LGBTQ Youth in the Child Welfare System: An Overview of Research,Practice, and Policy

LGBTQ youth are largely overrepresented in the child welfare system. The experiences of LGBTQ youth have largely been overlooked. LGBTQ youth often encounter a number of challenges and disparities as they navigate the child welfare system. Many report experiences of discrimination, marginalization, and an overall lack of acceptance. The permanency and placement options have historically been limited for many LGBTQ youth, often leading to an over reliance on congregate settings and aging out of foster are. The current article provides a synthesis of the existing research on the experiences and outcomes of LGBTQ youth in care, as well as an exploration of the policy and practice initiatives aimed at creating a more inclusive system of care.     

Understanding a Period of Policy Change: The Case of Hydraulic Fracturing Disclosure Policy in Colorado

This paper investigates the beliefs and framing strategies of interest groups during a period of policy change and the factors explaining policy change. We develop propositions to explore questions concerning policy change primarily from the advocacy coalition framework as well as from other theorie. The propositions are tested by examining the promulgation of a Colorado regulation requiring the disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Using coded data of documents published by organizations involved in the rulemaking process, we find divergence between industry and environmental groups on their beliefs concerning hydraulic fracturing, as well as their portraying themselves and each other as heroes, victims, and villains, but some convergence on their more specific beliefs concerning disclosure of chemicals. Interviews point to the importance of policy entrepreneurs, timing, a negotiated agreement, and learning for explaining policy change. The findings provide both theoretical and methodological insights into how and why policy changes.     

Candidates’ policy strategies in primary elections: does strategic voting by the primary electorate matter?

Empirical research reports conflicting conclusions about whether primary election voters strategically account for candidates’ general election prospects when casting their votes. We model the strategic calculations of office-seeking candidates facing two-stage elections beginning with a primary, and we compare candidates’ policy strategies in situations where primary voters strategically support the most viable general election candidate against candidate strategies when voters expressively support their preferred primary candidate regardless of electability. Our analyses—in which the candidates’ appeal is based on their policy positions and their campaigning skills—suggest a surprising conclusion: namely, that strategic and expressive primary voting typically support identical equilibrium configurations in candidate strategies. Our conclusions are relevant to candidates facing contested primaries, and also to political parties facing the strategic decision about whether or not to use primary elections to select their candidates—a common dilemma for Latin American (and some European) parties.     

Modeling the effects of changing issue salience in two-party competition

For a given distribution of voter ideal points, candidates may compete, not only by changing their policy platforms, but also by seeking to persuade voters to place more weight on one of the given dimensions. We do not examine persuasion mechanisms, per se, but, rather, investigate how change of the salience weights can lead to alternation of majorities for the candidates, even though candidate positions remain fixed. Thus, competition over the salience of issue dimensions can, under certain circumstances, be crucial for determining election outcomes. We illustrate potential non-monotonicities in priming effects in terms of the Fourier series decomposition of the distribution of voter preferences, showing that the existence of higher-level harmonics leads to greater uncertainty about election outcomes and about best heresthetic strategies. We then demonstrate the empirical relevance of our results with data on two issue dimensions of political competition in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.     

Tracking Movement and Temperature Selection of Larvae of Two Forensically Important Blow Fly Species Within a “Maggot Mass”

The current study responds to the lack of understanding about the temperatures experienced by individual blow fly larvae within “maggot masses.” The temperature selection of both aggregating (in a mass) and nonaggregating larvae was compared and their pattern of movement assessed. Infrared imaging determined the temperatures within a mass and in the vicinity of the constituent individual larvae, whose movements were tracked by dyeing their tissues red. Individual Chrysomya rufifacies larvae selected temperatures above 27°C, significantly higher than the temperature selected by Calliphora vicina larvae (24.5°C). However, this same difference was not seen within a mass, with both species selecting temperatures around 28°C. Larval movement in a mass was nonrandom, indicating that larvae actively select their position in a mass. Furthermore, larvae have a strong tendency to select the hottest part of a mass; therefore, maximum mass temperatures might provide a reliable proxy for the actual temperatures experienced by larvae.     

Terminating the oldest living regulator: the death of the interstate commerce commission

This paper examines the termination of the oldest federal regulatory agency, in light of existing policy termination theories. The need for the ICC was severely reduced by major deregulation of railroads and trucking in 1980, changes from which also reduced the ICC's ability to maintain external interest group support. Still, although its budget and staff were cut, the ICC survived intact for 15 more years, until budgetary politics found it to be a useful symbolic target for termination. We also argue that this case shows the utility of putting termination theory into the larger framework of policy change, a literature that itself has largely ignored the critical element of policy and organizational termination.

”Once you establish a commission … you have the devil's own time passing an act abolishing it.”⁽¹⁾.     

The Importance of Professionalism: A Quantitative and Qualitative Look at Why Some U.S. Counties Do More on the Web than Others

Recent research indicates that many local governments are doing little to provide information and services to their citizens via the Internet, so more needs to be known about the underlying reasons for governments' adoption of web technology. A two-stage research project, statistical analysis followed by qualitative investigation, of a stratified random sample of American counties reveals the importance of advocacy by motivated individuals, both appointed and elected. The findings from both stages of this research underscore the importance of motivated professionals who choose to actively promote web technologies.     

Book reviews

John R. Davis, Britain and the German Zollverein, 1848–66 (London: Macmillan, 1997). x + 238 pp. £45. ISBN 0–333–67828–1.

Martin Thomas, Britain, France and Appeasement: Anglo‐French Relations in the Popular Front Era (Oxford and New York: Berg. 1996). xi + 268 pp. £29.95 hb; £12.95 pb. ISBN 1–85973–192–9.

Peter Lowe, Containing the Cold War in East Asia: British Policies Towards Japan, China and Korea, 1948–53 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997). xii + 288 pp. £40. ISBN 0–7190–2508–7.

David M. Barrett, Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Advisers (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1994). xii + 279 pp. £11.95 pb. ISBN 0–7006–0631–9.

Rhodri Jeffreys‐Jones, Changing Differences: Women and the Shaping of American Foreign Policy, 1917–1994 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997). x + 275 pp. £14.50 pb. ISBN 0–8135–2449–0.

Philip M. Taylor, Global Communications, International Affairs and the Media Since 1945 (London &; New York: Routledge, 1997). xx + 248 pp. £45 hb. ISBN 0–415–11678–3; £15.99 pb. ISBN 0–415–11679–1     

“Our Respective Empires Should Stand Together”: The Royal Dimension in Anglo-Japanese Relations, 1919–1941

In the inter-war period court diplomacy played an important role in Anglo-Japanese relations. Both governments saw the exchange of high-level royal visits and the conferment of decorations, such as the bestowal of the Order of the Garter to Emperor Hirohito in 1929, as a useful means of indicating respect and the desire for continued co-operation. Even as late as 1937 Prince Chichibu’s attendance at King George VI’s coronation was intended to lead to closer ties. This article demonstrates that the neglected field of court diplomacy and diplomatic protocol can provide a useful parallel commentary on more overtly political events.