Patrol officer performance appraisal: Problems and prospects

This article examines the critical role of performance appraisal in the development of police personnel, analyzes various systems for assessing patrol officer performance, and evaluates patrol officer perceptions of the adequacy, utility, and fairness of current appraisal systems.     

The Politics of Local Government Stabilization Funds

The adoption, maintenance, and prudent use of budgetary stabilization funds are fundamental financial management precepts, yet the variables that influence the size of these funds are poorly understood. This article contributes to the stabilization fund literature by examining the extent to which variation in stabilization fund balances across municipalities and over time can be explained by a community's political culture and financial management capacity. The balanced panel research design includes archival data for 239 Massachusetts municipalities for each of 18 fiscal years. Stabilization fund balances are lower in communities with either an anti‐tax or a pro‐spending political culture. Stabilization fund balances are higher in communities that have the financial management capacity to accumulate budget surpluses that can be made available for appropriation to stabilization funds. Communities with the open town meeting form of government also have higher stabilization fund balances.     

Migration diplomacy in the Global South: cooperation,coercion and issue linkage in Gaddafi’s Libya

Despite a recent resurgence in research on the politics of migration, foreign policy analysts have yet to approach cross-border population mobility as a distinct field of inquiry. Particularly within the Global South, scant work has theorised the interplay between migration and interstate bargaining. This article proposes the framework of migration diplomacy to examine how mobility features in states’ issue-linkage strategies, in both cooperative and coercive contexts. Drawing on Arabic, French and English primary sources, it empirically demonstrates the salience of its framework through an analysis of Libya’s migration diplomacy towards its Arab, African and European neighbours under Muammar Gaddafi.     

Purpose and practice in public administration education: The place of substantive public policy areas

Public administration's early identification with the concept of a strong executive has resulted in an emphasis on staff functions in its graduate education programs. In the practicing world, staff functions are viewed as tools employed in the actual practice of public administrators, namely the delivery of substantive public services. Although public administration is characterized as an applied field, it does not focus its theory building and educative efforts on that which practicing public administrators actually do. The field necessarily imports other disciplines, but it does not provide the unique focus that would justify this borrowing; its current research agenda and training curricula are available in other disciplines. Public administration graduate students should concentrate in individual substantive policy areas, and the field should focus on optimizing organizational arrangments for delivering societal knowledge as public services. Interorganizational theory can provide the common theoretical framework necessary to mitigate the centrifugal effects of a variety of “administrations” within the field. The approach developed by J. Kenneth Benson is outlined; it provides a unique theoretical niche for public administration, yields a framework for comparative analysis, and defines the field's relationship to political science.     

Bullying,peer victimization,and emotional problems in Cypriot adolescents referred to mental health services—a comparison of normative and clinical data

This study explores the prevalence of bullying and victimization among Cypriot adolescents diagnosed with mental health problems. Their psychosocial adjustment in relation to bullying is studied. The sample consisted of 187 adolescents (60.2% boys; M age = 13.2) and their parents. The present sample reported significantly higher rates of victimization than existing published normative values χ² (1, N = 187) = 27.0, p < .001. An alarming finding was that a total of 25.8% reported to be involved in bullying. There was a significant positive correlation between bullying and emotional symptoms (r = 0.36, p < .001), conduct problems (r = 0.35, p < .001), hyperactivity (r = 0.23, p < .003) and peer problems (r = 0.48, p < .001). The study suggests that there is increased victimization and psychosocial difficulties among Cypriot clinical population in regards to bullying.     

Measurement of Uncertainty for Aqueous Ethanol Wet‐Bath Simulator Solutions Used with Evidential Breath Testing Instruments

Aqueous ethanol wet‐bath simulator solutions are used to perform calibration adjustments, calibration checks, proficiency testing, and inspection of breath alcohol instruments. The Toxicology Bureau of the New Mexico Department of Health has conducted a study to estimate a measurement of uncertainty for the preparation and testing of these wet‐bath simulator solutions. The measurand is identified as the mass concentration of ethanol (g/100 mL) determined through dual capillary column headspace gas chromatography with flame ionization detector analysis. Three groups were used in the estimation of the aqueous ethanol wet‐bath simulator solutions uncertainty: GC calibration adjustment, GC analytical, and certified reference material. The standard uncertainties for these uncertainty sources were combined using the method of root‐sum‐squares to give u_c = 0.8598%. The combined standard uncertainty was expanded to U = 1.7% to reflect a confidence level of 95% using a coverage factor of 2. This estimation applies to all aqueous ethanol wet‐bath simulator solution concentrations produced by this laboratory.     

Nasser’s Educators and Agitators across al-Watan al-‘Arabi: Tracing the Foreign Policy Importance of Egyptian Regional Migration, 1952-1967

The Egyptian state’s policy of dispatching trained Egyptian professionals, primarily educational staff, across the Arab world rarely features in analyses of Egypt’s foreign policy under Gamal Abdel Nasser. This article relies primarily on newly declassified material from the British Foreign Office archives, unpublished reports from the Egyptian Ministry of Education, and an analysis of related articles in three main Egyptian newspapers (al-Ahram, al-Akhbar, al-Jumhuriya) in order to provide a detailed reconstruction of regional migration’s importance for Egyptian foreign policy. It debunks the conventional wisdom that Egyptian migration became a socio-political issue only in the post-1973 era, arguing that the Nasserite regime developed a governmental policy that allowed, and encouraged, Egyptians’ political activism in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and the Persian Gulf according to state foreign policy priorities in the 1952-1967 period. By presenting a cache of archival material in analytical and critical context, this article offers concrete evidence of how migration buttressed Egypt’s regional ambitions under Gamal Abdel Nasser.