AN ADAPTIVE-LEARNING APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION

This conceptual piece reviews the muddle in reform thinking in environmental regulation. It suggests that rhetoric and relief posturing will not lead to an improvement in regulatory performance, and various market mechanisms, while promising, are ill-suited to current organizational processes. Authentic reform efforts, it contends, should place greater reliance upon an adaptive learning approach to environmental policy development and implementation. Conceptual elements of such an approach are sketched out.     

AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO POLICY TRANSER AND DIFFUSION

This article reviews the existing literature on policy transfer and diffusion and offers a more integrated theory for examining the spreading of policy. Typical studies have treated each as separate, yet they are similar in many respects. For example, both involve many of the same agents and processes involved in the spreading of policy. This article integrates the two literatures by developing a theoretical continuum upon which varying degrees of policy diffusion occur.     

AN APPROACH TO THE POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY OF THE WELSH NATIONALIST MOVEMENT

Abstract The character and ideology of the Welsh nationalist movement have changed drastically since the founding of an independent party in 1925. This paper seeks to utilize a developmental typology in analyzing data obtained from interviews with nationalist activists in examining such changes. In this way, it is possible to understand how Welsh language militants, 'respectable' cultural nationalists, middle-of-the road party workers from rural Wales, and south Wales radicals coexist and cooperate within the fabric of organized nationalism. The investigation of the social dynamics of the movement renders comprehensible both the causes of internal organizational strength and the electoral difficulties facing Plaid Cymru.     

THE DOCTRINE OF STRICT LIABILITY: AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH TO CONSUMER PROTECTION REGULATION

Using a legal system of strict liability allowing contributory negligence as a valid defense provides an alternative to consumer protection regulation. In addition, the strict liability system allows rapid and responsive compensation to injured individuals. Corporate uncertainty as to future costs and business environment are substantially reduced, thus allowing firms to make accurate and rational long-term, strategic plans. This paper presents the basic functional constructs required for developing a viable regulatory framework using strict liability and then looks at an example where it could be employed. The scenario deals with an environmental pollution and protection problem. In the example, a strict liability system allowing for a defense of contributory negligence is shown to be conceptually more efficient and desirable than the existing regulatory system and negligence liability procedures.     

A HANDS-ON APPROACH TO TEACHING PROGRAM EVALUATION

This article examines the changing nature of program evaluation and the way in which program evaluation is taught to MPA students. Drawing on her experience at George Washington University, the authors explains an approach to teaching program evaluation that has received a great deal of positive feedback. The approach has its foundation, real-world, hands-on evaluation by the students, which gives them invaluable experience. Furthermore, because there is extensive instructor involvement, the author asserts that the experience proves also to be of value to the professor.     

RURAL AND URBAN POVERTY: AN INCOME/NET WORTH APPROACH

This paper examines rural and urban changes in the distribution of poverty that would result from modifying the conventional poverty measure to include the annuity value of household net worth.
Use of this new income/wealth measure caused numerous shifts in the location and demography of the poverty population. Among those more often found to be in poverty under the new measure were young, renter, and large central city resident households. Age, homeownership, farm employment, education, retirement status, public assistance participation, and residence in the West were important factors in explaining the divergence of the WH and INC measures. The age and retirement impacts were significantly different in rural and urban areas. Rural residence itself was not an important factor in explaining WH and INC differences.     

AN IMPACT IDENTIFICATION METHOD FOR DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM EVALUATION

Evaluation is essential to planning and implementing effective develop- ment programs. The resource limitations, multidimensionality of develop- ment program impacts, cultural barriers between evaluators and those impacted, and the diversity of settings in which evaluations must be con- ducted arc serious constraints on the use of traditional research methods to evaluate development programs. Similar constraints are faced in con- ducting most social impact assessments. We suggest that a method of impact identification that makes use of experts, including the people ef- fected by a project, can be used in development project evaluation. The method, which is based on the noniinal group technique, is described, as are some of its applications in Latin America and the Caribbean. We conclude iiy considering directions for future development and the relationship be- tween planning, evaluation, and impact assessment.     

EXPORTING AMERICAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE TO RUSSIA

The failure of US initiatives to build local/regional economic development capacity in Russia following the fall of Communism has been partly blamed on national factors, Russian culture, and American consultants. Much of the failure, however, probably resulted because American approaches to economic development—‐highly successful in other contexts—could not work during Russia's transition from a command economy to its current state. Such things as promoting entrepreneurship, developing public‐private partnerships, creating a market economy, accessing start‐up capital, attracting foreign investment, overcoming bureaucratic corruption and high taxation, working within the rule of law, and negating organized crime either should not have been done, or could not have been done, leaving many of our programs ineffective. We ask whether the Russian deviations from the U.S. model have any implications for the current situation facing state and local development policy in the U.S.     

MINISTERIAL STAFF UNDER HAWKE

Abstract: The establishment by the present Labor government of an advisory panel on ministerial staff appointments is discussed. It is suggested that this procedure had political benefits, but did not significantly influence the composition of the ministerial staff group. The ministerial staff of the ALP government are described and compared with those of the previous ALP government 1972-75, and of the Liberal-National Party coalition government 1975-83. It is found that there has been a weakening of the bureaucratic element in this government's private offices compared with both the coalition government and the previous Labor government. The ascendance of "political types" is matched by a commitment to the party program and a high estimate among staffers of their contribution to the policy-making process. In other respects this group shares with its predecessors the characteristics of being mostly male, relatively young, highly educated and disproportionately from non-government schools. About half are from inside and half from outside the public service.