Search results

The paper examines the Homeland Security Advisory System in light of existing knowledge about effective warning systems in the social science of disasters. It firsts describes an integrated warning system model and what is known about effective warning messages. The Homeland Security Advisory System is then contrasted to the successful hurricane warning system in the United States, to point out the existing difficulties with the former. It concludes with a section advocating an alternative all hazards approach to increase the resilience of communities.

This paper presents a review of Disasters by Design, the recent, influential second U.S. national assessment of research on natural and technological hazards that takes stock of the disciplinary knowledge and policy issues in the field of disasters. It identifies four analytical matters left unresolved in its central theme on the importance of sustainable development for disaster mitigation, having to do with the dual emphasis on the local and on the global, cultural change, the implicit assumptions that planners and social engineers know best, and the consensual model of politics. It also identifies some practical problems that the adoption of a sustainable development framework advocated by the report may pose for the specialty.

The purpose of this article is to examine a surge in the sciences surrounding the use of the concept of sustainable development. Data come from the annual frequencies of publications in various disciplines that use the concept of sustainable development as well as from a content analysis of documents. The article concludes that the surge was characterized by the use by scientists of established concepts in a new way, a form of cultural emergence; a prevailing locus of interaction revolving around a professional ideology; the prevalence of the emotions of fear and hope of deliverance from the threat; and an international arena of discourse occurring over a period of years and bounded by class‐professional identities. The article demonstrates that a newer understanding of fads as collective surges in the sociology specialty area of collective behavior helps describe the use in the sciences of the concept of sustainable development during the late 1980s and 1990s. The surge is relatively short‐lived, coterminous with the use of different meanings and practices of sustainable development. It cannot be understood as a superficial, odd, inconsequential, or frivolous event. Rather, it had important, lasting consequences in a number of areas, from economic and social development to professions.

The purpose of this article is to examine a surge in the sciences surrounding use of the concept "sustainable development." Data come from the annual frequencies of publications in various disciplines that use the concept of sustainable development as well as from a content analysis of documents. The article concludes that the surge was characterized by the use by scientists of established concepts in a new way, a form of cultural emergence; a prevailing locus of interaction revolving around a professional ideology; the prevalence of the emotions of fear & hope of deliverance from the threat; & an international arena of discourse occurring over a period of years & bounded by class-professional identities. The article demonstrates that a newer understanding of fads as collective surges in the sociology specialty area of collective behavior helps describe the use in the sciences of the concept of sustainable development during the late 1980s & 1990s. The surge is relatively short-lived, coterminous with the use of different meanings & practices of sustainable development. It cannot be understood as a superficial, odd, inconsequential, or frivolous event. Rather, it has had important, lasting consequences in a number of areas, from economic & social development to professions. 1 Figure, 65 References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper analyzes the latent consequences of presumptions of equality under communist ideology for the achievement of such equality by women, and provides a set of data which documents that despite the ideological claims, equality at certain levels of the bureaucracy has not been achieved and seems to be dependent upon changes in the cultural belief system of the Cubans regarding appropriate sex role differences.