Table of Contents

2005
 

Volume Ten, Number Three

Single Articles and Book Review

Single Articles

1. The Municipal Balance of Power: Lessons from Federalist 51
   Frederic D. Homer and Robert A. Schuhmann

   The need to build constructive relationships between city councils and managers is as important today as it ever was.  However, in a world of increasingly complex municipal service provision the obstacles to productive manager-council relationships loom large.  This paper explores the complex relationships between elective officials and merit-based staff, with a special emphasis on understanding the variability in the sets of communication patterns that develop among city managers, merit-based staff, and their elected superiors.  In the end, this paper explores the usefulness of Federalist 51 in designing and navigating the rough seas of council-manager relationships.

2. The Challenges of Aging Toward Chinese Society
   Yushi (Boni) Li

   China has already become an aging society. The rapid growth of the older population presents many unique problems for the Chinese society. One of them is the care that is given to the aging people. With the traditions in China, the care for elders has originally been the responsibility of younger family members.  In the last two decades, great changes have taken place in Chinese society, such as the change of family structure and care-giving values for elder people.  Care giving has become an issue not only to the family but also to the society.  This paper will focus on how social change and the rapid growth rate of the aging population have influenced China’s family care-giving traditions, and how changes of the family structure and social values affect the needs of institutionalized care systems.  This paper will also discuss the existing problems of the institutionalized care systems, such as the quality of the services and the limitations of the current social security system.  This paper will provide suggestions for the improvement of institutionalized care services in China.

Book Review

3. Histories and Memories of 'Survival': 'Welcome' to the Emergency
   Hilal Ahmed

   A review of Emma Tarlo, Unsettling Memories: The Narratives of the Emergency in Delhi, Hurst & Co., London, 2003, pp. 234+x