 when it turned into an independent chair, and the second is the process from 1974 to the present. Higher religious education was continued in the Faculty of Theology, established under the Istanbul Dārulfunūn, which was constructed in the western style instead of the madrasahs that were closed in accordance with the Law of Unification of Education (Tawhid Tadrisāt) adopted on March 3, 1924.The faculty in question was closed in 1933 due to the shortage of students. Until Ankara University Faculty of Theology, which started its teaching activities in November 1949, was opened, there was no higher religious education for 16 years in Turkey. During this time, the need for experts trained in the field of religion emerged. In order to meet this need, Ankara University Faculty of Theology was opened. In the newly opened faculty, it is aimed to train theologians with versatile knowledge and perspective by teaching philosophy, psychology, sociology, foreign languages, as well as teaching disciplines related to the field of theology. One of the chairs in the faculty’s academic structure opened for this purpose was the chair of History of Islam and Sects. In Ankara University Faculty of Theology, where the academic structuring was organized according to the chair system, the science of Kalam was taught as a course within the Chair of the History of Islam and Sects until 1974. Within this chair, the teachings of Principles of Islam, the history of Islamic sects, and Kalam lessons were carried out. The first instructor of the chair was Prof. Yusuf ZiyaYörükân. Although there were changes in the academic staff during the process, one of the important names that contributed to the field of kalam until 1974 was Muhammad Tavît al-Tanji. These scholars not only made significant contributions to the field of Kalam in terms of method and content with their own studies but also taught scholars to work in this field after them.The doctoral advisor of HüseyinAtay, who is the founder of the Kalam Chair/Department, is M. Tavît al-Tancî. In 1974, when HüseyinAtay became a professor, the Kalam course was separated from the Chair of Islam and Sects and gained the status of an independent chair. HüseyinAtay is the architect of the transformation of Kalam from a lecture to a chair.As a result of Atay’s efforts, being a theologian in Turkey has turned into an identity rather than being a member of an academic discipline. In the studies carried out by Yörükân, Tancî, Atay and the academicians taught by them in Ankara University Faculty of Theology Department of Kalam, the emphasis on the Quran and reason, the importance of critical thinking in the field of theology, the human-centered theological thought, the effort to find solutions to current problems, the researches on Mu‘tazila and Maturidism, the study and translation activities that are carried out to bring the classical theology to the present day come to the fore. In the essence of academic studies conducted within this framework, the importance of correctly determining the distinction between the divine and human in the analysis of religious thought is emphasized. In addition, it is aimed to give a perspective on the meaning and value of human life. In the Department of Kalam, where the human-centered understanding of kalam is systematically dealt with on the basis of individual, responsibility, and morality, the science of kalam is structured not only as a system of thought consisting of abstract fictions but a discipline that has the function of developing and gaining a perspective on what is happening around us and in the World. (shrink)

Some prominent figures in both sociology and the field of sociology of religion, such as Auguste Comte, Max Weber, Karl Marx, and Emile Durkheim, discussed the changes brought about by cultural, political, and economic revolutions in Continental Europe, considering the institution of religion. The issues they explored and the concepts they developed have also had an impact on the Turkish sociologists engaged in academic research outside of Continental Europe. In fact, Turkish intellectuals who experienced the Ottoman Empire transformation into the (...) Republic of Turkey found a rich area of study in the sociological outcomes of the revolution, particularly in relation to the interplay of religion and society. The accumulation of the sociology of religion discipline and methodological studies from Continental Europe to Turkey can be examined by categorizing the symbolic ideas of sociologists into three distinct periods within this framework. The purpose of this study is to address the process of institutionalization of the discipline of sociology of religion in three key phases, elucidating the conceptual frameworks and contributions made by symbolic representatives. Indeed, the examination of the institutionalization process of the discipline of sociology of religion during the Republican era holds historical significance for the field. This study is based on the views of the sociology of religion theorists in three primary phases, focusing on the preparation during the Republican era, institutionalization, and the formation of local literature. It also delves into the contributions of figures like Prens Sabahattin, Ziya Gökalp, Mümtaz Turhan, Erol Güngör, Şerif Mardin, Mehmet Taplamacıoğlu, and Ünver Günay during this process and examine the emergence of new literature in the third phase. Despite the presence of numerous sociology of religion scholars, these specific names were chosen to represent different sociological schools. The data used in this study were obtained through the documentation technique. (shrink)

