REAGANISM AS CORPORATE LIBERALISM: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE AMERICAN FUTURE

The "corporate liberal" regime that held together in America from the end of World War I1 to the 1960s was marked by broad agreement on ideology, public policy and a stable ruling coalition centered in the Democratic Party. This regime unraveled in the late 1960s and 1970s with the relative decline in American military and economic hegemony and the rise of a "left liberal insurgency". Key corporate liberal intellectuals and constituencies migrated to the Republican Party under Reagan. Reaganism will not sustain itself because its coalition partners are too disparate, its failure to transform the Republicans into a majority party, a lack of consensus on many issues, and the continued decline of the U.S. in the international economy. Corporate liberalism will find itself migrating to a revitalized Democratic Party, under a centrist leadership favoring fiscal responsibility, government-corporate partnerships, and a more efficient military.     

DEVELOPING A FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGEMENT EDUCATION IN THE VICTORIAN PUBLIC SERVICE

Abstract: The Public Service Board of Victoria initiated a project in March 1989 to plan a framework for the development of competent managers. The methodology involved an examination of the current practices of 23 organisations, together with a worldwide literature search. The major findings were that the managerial task is similar across sectors, but the manager level and the environment are qualifying variables; that training, management education and development in private sector organisations and statutory bodies has total commitment from the chief executive, is closely linked to the business plan, forms part of an integrated human resource management system, and is continually reinforced by the organisation's culture and values; and that there is no strategic and focused approach to developing managers across the Victorian Public Service. The 21 recommendations covered the areas of investment and commitment, the development of a systematic approach by providing quality management programs based on core managerial competencies and the integration of training, education and development with performance management processes.
The implementation plan calls for pump-priming funds for resourcing and delivering high quality programs, a change in the culture, the adoption of a set of principles, the establishment of a management education unit, acceptance of a common language of competence for managers, and an integration of education and development needs with corporate plans through the performance improvement system. Commitment to implementation should result in a systematic approach to the formation of competent managers with the benefits flowing to the community through improved services, the government gaining by increased performance of the agencies, and public servants being able to reach their full potential.     

POLICY RESEARCH AS SOCIAL SCIENCE: OUTFLANKING THE VALUE DILEMMA

Social scientists fear that policy research compromises their objectivity. As a result, policy science is becoming a separate discipline which is accorded lower status that other fields of social inquiry. However, the history, sociology and psychology of science show that the elaboration of robust social theory would be aided by a more intimate relation between policy research and academic social science than currently obtains. The traditional canons of value freedom, which have been invoked to justify the independence of social science from policy, misrepresent the relation between facts and values in science. Objective knowledge is consequent on dispute and triangulation by a many-valued community of fallible social scientists; but it does not eventuate from consensual value neutralism. Social knowledge interacts with social values to change phenomena our theories represent. This self-restructuring characteristic of social events warrants singular attention by social scientists. Policy researchers are in a particularly opportune position to provide that attention.     

DEADLY FORCE AS A POLICY PROBLEM IN LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT: DO ADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICES MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

This article examines the impact of six administrative practices on the use of deadly force by police officers in American cities with a population greater than 50,000. Generally, departmental policies demonstrate little association with the frequency of shooting incidents per police officer, or in the number of incidents resulting in fatalities or injuries. It does appear that police departments which issue more traditional sidearms tend to experience fewer incidents than departments which issue heavier firearms. This same lack of association between administrative practices and the use of deadly force is discovered when controlling for city population size arid state legal codes. Notwithstanding that some of the relationships are in the expected direction, their lack of statistical significance suggests that the use of deadly force has its antecedents in sources other than the administrative policies of local police departments.