Pragmatist and Neo‐Classical Policy Paradigms in Public Services: Which is the Better Template for Program Design?

Principal-agent theory alerts principals to their problematic relationship with agents. The former are encouraged to take deliberate action to counter asymmetries in knowledge, moral hazard etc. To avoid this, principals should determine outcomes and contracts and incentives should be designed to achieve them. This approach has influenced the form of purchaser-provider arrangements, including the Job Network. This article reviews impacts, which include incentives for gaming and increased transaction costs. Another survey highlighted the extent to which innovation in the disability employment sector had depended on collaboration, which competition would end. The article then sketches an alternative pragmatic or experimental approach, which assumes that the centre can never establish outcomes that are other than provisional and corrigible. Program design needs to be built around this fundamental fact. Learning not 'carrots and sticks' is the appropriate form of relationship. The article explores the feasibility of this approach in a Job Network context .     

Parenting Behaviors,Association with Deviant Peers,and Delinquency in African American Adolescents: A Mediated-Moderation Model

The aim of the present study was to examine a model positing that association with deviant peers mediates the relation between adolescent perceived parenting behaviors (maternal monitoring and involvement), the interaction of these parenting behaviors, and delinquency in a sample of 135 urban African American adolescents (13–19 years of age). Regression analyses revealed a monitoring by involvement interaction among African American females, suggesting that maternal monitoring may effectively reduce delinquency among African American female adolescents, and that this reduction may be enhanced by increased maternal involvement. Among African American males, only the relation between association with deviant peers and delinquency was supported, suggesting that maternal parenting behaviors may, in isolation, be insufficient in the prevention of delinquent behaviors in African American male adolescents. The results suggest that the pathways from parenting to association with deviant peers and delinquency may differ in males and females, and the salience of certain parenting behaviors may differ across gender. This article is based on research that was submitted by the first author in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the master’s degree in psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Support for this research was provided by a Faculty Research Award to the second author. Doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology Program at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Her major research interests include risk and resiliency processes in minority youth and measurement equivalence of risk and resiliency constructs. Assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Texas. Her major research interests are ecocultural models of risk and resiliency in minority youth and measurement equivalence of risk and resiliency constructs. Post-doctoral fellow with the Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York. His major research interests are ecocultural models of risk and resiliency in children, preventive intervention development for diverse children, and quantitative methodology and applications in developmental and cross-cultural psychology.     

Socioenvironmental Risk and Adjustment in Latino Youth: The Mediating Effects of Family Processes and Social Competence

The direct and mediated effects of socioenvironmental risk on internalizing and externalizing problems among Latino youth aged 10–14 were examined using prospective analyses. Participants in this study were 464 Latino mother and child dyads surveyed as part of the Welfare, Children & Families: A Three City Study. It was hypothesized that socioenvironmental risk (i.e., maternal psychological distress, maternal parenting stress, neighborhood disadvantage, and perceived financial strain) would influence later adolescent adjustment by interrupting important family processes and interfering with opportunities for adolescents to develop appropriate social competence. Using path analyses, the mediational model was compared across high and low acculturation groups. With two exceptions, the models for the high and low acculturation groups were equivalent. Results supported a mediated effect between early socioenvironmental risk and later adjustment problems for the low acculturation group through family routines and adolescent social competence. Among families high in acculturation, socioenvironmental risk effects were partially mediated through family routines and adolescent social competence. Finally, a path from gender to maternal monitoring was present in the low acculturation group model but not the high acculturation group model. Assistant professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Texas. Her major research interests are risk and resiliency processes in minority youth. Assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Michigan State University. Her major research interests are the effects of microenvironmental factors in the externalizing and internalizing behaviors of European American and Latino youth. Assistant professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Michigan State University. Her major research interests are risk and protective factors in children and adolescents at-risk because of parental substance abuse.     

POLITICS, POLICY MAKING AND PRESSURE GROUPS: SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR REFORM OF THE AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL SYSTEM

Abstract: In Australia, current policy making is characterized by immobilism, drift and "pluralistic stagnation". The problem is not lack of technical expertise, but the mobilization of political consent in a polity in which pressure groups have proliferated. In the post-war period, the welfare state/managed economy has transformed the role of government and the potential power of pressure groups. New networks of interdependency have developed. Some of the principal groups are beneficiaries of redistributive programs, producer groups, state and local government agencies and professionals in government. Their potential power has been made actual by a new participative ethic. The post-materialist values of which this is part also result in the growth of groups focusing on quality of life and moral issues. In this context the political parties are losing their central place in the polity and the centralized organs of executive government appear over-secretive and aloof. Reforms are needed to realign institutions with the new cultural and structural realities. Broader interest group involvement is needed. Parliament, through a committee system, could play a major role and its historical function as custodian of the public interest should be revived. Departments must find new ways to involve more groups in policy formulation and implementation. Information must be shared more widely and policy analysts and advisors should work more closely with groups in defining issues, negotiating alternatives and encouraging the development of supportive coalitions. New "intelligence" and "outreach" functions within the public service are required, and the existing approaches of policy units and research bureaux should be remodelled.     

The State and the Economy: Opinion Formation and Collaboration as Facets of Economic Management

This paper seeks to extend discussion of the areas of state activity that are relevant to economic performance. It does this by linking several literatures that are now usually considered in isolation from each other. These are institutionalist theory, developmental state theory, and comparative and historical institutionalism. The paper focuses particularly on the experience of the east Asian developmental states. The paper suggests a new role for the state as catalyst in the formation of ideas, choice sets and motives concerning economic performance. It can play this role at national and policy community levels and in relation to desired overall outcomes, export or cluster development and innovation. The notion that economic globalization will inexorably drive convergence between states is discounted. On the contrary, this is as likely to nourish miscomprehension or incomprehension between citizens of different states. This is an additional reason for attending to the quality of opinion formation by states.     

Program Strategy and Coalition Building as Facets of New Public Management

This paper explores two issues: first, the strategic and coalition-building tasks that may be routinely associated with New Public Management (NPM); and second, the implications of acknowledging these tasks for the conception of public management. NPM focuses on performance. It invites managers to accept responsibility for whole programs or systems (Kettle, 1997; Dunleavy, 1994; Ridley, 1996; Hood, 1995). This directs attention to basic program frameworks (that is, program strategy), as well as to operations. It involves the purposes of programs. It involves routine attention to such factors as the effectiveness of outcomes, the identification of alternative program configurations, the implications of emerging issues and needs, and the mobilisation of authority for change. In practice, this authority derives both from program stakeholders, as well as from ministers and the broader political system.