Divergent Expectations and Experience: An Empirical Study of the Use Children's Contact Services in Australia

In this article, an overview of the key findings from the Children'sContact Services Project is presented. Children's Contact Services(CCSs) assist separated parents to manage contact arrangementswith their children through the provision of supervised visitationand changeover services. The aims of this project were to investigatethe use of CCSs in Australia by referring agencies (eg. courtsand legal practitioners), and clients of contact services (parentsand children), and to consider the views and expectations ofthese key stakeholders regarding those usages. This approachwas based on the assumption that there are currently conflictingusages and expectations of contact services, and that this situationcould compromise children's well-being. The findings were derivedfrom two studies. The first study involved conducting 142 in-depthinterviews with representatives from the Australian Government,the courts and legal practitioners who referred families toCCSs, CCS staff and management, as well as parents and childrenwho used CCSs. The second study comprised a quantitative analysisof client data collected by CCS staff from 396 families whohad used a government funded CCS in August 2003. The findingsdemonstrated that in Australia, CCSs provided an invaluableservice that was viewed positively by government, referral agents,CCS staff and management, and by the parents and children whoused them. Despite this generally positive view, there wereconflicting expectations of CCSs that, under certain circumstances,compromised children's well-being and that of their parents,particularly their residence mothers.     

The World Bank’s publication record

The World Bank claims to be a ??knowledge bank,?? but do its knowledge products influence development thinking, or is the Bank merely a proselytizer? The World Bank is a prolific publisher; for example, it has published more journal articles in economics than any university except Harvard. But what about their impact on development thinking? Using citation data from Google Scholar it is hard to discern more than a negligible impact for a great many Bank publications. However, a sizeable minority of its journal articles and books have been highly cited. Compared to leading research universities and other international institutions, the Bank??s ranking in terms of widely-used citation-based indices is no lower than for its journal article counts. This suggests that the Bank??s research does much more than proselytize.     

Education and Political Participation: Exploring the Causal Link

One of the most consistently documented relationships in the field of political behavior is the close association between educational attainment and political participation. Although most research assumes that this association arises because education causes participation, it could also arise because education proxies for the factors that lead to political engagement: the kinds of people who participate in politics may be the kinds of people who tend to stay in school. To test for a causal effect of education, we exploit the rise in education levels among males induced by the Vietnam draft. We find little reliable evidence that education induced by the draft significantly increases participation rates.     

Guessing in the Gaps

The genesis of this conversation was the forthcoming new Penguin edition - under the general editorship of Adam Phillips - of the works of Freud. Mark and Phillips consider the concept of a 'literary' Freud alongside the 'scientific'or 'clinical' Freud, and discuss the related issues of translation, representation and interpretation, particularly as they bear on psychoanalytic writing. Adam Phillips's relationship to the institutions of psychoanalysis is considered, and the perpetuation of these institutions through the training of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Also discussed is the project of psychoanalysis: the nature of psychoanalysis as a therapy as well as a body of ideas. Mark and Phillips make reference to the work of Freud, Lacan, Klein, Winnicott and Laplanche, and to concepts such as the 'enigmatic signifier' and 'transgenerational haunting'.     

Killing Norms Softly: US Targeted Killing,Quasi-secrecy and the Assassination Ban

Abstract

This article argues that when actors engage in controversial new security practices, it is misconceived to view secrecy as an opposed, counterproductive alternative to the pursuit of legitimation. Rather, we propose, deployment of “quasi-secrecy”—a combination of official secrecy with leaks, selective disclosure, and de facto public awareness—can be an effective strategy for achieving normalization and legitimation while containing the risks entailed by disclosure. We support this claim via a detailed case study of US targeted killing. First, we establish the existence of an American norm against targeted killing during the period 1976–2001. We then detail the process by which an innovation in practice was secretly approved, implemented, became known, and was gradually, partially officially acknowledged. We argue that even if quasi-secrecy was not in this instance a coherently-conceived and deliberately pursued strategy from start to finish, the case provides proof of concept for its potential to be deployed as such.