The Russian Bailiffs Service and the Enforcement of Civil Judgments

A lawyer and economist examines the Russian Bailiffs Service. Results of a 1999 survey of bailiffs, interviews with Bailiffs Service officials, and recent news articles are analyzed to evaluate the administrative and incentive structures of the agency. Attention is focused on the government's relationship with bailiffs and specific policy suggestions to improve the agency's effectiveness are made.     

Public organizations: A value-conflict view

That values are at the core of public administration is a notion that has gained popularity and credibility in recent years. From this perspective, public administrators have become inextricably involved in both adjusting to and promoting institutionalized values. Certain values shaping public organizations may, however, be distinctive in quality and magnitude from those of private organizations. Our purpose in this essay is to suggest criteria for identifying the distinctive values of public organizations, to propose and define three such values, to briefly examine the dynamics of change engendered by value conflicts and dilemmas, and to speculate on the theoretical and practical implications of our proposed values framework. In the process an inchoate perspective is outlined in which values occupy the centerpiece of inquiry in public administration.     

ABE'S NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE

ABSTRACT

Prime Minister Abe Shinzð's nuclear renaissance involves downplaying risks, restarting reactors, building new ones, and exporting reactor technology and equipment. Polls in Japan indicate that the public remains overwhelmingly opposed to Abe's nuclear agenda, but in various national and local elections since late 2012 antinuclear candidates have not fared well. This article examines the disjuncture between public preferences and electoral outcomes and why is it likely that Japan will restart reactors despite widespread concerns about safety, the high costs of nuclear energy, and the lack of a site for permanent disposal of nuclear waste. The safety myth is being recalibrated, but the author argues that it remains based on rosy assumptions in a nation especially prone to massive seismic disasters. The reinstatement of nuclear energy in the 2014 national energy policy marks a victory for the nuclear village, a remarkable example of institutional resilience in the face of extremely adverse developments since the massive earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 that precipitated three reactor meltdowns in Fukushima. Despite extensive revelations about shoddy safety practices in the nuclear industry and collusive relations between regulators and those they regulate, Abe has successfully promoted a nuclear revival that few would have thought possible before his election in 2012. Reactor restarts face a number of hurdles, but the pronuclear lobby now finds it has a policy opening. The summer of 2014 has been a nuclear-free one, but in all likelihood it will be Japan's last for decades to come.     

Psychosocial functioning among inmates in prison-based drug treatment: results from Project BRITE

Objective

To assess the impact of a positive behavioral reinforcement intervention on psychosocial functioning of inmates over the course of treatment and on post-treatment self-reported measures of treatment participation, progress, and satisfaction.

Method

Male (n?=?187) and female (n?=?143) inmates participating in 12-week prison-based intensive outpatient (IOP) drug treatment were randomly assigned to receive standard treatment (ST) or standard treatment plus positive behavioral reinforcement (BR) for engaging in targeted activities and behaviors. Participants were assessed for psychosocial functioning at baseline and at the conclusion of treatment (post-treatment). Self-reported measures of treatment participation, treatment progress, and treatment satisfaction were also captured at post-treatment.

Results

The intervention affected female and male subjects differently and not always in a way that favored BR subjects, as compared to the ST subjects, most notably on measures of depression and criminal thinking.

Conclusions

Possible explanations for the results include differences in the male and female custody environments combined with the procedures that study participants had to follow to earn and/or receive positive reinforcement at the two study sites, as well as baseline differences between the genders and a possible floor effect among females on measures of criminality. Limitations of the study included the inability to make study participants blind to the study conditions and the possible over-branding of the study, which may have influenced the results.     

An historical theory of intelligence

This article consists of three parts. First, ‘The past’ defines physical and verbal intelligence and maintains that intelligence, after centuries of insignificance, rose to prominence in modern times as a consequence of the increase in intelligence targets and the growth of verbal intelligence. Second, ‘The present’ explains that the function of intelligence is to optimize resources, that it is but an auxiliary element in war, and that it is necessary to the defense but is only contingent to the offense. Third, ‘The future’ articulates intelligence's two perpetual insoluble problems: foretelling everything and getting leaders to accept information that they do not like.     

Speaking the truth

Suspicion regarding the notion of truth is a characteristic feature of much contemporary thought. Often this suspicion is based in a view that takes truth to be a notion associated with a discredited view of knowledge or with an oppressive and exclusionary politics. That the very possibility of knowledge, and so of our access to the truth, can be put in question and that truth itself always operates within a political dimension are not, of course, claims that can be denied. Nor can it be denied that knowledge, truth and power are closely tied together. But these considerations should prompt us to a reappraisal of the notion of truth that sees it as more, not less, significant. This paper is an attempt to begin such a reappraisal and to attend, not merely to the truth. Speaking the truth is not something the successful achievement of which can, in every case, be guaranteed in advance; yet neither is it something that we can abandon or ignore.