Contrasting perspectives on the evaluation of industrial modernization: Introduction to the symposium

This paper examines the experience of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance (GMEA) in implementing an evaluation of its industrial extension services. As part of the U.S. Manufacturing Extension partnership, GMEA provides assistance to manufacturers to resolve industrial and business problems and upgrade technology, training, and business performance, focusing primarily on firms within the state of Georgia. The program has established an evaluation component along with other assessment and review mechanisms. Several evaluation methods are employed, including customer surveys, economic analyses of benefits and costs, controlled studies, and logic-based case studies. The article examines the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches, reviews the insights each method offers, and discusses how the resulting evaluative information is used. The views expressed in this paper are the authors' and not necessarily those of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance or its sponsoring organizations.     

Linking EU climate and energy policies: policy-making,implementation and reform

This contribution examines the EU’s innovative climate and energy package: how this package of binding policies has been initiated, decided, implemented and reformed. The key argument is that linking climate and energy concerns can help to explain how the EU managed to adopt an ambitious package of policies aimed at achieving 2020 goals. The combination of differently valued issues, side payments to overcome distributional obstacles and the creation of synergies contributed to a successfully negotiated outcome. The consequences for implementation and further policy development towards 2030 are explained by challenges in reproducing these joint EU-level gains at national level and by new circumstances. This may weaken the EU’s chances of realizing a low-carbon economy and ‘leadership by example’ in international climate policy.     

Evaluation of industrial modernization programs: The field agent's perspective

This article provides a field agent's perspective on the factors that influence the success of industrial modernization services. We begin with an overview of the field agent's role in the industrial extension system and discuss the technical assistance services typically provided by a field agent. The field agent's role is differentiated from that of other stakeholders such as legislators, agency staff, and program managers. We then consider pre- and post-project perspectives of positive outcomes from industrial extension services. The article argues that the field agent's perspective is closely connected to that of the manufacturing customer. Implications for shared communication among stakeholders and improving program outcomes are discussed. The article draws on the experiences of the authors in the manufacturing extension program in Georgia-the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance (GMEA).     

Crafting public security: demilitarisation,penal state reform and security policy-making in post-authoritarian Chile

ABSTRACT

Here I dissect the institutionalisation of ‘citizen security’ as a category and sector of public policy in post-authoritarian Chile. Deploying a Bourdieusian field theory approach and questioning narratives of security policies as responses to criminality or adaptations to democratic values, I argue that the construction of a new security policy sector – with a new consensus (distinct from that of National Security), with reformed police and courts in its core, leaving aside the military and extending beyond traditional agencies – derives from (i) struggles over policing and criminal justice reforms, (ii) tensions between the military and democratic authorities in democracy and (iii) performative integrations of the new policy components. These mechanisms explain the evolution of the security problem and the progressive aggregation of bureaucratic agencies and methods to the ‘public security policy’ – policing, judiciary, urban design, prisons and prevention plans. I close discussing alternative accounts of institutional variations in security governance in the region.     

Evaluating industrial modernization: Methods, results, and insights from the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance

This paper examines the experience of the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance (GMEA) in implementing an evaluation of its industrial extension services. As part of the U.S. Manufacturing Extension partnership, GMEA provides assistance to manufacturers to resolve industrial and business problems and upgrade technology, training, and business performance, focusing primarily on firms within the state of Georgia. The program has established an evaluation component along with other assessment and review mechanisms. Several evaluation methods are employed, including customer surveys, economic analyses of benefits and costs, controlled studies, and logic-based case studies. The article examines the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches, reviews the insights each method offers, and discusses how the resulting evaluative information is used.     

Coordinating industrial modernization services: Impacts and insights from the U.S. Manufacturing Extension Partnership

This study examines how programs sponsored through the National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) have influenced the organization and delivery of industrial modernization services to small and medium-sized manufacturers in regions in the United States. The study found that increased service coordination has occurred and that this, in turn, has mostly improved the quality and comprehensiveness of assistance delivered to firms. But there are also some costs and drawbacks associated with multi-partner service delivery approaches. The study identifies and examines best practices that can help MEP centers increase the effectiveness of service coordination. This paper draws upon research supported by the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology under award 50SBNBC8305. The views expressed are the authors' and do not necessarily reflect those of the research sponsor.     

The impact of foreign and state ownership on post-transition industrial concentration: the case of Polish manufacturing

This paper reports an analysis of the determinants of the level and changes in Polish industrial concentration in the early post-transition era. In particular, the relative effects of foreign and state ownership are examined. The empirical evidence is based on a panel of 144 Polish manufacturing industries over the period 1989–1993. The results suggest that both state and foreign ownership have a significant impact on industry concentration and this relationship is U-shaped. Minimum efficient scale is found to be the only other factor to impact on industry concentration.     

Efficiency impacts of the Chinese industrial transition: a quantitative evaluation of reforms in the coal industry

This paper explains the variation in technical efficiency across firms due to transitional reforms. A translog stochastic frontier production method incorporating regional heterogeneity and technical change is applied to a panel data set of coal enterprises in China between 2000 and 2005. The results provide evidence that the privatisation, consolidation, decentralisation and participation of the unemployment insurance system have contributed to improving technical efficiency. The study also shows that neither favourable geological conditions nor an advanced regional economic development level can explain differences in technical efficiency.     

