Gender and Jail Work: Correctional Policy Implications of Perceptual Diversity in the Work Force

Although women now represent a significant proportion of many (if not most) jail staffs, the degree to which their perceptions of corrections work differs from males' remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we compare female and male jail staff perceptions regarding the stress associated with work in jails, the job satisfaction to be derived from jail work, the job environment experienced in jails and the level of commitment to jail facilities across five jail settings. Our findings show important gender-based similarities and differences that need to be understood to maximize the benefits of the work force diversity that women bring to the corrections profession.     

Learning about Learning: Discovering the Work of Policy

The development of policy rests on skilled practice by knowledgeable practitioners – ‘policy work’ – and it is important to know what skills and knowledge this work calls upon, and where these are learned. Although there is substantial academic knowledge and courses in this field, many practitioners will argue that policy work is ‘as much an art as a science’ and is something that ‘you learn as you go’. This article reports on an exploratory study of policy practitioners’ accounts of their practice, what counts as knowledge, and in what contexts it is ‘useful’. We examine the discourses through which policy work is accomplished, the way in which people learn to do it, and the place of academic work in the constitution of these discourses. Drawing on our respondents understanding of policy practice, we discuss what more might be done to facilitate learning about the work of policy.     

政策分析与政策分析人员

政策分析与政策分析人员是政策分析领域两个最为重要的概念。本围绕这两个概念，解释了政策分析的概念起源、学科特征、基本类型和研究途径，并阐述了政策分析人员的工作性质、机构背景、关注焦点和分析方法。     

Government with a Cast of Dozens: Policy Capacity Risks and Policy Work in the Northern Territory

There are a number challenges to maintaining high‐quality policy capacity in sparsely populated areas such as Australia's Northern Territory (e.g. natural resource dependent economy, prominence of Indigenous issues, provision of local services). Moreover, the Territory government has recently been undergoing a host of public sector changes. This paper utilises survey methodologies of policy workers that were recently developed in Canada and examines nine risk factors to policy work. A survey of 119 policy workers in the Northern Territory was conducted in 2013. The analysis examined four key policy‐work areas (policy activities, barriers, areas for improved policy capacity, nature of change in work environment). The survey findings offer some practical insights for managers. Formal policy‐work training is recognised as critical. Policy capacity may be increased through better inter‐departmental (and potentially inter‐governmental) cooperation and information sharing, more opportunities to engage with non‐governmental stakeholders, and more opportunities for those leaving the full‐time Northern Territory policy workforce to continue to contribute. From a conceptual point of view, the extent to which ‘policy capacity’ as commonly conceived in the literature is applicable to contexts, such as Australia's Northern Territory, warrants further examination.     

Internationalized Policy Environments and Policy Network Analysis

The importance of horizontal coordinating governance arrangements in the internationalized policy domains that occur more frequently in the present globalizing era justifies building further on middle-level theories that draw on the policy community/policy network concepts. This reconceptualization, however, requires an explicit integration of policy paradigms and political ideas into policy community theory and careful attention to the differential impact of varying governance patterns in internationalized policy domains. This article pursues these objectives beginning with a review of existing literature on policy communities and policy networks. Next, drawing on recent research on policy paradigms and political ideas, it suggests how policy community concepts might be adapted for the study of policy change. Four types of internationalized policy environments are then identified and their implications for policy communities and policy networks are assessed. The article concludes by introducing the concept of policy community mediators and discussing how they might shape the relationships among multiple policy communities.     

从工业化就业到数字化工作:新工作范式转型与政策框架

基于市场机制演进的必然性与数字技术赋能的可行性,作为外生冲击的新冠肺炎疫情加速了从工业经济就业范式向数字经济工作范式的转型,这种新工作范式主要体现在从组织型就业向自主型工作转换,从集中型就业向分布型工作转换,从单一型就业向多元型工作转换。新工作范式推动了新工作政策框架的形成发展与优化完善,新工作政策框架主要着力于创造更加稠密的工作市场和促进更加便利的工作匹配,着力于包容更加多元的人力资本关系和提升更加专业的工作技能,着力于提供更加普遍的社会保障和保护更加全面的工作权利,从而能够真正满足人民日益增长的美好生活需要。     

Interpretation in the Analysis of Policy

Interpretation is a critical element in both the analysis and the accomplishment of governing, and taking an interpretive approach to policy should not be seen as a methodological option for consenting adults, but as an integral element of political analysis. Understanding governing (whether by practitioners or analysts) raises questions about the shared meaning which makes action valid, and makes a reality of ‘the government’. This calls for attention to the ways in which this is done, and how this interpretive construction has been recognised in political science (and other social sciences) in Australia and elsewhere, and for a consideration of what this means for political scientists’ agenda of inquiry.     

