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"The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training" offers an in-depth guide to the theories, practices, and policies of vocational education and training (VET). With contributions from a panel of leading international scholars, the Handbook contains 27 authoritative essays from a wide range of disciplines. The contributors present an integrated analysis of the complex and dynamic field of VET. Drawing on the most recent research, thinking, and practice in the field, the book explores the key debates about the role of VET in the education and training systems of various nations. The Handbook reveals how expertise is developed in an age of considerable transformation in work processes, work organization, and occupational identities. The authors also examine many of the challenges of vocational education and training such as the impact of digital technologies on employment, the demand for (re)training in the context of extended working lives, the emergence of learning regions and skill ecosystems, and the professional development of vocational teachers and trainers. This important text: (1) Offers an original view of VET's role in both the initial and continuing development of expertise; (2) Examines the theories and concepts that underpin international perspectives and explores the differences about the purposes of VET; (3) Presents various models of learning used in VET, including apprenticeship, and their relationship with general education; (4) Explores how VET is shaped in different ways by the political economy of different countries; (5) Reviews how developments in digital technologies are changing VET practice; (6) Discusses the challenges for universities offering higher vocational education programs; and (7) Draws on both recent research as well as historical accounts. Written for students, researchers, and scholars in the fields of educational studies, human resource development, social policy, political economy, labor market economics, industrial relations, and sociology, "The Wiley Handbook of Vocational Education and Training" offers an international perspective on the topic of VET. This book contains the following chapters: (1) Introduction to the Handbook: Vocational Education and Training (VET) Theory, Practice, and Policy for a Complex Field of Inquiry (David Guile and Lorna Unwin); (2) VET, Expertise, and Work: Situating the Challenge for the Twenty-First Century (David Guile and Lorna Unwin); (3) Vocational Education and the Individual (Stephen Billett); (4) VET, HRD, and Workplace Learning: Where to From Here? (Paul Hager); (5) Does Vocational Education Still Need the Concept of Occupation? (Alison Fuller); (6) Knowledge, Competence, and Vocational Education (Leesa Wheelahan); (7) Political Economy of Vocational Education and Training (Damian Oliver, Serena Yu, and John Buchanan); (8) The Politics of Vocational Training: Theories, Typologies, and Public Policies (Marius R. Busemeyer and Christine Trampusch); (9) The Industrial Relations of Training and Development (Mark Stuart); (10) Measuring Performance in Vocational Education and Training and the Employer's Decision to Invest in Workplace Training (Samuel Muehlemann); (11) Excluded Within the Inclusive Institution: The Case of Low-Skilled, Low-Wage Security Employees (Soon-Joo Gog); (12) The Contested Evolution and Future of Vocational Education in the United States (Brian Durham and Debra D. Bragg); (13) The Future of Vocational Education in Canadian Secondary Schools (Alison Taylor); (14) The Interrelation of General Education and VET: Understandings, Functions, and Pedagogy (Vibe Aarkrog); (15) The Sustainability of the Dual System Approach to VET (Thomas Deissinger); (16) Duality and Learning Fields in Vocational Education and Training: Pedagogy, Curriculum, and Assessment (Matthias Pilz and Bärbel Fürstenau); (17) VET Teachers and Trainers (Kevin Orr); (18) The Learning Potential of Boundary Crossing in the Vocational Curriculum (Arthur Bakker and Sanne Akkerman); (19) Designing Technology-Enhanced Learning Environments in Vocational Education and Training (Carmela Aprea and Alberto A. P. Cattaneo); (20) VET as Lifelong Learning: Engagement With Distributed Knowledge in Software Engineering (Monika Nerland and Crina I. Damsa); (21) Innovative Work-Based Learning for Responsive Vocational Education and Training (VET): Lessons from Dutch Higher VET (Aimée Hoeve, Wietske Kuijer-Siebelink, and Loek Nieuwenhuis); (22) Capturing the Elusive: How Vocational Teachers Develop and Sustain their Expertise (Janet H. Broad and Ann Lahiff); (23) The Challenges VET Faces Through Its Intersection With Social Class, Gender, Ethnicity, and Race (Karen Evans); (24) The Contribution of Vocational Education and Training in Skilling India (Tara Nayana and Sanath Kumar); (25) Vocational Education and Training in Economic Transformation in China (Zhiqun Zhao and Yunbo Liu); (26) Working with Historical, Cultural, and Economic Logics: The Case of Vocational Training in Argentina (Claudia Jacinto); and (27) The Evolution of Learning Regions: Lessons from Economic Geography for the Development of VET (Laura James).

