State change in Chile, 1973–1988

All of the Southern Cone military regimes of the 1970s articulated a commitment to a neoconservative program of state change. Nowhere, however, was the commitment translated into policy with greater zeal, speed, and consistency than in Chile. What differed in Chile was less a lack of resistance to neoconservatism than the capacity of the economic team to ignore or override that resistance due to the extreme concentration of political power achieved by General Augusto Pinochet. The Chilean experience consequently underlines the importance of institutional arrangements for understanding variations in policy outcomes. Karen L. Remmer is a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico and associate editor of theLatin American Research Review. Her research interests revolve around the interface between politics and economics in Latin America with special reference to the policy impact of regime change.     

Research and Welfare Reform

Social science research had an important but limited effect on welfare reform, meaning recent enactments that imposed work requirements on family welfare. Policymakers sometimes ignored findings, but the features of research also limited its influence. Most academics did not accept the conservative goals of reform, many of their predictions proved to be incorrect, and research also lacked sufficient policy content to interest government. These features reflect the recent development of the social sciences. For research to have more influence, it must become more catholic about goals and more realistic, and it must offer more governmental content. Especially, inquiry should rely less on the statistical analysis of databases and more on field observation of how poor communities live and programs operate.     

Procedural justice and ethical decision making

Procedural justice, in the form of voice and respectful treatment by supervisor, and ethical decision making are examined in this research. Ethical decision making is hypothesized to be a direct function of moral intent, as indicated by willingness to use moral criteria in decision making. Moral intent is, in turn, expected to be a function of the decision-making context, including perceptions of voice, respect and trust between supervisor and subordinate, and moral climate. Individual moral development is also expected to have a positive effect on moral intent. Results generally support the model, with two exceptions. First, perception of voice has a negative effect on moral intent, while caring climate and respectful supervisory relations have the expected positive effect on moral intent. These results suggest either a compensatory model of ethical decision making or a complacency effect. Second, individual characteristics had very little effect on either the decision made or the level of moral intent developed, save for one decision. These results suggest an important overlooked variable, the salience of issues for procedural justice concerns.