ONE‐STOP SHOPS FOR SOCIAL WELFARE: THE ADAPTATION OF AN ORGANIZATIONAL FORM IN THREE COUNTRIES

In recent years welfare services in Western Europe have been criticized for poor coordination. In response, ‘seamlessness’ has emerged as a vision for public administration with ‘one‐stop shops' viewed as means to reach this. This article conceptualizes the one‐stop shop and presents a three country case study to examine its drivers and its adaptation. In all countries the reforms meant mergers driven by hopes for a single entrance to services as well as proximity to citizens. However, the analysis of task portfolios, participant structure, instruments and autonomy reveal important variations in the adaptations. The specific configurations of one‐stop shops that emerged were partially a product of compromises and negotiations influenced by the political and performance priorities of central government. The classical trade‐off between specialization and coordination persists, but by offering users ICT‐based services one can to some extent maintain specialization behind the frontline and still provide services that are coordinated from a user perspective.     

Make-Believe Families and Homosexuality Among Imprisoned Girls

Methodological issues associated with measuring homosexuality and make-believe families were examined. A clear operational definition of each was then used to measure their incidence and relationship to each other. Data from the staff and inmates of three coed and four all-female training schools indicated that homosexuality and make-believe families were as prevalent in coed as in female institutions, and that most make-believe family groupings consisted of asexual sister-sister and mother-daughter relationships. Homosexual marriages were rare, and girls who did not adopt make-believe family roles were just as likely to report homosexual experiences as those who were in families. Thus, correlations between homosexual experiences and being in a make-believe family were weak and negative. Explanations are suggested for the nonobvious findings and the results are compared to other reports in previous literature.