The New Opportunities Initiative (NOI) is a Portuguese flagship programme to recognise and accredit prior learning (RPL, APL) and to endow low-skilled adults with upper secondary qualifications, which is defined as the minimum entry threshold to the exercise of a full citizenship in a knowledge-rich society. NOI's major achievement has been its ability to attract the least-skilled adults to embark in a system of informal and non-formal skills recognition, accreditation and certification, with complements of formal learning, to achieve academic and/or vocational certification. A record enrolment of about one half of the targeted adult population of roughly 3.7 million low-skilled in barely 5 years of implementation is a fact to be duly recognised and lies beyond dispute. This book gives an account of the robust research efforts deployed at the independent evaluation of NOI. Written on a solid foundation of empirical evidence, this publication encompasses seven papers which were submitted to an extensive peer review procedure inspired by best practices in academic refereeing. The peer reviews were done initially at a distance by senior referees with solid scientific backgrounds and extensive international experience in the domain under appraisal; the process then continued with a face to face seminar where each peer reviewer examined three papers in depth and all experts were invited to act as discussants of each paper; the procedure was concluded by a second round of individual reviews whenever the paper had undergone serious change. This publication contains the following: (1) "New Opportunities and New Government": A Paradigm Change in Policy (Roberto Carneiro); (2) The New Opportunities Initiative: Understanding Public Policy from a Diachronic Perspective (Maria Amelia Mendonca and Maria Ana Carneiro); (3) Bringing Lifelong Learning to Low-Skilled Adults: The New Opportunities Initiative (Ana Claudia Valente, Lourenco Xavier de Carvalho, and Andre Xavier de Carvalho); (4) Family: A Key Variable to Explain Participation in NOI and Lifelong Learning (Henrique Lopes and Roberto Carneiro); (5) Brand Modelling: The Citizen Perception of a Public Policy (Carlos Liz, Mariana Machado, and Jorge Portugal Rocha); (6) Discussing New Opportunities Inside S-D Logic: New Opportunities as a Tool of Governmental Approach for Nation Value Creation (Henrique Lopes); (7) Organizational Self-Regulation and Self-Assessment: The Case of New Opportunities Centres (Rodrigo Queiroz e Melo and Sofia Reis); and (8) NOI Evaluative Research Final Review External Experts (Marja van den Dungen, Alejandro Tiana, Claudio Dondi, Joe Cullen, Nikitas Kastis, Walter Kugemann, and Fabio Nascimbeni). Individual sections contain tables, figures, footnotes, references and appendices. [This paper was created with the collaboration of Centro de Estudos dos Povos e Culturas de Expressao Portuguesa and Menon Network.]

Panama has achieved socio-economic improvements in recent decades thanks to strong economic growth and consequent poverty reduction. Its growth model is characterised by a dual economy in which a small number of activities, including those related to the Canal and Special Economic Zones, have exhibited high productivity growth but limited job creation. Panama should now embark on a new reform agenda to become a sustainable and inclusive high-income country. This report urges greater productivity in sectors that contribute to job formalisation to reduce disparities in income and among regions. As developing these policies requires further resources, taxation system and private sector involvement through public-private partnerships should also be reinforced. Focusing on skills and jobs, regional development and development financing, the volume provides analysis and recommendations on three areas which are key for Panama. Following a foreword, the table of contents includes the following chapters: (1) Acronyms and Abbreviations; (2) Executive Summary; (3) Overview: Towards a Sustainable and Inclusive High Income Country; (4) Building Better Skills and Creating Formal jobs for all Panamanians; (5) Strengthening Regional Development Policy to Boost Inclusive Growth; and (6) Improving the Taxation System and Promoting Private Sector Involvement to Support Financing for Development. [For Volume 1, see ED586180.]