This book analyzes emergency legislations formed in response to terrorism. In recognition that different countries, with different legal traditions, have different solutions, it adopts a comparative point of view. The countries profiled include America, France, Israel, Poland, Germany and United Kingdom. The goal is not to offer judgment on one response or the other. Rather, the contributors offer a comprehensive and thoughtful examination of the entire concept. In the process, they draw attention to the inadaptability of traditional legal and (...) philosophical categories in a new and changing political world. The contributors first criticize the idea of these legislations. They then go on to develop different models to respond to these crises. They build a general analytical framework by answering such questions as: What is an emergency legislation? What kinds of emergencies justify laws of this nature? Why is contemporary terrorism such a specific emergency justifying new laws? Using legal and philosophical reflections, this study looks at how we are changing society. Coverage also provides historical experiences of emergency legislations to further illustrate this point. In the end, readers will gain insight into the long-term consequences of these legislations and how they modify the very work of the rule of law. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ennius and the Architecture of the Annales by Jackie Elliott, and: The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition by Jay Fisher, and: Shaggy Crowns: Ennius’ Annales and Virgil’s Aeneid by Nora GoldschmidtThomas BiggsJackie Elliott. Ennius and the Architecture of the Annales. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. xiv + 590. Hardcover, $110.00.Jay Fisher. The Annals of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition. Baltimore: Johns (...) Hopkins University Press, 2014. x + 206. Hardcover, $69.95.Nora Goldschmidt. Shaggy Crowns: Ennius’ Annales and Virgil’s Aeneid. Oxford Classical Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. x + 258. Hardcover, $125.00.According to Aulus Gellius, Ennius claimed to have three hearts, each representing a part of his hybrid cultural identity (Gel. 17.71.1: Quintus Ennius tria corda habere sese dicebat, quod loqui Graece et Osce et Latine sciret). Matching his hearts in number, the three books under review delve into the various Greek, Italic, and Latin influences on Ennius’ eighteen-book Annales, exploring the epic’s literary heritage and reception. One might rightly claim that in the wake of these important contributions (1088 pages for 623 fragments), we have firmly entered an aetas Enniana. The elephant in the room for all those interested in the poem is, of course, its highly fragmentary state of preservation. Instead of serving as an insurmountable obstacle, the scholarly process of interpreting fragmentary texts actually emerges as a shared feature of the methodologies on display in these otherwise quite different works. While Fisher and Goldschmidt push the limits of what an incomplete epic can communicate, Elliott more skeptically tackles the nature of transmission and its impact on our knowledge of the text.Ennius’ Oscan heart, representing his Italic heritage, takes center stage in Fisher’s study. Many readers will find most original and striking his arguments for the epic resonance and formulaic quality of “traditional” Latin phrases and their links with languages such as Umbrian and Oscan. Fisher relies throughout on the meaningful co-occurrence of communicative words, “traditional collocation” (3), and the use of language from various “traditional” cultural fields such as ritual, prayer, kinship, and the military (he adopts Lowell Edmunds’ concept of “system reference,” 5). According to Fisher, Ennius’ use of these culturally marked forms of language, shaped during the period of the central Italian koine\ (seventh to fourth centuries b.c.e.), allows his epic to include and enact an elevated tone appropriate to the inherited demands of his genre. While Ennius’ revolutionary turn to the hexameter may initially suggest a decision to abandon all that is old (or perhaps old-fashioned) about “native” literary culture, the pervasive presence of the Italic militates against severing Ennius from the lifeblood pumped through his Oscan heart. In fact, the dialogue between “foreign and familiar” aspects of culture is key to Fisher’s demonstration of how the Italic past emerges as a ghostly mediator and occasional replacement of superficially Greek and Homeric elements (10, 56, 85).With a presumed audience of Latinists, it is somewhat surprising that the introduction, “Ennius and the Italic Tradition,” devotes little time to outlining his rather unique methodology. But Fisher prefers to show rather than tell. On page 5 he jumps right into an analysis of Skutsch Ann. 232 (non semper vostra [End Page 713] evortit nunc Iuppiter hac stat), the language and context of Jupiter Stator in Cicero Cat. 1, and the Oscan Jupiter Versor: he convincingly connects Oscan Iovi Versori with Ennius’ evortit... Iuppiter (8). While the particulars of the argument take a winding course through various temples and texts, it is the act itself of probing seemingly commonplace language to reveal linguistic and cultural significance that highlights the best of what Fisher has to offer.Chapter 2, “The Annals and the Greek Tradition,” traces the Italic features of the epic through what one might call cross-lingual window-allusion. For example, Ann. 1 (Musae quae pedibus magnum pulsatis Olympum) contains a well-known substitution of the Greek Musae for his predecessors’ Camenae, but Fisher draws our attention to the “native Latin tradition” of the Salian priests’ tripudium behind pedibus... pulsatis: “if the collocation pedem pulsare is a traditional expression for... (shrink)

In this paper I propose a series of hypotheses for further study that are related to potential negative impacts of non-traditional export agriculture (NTEA) on peasantfarmers in Central America. International lenders and donor agencies are promoting this diversification of agricultural exports as part of structural adjustment programs in the region, in order to increase foreign exchange earnings and raise the incomes of the rural poor.There is growing evidence, however, that the impact on the rural poor may not be (...) favorable. I argue that because NTEA can introduce powerful economies of scale, it is likely to accelerate social differentiation in the countryside and expel large numbers of peasant farmers from their lands. In this sense NTEA may be similar to previous export ‘booms,’ leading to rapid intensification of social instability and conflict in an already troubled region. This raises the serious question of the long term sustainability of this development strategy.There is a shortage of published studies that directly address these issues, making further work essential for the adequate review of NTEA policies. I formulate six testable hypotheses based on the economies of scale associated with NTEA. Each is related to a resource essential for successful agricultural production: land; credit; prices, costs, and subsidies; technology; technical assistance; and markets. I suggest that as NTEA grows, small farmer access to each is reduced, eventually making peasant production for domestic consumption an unviable alternative, while those who venture into NTEA encounter unacceptable levels of risk. (shrink)

Philosophical notions of humanitarianism – duties based in beneficence that apply to humanity generally – are largely focused on personal duty as opposed to official development assistance, or foreign aid, between nations. To rectify this gap in the literature, I argue that, from the point of view of donor nations, their humanitarian obligations are met when they have given enough of their fair share of resources, and from the point of view of recipient nations, they have received enough when (...) they have reached a threshold of capabilities. I conclude that a future theory of humanitarian obligations ought to take into account the disparate, and often conflicting, interests of nations as benefactors or as recipients of aid. (shrink)

In 1992, the Walloon Region modified its investment incentive legislation. The new legislation applies the notion of SME to any business employing up to 250 people and which turnover does not exceed 20 million ECU, and replaces the former interest subsidies and capital premiums by a grant calculated as a percentage of investment. According to the size of the business, the activity sector and the area, the maximum aid may vary from 13 to 21 %. The grant total percentage is (...) calculated by summing up the percentage of aid obtained for five criteria under which job creation is by far the most important. The new legislation gives a partial answer to traditional criticisms against investment incentives. First of all it aims at reducing the risk of accelerated substitution of capital for Labour. Besides, it simplifies adminsitrative procedures and reduces the "sprinkling". It should also reduce the risk of inefficient allocation of resources thatarises when grants go to loss-making entreprises. But the question of whether investment incentives actually increase the level of investment remains largely unanswered. Evidence suggests that investment incentives might have contributed to attract foreign investments hut have little impact on thelevel of domestic investment. Nevertheless, as far as SMEs are concerned, public grants might contribute to increased investment not by reducing the cost or increasing the profitability of the project but rather by increasing the means available in the business. (shrink)

