The role of complexity theory and network analysis for examining child welfare service delivery systems

Abstract

In response to the ongoing call for a complex systems approach for understanding and informing child welfare practice and policy, this article presents a context-specific conceptual framework that combines complexity theory and network analysis. The conceptual framework rests on the complementary nature of these theoretical and methodological concepts for inter-organizational child welfare practice. Potential applications of this framework are discussed to promote network-oriented research that informs effective collaboration among organizations serving children and families.     

Alternative strategies for coping with officials in different postcommunist regimes: the worm's eye view

This article uses focus group methods to see how citizens in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic view their interactions with postcommunist officials. In the Czech Republic, while they complain that bureaucracy has increased with the transition from communism, and they gossip about the need to use contacts and bribery, their own experience is much more positive, and the reforms they propose centre on efficiency and convenience. At the other extreme, citizens of Ukraine complain that corruption has increased because officials are no longer afraid, and their tales about bribery and extortion extend from general gossip to specific personal experience. They see advantages in more ‘control’ and more ‘fear’. Slovakia and Bulgaria fall between these two extremes, though perhaps are rather closer to Ukraine. People seldom suggest that reform is impossible or undesirable anywhere, and, in terms of attitudes towards dealing with officials, there is no simple, clear and definitive line marking a quantum change in culture between Catholic and Orthodox traditions, or between former Hapsburg, Romanov and Ottoman territories. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.