This report presents innovative vocational training (VT) initiatives to improve integration of low-skilled workers into lifelong learning and the labor market. Chapter 1 describes study structure and methodology. Chapter 2 addresses the theoretical basis for observing innovations. It analyzes the definition and significance of innovation in system theory and VT; examines the practical definition of innovation and explains differences between good practice and best practice innovation; presents the innovation typology and its significance as an instrument of observation for identifying and evaluating innovations; and introduces the European Commission's definition of lifelong learning and assessment of its relevance for analyzing innovations for integrating the low-skilled. Chapter 3 analyzes innovative case studies with practical relevance for integrating low-skilled workers into lifelong learning and the labor market in these six European countries: Spain, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein. Case analysis is divided into three thematic areas: program/project development and its objectives; innovative elements of the project/program; and the initiative's implementation and transfer potential. Chapter 4 summarizes the most important innovations identified and analyzes to what extent and under which circumstances transfer of these innovative practices to other EU states and candidates would be possible. (Contains 72 references) (YLB)

Over the past few decades, the economic prospects for workers possessing relatively few skills have worsened as the demand for skills in the labor market has increased. Even in jobs that might be categorized as low-skilled, workers require a diverse set of skills to succeed. Many of these skills can only be obtained through schooling or job training. This is why workers lacking skills find it difficult to attain a foothold in the labor market and why employers have difficulty filling low-skilled jobs. While it was previously assumed that the supply of workers able to fill low-skilled jobs exceeded the demand, this book reveals that the labor market for low-skilled workers actually operates quite differently. Maxwell presents the results of her groundbreaking survey of 405 employers, which queried them about jobs requiring no more than a high school education and no more than one year of work experience. These data allow her to establish the link between skills and low-skilled jobs and to reveal the current state of the labor market facing low-skilled workers. The data also highlights the knowledge and skills that employers require in low-skilled jobs and the abilities that individuals who apply for those jobs bring to the table. Overall, the employers' responses allow Maxwell to make the following five key points: (1) Low-skilled jobs require skills. Low-skilled jobs are not no-skilled jobs. While individuals do not have to have a high level of credentials to apply for low-skilled jobs, once they are hired, employers emphasize that they must possess the requisite skills to succeed in their jobs. Among them are the so-called new basic skills: English, math, problem-solving, and communication skills. In addition, appropriate workplace behavior and the ability to follow instructions are important, and physical abilities and mechanical skills are also required, often at levels more intense than at other jobs; (2) Shortages of appropriately skilled workers in low-skilled jobs exist, even when labor markets are slack. Close to 60 percent of firms in this study report great difficulty--one-fourth of them had extreme difficulty--finding qualified workers for low-skilled jobs even when unemployment rates exceed 7.0 percent; (3) Skills are rewarded in the labor market for workers in low-skilled jobs. Low-skilled jobs requiring skills with a high relative demand in the local labor market (i.e., skills in short supply) carry increased occupational wages; (4) Low skilled jobs offer promotional opportunities. Firms report that over 90 percent of entry-level low-skilled jobs have promotional opportunities, as long as workers are willing and able to expand their skill sets. Firms also construct pipelines of appropriately skilled workers by hiring entry-level workers with skills needed in the position above entry level; and (5) Hiring requirements in low-skilled jobs are relaxed in tight labor markets. Firms match recruiting and screening methods to the skills needed in the low-skilled jobs. As labor markets loosen, these firms use less extensive recruiting methods but adopt more intensive screening methods. This suggests that, during loose labor markets, firms sort through a greater number of applicants in order to uncover workers with the skill sets needed in the job. Maxwell also defines low-skilled jobs, identifies the populations who fill these jobs and the economic realities facing them, and offers policy solutions aimed at facilitating the career development of low-skilled individuals. These solutions include building skills while attending public schools and while attending publicly-funded employment and training programs. They also include increasing the demand for low-skilled workers and refining the nation's workforce development programs to better steer individuals into jobs providing economic self-sufficiency. The following chapters are contained in this book: (1) Low Skilled Jobs: The Reality behind the Popular Perceptions; (2) Local Labor Markets and Low-Skilled Jobs: Theory and Data; (3) How Skills Matter; (4) Recruiting and Screening Workers in Low-Skilled Positions; (5) Skills, Promotions, and Low-Skilled Positions; (6) Labor Markets for Workers in Low-Skilled Positions: How Can Policies Help Workers?

