Talking trash about landfills: Using quantitative scoring schemes in landfill siting processes

Policymakers and the public often turn to scientific experts for help in making decisions about complex policy problems. Such decisions, however, may involve trade‐offs among desired goals and so require considerable technical and political judgment. Typically there is no objectively "best" answer, although some answers may be better than others. We use a case study of a landfill siting process in Orange County, North Carolina, to analyze how quantitative scoring schemes may best be used to facilitate site selection processes. Quantitative scoring schemes, used and interpreted properly, can help policymakers and the public focus their attention on central rather than peripheral issues, and thereby conduct a more informed political debate. For the quantitative scoring scheme to fulfill this role, however, the community must be explicit about how the scoring scheme will be used within the larger decisionmaking framework. Clarifying the power and limitations of quantitative scoring schemes shows promise for facilitating decisionmaking regarding other locally unpopular land use siting processes, as well as any public policy decision involving multiple objectives. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Developing an index of EX-POST parliamentary oversight of public finance

For the past decade, scholars and practitioners have developed indexes to measure both legislative powers in general, and of the legislative power of the purse, in particular. Initial focus was on the development of a comprehensive index of legislative powers, and on assessing the ex-ante role of the legislature in the budget process.

This article substantially deepens extends previous research on ex-post oversight, by developing a more comprehensive index to measure ex-post oversight, by using more up-to-date data bases and by including more countries. We can partially confirm the emerging consensus that ex-post budget oversight is stronger in parliamentary – and especially Westminster – systems than in countries with other forms of government, thereby somewhat offsetting the previously identified weaknesses of Westminster parliaments in budget formulation.

When used in combination Wehner’s [2006. Assessing the power of the purse: An index of legislative budget institutions. Political Studies, 54, 767–785] index of ex-ante legislative oversight, this index provides a comprehensive picture of legislative power of the purse regarding the budget process.     

Quantitative intersectionality: Imperatives and opportunities for advancing social equity

Social equity is a pillar of public administration (PA), yet its actualization remains elusive. The path forward to closing persistent social equity gaps requires the utilization of quantitative intersectionality in PA. This article explores the literature related to quantitative intersectionality and the imperative for use in the scholarship and practices of PA. To exemplify this concept in practice, we present a case study examining Vocational Rehabilitation performance data reports. Findings illustrate how quantitative intersectionality provides an opportunity to unpack overlapping identities for people with disabilities whose individual characteristics include historically oppressed race/ethnicity and gender identities. Findings assert the imperative for using quantitative intersectionality to achieve social equity for all.     

Engaging diverse community stakeholders to co‐create solutions in food deserts: A design‐thinking approach

Most households in the United States, regardless of income, do the majority of their grocery shopping at supermarkets. However, due to the consolidation of the supermarket industry and some neighborhoods not being able to economically sustain a supermarket, more and more households are struggling to conveniently access affordable, healthy food choices. This article describes a participatory design process used to engage a diverse set of stakeholders in the Indianapolis community to cocreate solutions that improve access to healthy and affordable food. Indianapolis offers an insightful context, given that it was recently ranked the worst city in the United States for food deserts. Our results not only demonstrate the value of using a design‐thinking approach in addressing food access issues but also offer unique insight into the problem of food access itself.     

Women and the Labour Party: Gender and the Writing of British Political History

This article takes stock of the state of women's political history in the twentieth century and suggests new lines of enquiry, drawing on the authors’ own work on the Labour Party. It identifies a number of key themes which have enriched histories of women and gender in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and considers how these might be developed. Firstly, it examines the significance of the local, and more particularly, the neighbourhood, in women's political lives. Secondly, it asserts the value of focussing on the membership, including the economic, social and cultural shifts that shaped their lives, the intersection of gender with factors such as age or ethnicity, and their own political identities. Finally, it stresses the importance of interrogating masculine cultures to understand how gendered dynamics played out. It concludes with a reminder that inserting women into established political narratives is insufficient: the point is to transform those narratives.     

