Comparative Administrative Reform: The Rhetoric and Reality of the Civil Service Reform Programs in Uganda and Tanzania

Administrative reform is a challenging endeavor for both developed and developing countries alike. For developing countries, the challenge is greater because numerous reforms are implemented concurrently sometimes under conditions of resource scarcity and political instability. So far there is no consensus as to what makes some reforms succeed and others fail. The current study seeks to fill that gap by offering an empirical comparative analysis of the administrative reforms initiated in Uganda and Tanzania since the early 1990s. The purpose of the study is to explain the similarities and differences, and give reasons for the successes and failures of the reform programs in the two countries. It focuses on four major areas; the size of the civil service, pay reform, capacity building, and ethics and accountability. Data were collected via in-depth face to face interviews with 35 key government officials and the content analysis of various documents. The results indicate that the reforms generated initial substantial reduction in the size of the public services in both countries. In Uganda, the traditional civil service was reduced from 140,500 in 1990 to 41,730 in 2004; while in Tanzania Ministries, Departments, and Agencies were reduced by 25%. Pay reform has generated substantial increases in civil servants’ salaries in both countries but in Uganda, the government has not been able to abide by the pay strategy while in Tanzania the strategy guides the increments. Civil Service capacity building efforts have focused on enhancing the skills of the personnel. Training needs assessments were undertaken in all ministries in Uganda and a training policy was formulated. In Tanzania, the training needs assessments are still under way and a training policy has not yet been developed. Ethics and accountability are great challenges in both countries, but in Tanzania, there is more political will and commitment to improve the integrity of the civil service. The findings reveal that although Uganda started the reform with much more rigor and initial success, Tanzania has surpassed it and has a more stable, consistent, and promising reform record. This is because Uganda’s leadership lacks political legitimacy. The country has since the late 1990s experienced a civil war in the northern and western parts of the country while Tanzania has benefitted from relative peace and high level political legitimacy.

TTIP vs. BRICS: Consequences on Geopolitics and Internacional Relations of the XXIst. Century

The TTIP is a proposal on negotiations between the EU and the USA in order to create the largest free international trade area by extension, population and volume of trade of all existing ones. In our view, TTIP would be the geoeconomic answer to BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), as a comercial, geopolitical and cooperation space in other areas such as the military, in both that TTIP reproduce on a commercial scale the political and military alliance already existing between good part of the EU and USA by the NATO. In this paper we will try to explain why the possible rivalry between TTIP and BRICS would reproduce in the XXIst. Century the schemes of “Cold War” inherited from XXth. Century, that in turn reproduced the geopolitical confrontations arising from the theory of Haltford McKinder pivot area and the traditional opposition between thalassocratic imperialisms (government on the seas and oceans) and tellurocratic imperialisms (government on an enormous portion of emerged land). Likewise, we will try to show why, at a dialectic of States level, the most populated, territorially extensive and with greater amount of resources political societies will be those that have the greatest ability to impose a particular model of international relations and its geopolitical hegemony on a universal scale in response to this viable confrontation between TTIP, plus TTP, vs. BRICS.

Argaric Sociology: Sex and Death

The detailed, rich and diverse Argaric funerary record offers an opportunity to explore social dimensions that usually remain elusive for prehistoric research, such us social rules on kinship rights and obligations, sexual tolerance and the role of funerary practices in preserving the economic and political organization. This paper addresses these topics through an analysis of the social meaning of Argaric double tombs by looking at body treatment and composition of grave goods assemblages according to gender and class affiliation. The Argaric seems to have been a conservative society, scarcely tolerant regarding homosexuality, and willing to celebrate ancestry associated to certain places as a means of asserting residence and property rights.

La Unión Europea y la OTAN en el marco de la nueva Estrategia Global de Seguridad de la Unión Europea

El artículo analiza la relación entre la Unión Europea y la OTAN en cuestiones de defensa, según se ha reflejado en las estrategias de seguridad de la Unión Europea, con particular atención a la Estrategia Global de la Unión Europea presentada en 2016. Se estudia la Estrategia de Seguridad Europea de 2003, el Informe de Implementación de 2008, y las nuevas aproximaciones al contexto internacional y a la seguridad europea que se reflejan en la Estrategia Global. Se analiza también el papel de la OTAN, así como la evolución de la política de seguridad de los Estados Unidos hacia Europa durante la Administración Obama. Finalmente se discute el posible futuro de la Política Común de Seguridad y Defensa de la UE (PCSD) después del Bréxit, así como las consecuencias para su relación con la OTAN.