This book, the sixth in a series, adds to debates about race, skill, and hiring with interdisciplinary, indepth, qualitative field research about employers' attitudes. Chapter 1 provides background to the research. Chapter 2 describes the three employer surveys from which data are drawn and provides a snapshot of the recent history of industrial and demographic change in the four cities where the employers were located--Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles. Chapter 3 examines the skills employers seek and how those skill needs are changing. Chapter 4 explores managers' stated perceptions of racial groups, as well as to what extent negative perceptions translate into discriminatory actions. Chapter 5 undertakes a parallel investigation, reviewing the images employers hold of the inner city and tracing connections between these images and business location decisions. Chapter 6 probes the recruitment and screening procedures employers use and their impact on who gets hired. Chapter 7 considers briefly what employers in the surveys said about government and public policy and makes policy recommendations. Appendixes contain profiles of data sets used, descriptive statistics of variables, chapter notes, 228 references, and index. (YLB)

This book contains 13 papers on labor market and welfare reform, with special emphasis on the demand for low-wage workers, wages and job characteristics in the less skilled labor market, public politics to increase employment and earnings of less skilled workers, and the impact of welfare reform. The following papers are included: "The Labor Market and Welfare Reform" (Rebecca M. Blank, David E. Card); "The Employment, Earnings, and Income of Less Skilled Workers over the Business Cycle" (Hilary W. Hoynes); "Displacement and Wage Effects of Welfare Reform" (Timothy J. Bartik); "Job Change and Job Stability among Less Skilled Young Workers" (Harry J. Holzer, Robert J. LaLonde); "Wage Progression among Less Skilled Workers" (Tricia Gladden, Christopher Taber); "Gender Differences in the Low-Wage Labor Market" (Jane Waldfogel, Susan E. Mayer); "Health Insurance and Less Skilled Workers" (Janet Currie, Aaron Yelowitz); "Employee-Based versus Employer-Based Subsidies to Low-Wage Workers: A Public Finance Perspective" (Stacy Dickert-Conlin, Douglas Holtz-Eakin); "Public Service Employment and Mandatory Work: A Policy Whose Time Has Come and Gone and Come Again?" (David T. Ellwood, Elisabeth D. Welty); "Financial Incentives for Increasing Work and Income among Low-Income Families" (Rebecca M. Blank, David E. Card, Philip K. Robins); "Child Care and Mothers' Employment Decisions" (Patricia M. Anderson, Phillip B. Levine); "Use of Means-Tested Transfer Programs by Immigrants, Their Children, and Their Children's Children" (Kristin F. Butcher, Luojia Hu); and "Time Limits" (Robert A. Moffitt, LaDonna A. Pavetti). All papers contain substantial bibliographies. (MN)

This book contains fifty-three case studies covering a wide variety of private-sector activities and public-private partnerships designed to increase training and employment opportunities for the hard-to-employ and speed the transition of the unemployed from government support and subsidized jobs to permanent private employment. Compiled from a survey of more than eighty trustee companies of the Committee for Economic Development, many of the studies are concerned with special efforts to provide better job preparation, placement, and skill training for severely disadvantaged persons, including those who are undereducated, unskilled, and subject to discrimination or other special handicaps. However, the activities described in the cases are not limited to the disadvantaged; they also include efforts to bring about an improved transition from education to work; more productive use of midcareer and older workers, including steps to smooth the transition from work to retirement; wider reliance on part-time work and other alternative work patterns to make more employment available to youths, homemakers, and older persons; and business use of alternatives to outright layoffs in recessions. Case studies are grouped by purpose or population focus, and an overview of each group is included. (KC)