Undoubtedly, Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767) is one of the most important subjects affecting the development of Islamic thought for about thirteen centuries. Not only Islamic law; however, with his fundamental contributions to the doctrine, he continues to influence a very large environment in the Islamic geography today. In fact, this effect has been attractive enough to create a depth that permeates the daily lives of societies from economics to law, from education to health, beyond these mere theoretical and practical dimensions (...) of religion. Essentially, the interpretation of Islam systematized by Abū Ḥanīfa in the context of a religious philosophy and method has been the subject of a heated discussion and evaluation under different Islamic paradigms since the very first time. Today, the issue has gained a different dimension in parallel with the increasing tensions in all aspects of the Islamic world. Apart from the interest shown to him in the context of organized religion, Abū Ḥanīfa has been a means of reaction to the Arab religion and politics attitude on the one hand, and on the other hand he has been made the object of conflict, harmony and incompatibilities in the context of modernization. The research is limited to studies conducted in Turkey between 2000 and 2020 years on Abū Ḥanīfa. The research is based on the assumption that these studies dealt with Abū Ḥanīfa almost completely detached from her sociological and historical personality and confronted with a theoretical problem. In the study, a theoretical analysis of the mentioned literature has been made and a theoretical proposal has been made for the studies in the field. With the research, it is aimed to make a theoretical contribution to the Abū Ḥanīfa literature. For this purpose, the general theoretical view of these studies is tried to be understood by scanning the books, articles and symposium papers covering these years. In this framework, some semantic packages that manifest themselves widely in the studies are determined, and thus the unchanging concrete reflections of the phenomenon problematized in the research are tried to be understood. The data in the study are evaluated in the context of phenomenological sociology of knowledge. From the earliest times to today, Abū Ḥanīfa is not only about the theological perception of people; besides, he has drawn an image surrounded by the limitations drawn by their socioeconomic, cultural, political and ideological circles. On the other hand, it can easily be seen that the approaches reflected in the literature about Abū Ḥanīfa, whether they come from the Hanafi school or have matured within another tradition of thought, are almost entirely shaped in a macro-theological, suprahistorical, universalist and nomothetic perspective. It can also be said that these studies have not attempted to open themselves up to new discussions in theoretical terms. In the years that were the subject of the research, Abū Ḥanīfa was the subject of periodicals and symposiums conducted within a program rather than copyrighted works. The literature, which is clearly observed to be confronted with a theological contraction, is progressing with a more doctrine debate today. It is understood that relatively less practical areas of discussion have emerged with the motive of responding to developments in the Islamic world and on a global scale, ignoring Abū Ḥanīfa 's sociological background. Handing over to Abū Ḥanīfa, disciplinary populism, sectarian marginalization, romanticization and ideological commodification are important meaning packages reflected in the literature. The main concern of all this semantic reality is to build an order based on the knowledge stock in the tradition against the breaks and traumas in the social structure. However, this approach to explain Abū Ḥanīfa has revealed some theoretical problems. In another respect, the perspectives that dominated the literature made such generalizing attitudes inevitable. As a result, with this theoretical point of view, Abū Ḥanīfa has been turned into a historical problem in related studies in general. Finally, in this study, a historical, idiographic perspective emphasizing the specificity to the social event is proposed for the literature of Abū Ḥanīfa. In this context, the article draws attention to the phenomenological sociology of knowledge that takes the understanding of each event in its own reality as opposed to macro approaches. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Imagining Japan: The Japanese Tradition and Its Modern InterpretationIan ReaderImagining Japan: The Japanese Tradition and Its Modern Interpretation. By Robert N. Bellah. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. 