The Council and the Court: Shared Objectives or Opposing Views on the Crime of Aggression

This paper argues that an important part of ensuring the jurisdictional basis of the crime of aggression is to secure a partnership between the UN Security Council and the ICC. Such a partnership should be conducive towards the reality of holding to account individuals that undertake an illegal use of force. This Paper puts forward guiding principles for a model that would benefit a constructive institutional relationship between the Council and the Court. It is through the application of these five guiding principles that the inclusion of the crime of aggression in the Rome Statute can translate into a constructive relationship between the International Criminal Court and the Security Council for the betterment of international peace and security as well as international justice. I maintain that it would be damaging to both the legitimacy and operational effectiveness of the Security Council and the ICC and detrimental to the overall institutional relationship if the final outcome proves unfavourable to international action against the crime of aggression and nothing more than dead letter law. Essentially the key to a viable cooperation regime between the Court and the Council will hinge on shared objectives regarding the crime of aggression rather than opposing views, namely combating impunity by holding individuals accountable for the illegal use of force.

‘State failure’ and the extraterritorial use of force in self-defence against non-state actors

The thesis is first and foremost the examination of the notion and consequences of ‘state failure’ in international law. The disputes surrounding criteria for creation and recognition of states pertain to efforts to analyse legal and factual issues unravelling throughout the continuing existence of states, as best evidenced by the ‘state failure’ phenomenon. It is argued that although the ‘statehood’ of failed states remains uncontested, their sovereignty is increasingly considered to be dependent on the existence of effective governments. The second part of this thesis focuses on the examinations of the legal consequences of the continuing existence of failed states in the context of jus ad bellum. Since the creation of the United Nations the ability of states to resort to armed force without violating what might be considered as the single most important norm of international law, has been considerably limited. State failure and increasing importance of non-state actors has become a greatly topical issue within recent years in both scholarship and the popular imagination. There have been important legal developments within international law, which have provoked much academic, and in particular, legal commentary. On one level, the thesis contributes to this commentary. Despite the fact that the international community continues to perpetuate a notion of ‘statehood’ which allows the state-centric system of international law to exist, when dealing with practical and political realities of state failure, international law may no longer consider external sovereignty of states as an undeniable entitlement to statehood. Accordingly, the main research question of this thesis is whether the implicit and explicit invocation of the state failure provides sufficient legal basis for the intervention in self-defence against non-state actors in located in failed states. It has been argued that state failure has a profound impact, the extent of which is yet to be fully explored, on the modern landscape of peace and security.

“Because It Kind of Falls in Between, Doesn’t It? Like an Acute Thing and a Chronic”: the Psychological Experience of Anaphylaxis in Adulthood

Anaphylaxis is a serious, rare condition increasing in prevalence. This study explored the psychological experience of adult-onset anaphylaxis from patient, family and staff perspectives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve participants. Two global themes emerged from thematic analysis: ‘controllability’ (‘an unknown and distressing experience’, ‘the importance of control over triggers’ and ‘responsibility but no control: the impact on others’) and ‘conflict’ (‘rejecting illness identity’, ‘minimisation of risk’, ‘accessing specialist care: running in slow motion’ and ‘patient-centred versus service-centred care’). Findings highlight the importance of perceived control and emphasise the presence of conflict in the experience of this complex, episodic condition.

Exploring social representations of adapting to climate change using topic modeling and Bayesian networks

When something unfamiliar emerges or when something familiar does something unexpected people need to make sense of what is emerging or going on in order to act. Social representations theory suggests how individuals and society make sense of the unfamiliar and hence how the resultant social representations (SRs) cognitively, emotionally, and actively orient people and enable communication. SRs are social constructions that emerge through individual and collective engagement with media and with everyday conversations among people. Recent developments in text analysis techniques, and in particular topic modeling, provide a potentially powerful analytical method to examine the structure and content of SRs using large samples of narrative or text. In this paper I describe the methods and results of applying topic modeling to 660 micronarratives collected from Australian academics / researchers, government employees, and members of the public in 2010-2011. The narrative fragments focused on adaptation to climate change (CC) and hence provide an example of Australian society making sense of an emerging and conflict ridden phenomena. The results of the topic modeling reflect elements of SRs of adaptation to CC that are consistent with findings in the literature as well as being reasonably robust predictors of classes of action in response to CC. Bayesian Network (BN) modeling was used to identify relationships among the topics (SR elements) and in particular to identify relationships among topics, sentiment, and action. Finally the resulting model and topic modeling results are used to highlight differences in the salience of SR elements among social groups. The approach of linking topic modeling and BN modeling offers a new and encouraging approach to analysis for ongoing research on SRs.

Exploring Forensic Nursing Ethics and Practice: Roles, Loyalties and Photodocumentation Practices

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

What a victory it might have been”: C. E. Montague and the First World War.

Discusses Montague's post-war prose work in terms of peace and silence.

El marco constitucional vigente de la justicia transicional en Colombia

El artículo aborda el dilema de la justicia transicional desde la perspectiva del derecho constitucional vigente en Colombia. El propósito es presentar cómo dicho marco constitucional puede responder a la aplicación de la justicia transicional, en especial en relación con el problema de la responsabilidad penal de quienes cometieron atrocidades durante el conflicto armado, dentro de un proceso de diálogo y negociación. En otras palabras, el presente escrito está enfocado en presentar cuáles son los mecanismos previstos en la Constitución colombiana para resolver la tensión generada entre el derecho a la paz y a la justicia en un proceso transicional, cómo deben ser interpretados y cuáles son las implicaciones de sus usos.

