The paper examines the potential value of their cross-cultural study experience to international students studying social policy in the UK and draws on a small exploratory study, focusing on Korean students, to consider how the cross-cultural experience may be enhanced to enable students to develop a critical awareness of their own and their host country's culture and social policy.

Drawing on extensive research, the article proposes a diagnostic tool for assessing official schemes to encourage participation and discusses remedial measures that might be taken to tackle problems. According to the CLEAR framework, people participate when they can: when they have the resources necessary to make their argument. People participate when they feel part of something: they like to participate because it is central to their sense of identity. They participate when they are enabled to do so by an infrastructure of civic networks and organisations. People participate when they are directly asked for their opinion. Finally, people participate when they experience the system they are seeking to influence as responsive.

The contributions in this issue serve as a timely reminder of the importance of choice and autonomy in later working life. As the UK embarks on legislation prohibiting age discrimination, this paper discusses international lessons which can be drawn from older worker experience and related policy in Japan, Australia and the United States. By exploring the integral role of social and cultural norms in the development of pension, retirement and anti-discrimination reform, it emphasizes the importance of taking a holistic approach to older worker opportunity which ensures that practice reflects the intentions behind policy.

The major reform package adopted by the Swedish Government in the late 1990s to counteract men's violence against women has now been evaluated seven years on. The original reform included legislative changes, as well as assignments to public authorities with an emphasis on improving encounters between abused women and representatives of the various authorities. The evaluation inquiry has identified pervasive shortcomings in the implementation of the reform package. Areas of special concern include the low priority given to the issue and the lack of guidelines, of continuity, of adequate resources, and, not least, of a ‘shared perspective’ on the causes and impact of men's violence against women. Future discussions and efforts will also be informed by, yet another, and slightly more recent government commissioned report on gender equality that includes an extensive discussion about men's violence against women and advocates a more eclectic approach than advocated by the evaluation inquiry.

In addition to the texts and journal papers referenced in the papers there a number of recent texts which focus on the social policy and socio-cultural developments in Korea.

Whilst there is ample literature on the governance and management of partnerships in welfare, particularly within mixed-economy states, much of it has focused on the governance and organisational capacity issues. This paper draws on that body of literature and evidence from health and social care partnerships, and attempts to develop the theoretical and empirical work in the area to address the issue of citizens' social rights, asking whether collaborative governance and partnerships between agencies are the solution to promoting citizens' social participation, or another state-driven method of indirectly enhancing social exclusion.

This article examines the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to critically consider its effectiveness as a bill of rights for women. After having discussed the need for such a convention for women it examines the vital role that non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play in the implementation of the Convention. As of March 2005, 180 countries – 90 per cent of the members of the United Nations – were party to this Convention. However, the document is one of the most highly reserved international human rights instruments and although many nations have ratified the Convention they have done so conditionally. Despite these reservations, women's NGOs have used CEDAW as a powerful tool to effect change. Yet, whilst CEDAW has been heralded as a significant step in the development of international human rights, women across the globe still suffer abuse because they are women. There is a need therefore to suggest ways forward in order to ensure the improvement of human rights for women.

In addition to the references offered at the end of each of the contributions to this themed section, it is useful to direct readers to a range of relevant websites, both governmental and independent, which cover issues related to older workers. The following sites have been selected as sources of information on policy and advice services by and for older workers.

The establishment of partnerships has been a central feature of British social welfare policy since 1997 when the New Labour government came to power. Although the academic attention given to partnership working since then has grown considerably, there have been few attempts to link conceptual models of partnerships with existing forms. This paper addresses this gap and finds that, while there are links between actual and model partnerships, there is little evidence that actual partnerships have been designed or structured to meet their particular tasks.

This article aims to assess ways in which different justice schemes may operate together for an improved legal and political response to victims of sexual crimes in the aftermath of armed conflicts. The article will briefly present the problem of sexual violence against women in armed conflict. It will then consider the evolution of criminal justice in regard to this crime, the results of recent attempts to implement truth and reconciliation processes, as well as briefly assess reparation schemes. Finally it will suggest a series of measures for coordinating the various schemes of justice in a way that guarantees women's rights in the aftermath of a conflict.

Rod Rhodes (1997) Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity and Accountability, Open University Press 1997.

Gerry Stoker (1998) ‘Governance as theory: five propositions’, International Journal of Social Sciences 50, 1, 17–28.

Helen Sullivan and Chris Skelcher (2002) Working across Boundaries: Collaboration in Public Services, Palgrave.

Janet Newman, Marion Barnes, Helen Sullivan, and A. Knops (2004) ‘Public participation and collaborative governance’, Journal of Social Policy 33, 203–223.

From a term used largely within political science in the mid-1990s, ‘governance’ has become a key conceptual and analytical convention adopted by social policy, largely because of its usefulness in examining questions that are key to the discipline: citizenship; welfare rights and responsibilities; accountability; legitimacy and partnership working. Clarence and Painter (1998) have constructed a useful characterisation of public policy, identifying a shift in emphasis from hierarchies, to markets and now to collaboration. Networks, ‘joined up’ governance and partnership working are now central in both policy practice and analysis. These processes are not new, but New Labour have clearly expanded and accelerated them. For New Labour, collaborative working is now perceived as central in their response to key policy challenges: improving public services, tackling social exclusion and revitalising local democracy. These processes are now evident at all levels of policy making from supranational organisations such as the European Union down to neighbourhood-based initiatives. It appears that we are moving from the closed, unitary system of government of the Westminster model to a more open, decentralised system of governance. Our conceptions of citizenship have accordingly shifted, from one based on representation to one based on active participation, particularly within local communities. Governance is an issue which concerns all levels of government and citizen participation, from international-level World Bank concerns about commitment to efficiency and accountable government, to highly devolved localised urban regeneration partnerships.

This review assesses a law and criminal justice based approach to domestic violence from the vantage of recent reports from the advocacy movement in the United States (DasGupta, ‘Safety and justice for all’) and Amnesty International (It's in your hands: stop violence against women) and the work of legal scholar Linda Mills. The US movement is hardly alone in wrestling with how to reconcile the state's indispensable role in securing safety, support and liberty for victims with its equally undeniable role in perpetuating the patterns of sex, race and class inequality and privilege from which woman abuse stems and from which it continues to derive legitimacy.

There is fundamental recognition that the human rights of women are ‘an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights’ (Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, para. 18). Violence creates tremendous obstacles to the achievement of rights for women and nation states are obligated to exercise due diligence in the eradication of violence against women and to prevent violence against women wherever it occurs. The following list identifies key documents and resources available at International, European and UK levels. The list includes references to website gateways, documents, campaigns, organisations and publications. The websites provide free access to a wide body of literature and all sites were visited on 11 July 2005 to check that they were current. The list is not comprehensive but is indicative of key materials and services that are easily accessible.

www.interactweb.org.uk

An alliance of practitioners, researchers, writers and policy makers committed to putting effective deliberative, participatory and co-operative approaches at the heart of debate, decision making and action in the UK. The website contains a list of publications on participation and partnership, case studies, discussion papers and information about current initiatives.