The Impact of Maternal Relationship Quality on Emerging Adults’ Prosocial Tendencies: Indirect Effects via Regulation of Prosocial Values

Studies document that parents serve as children’s primary socialization agents, particularly for moral development and prosocial behavior; however, less is known regarding parental influences on prosocial outcomes during the transition to adulthood. The purpose of this study was to investigate how mother–child relationship quality was related to prosocial tendencies via emerging adults’ regulation of prosocial values. Participants included 228 undergraduate students (ranging from 18 to 25 years; 90% European American) and their mothers (ranging from 38 to 59 years) from four locations across the United States. Path analyses using structural equation modeling revealed that mother–child relationship quality was related to emerging adults’ regulation of prosocial values, which was, in turn, related to emerging adults’ prosocial tendencies. Specifically, emerging adults who reported higher levels of internal regulation of prosocial values were more likely to report prosocial tendencies that de-emphasized themselves, and were less likely to report prosocial tendencies for the approval of others.

Institutional Constraints,Managerial Choices,and Conflicts in Public Sector Supply Chains

In this research, we compare the governance mechanisms that public sector managers and private sector managers leverage when responding to conflict in supply chain relationships. We find evidence that public sector managers are more likely than private sector managers to rely on written (formal) contract mechanisms, but that both public and private managers use relational (informal) governance mechanisms to similar extents. We also find that managers from both sectors perceive an improvement to the quality of the exchange relationship when a relational approach is emphasized in managing the conflict. Our research provides an important contribution to our understanding about the actions public managers take in dealing with supply chain conflicts and suggests potential policy alternatives to foster contracting efficiency and effectiveness.     

Gender Differences in Anxiety Trajectories from Middle to Late Adolescence

Although developmental trajectories of anxiety symptomatology have begun to be explored, most research has focused on total anxiety symptom scores during childhood and early adolescence, using racially/ethnically homogenous samples. Understanding the heterogeneous courses of anxiety disorder symptoms during middle to late adolescence has the potential to clarify developmental risk models of anxiety and to inform prevention programs. Therefore, this study specifically examined gender differences in developmental trajectories of anxiety disorder symptoms (generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder) from middle to late adolescence in a diverse community sample (N?=?1000; 57?% female; 65?% White), assessed annually over 2 years. Latent growth curve modeling revealed that girls exhibited a slight linear decrease in generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and social anxiety disorder symptoms, whereas boys exhibited a stable course. These models suggested that one trajectory was appropriate for panic disorder symptoms in both girls and boys. Growth mixture models indicated the presence of four latent generalized anxiety disorder symptom trajectory classes: low increasing, moderate decreasing slightly, high decreasing, and very high decreasing rapidly. Growth mixture models also suggested the presence of five latent social anxiety disorder symptom trajectory classes: a low stable trajectory class and four classes that were qualitatively similar to the latent generalized anxiety disorder trajectories. For both generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder symptoms, girls were significantly more likely than boys to be in trajectory classes characterized by moderate or high initial symptoms that subsequently decreased over time. These findings provide novel information regarding the developmental course of anxiety disorder symptoms in adolescents.     

Laying Down the Family Burden: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Resilience in the Midst of Family Violence

Questionnaire data from a cross-sectional study of a randomly selected sample of 5,149 middle-school students from four EU countries (Austria, Germany, Slovenia, and Spain) were used to explore the effects of family violence burden level, structural and procedural risk and protective factors, and personal characteristics on adolescents who are resilient to depression and aggression despite being exposed to domestic violence. Using logistic regression to identify resilience characteristics, our results indicate that structural risks like one's sex, migration experience, and socioeconomic status were not predictive of either family violence burden levels or resilience. Rather, nonresilience to family violence is derived from a combination of negative experiences with high levels of family violence in conjunction with inconsistent parenting, verbally aggressive teachers, alcohol and drug misuse and experiences of indirect aggression with peers. Overall, negative factors outweigh positive factors and play a greater role in determining the resilience level that a young person achieves.