KEY COMPONENTS OF TEAMWORK AND THE SERVICE (TO) YOU (A) (A) DOMESTIC (A) AND EXTERNAL (A)

The article examines a range of components for the customer service from the point of view of marketing.It start with the explanation of several features that are required for a company to crystallize teamwork that finally, after all, will be provided by the success or failure of that company.These features are named: engagement, cooperation, companionship, communication, motivation and leadership.Subsequently, this article presents a section which explores human relationships and conflict management within organizations, with emphasis on attitudes, skills and personality types that present human beings as part of its essence.Finally, this text includes a section that highlights concepts related to customer service and sales techniques that exist today.

Resolução de conflitos internacionais: estudo com militares em missões de paz

Tese de Doutoramento em Psicologia na área de especialidade em Psicologia Comunitária

Maintenance or loss of dialect Andalusian features: Internal and external factors

In the last sixty years a steadily maintained process of convergence towards the Castilian national standard has been occurring in Southern Spain affecting urban middle-class speakers’ varieties, particularly phonology and lexis. As a consequence, unmarked features characterising innovative southern pronunciation have become less frequent and, at the same time, certain standard marked features have been adapted to the southern phonemic inventory. Then, urban middle-class varieties have progressively been stretching out the distance separating them from working-class and rural varieties, and bringing them closer to central Castilian varieties. Intermediate, yet incipient koineised varieties have been described including also transitional Murcia and Extremadura dialects (Hernández & Villena 2009, Villena, Vida & von Essen 2015). (1) Some of the standard phonologically marked features have spread out among southern speakers exclusively based on their mainstream social prestige and producing not only changes in obstruent phoneme inventory –i.e. acquisition of /s/ vs. /θ/ contrast, but also standstill and even reversion of old consonant push- or pull-chain shifts –e.g. /h/ or /d/ fortition, affricate /ʧ/, etc. as well as traditional lexis shift (Villena et al. 2016). Internal (grammar and word frequency) and external (stratification, network and style) factors constraining those features follow similar patterns in the Andalusian speech communities analysed so far (Granada, Malaga) but when we zoom in on central varieties, which are closer to the national standard and then more conservative, differences in frequency increase and conflict sites emerge. (2) Unmarked ‘natural’ phonological features characterising southern dialects, particularly deletion of syllable-final consonant, do not keep pace with this trend of convergence towards the standard. Thus a combination of southern innovative syllable-final and standard conservative onset-consonant features coexist. (3). The main idea is that this intermediate variety is formed through changes suggesting that Andalusian speakers look for the best way of accepting marked prestige features without altering coherence within their inventory. Either reorganisation of the innovative phonemic system in such a way that it may include Castilian and standard /s/ vs. /θ/ contrast or re-syllabification of aspirated /s/ before dental stop are excellent examples of how and why linguistic features are able to integrate intermediate varieties between the dialect-standard continuum.

Natural Disasters and Comparative State-Formation and Nation-Building: Earthquakes in Argentina and Chile (1822-1939)

Natural disasters in Argentina and Chile played a significant role in the state-formation and nation-building process (1822-1939). This dissertation explores state and society responses to earthquakes by studying public and private relief efforts reconstruction plans, crime and disorder, religious interpretations of catastrophes, national and transnational cultures of disaster, science and technology, and popular politics. Although Argentina and Chile share a political border and geological boundary, the two countries provide contrasting examples of state formation. Most disaster relief and reconstruction efforts emanated from the centralized Chilean state in Santiago. In Argentina, provincial officials made the majority of decisions in a catastrophe’s aftermath. Patriotic citizens raised money and collected clothing for survivors that helped to weave divergent regions together into a nation. The shared experience of earthquakes in all regions of Chile created a national disaster culture. Similarly, common disaster experiences, reciprocal relief efforts, and aid commissions linked Chileans with Western Argentine societies and generated a transnational disaster culture. Political leaders viewed reconstruction as opportunities to implement their visions for the nation on the urban landscape. These rebuilding projects threatened existing social hierarchies and often failed to come to fruition. Rebuilding brought new technologies from Europe to the Southern Cone. New building materials and systems, however, had to be adapted to the South American economic and natural environment. In a catastrophe’s aftermath, newspapers projected images of disorder and the authorities feared lawlessness and social unrest. Judicial and criminal records, however, show that crime often decreased after a disaster. Finally, nineteenth-century earthquakes heightened antagonism and conflict between the Catholic Church and the state. Conservative clergy asserted that disasters were divine punishments for the state’s anti-clerical measures and later railed against scientific explanations of earthquakes.