254.While Robert Bellah is probably best known for his work on religion in America, his earlier work focused on Japanese intellectual history, culture, and religion, and it is to these subjects that he has returned (...) in this latest book, Imagining Japan: The Japanese Tradition and Its Modern Interpretation, almost five decades after publishing his seminal work Tokugawa Religion. In returning to Japan, Bellah brings to this broad overview of dominant themes within Japanese tradition, social structure, and intellectual and cultural history the grasp of a historical sociologist deeply rooted and [End Page 351] well versed in mainstream sociological theory. He also reminds us that although his reputation is as a sociologist of American religion, his intellectual roots are in the study of Japan, and he makes clear in his comments on one of his earlier essays (p. 3) that it was through the study of Japan that his eyes were opened to new possibilities, which he then applied to his study of the sociology of religion in the United States.Imagining Japan is not so much a new book as essentially a collection of essays written in the 1960s and 1970s that are now wedded to a new and extensive Introduction, in which Bellah develops an overarching theoretical framework through which to interpret and analyze Japan and to situate the materials addressed in these essays. That the book can be read without any apparent disjuncture between essays written in the 1960s and an Introduction produced at the start of a new century indicates how consistent Bellah's thinking has been over the last four decades, and how deeply his early understanding of Japanese thought, religion, society, and culture has penetrated and framed his subsequent thinking.Essentially Bellah is concerned with problems that have challenged scholars and Japanese thinkers for decades: how is it that, in Bellah's view, this society more than any other has retained such a strong sense of what is native and what is foreign (p. 188) and managed to preserve and emphasize its own cultural identity while engaging with, absorbing, and utilizing foreign (i.e., external) cultural influences. And, in the final essay of the book, Bellah asks how it is that a nation so economically and technologically advanced has continued, in the twenty-first century, to maintain an archaic, Bronze Age monarchical system (p. 184). Japan may not be quite as unique in some of these aspects as Bellah suggests (Britain, after all, is also modern, complex, and wedded to a monarchical system grounded in archaic notions of heredity, primogeniture, and privilege), but it remains perhaps the most striking case of how archaic notions can persist and form the basic framework of a society even as that society functions within a different framework, namely of modernity. In focusing on such issues, Bellah takes in-especially in the Introduction-the great sweep of Japanese history from the seventh century to the late twentieth, displaying a masterful ability to combine historical insight and sociological analysis.The basis of his framework, expressed overtly in the Introduction but implicit in many of the chapters, is the application of theories that developed initially out of Max Weber's thesis that religion (in Weberian terms, Protestantism), with its focus on a universalizing ethic, is an essential factor in the emergence of modernity and of societies founded on capitalism. Following in this tradition, S. N. Eisenstadt described world religions as "axial" ("world religions"-particularly Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam-being those that have engaged in missionary activities across borders and that have posed a transcendent reality that supersedes or goes beyond the parameters of localized societies and states). Bellah, too, is convinced of the critical importance of the notion of axial religions and asserts that they are the "indispensable precondition" of modernity (p. 6). Yet, for Bellah, as for Eisenstadt (who also was fascinated with and wrote about Japanese society), Japan has been non-axial in that its primary orientation has remained focused on the... (shrink)

The author argues that there are serious problems from the standpoint of Catholic social teaching in making the forcible spreading of democracy an objective of U.S. foreign policy. He argues that U.S. policy, in light of Catholic social teaching, should be prudently interventionist—but not primarily in a military sense—in promoting human rights, diffusing international tensions, and peacekeeping. Also, the author discusses such questions as shaping U.S. foreign policy in conjunction with allies and foreign aid, in light of (...) Catholic social teaching. (shrink)

