Negotiating the Politics of Inclusion: Women and Australian Labor Governments 1983 to 1995

The Hawke and Keating Labor governments have tended to practise a politics of inclusion in which women, along with other social groups, are seen to have an important part to play in building the new, internationally competitive Australian economy of the twenty-first century. Australian politics have therefore had a very different nature from that of the more exclusionary politics practised by British Conservative governments. While the politics of inclusion have given feminists room for manoeuvre, and facilitated some positive developments in areas such as affirmative action and childcare policies, feminists have had little success in challenging the overall direction of the governments' right-wing economic policies. Furthermore, the ‘economic’ has functioned as a meta-category which dissolves difference and conflict. The Australian experience therefore has both practical and theoretical implications for British feminists who may be experiencing a Labour government themselves before too long.     

Certificates of Participation and Capital Markets: Lessons from Brevard County and Richmond Unified School District

This article analyzes the genesis of certificates of participation (COP) in the municipal securities market. We document the trend in the use of COPs and illustrate problems in the market through case studies of the Richmond Unified School District default and the Brevard County referendum crisis. The valuable fiscal administration lessons drawn from the growing pains of a maturing sector of the municipal securities market can help municipal governments and investors avoid the tragic consequences that seem to inevitably accompany the circumvention of legal debt restrictions and public accountability.     

Regulatory agencies and accountability: an Ontario perspective

Abstract: This article offers a reappraisal of the conventional wisdom surrounding the understanding of governmental control of quasi-judicial regulatory agencies. Authors such as Hogget's and Schultz contend that such agencies exhibit serious deficiencies regarding such control, leading these agencies to be categorized as irresponsible. This article, through studies of major Ontario agencies, finds the conventional wisdom to be weak in explaining the power relations between the agencies and the Ontario government. An instrumentalist view of these relations is thus insufficient; rather, this viewpoint needs to be augmented with an administrative-cultural approach to fully understand the power relations at work. Sommaire: Cet article réévalue la sagesse conventionnelle entourant la perception du contrôle que le gouvernement a sur les organismes de réglementation quasi-judiciaire. Des auteurs comme Hodgetts et Schultz prétendent que les organismes de ce genre présentent des lacunes sérieuses au niveau dudit contrôe, au point qu'on peut les qualifier d'irresponsaliles. Dans cet article, qui se fonde sur des études d'organismes de première importance en Ontario, on relève des faiblesses au niveau de la sagesse conventionnelle pour expliyuer les relations de pouvoir entre les organismes ontariens et le gouvernemerit. Une vue instrumentaliste de ces relations est par conséquent insufisante; il faudrait la doubler d'une approche administrative et cultiirelle pour comprendre pleinement les relations de pouvoir qui s'exercent.     

An Italian Perspective on U.S. Federal Credit Reform

The experiences of the U.S. and of Italy in government credit programs are compared by their forms of assistance as well as in budgetary and accounting aspects. Public consensus and political implications in the two countries underly the different paths and foci, offering other perspectives for consideration of the current U.S. federal credit reform efforts.     

On the theory of political competition: Comparative statics from a general allocative perspective

It is a widely held belief that interest groups respond competitively to political challenges from other groups. This view is found not only in the traditional theory of interest groups, but also in the literature on policy typologies. Though it is not necessarily supposed that groups form in response to opposition, it is believed that when groups exist, they compete. If an interest group is thought of as a multipurpose organization, whose leaders might spend organizational funds on nonpolitical programs which directly serve the members, the supposition of competition can be subjected to rigorous examination. Political competition causes the cost of political success to rise. Since group leaders must allocate scarce revenue among projects, it seems that nonpolitical projects might become more attractive when the political environment becomes competitive. Political scientists have usually been disposed to take the opposite view, believing that demand for political activity rises as the cost of political success increases. The nature of political action as an organizational investment is discussed from the allocative perspective in this essay. It is shown that competition cannot be safely assumed unless other strong hypotheses are invoked. A Slutsky-type theorem is deduced for political reaction.     

The competitive impact of health maintenance organizations on hospital finances: an exploratory study

In this study we explore whether HMO-induced competition has contained expenditures in Minneapolis/St. Paul hospitals. Specifically, we assessed the impact of HMOs on revenue, cost, and net income per admission in Twin Cities hospitals from 1979 to 1981. Some HMOs have obtained negotiated discounts from hospitals. We found that hospitals which gave larger discounts did not have lower costs per admission. This finding suggest that discounts do not force hospitals to operate more efficiently. In addition, hospitals with a large share of patients from HMOs or government Medicare and Medicaid programs did not have lower costs per admission than other hospitals during the years from 1979 to 1981. This finding casts doubt on the claim that discounts are justified by lower costs for HMO or government patients. Finally, neither HMO market share nor discounts had an adverse effect on hospital profits. During the three years studied, hospital profits in the Twin Cities showed an upward trend. This study concludes that if competition is to succeed it must encompass more than HMOs. HMOs may be important, but they are only one agent in the market. Thus, public policy created to induce competition must go beyond the simple stimulus of HMO growth.     

Informal helping networks in prison: The shape of grass-roots correctional intervention

Factors related to the delivery of human services to prisoners with problems and crises of adjustment were explored in this study. Emphasis was placed on describing the human service roles played by custodial and treatment staff, particularly among staff members who took it upon themselves to (a) expand their formal organizational roles to include a general mandate to identify and assist inmates with problems, and (b) work cooperatively with similarly motivated staff as more or less stable members of informal helping networks or teams. Interview data were used to reconstruct the parameters of informal helping networks, to identify factors that facilitated or inhibited their development, and to obtain indications of their usefulness in the helping process. The research findings suggest more efficient ways to deploy existing correctional resources in the delivery of human services to prisoners. The study also highlights issues of correctional resource deployment that may bear on the larger problem of cultivating human environments in which rehabilitation or planned change can occur.