How has the well-being of children and young people been affected by the global food, fuel and financial crises that have struck since 2007? This article reports empirical findings from qualitative research in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Yemen and Zambia in 2009 and 2010. Intended to complement the wider body of mainly quantitative evidence, it explores how the subjective and relatio…
In a mix of responses to the food, fuel and financial crises of 20089, some developing countries have introduced new safety-net programmes, while others have modified and/or expanded existing ones. Many have introduced conditional cash transfers (CCTs) in recent years, and these have been used as an important starting point for a response. This article aims to describe these various experience…
The global financial crisis has emphasised the fundamental role of social protection institutions in developing countries. There is also growing evidence that countries with programmes focused on children have a greater chance of minimising the longer-term effects of the crisis. However, financing remains a major challenge: the effects of a slowdown in growth are likely to reduce the fiscal spa…
The wave of unrest that swept through the Arab world at the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011 originated in Tunisia. What happened and what are the prospects that Tunisia will make a successful transition to democracy?
Egyptians threw off the thirty-year dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, but now find themselves under essentially the same military tutelage that they had hoped to escape by launching their struggle.
Widely reported as Facebook revolutions, the upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt show that social media not only can ignite protests but also can help to determine their political consequences.
Strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenkas suspiciously lopsided 2010 electoral victoryand subsequent crackdown on dissentmay seem like a repeat of the events of 2006, but much has changed in the interval, and his regime is much more precarious today.
Despite signs of a cautious willingness to allow more political competition, the regime of newly reelected president Yoweri Museveni fell back on familiar habits of brutal repression when public unrest followed a sudden spike in the cost of living.
Many new democracies have faltered due to high levels of inequality and a deep polarization between the rich and poor. What is the relationship between modern liberal democracy and socioeconomic inequality?
Despite Indias impressive achievements in democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, it remains home to a third of the worlds poor. Although it has successfully averted famine since independence, it still struggles to prevent chronic hunger.
Despite improvements in South Africas socioeconomic landscape and the expansion of the black middle class since the end of apartheid, the countrys levels of poverty and inequality remain high and heavily correlated with race.
How did South Korea lift itself from destitution to affluence? And how was its ruthlessly authoritarian regime able to metamorphose into a stable democracy? Coopting the business and voluntary sectors to deliver welfare positioned the country to accomplish both.
After decades of civil war, Sudan is set to divide into two nations on 9 July 2011. Yet a number of explosive issuesincluding the drawing of borders and sharing of oil revenuehave still not been resolved, and the prospects for peace appear to be dimming.
Having thrown out a corrupt, authoritarian president for the second time, this Central Asian republic has gained a new chance at securing a real democratic transition.
This article reports an experiment using the C3Fire microworlda functional simulation of command and control in a complex and dynamic environmentin which 24 three-person teams were organized according to either a functional or multifunctional allocation of roles. We proposed a quantitative approach for estimating teamwork requirements and comparing them across team structures. Two multiple li…
Organizations are increasingly using virtual teams, in which individuals work with their teammates across distance and differences, using a variety of information and communication technologies. In this study, the authors examined how demographic differences (i.e., differences in race, sex, age, and nationality) between individuals working virtually affected their collective creativity. Specifi…
To properly manage conflict, the mechanisms of the complex conflict process must be understood. Building on existing research, the purpose of this study was to develop a better understanding of the conflict process by examining nonprofit board member experiences with task, process, and relationship conflict, identifying latent conditions that influence the likelihood of these conflict types, an…
Virtual teams and other online groups can find it challenging to establish norms that allow them to effectively balance task and relational aspects of their discussions. Yet, in our reliance on organizational and team theories, small group scholars have overlooked the potential for learning from examples offered by online communities. Theories of deliberation in small groups offer scholars a wa…
This article uses a case study to analyse two main dilemmas that performance auditors face when auditing complex interventions in governance. The first dilemma, concerning the performance auditors roles as improvement agents and independent controllers, is that the improvement agenda often implies interacting closely with the auditees whereas controlling requires independence. The second dilem…
To maximize the impact of research on programs, this article proposes a reaching-downreachingup perspective in evaluation design, whereby it serves two functions simultaneously: the program improvement function, reaching down, and the knowledge development function, reaching up. This proposal frames applied research as a particular species of evaluation. As validity is a fundamental assessme…