A need for emotionally intelligent policy: Linking tax evasion with higher education funding

Purpose. The current study addresses the issue of discontent at a personal and policy level with higher education and its funding, and its relation to tax compliance among a graduate population. It examines the thesis that discontent with the provision and funding of higher education plays a significant role in lowering tax compliance through the mediational role of shame management and dissociation from authority. Method. Data are taken from the graduates' hopes, visions, and actions survey based on a sample of 447 Australian graduates who recently received their tertiary degrees. Results. Path analysis provides support for the central thesis but also shows additional direct links between (1) dissatisfaction (with university studies) and tax evasion, and (2) having an income‐contingent university debt to repay and tax evasion. Conclusions. This study demonstrates the ways in which the legitimacy of the tax system and the legitimacy of higher education policy are interconnected. Criticisms of government departments acting in tunnel‐visioned ways with regard to the consequences of their actions are magnified in light of the findings of this paper. People take out their frustrations with one part of the government system (higher education funding and service provision) on other parts of the government system (taxation). Communication between these different parts is imperative for effective policy development and implementation.     

The feasibility of a brief evaluation of mental state at the time of the offense

If psychological evaluations of criminal defendants could be performed in the community on an outpatient basis rather than in a distant state hospital on an inpatient basis, substantial savings could result and defendants' rights to speedy trial, bail, and the least restrictive alternative would more likely be respected. The authors thus developed a protocol, the mental state at the time of the offense screening evaluation (MSE), designed to enable outpatient evaluatiors to “screen out,” in the course of a brief interview, those defendants whose alleged criminal conduct clearly was not caused by “significant mental abnormality.” They tested the validity of the MSE by having pairs of mental health professionals use the MSE to evaluate 36 criminal defendants. The professionals' conclusions were then compared with the conclusions of state hospital professionals who performed a comprehensive evaluation of each defendant. They were also compared to court adjudications of the defendant's criminal charges. They found that the MSE screened out a large proportion of defendants (sufficient to suggest an improvement in cost-efficiency) without prejudice to those defendants who might have a valid legal defense.     

Understanding the Relationship Between Relative Group Size and Hate Crime Rates: Linking Methods with Concepts

Abstract

In recent studies, Hipp et al. caution that the selection of the appropriate denominator in computing the rate of intra- and inter-group interactions is consequential for key findings. The present study builds on this work and examines whether adjusting for the structural opportunities for any type of interaction affects the observed relationship between hate crime rates and minority group size. We go beyond prior research by computing distinctive measures of anti-Black hate crime rates across US counties circa 2000. Our findings offer support for the power-differential hypothesis, revealing a negative effect of minority population size on crime motivated by bias. These results also underline the importance of the procedure developed by Hipp et al., showing that that the selection of the “baseline” for the computation of hate crime rates is critical for understanding the relationship between minority group size and crime motivated by bias.     

The Role of Genes and Environments in Linking the Need to Evaluate with Political Ideology and Political Extremity

Understanding the origins of political ideology and political extremity at the individual level is becoming increasingly pressing in the face of polarization in the political domain. Building upon the motivated social cognition model of political ideology, we propose a motivated cognition approach to the study of political extremity with the need to evaluate as a key epistemic motive that contributes to political extremity. Moreover, we hypothesize that the link between the need to evaluate and political extremity may rest largely on shared genetic effects. This hypothesis builds upon existing biology and politics research, which has convincingly demonstrated that genes influence the direction of ideology, but has been largely silent on the role of genes in political extremity. To test our hypothesis, we consider several types of ideological, affective, and partisan extremity alongside conventional measures of political ideology and the need to evaluate in a behavioral genetic framework. Using a twin study methodology, we show for the first that the need to evaluate is heritable, that its phenotypic relationships with ideological extremity and strength are rooted in shared genetic influences, and, unexpectedly, that the relationship between the need to evaluate and some forms of political extremity is largely environmental. In examining the genetic and environmental components of the covariation of the need to evaluate with political ideology and right wing authoritarianism, we find limited support for shared genetic influences. Taken together, these results illustrate the value of adopting a biologically informed motivated cognition approach to the study of political ideology and political extremity.     

Linking confidence in the police with the performance of the police: Community policing can make a difference

The existing literature of community policing was silent on the linkage between police performance and confidence in the police. This study argued that broader measures of police performance were an inevitable result of the shift from the traditional model of police to community policing. Consequently, confidence in the police could be used profitably by police management as one alternative measure of officers’ effectiveness. Data from a northwest city were used to find out the sources of confidence in the police. The results indicated that volunteers involved in community crime prevention programs showed higher confidence in the police and informal collective security bred confidence in the police. Furthermore, victimization and traffic tickets reduced confidence in the police. These results and their implications for police management are discussed within the limitation of data.     

Linking parental incarceration and family dynamics associated with intergenerational transmission: A life‐course perspective*

Children experiencing parental incarceration face numerous additional disadvantages, but researchers have often relied on these other co‐occurring factors primarily as controls. In this article, we focus on the intimate links between crime and incarceration, as well as on the broader family context within which parental incarceration often unfolds. Thus, parents’ drug use and criminal behavior that precedes and may follow incarceration periods may be ongoing stressors that directly affect child well‐being. We also use our analyses to foreground mechanisms associated with social learning theories, including observations and communications that increase the child's risk for criminal involvement and other problem outcomes. These related family experiences often channel the child's own developing network ties (peers, romantic partners) that then serve as proximal influences. We explore these processes by drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from a study of the lives of a sample of respondents followed from adolescence to young adulthood, as well as on records searches of parents’ incarceration histories. Through our analyses, we find evidence that 1) some effects attributed to parental incarceration likely connect to unmeasured features of the broader family context, and b) together parental incarceration and the broader climate often constitute a tightly coupled package of family‐related risks linked to intergenerational continuities in criminal behavior and other forms of social disadvantage.