The Place of Memory in Understanding Urban Change in Central Asia: The Cities of Bishkek and Ferghana

This article explores the relationship between memory and place in understandings of urban change in Central Asia. Drawing on narratives of long-term residents of two Central Asian cities we investigate the ways in which positive memories of the Soviet past emerge when people speak about the urban environment of today. We explore why such fondness for the Soviet past has emerged, what elements of the past are most cherished, and which urban communities remember these elements. We ask what these forms of memory reveal about what has been lost and what this tells us about the present anxieties of urban residents.     

Perspectives on the Capacity of the Australian Public Service and Effective Policy Development and Implementation

It is a long held tradition of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) to invite speakers to address the Fellow's Colloquium as part of the annual symposium, with an aim to spark discussion and debate on a controversial and contemporary topic. In 2010 the debate was focused on the question of whether there had been a degradation of the professional capacity of the Australian Public Service (APS) with regard to effective policy development and implementation. The contributions of each of the four panel members are reproduced here, in part, and they reflect the diverse perspectives which informed a robust and compelling debate. Janine O'Flynn, the editor of these contributions, argues that any claim of degradation is based on rumour rather than hard evidence, and she sets out how we might think about policy capacity from a public sector management perspective. Sue Vardon, the former CEO of Centrelink and the architect of a transformation change program which redefined the delivery of public services in Australia, reflects on the strengths of the APS, but points out the current stresses that it now finds itself under. Anna Yeatman, an expert in political theory and its application to citizenship and public policy, argues that in the last twenty years we have witnessed degradation in the work of government and that this has impacted on policy capacity. Lyn Carson, an expert in deliberative democracy, points to the unrealised capacity that could come from increasing citizen involvement. Policy capacity is degraded, she argues, because we have systems that are neither deliberative nor representative. Individually these contributions spark their own controversies; together they ask us to consider the question in different ways.     

Online solicitation offenders are different from child pornography offenders and lower risk contact sexual offenders

The current study compared 38 lower risk (based on actuarial risk assessments) men convicted of contact sexual offenses against children, 38 child pornography offenders, and 70 solicitation offenders (also known as luring or traveler offenders). Solicitation and child pornography offenders were better educated than contact offenders but did not differ on other sociodemographic variables. In comparison to child pornography offenders, solicitation offenders had lower capacity for relationship stability and lower levels of sex drive/preoccupation and deviant sexual preference. Solicitation offenders were also more problematic than lower risk contact offenders on sex drive/preoccupation and capacity for relationship stability and had greater self-reported use of child pornography. Differences between groups on two actuarial risk measures, the Static-99 and the VASOR, were inconsistent. This study suggests that solicitation offenders differ in meaningful ways from lower risk contact offenders and child pornography offenders and, consequently, in risk, treatment, and supervision needs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Paths toward reclamation: therapeutic jurisprudence and the regulation of medical practitioners

Much about what used to be termed "disciplinary" investigations and hearings is being revisited in the modern era. Therapeutic jurisprudence enables informed and sensitive awareness to potentially therapeutic and counter-therapeutic effects of both investigations and hearings conducted by medical regulatory authorities. This article analyses key aspects of authorities' processes from the perspective of notifiers/complainants and practitioners. Using developments at the Victorian Medical Practitioners Board as a base, it addresses issues of both investigative procedures and decision-making at formal and informal hearings, as well as the ramifications of re-hearings for the integrity of peer review informed regulation. It argues that where reclamation of practitioners is possible (namely where impropriety is not of the most serious order), there is much that is constructive about a focus upon enhancement of performance and competence levels, rather than the traditional preoccupation with whether registered status needs to be affected as a result of practitioner conduct.     

The young and the restless: housing access in the critical years

Abstract

How do governmental housing policies affect the ability of young people to exit the parental home? This paper makes three claims. First and most important, governments that create accessible and liquid mortgage markets make it easier for young people to launch from the parental home. Second, even in those countries with more liquid housing markets, younger generations today still have an increasingly difficult time realising their preferences compared to prior generations. Third, increasing income and wealth inequality interacts with housing markets to create this uneven playing field both within and across generations. This paper examines these relationships in 20 high-income OECD countries. Fewer adult children live in the parental home in countries with deep mortgage markets, high levels of social rented housing, tax relief for ownership, low buyers' transaction costs and high residential mobility. These countries cut across the traditional housing regime typologies, highlighting the need for additional housing-specific theory building.     

Regions of Hierarchy and Security: US Troop Deployments,Spatial Relations,and Defense Burdens

Recent work has begun exploring the effects of foreign military deployments on host-state foreign policies. However, research mostly focuses on dyadic relationships between major powers and host-states, ignoring the broader regional security environment of host-states. We develop a theory of spatial hierarchies to understand how security relationships throughout the region surrounding the host-state affect host-state foreign policy. Using data on US military deployments from 1950–2005, we show that regional security considerations condition how host-states respond to the deployment of military forces to their territory. Consequently, regional analyses are fundamental in understanding monadic and dyadic decisions about security, alliance behavior, and conflict.