Assessing Instrument Mixes through Program‐ and Agency‐Level Data: Methodological Issues in Contemporary Implementation Research

Theories of policy instrument choice have gone through several “generations” as theorists have moved from the analysis of individual instruments to comparative studies of instrument selection and the development of theories of instrument choice within implementation “mixes” or “governance strategies.” Current “next generation” theory on policy instruments centers on the question of the optimality of instrument choices. However, empirically assessing the nature of instrument mixes is quite a complex affair, involving considerable methodological difficulties and conceptual ambiguities related to the definition and measurement of policy sector and instruments and their interrelationships. Using materials generated by Canadian governments, this article examines the practical utility and drawbacks of three techniques used in the literature to inventory instruments and identify instrument ecologies and mixes: the conventional “policy domain” approach suggested by Burstein (1991 ); the “program” approach developed by Rose (1988a ); and the “legislative” approach used by Hosseus and Pal (1997 ). This article suggests that all three approaches must be used in order to develop even a modest inventory of policy instruments, but that additional problems exist with availability and accessibility of data, both in general and in terms of reconciling materials developed using these different approaches, which makes the analysis of instrument mixes a time‐consuming and expensive affair.     

Investigating perceptions of race and ethnic diversity among prospective police officers

Many have suggested police diversity will improve police-community relations, but research testing this hypothesis is inconclusive. We investigated perceptions of police race, ethnicity, and diversity in a heterogeneous sample of prospective police officers. Data are drawn from interviews with 42 criminal justice college students in the Southwestern United States, of which 15 were Hispanic, and who each wanted to become a police officer. Participants supported diversity in policing, and collectively expressed a belief that race plays a central role in policing today. Furthermore, participants expressed support for the ideals of both passive and active representative bureaucracy. Hispanics in the sample in particular anticipated they would positively affect police relations in Hispanic neighborhoods and encourage immigrants to cooperate with police.     

The Aarhus convention and process cosmopolitanism

The convention on access to information, public participation in decision making and access to justice in environmental matters (Aarhus) celebrates its twentieth birthday in 2018, yet its ethical potential remains unexamined. This paper assesses its ethical potential via the ethico-normative lens of the English School of international relations, eliciting the degree of pluralism and solidarism evident. It first presents pluralism and solidarism as ideal types against which research objects are assessed. Second, it analyses Aarhus’ trinity of procedural rights, identifying solidarist potential whilst noting pluralist realities. Third, it casts Aarhus as exemplifying a nascent process cosmopolitanism, rendering sovereignty more responsible by enriching it with humanity, which here denotes a rudimentary sense of affinity between humans, irrespective of territorial identities, based on the rights shared by, and duties towards, one another. The paper concludes that Aarhus demonstrates the presence of, and contributes to, a solidarist international society, delineated by convention membership. If weaker cosmopolitanism accords equal concern to humans and stronger cosmopolitanism requires equal treatment, Aarhus demonstrates the feasibility of a stronger cosmopolitanism emerging in international environmental politics. Chiefly, Aarhus seeks to reduce imposed harm, suffered by humans who lack the knowledge and autonomy to influence decisions that affect them. Such headway is tentative, but this is welcomed as evolutionary reform coheres with the persistence of sovereign statehood. Aarhus’ cosmopolitanism, yielding a moderating influence on sovereignty, will not emerge without a stable framework in which states institutionalise it. International politics remains, but can be enriched by procedural approaches to foregrounding human rights, which states must accommodate to be deemed legitimate.     

Validating a novel tool for coding body worn camera footage of police-community member interactions

Objectives

This study aimed to validate a tool for coding police body-worn camera (BWC) footage to measure the dynamics of police–community encounters, including items related to community members, officer performance, and situational outcomes.

Methods

Over 1000 BWC videos were scored by five coders who participated in an iterative interrater reliability exercise to improve the agreement. Krippendorf's alphas and a multilevel simultaneous component analysis were used to assess interrater reliability and the component structure of ratings, respectively. Bootstrapped and multilevel exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to ascertain any underlying dimensions supporting officer and community member behavior, and cluster analyses were performed to examine whether interactions could be grouped into coherent categories.

Results

The lower bound of unweighted means of bootstrapped alphas ranged from 0.67 to 0.96 depending upon item type, and 21.60% of the total variance in raters was between-subjects. Factor analyses revealed only a single factor (“defensiveness”) underlying four items related to hostility directed toward officers by community members. Cluster analyses described seven categories that were highly overlapping but conceptually plausible with cluster silhouette means ranging from −0.06 to 0.13.

Conclusions

We validated a collection of interval-level coding metrics on a random sample of over 1000 interactions between police officers and community members recorded through BWCs. In doing so, we provide a roadmap for researchers and practitioners to effectively measure the dynamics of police–community encounters and officer performance within those encounters and a framework for addressing the validity and reliability of items in future studies involving the measurement of BWC footage.