The aim of this book is to examine the problem of child labor in various parts of the world: to make the phenomenon known, to analyze its causes, and to propose possible solutions. In Part I (by Elias Mendelievich), an introduction first outlines the problem. Chapter 2 examines pertinent international and national legislation and the International Labour Office's (ILO's) work in this area. Chapter 3 describes the extent of child labor, the types of employment relationship, and the dominant sectors of activity. Chapter 4 addresses working conditions and environment, and chapter 5 examines children's living conditions and the effects of labor on the child. Chapter 6 discusses problems of education and training, and chapter 7 makes recommendations for improving the working and living conditions of child workers and for eventually eliminating child labor. Part II (chapters 8 to 17) presents monographs dealing with aspects of child labor in 10 countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and Southern Europe (Argentina--Center for Labor Studies and Research; Greece--Theodora Papaflessa, Sofia Spiliotopoulos; India--K.D. Gangrade; Indonesia--F. Soeratno; Italy--Elias Mendelievich; Mexico--Graciela Bensusan; Nigeria-- Ben E. Ukpabi; Pakistan--Sabeeha Hafeez; Peru--Rene Rodriguez Heredia; Thailand--Benjamas Prachankhadee and Others.) Appendices contain ILO Convention (No. 138) concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment; Recommendation (No. 146) concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment; information received from governments of member states on implementing these international recommendations; a declaration concerning the International Year of the Child by ILO's Director-General; the International Labor Conference's resolution concerning the elimination of child labor; commentary on reproduced photographs; and suggestions for further reading. (RDN)

The purpose of the study is to begin a detailed investigation of the low-paid work force and to focus attention on the determinants of low-wage employment, by dissecting the various forces that contribute to the determination of wage levels for full-time full-year workers. The question is whether low-wage poverty can be eliminated by upgrading the health, skill, and education of the poor, or whether more fundamental changes in the social and economic environment are necessary. The study is divided into ten chapters in three broad categories. Part One examines poverty strategies and wage theory. Part Two, the longest section of the study, explores the dimensions of the problem and puts forth findings on its correlates: education level as it relates to wage rate across occupational groups and its effect on earnings between occupational categories and between industries; geographical location; and migration and health. Part Three summarizes the findings presented in Part Two, and discusses implications for new policy directions. Appended are supplementary data tables, definitions, and data sources. (Author/AJ)

The book describes working and living conditions among migrant laborers in the northern Canadian work camps, 1903-1914. The early chapters sketch the development of Canada's transportation systems from the mid-19th century as the setting for the development of labor camps, and describe the contract system in railway construction. The heart of the book details the dangerous and difficult work conditions, the low pay, the uncomfortable and unsanitary living conditions, and the poor medical facilities which characterized camp life. One chapter analyzes the ethnic composition of the migrants, and describes the special circumstances arising from the presence of large numbers of foreign-born workers in the camps. Other chapters analyze the abuses of the contract system from the migrants' perspective, prospective alternative sources of employment for the camp workers, and public and governmental unconcern for the migrant workers' plight. Throughout the book runs a deep concern for the educational needs of the workers which reflects the author's many years of experience among the campmen as a workerinstructor affiliated with Frontier College. (JR)

The book examines the effect of class barriers on blue collar workers by mirroring occupational/ethnic backgrounds of the white manual-laboring population in the Boston area through urban anthropological observations as well as 150 in-depth interviews conducted in 1969-70. It mainly reflects the experience of middle-aged, third generation American males. The authors explore the moral hierarchy of national and cultural differences, the effects of the intrusion of urban renewal, and the dilemma of working people trying to find out what position they occupy in America. The interviews generally reflected a crisis in self-respect of the working man, a hidden anxiety of feeling inadequately in control with feelings of self-defeat. A central position of the book is that everyone in society is subject to a scheme of values whereby they must unremittingly validate self by wearing "badges of ability" in order to win others' respect and their own. The authors examine worker sacrifices, hopes, and defenses in light of the tangled, complex relationship of denied freedom and dignity, and perceive the psychological motivation of a class society as being the healing of self-doubt, which, in turn, keeps the class order going. (EA)