NSW Workers’ Compensation Reform: A Parody of Evidence‐based Policy Making

The characteristics and evolution of evidence‐based policy making in Australia and other mature democracies have been mapped extensively in this journal. This article advances research on the use of evidence in policy making, examining changes in the New South Wales workers’ compensation system from 2012 to 2014. This analysis of two phases of policy change, legislative implementation and statutory review, highlights the limitations of building integrated, coherent evidence‐based policy in a contentious policy area. The article finds that the collection of wide and detailed evidence will not satisfy requirements of evidence‐based policy without political will, transparency, and accountability.     

Work Sharing Policy: Power Sharing and Stalemate in American Federalism

Work sharing benefits are partial unemployment benefits, andfederal policy related to them is in an administrative muddle.A lack of leadership by the federal government has stalled stateimplementation. During economic downturns when political voltageis high, policy makers look to work sharing as one way to managejob loss. Conversely, work sharing is often forgotten duringprosperous times. This article describes how federalism sometimesfacilitates state initiation of work sharing policy and at othertimes impedes it. The authors discuss work sharing through sixpolicy phases during a thirty-year era of devolving federalauthority to states for employment services and job training,and they make observations about the stalemate in federal policy.     

Working the Spaces in between: A Case Study of a Boundary‐Spanning Model to Help Facilitate Cross‐Sectoral Policy Work

Since the 1990s, ‘joined‐up government,’ ‘whole‐of‐government,’ and ‘horizontal governance’ approaches have emerged in many industrialized countries, resulting in the devolution of government functions to diverse policy networks. From these shifts, complex systems of networked actors have emerged, involved in designing, implementation, and influencing policy. Arguably, networked approaches to policy may solve some problems. However, as with all paradigm shifts, new problems have emerged. Specifically, skill and knowledge gaps have opened up, reflecting the need for new collaborative and networked relationships that can increase the capabilities and agility to work in these ways. In response to these gaps, we developed the Power to Persuade initiative. Power to Persuade is an annual symposium and online forum, aimed at deepening knowledge and awareness of current problems faced by policy networks, and providing the skills and knowledge to overcome them. In this paper, we discuss how Power to Persuade works within the spaces in between as a vehicle for relationship building and better policy.     

The Cost‐Effectiveness of Welfare‐to‐Work Programs: A Meta‐Analysis

This article uses the tools of meta‐analysis to assess cost–benefit studies of 50 mandatory welfare‐to‐work programs that were targeted at Aid for Families with Dependent Children recipients and evaluated by random assignment. The findings suggest that the costs of a typical evaluated welfare‐to‐work program probably exceeded its benefits from the perspective of the government, but those assigned to the program, and possibly society as a whole, may reap small positive net benefits. However, there are individual programs that are very cost‐beneficial. Further analyses of the determinants of the cost‐benefits of welfare‐to‐work programs to government and society as a whole show that some services are cost‐neutral, but others entail net costs, which are sometimes substantial. The findings suggest that less successful programs might be made more cost‐beneficial by dropping vocational training and basic education as program components, leaving mainly lower cost components, such as mandated job search and sanctions, but also possibly the more costly financial incentives.     

Innovation in Welfare Policy: Evaluating State Efforts to Encourage Work among Low‐Income Families1

This article examines what states are doing to help Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients move into the workforce and become self‐supporting. We first present documentation regarding many different state TANF policies aimed at encouraging work, including benefit structures, time limits, work requirements, sanctions, and work supports. We then discuss how effective these policies are at helping welfare recipients get jobs and increase their income, by reviewing research on each of these elements. We conclude that the TANF program has been effective in increasing employment and decreasing welfare caseloads and expenses, but that this has not resulted in overall income gains for welfare recipients in the long run. We also conclude that the most promising state programs have a strong employment focus combined with focused training and educational opportunities. In addition, we also find that sanctions appear to be harming those most in need of assistance, and therefore that such policies should be reevaluated and refocused.     

Not‐for‐Profit Advocacy: Challenging Policy Images and Pursuing Policy Change

The not‐for‐profit sector has long played an important role in the policy process through encouraging political engagement, policy research and advocacy, and service delivery. This paper examines two not‐for‐profit organizations, National Children's Alliance and National Alliance on Mental Illness, both of which are grassroots organizations formed to radically change public and professional perceptions of their respective issues and reform the way services are offered to those in need. Borrowing from the literature on policy image and agenda setting, we identify the strategies used by these two highly successful not‐for‐profit groups in their efforts to change the system through redefining problems, reframing issues, and securing legislation with the help of policy entrepreneurs and politicians sympathetic to their causes.     

政策网络的研究边界探析

政策网络的提出,揭示利益联盟及信仰联盟在政策过程中的作用,认为公共政策是包括政府和社会的各类行动者互动的结果。这种研究思路承继政策过程“互动”和“不可预知性”的思想,强调政策过程中的政治性。政策网络内在的稳定与动态、互倚与自主、排它和包容等双重属性,决定了政策网络是需要管理的。政策网络的管理是组织间关系的管理,旨在达成互利互惠和良性合作。