Les chercheurs disputent depuis longtemps pour savoir si Machiavel est le "premier moderne", le chef de file du "républicanisme classique" ou un penseur laïc dans une perspective médiévale ou pré-moderne. Les rapports personnels entre Léonard de Vinci et Machiavel, dont les théoriciens politiques sont généralement inconscients, permettent de mieux comprendre le rôle de Machiavel dans la transition vers la modernité. La conception vincinienne d'une science de la nature et les possibilités qu'elle ouvrait aux innovations technologiques ont représenté un grand pas (...) dans le passage de la philosophie antique ou médiévale à la science naturelle moderne. Après avoir été l'ingénieur militaire de Ludovic Sforza puis de César Borgia, Vinci est rentré à Florence en 1503. Machiavel, qui l'avait apparemment rencontré en 1502, s'est assuré son aide technique pour diriger le cours de l'Arno afin de vaincre Pise, l'auteur du Prince semble aussi être lié à la commande du tableau de la Bataille d'Anghiari et il s'est arrangé pour que Vinci dirige une mission technique à Piombino en 1504. Les textes prouvent que Machiavel a été nettement influencé par ces expériences, ce qui suggère une réponse plausible aux controverses sur la "modernité" de Machiavel. La différence entre les approches des mathématiques et de la physique par Vinci puis par Galilée ou Newton illustre particulièrement bien les étapes ultérieurement nécessaires pour le développement complet d'une approche moderne de la politique comme celle de Hobbes ou Locke dans la tradition anglo-saxonne, ou de Descartes et des "philosophes" sur le continent. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the interrelations between the notions of one’s own and the foreign in later Heidegger’s philosophy. It is pointed out that later Heidegger contextualized the notion of the world by the notion of home and its derivatives “homelessness” and “homecoming” that are of great value in his philosophy. The scrutiny proceeds from the study of the peculiarities of Heidegger’s approach to the problem of being that is considered to be the knot of (...) his philosophy. It is noted that Heidegger, having deserted the traditional ontology already in his early works, continued, nevertheless, using its terms including “being” for a long time and thereby in a way obscured the peculiarities of his approach. Only later Heidegger tried to reject the traditional concept of being as infinitely continuing state in favor of the concept of Ereignis that is usually translated as “appropriating event” or “event of appropriation”. Thus, according to Heidegger, being gives us beings as a whole by appropriating sense to them and thereby turning them into the familiar and accessible environment for dwelling. Just the “givenness” of beings as a whole makes them familiar, one’s own. Accordingly, the “dwelling” means for Heidegger not only the security, but also the intelligibility of the environment, whereas the homelessness means the latter’s uncanny incomprehensibility. It is emphasized that Heidegger’s interpretation of homelessness is closely connected with a standard theoretical model explaining the emergence of the private and public realms. According to this model, just the extension of family as the initial one’s own resulted in the turning of household into city-state that, having been specified by the image of one super-family, added the elements of the foreign to the initial state of society. (shrink)

International food aid has long been known to be motivated by domestic and foreign policy objectives as well as humanitarian concerns. The policy objectives sometimes complicate delivery of emergency food, and lead to situations that result in adverse effects on the economic and agricultural systems of recipient countries. Despite the long history and extensive documentation of such effects, they were observed to occur once again during the 1992 Somalia intervention. This intervention encountered many frequently described barriers to effective use (...) of emergency food aid. It also set a new precedent; for the first time, troops were deployed to enforce the safe delivery of food. This action led to the creation of an army of occupation engaged in military conflict with the very people it had come to serve and, eventually, to further deterioration of the country's food economy. The Somalia intervention provided further evidence for the need to uncouple humanitarian food aid from other policy objectives, and to design and manage emergency and long-term food aid programs to maximize benefits, minimize adverse consequences, and strengthen local agricultural production and marketing systems. (shrink)

Pursuing world-class universities, China has emerged in recent decades as an increasingly popular destination for internationally mobile academics. The goal of this study was to identify current education policy dispositions toward foreign faculty at the national and institutional levels in China. Findings indicate that within China’s higher education policy discourse, foreign faculty are identified as an advantage, and a source of conflict, ultimately having an ambiguous role as they attempt to manage their complicated status in Chinese higher education (...) institutions. Foreign faculty are typically regarded as an international asset, accelerating global competitiveness and international rankings to enhance the acceleration of China’s higher education system. They are also considered controversial in relation to Chinese culture, values, and traditions. However, the most prevalent policy disposition explored in this study was that of vagueness and marginality, indicating underlying ambiguity toward foreign faculty. The study concludes with implications for future scholars and policymakers to consider. (shrink)