The relationship between Russian labor and Bolshevik power in the months immediately following October remains a central and contentious issue of early Soviet history. Bolshevik political legitimacy turns in large measure on the degree to which the party was able in this period to retain the support of workers whose activism in 1917 had brought the Bolsheviks to power; and the nature and extent of workers' opposition to the new regime in these early months is fundamental to our understanding of its dictatorial structure. These issues, central to the work of E. H. Carr, Leonard Schapiro, and others, have recently reemerged in the literature, both implicitly and explicitly. Whereas new books by S. A. Smith, David Mandel, and Diane Koenker on 1917 have examined carefully the social circumstances of Petrograd and Moscow workers, Schapiro's own last volume, The Russian Revolutions of 1917, takes sharp issue with historians whose work centers on “social trends, economic theories, or sociological analysis.” Roy Medvedev and Vladimir Brovkin have demonstrated how elections to local Soviets in the spring of 1918 brought extensive gains for Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, including popular majorities in all provincial capitals where elections took place; and an important new collection of materials edited by M. S. Bernshtam for Alexander Solzhenitsyn's series on modern Russian history reasserts an old Right Menshevik view, put most forcefully perhaps by Grigorii Aronson, who maintained that the Bolsheviks had been in power scarcely two months before all sympathy for them had disappeared, and the benevolent neutrality of the weeks preceding [October] gave way to a committed opposition. […] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A powerful aspect of the prevailing view of the revolution – of the white and red contrast between good democratic liberals and evil Bolsheviks – is that it makes the past very simple. This simplicity, in turn, makes the past easier to understand and to express as moral lessons for our own time. The reality of 1917 is much more complex. The revolution of 1917 – any revolution for that matter – should be thought of as a kaleidoscope Patterns fall into place and then fall apart, and then become reassembled in different patterns. In order to stress this kaleidoscopic aspect of the revolution and to emphasize the many-layered reality of 1917, I shall draw upon my own work on Moscow's working class during the revolution. When I set out to do a study of Moscow workers in 1917, I had three goals in mind. The first was to study the revolution as it happened away from Petrograd. Petrograd was a unique place: It was the center of political power, the home of the aristocratic elite, the most advanced industrial center in the country, and it was relatively near the eastern front of the world war. All these factors would surely affect the process of revolution in ways that might not be repeated elsewhere. So I turned to Moscow, not just for the sake of learning what happened in a different place, but also to understand why Moscow's experience was different, if indeed it was. In so doing, I hoped to add a new dimension to the history of 1917. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues of interpretation Studying the Soviet Union is not quite like studying any other country in the world. While historians within the Soviet Union are compelled to portray their nation's past with the requisite degree of heroism and inexorable progress, in the West their colleagues face serious limitations of access to sources, the absence of basic works on aspects of Soviet history, and a variety of personal and political biases that inevitably influence the outcome of their research. Soviet historians write under the “guidance” of a political orthodoxy dictated by the party and colored in the language of Marxism-Leninism. Their Western counter-parts attempt a cool objectivity, usually by dismissing the relevance of Marxism as an analytical tool and cloaking themselves in an ostensibly “value-free” social science. International rivalries, conflicting social values, and the more mundane exigencies of forging a professional career in a competitive marketplace determine the political and cultural contexts in which histories of the USSR are written. Nevertheless, many historians on both sides of the barricades seek freedom from bias, and in recent years more and more interesting work has appeared on Russia's history, both in the West and in the Soviet Union, which prompts a reconsideration of significant parts of that experience. After nearly seventy years of studying 1917, is it possible to come to some consensus on the contours and meaning of the 1917 Revolution? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Socialist movement in Franconia entered the Nazi era bitterly divided. For the previous three months the activities of the NSDAP and the SA had centered not on the movement's external foes but on the rebellion in its midst. Under the leadership of Wilhelm Stegmann, almost the entire SA had waged a persistent and at times violent battle the immediate goal of which was to oust Julius Streicher. Behind this conflict of personalities loomed the more serious issue of the goals and methods of the NSDAP, and with the establishment of the Freikorps Franken in mid-January Stegmann had placed himself outside the Nazi movement while claiming to fight for the true aims of National Socialism – and for Adolf Hitler. Whatever chances there may have been for a successful uprising, Hitler's appointment as chancellor dealt a fatal blow to the revolt. Hitler's methods now stood vindicated, and from Hitler's victory the SA, like the National Socialist movement as a whole, sought to gain. From the beginning of February 1933 until June 30, 1934, the SA stood seemingly at the zenith of its power. Every SA man now felt himself entitled to a place among the new elite. A position in some branch of government or, better still, in the new army the SA expected Hitler to create was the reward the SA regarded as its due. Encouraged by Hitler and other Nazi leaders, the stormtroopers now had their chance to settle accounts with their erstwhile opponents. For five months after the Reichstag election of March 1933 the SA stood seemingly above the law and vented its desire for revenge on a defenseless opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]