The Managerial Ombudsman

This article identifies a major development in the role and practice of the ombudsman. It argues that the New Public Management practices that have transformed public administration in the last 30 years have led to a more managerial approach to the ombudsman's work. The article's argument is developed through analysis of an empirical case study of the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, which illustrates how the aims and techniques of managerialism have been deployed in the ombudsman context. The article evaluates the significance of these developments for the ombudsman institution and for the wider justice system. It examines the risks and opportunities inherent in this turn to managerialism and whether it represents a departure from the ombudsman's mission or a necessary adaptation to a changed world of public administration. In identifying the rise of the ‘managerial ombudsman’, the article provides a new framework for conceptualising developments in the modern ombudsman institution.     

The young carer penalty: Exploring the costs of caregiving among a sample of Canadian youth

This research contributes a first-hand account of the experiences of youth’s substantial unpaid familial caregiving in the context of long-term illness, disability or problems related to alcohol and/or other drugs. A qualitative focus group methodology explored the benefits and challenges of youth’s caregiving via a sample of 15 youth caregivers (or young carers) from both the Greater Toronto area and the Niagara Region of Southern Ontario. The findings reveal evidence for a unique “young carer penalty,” a term coined by this research to build upon the gendered “care penalty” experienced by adult women (especially mothers) when performing care work.     

Meaning and material in the language of the street

This paper describes the materiality of street signs, an unappreciated and ubiquitous type of everyday written text. Drawing on social semiotics, linguistic landscapes and writing system research, it uses a categorisation of social roles associated with street signs and of the functions of street signs applied to street signs in Newcastle upon Tyne, with some other wider examples. The materials are divided into: stone and metal signs, which use capitals and archaic letters, convey permanence and quality, and are locating in function; signs handwritten or printed on paper, which also use capitals, convey temporary status and novelty and are mostly informing; painted signs, which often use lower case, have highly individual letter forms to express identity, and are usually informing; other materials ranging from glass to snow, expressing diverse ideas of permanence. The conclusion is that the meaning of street signs depends in part on the materials they are made of, particularly to convey permanence and identity.     

Filling the gap of formal institutions: the effects of Guanxi network on corruption in reform-era China

Corruption exists around the world and throughout the human history, but societies undergoing rapid modernization and institutional transition tend to be more susceptible to this problem. This article analyzes the corruption-facilitating roles of guanxi network under transition. It argues that when deficient political and economic institutions hamper the effective flow of information and resources and when fast structural changes generate uncertainty, people can resort to guanxi network, an informal institution, to overcome these difficulties and advance their private interests. Using empirical evidence from reform-era China, this article demonstrates how the communication, exchange, and normative functions of guanxi network enhance the opportunities, means, and incentives for public officials to engage in corruption, especially transactional corruption through particularistic ties.     

An effectiveness‐based evaluation of five state pre‐kindergarten programs

Since 1980, the number of state pre‐kindergarten (pre‐K) programs has more than doubled, with 38 states enrolling more than one million children in 2006 alone. This study evaluates how five state pre‐K programs affected children's receptive vocabulary, math, and print awareness skills. Taking advantage of states' strict enrollment policies determined by a child's date of birth, a regression‐discontinuity design was used to estimate effects in Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia. For receptive vocabulary, only New Jersey and Oklahoma yielded significant standardized impacts, though two of the three other coefficients were in a direction indicating positive effects. For math, all the coefficients were positive but only Michigan and New Jersey yielded reliable results. The largest impacts were for print awareness, where all five coefficients were positive and four were reliable in Michigan, New Jersey, South Carolina, and West Virginia. The five states were not randomly selected and, on average, have higher quality program standards than non‐studied states, precluding formal extrapolation to the nation at large. However, our sample of states differed in many other ways, permitting the conclusion that state pre‐K programs can have positive effects on children's cognitive skills, though the magnitude of these effects varies by state and outcome. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Context for specific episodes of marital violence: Gender and severity of violence differences

The present study was designed to evaluate the context of marital violence through husbands' and wives' accounts of the worst violent episode in the year prior to assessment. The primary objective was to examine severity (mild or severe) and gender (husbands or wives) differences in reports of the worst episode of marital aggression using a functional analysis conceptualization. That is, within the specific episode, current stressors, setting events, outcome, and function of aggressive behavior(s) and victimization experiences were evaluated. Sixty-two couples, who presented for marital treatment over a three year period and also reported at least one episode of physical aggression in the past year, participated. In most cases, marital aggression appeared to reflect an outgrowth of conflict between both partners. However, wives consistently reported that their aggressive husbands had engaged in more psychological coercion and aggression than they as a marital conflict escalated to physical violence. Further, there was a tendency for wives to use severe physical aggression in self-defense more often than husbands.     

The Politics of Memory/Errinerungspolitik and the Use and Propriety of Law in the Process of Memory Construction

The post-Second World War trial for the crime against humanity from the start assumed pedagogical proportions, with the tribunals involved conscious that their legal verdicts would represent historical pronouncement and national values. The newly defined crime has been asked to institutionalize far more than the traditional task of adjudicating the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The trials themselves are meant to define the past, create and crystallize national memory, and illuminate the foundations of the future. I suggest that, by placing a burden on law that it is not designed to bear,we risk deforming law and legal principle. We risk creating an edifice that will not be equal to the task of memory, that will trivialize the memory it seeks to establish and fortify and, worst of all, that may betray law itself by subverting it from within. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Review essay / defending sexual autonomy

Stephen J. Schulhofer, Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, xii + 284 pp.