Digital Commons Network^™

Doing A Little More For The Poor? Social Assistance In Shanghai, Zhang Haomiao

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Shanghai was a leader in nation-wide social assistance reform. It has established an extensive and complex social assistance system. This paper offers a general overview of different major assistance programs in Shanghai and uses a recent survey ofMinimum Living Standard Guarantee System (MLSGS) recipients in urban Shanghai to briefly examine the performance of social assistance. It finds that on the program construction and administration level, Shanghai's social assistance is advanced. However, due to high living costs and relatively low values of social assistance, social assistance plays a limited role in relieving the distress of recipients. The paper analyzes the main …

Authoritarianism And Economic Development: Ethiopia's Investment Gamble, Chuck Schaefer

Distinguished Lectures on Africa

Prior to his positions at Valparaiso University, Dr. Schaefer taught at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia as a Fulbright Lecturer and has since focused his research in Ethiopia. As an economic historian, Dr. Schaefer analyzes Ethiopia’s integration into the world economy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, looking strictly at economic indices such as trade, capital creation, money supply and credit and lending in order to partially answer the question: Why is Ethiopia poor? His research has since shifted to answer the question: Why is there conflict in Ethiopia and what can be done about it? This research …

Partners For Progress And Modernization: American—Ethiopian Relations, Assefa Mehretu

Distinguished Lectures on Africa

Flyer for public lecture includes biographical information about the speaker.

Jeffrey Angles, Nate Coe

International Faculty Researchers

Dr. Jeffrey Angles likes to describe himself as the accidental professor because, unlike many people he knows who planned to become teachers when they completed their educations, he was more focused on the immediate goal of studying Japanese literature and translating. In the process of reading so much, he says that he found himself with a Ph.D. almost before he knew it.

Jeffrey Angles' website

Wmu International News Fall 2011, Haenicke Institute For Global Education

WMU International News

Longing for American food streamlines career paths for four alumni

American-style teaching covered in CELCIS graduate assistant training program

Fifty years later: Tragic loss of Japanese alumna continues to give life to WMU’s strongest exchange program

Japanese language and literature capture attention of WMU researcher

Engineering college draws Kenyan to Kalamazoo

International volunteerism leads to global studies major

U.S. Policy Towards The Horn Of Africa, David Shinn

Distinguished Lectures on Africa

Ambassador David Shinn served for 37 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, with assignments at embassies in Lebanon, Kenya and Tanzania; deputy chief of mission in Mauritania, Cameroon and Sudan; and ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. His State Department assignments included assistant desk officer for Ethiopia, desk officer for Somalia, Djibouti, Uganda and Tanzania; coordinator for Somalia during the international intervention in the early 1990s; and director of East African, Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean Island affairs. He writes extensively in academic and policy journals on the Horn of Africa and China-Africa relations and speaks around the world …

The Myth Of Progress In Science: Dialectics, Distortion And Lysenkoism In The Soviet Union, Mark A. Ferguson Jr.

The Hilltop Review

The scientific controversy surrounding Lysenkoism is both unparalleled and well known amongst historians and philosophers of science (Joravsky 1970, McMullin 1987, Pollock 2009, Wolfe 2010). Yet, while this may be true for scholars and students a generation ago, I argue that the controversy of Lysenkoism is not widely known today. Particularly in political science, this historical period and phenomenon in the Soviet Union remains irrelevant or at least, inconsequential to the scientific study of politics.

Blair Balden, Margaret Von Steinen

International Faculty Researchers

A visiting professorship at the University of Passau in Passau, Germany for Dr. Blair Balden, a WMU associate professor of aviation, provided an excellent opportunity to share ideas and information about teaching aviation law with professors from Germany and Austria.

The 6th International Conference On The State Of Africa: Challenges And Opportunities For Sustainable Development And Peace In Africa In The 21st Century, Sisay Asefa

International Conference on African Development Archives

No abstract provided.

Common Currency Examined In Latin America, Jack William Mccloskey

Honors Theses

Maintaining a stable currency with economic growth and prosperity has always been an obstacle for countries in Latin America. Debt crises and high poverty rates have plagued economies in the region for decades now. A possible solution to these problems is a shared currency. This approach has positive and negative attributes, and other solutions are also discussed.

The Effects Of Trade And Other Factors On Income Distribution: The Cases Of Chile, Dominican Republic, And Venezuela, George G. Lluberes

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the factors affecting income distribution in Latin America, specifically, the cases of Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela. The focus of this study is to identify economic, as well as, political factors that may be causing the inequality levels of income distribution to increase or decrease within the countries previously stated. Economic factors investigated include freedom to trade, trade as a percentage of GDP, economic growth, and educational enrollment levels. Furthermore, the political factors analyzed in this thesis are: corruption levels, legal structures, security of property rights, rule of law, democratic or non-democratic status, expenditure in social …

Wmu International News Spring 2011, Haenicke Institute For Global Education

WMU International News

In this issue:

Nutrition and health in Bangladesh and Cambodia explored by WMU researcher

Destination spring break: Disney World and NASA

International Student Activities bulletin spring 2011

Haenicke Institute deans visit Sunway University

World traveler begins international career with INS, lands at WMU

Spanish major and global studies minor nets international job for WMU graduate

Gambian native at home on Bronco court

Susan Weinger, Nate Coe

International Faculty Researchers

Advancing the knowledge of rural Bangladeshi women about gardening and nutrition and increasing access to basic health care services and information for Cambodian school children was the foci of Dr. Susan Weinger’s research and volunteerism on a three-month overseas trip in summer 2010.

Susan Weinger's website

Ann Veeck, Nate Coe

International Faculty Researchers

Rapidly changing food consumption patterns in China has for the last 15 years captured the attention of Western Michigan University international researcher and marketing professor Dr. Ann Veeck. In nearly annual trips to China, Veeck examines how these patterns are changing parallel to the expansion of the Chinese economy and how marketing efforts affect consumers' lives in both positive and negative ways.

Ann Veeck's website

Recruitment To Leadership Positions In The German Bundestag, 1994-2006, Melanie Kintz

Dissertations

This dissertation looks at the recruitment patterns to leadership positions in the German Bundestag from 1994 to 2006 with the objective of enhancing understanding of legislative careers and representation theory. Most research on political careers thus far has focused on who is elected to parliament, rather than on which legislators attain leadership positions. However, leadership positions within the parliament often come with special privileges and can serve as stepping stones to higher positions on the executive level. Based on a data set I compiled of all members who served in the Bundestag from 1994 to 2006, this dissertation looks at …