Does the amount of participation matter? Public comments,agency responses and the time to finalize a regulation

The notice and comment rulemaking process is a fundamental part of how agencies write regulations. While this process is starting to receive more empirical attention, the question of how the number of comments that an agency receives affects its decision-making process has received little examination. This paper uses Boolean analysis to examine nine rules from two agencies at the Department of Health and Human Services and evaluates the impact of a high volume of comments on agency changes to proposed rules and the time an agency takes to finalize a proposed rule. These nine cases suggest that agencies are most likely to change their proposals when they receive a high volume of comments on highly complex rules that are not very politically salient. Highly complex rules are also likely to take a long time to finalize when there are many public comments however it is often other factors that cause a long delay between proposed and final rules.

Britain and Europe: An Awkward Partner or an Awkward State?

This article builds on the recent exchange between Jim Buller and Stephen George on the subject of British 'awkwardness' in relation to the European Union. While it engages with both authors, the article also seeks to bring the state back into the analysis. It makes a connection between the structure and organisation of the state and the behaviour of domestic political actors.     

Abortion Policy and Super-optimum Solutions

Super-optimum solutions to public policy problems are ones that enable conservatives, liberals, and other major viewpoints all to come out ahead of their best initial expectations simultaneously. Thinking in terms of multiple goals and alternatives facilitates the development of mutually beneficial packages, possibly with the aid of spreadsheet-based software that enables one to better deal with the multiplicity of goals and alternatives. This article describes how super-optimum solutions might be applied to abortion policy and deals with auxiliary policies concerning birth control and adoptions. It also addresses related policies that focus on the Chinese population problem. Chinese abortion policy involves a battle between women who do want to stay pregnant and a society that would like to facilitate pregnancy termination. American abortion policy involves a battle between women who do not want to stay pregnant and a society that is reluctant to facilitate abortions.     

Family contexts of pubertal timing

This study examined the influence of pubertal timing upon family interactions in normal and psychiatric adolescent samples. An important feature of our approach is its emphasis upon micro-analysis of family behaviors (individual speeches) and family processes (theoretically specified speech pairings). Rather than assume that global family patterns (e.g., power) shift in response to pubertal changes, we follow how types of speeches and speech sequences are associated with different pubertal timing. Using the previously constructed family coding system, the Constrainig and Enabling Coding System, we found that on-time adolescents and their parents differed from both off-time groups (early or late). These results are discussed in terms of current implications and suggestions for future research.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the SRCD Study Group on Timing of Maturation, October, 1983, at the Education Testing Service, Princeton, NJ. This research was supported by NICHD Grant 1 R01 HD18684-01, and an NIMH Research Scientist Award (Dr. Hauser).Received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Research interest is adolescent development within the family and impact of chronic illness on adolescent development and family interaction.Received her B.A. from Wellesley College. Research interests are in humor and attractiveness.Received his M.A. from Boston University. Research interests are in methodology and statistics.Received Ed.D. from Harvard University. Research interests are in adolescent development within the family, and family coping with stress.Received M.D. from University of Chicago. Research interests are in psychosocial aspects of diabetes.Received Ed.D. from Harvard University. Research interests are in developmental psychopathology, and moral and ego development.Received Ph.D. from Ohio State University. Research interests are in assessment of ego development and family systems.Received Ph.D. from University of Miami. Research interests are in family studies and adolescent development.