Canada's GBA+ framework in a (post)pandemic world: Issues,tensions and paths forward

This article traces the theoretical foundations, evolution, and limitations of Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+), which is the Government of Canada's primary framework for attending to diversity and inclusion in public policy. We argue that GBA+ is, in its current form, inadequate to guide ambitious and transformative policy in the post-pandemic years given four interlocking issues: (1) a weak integration of intersectionality; (2) insufficient attention to the power structures and socio-political context undergirding social relations and policymaking; (3) an instrumental understanding of policy; and (4) a misreading of identity. Drawing on feminist, intersectional and post-structuralist methods, we adjust the GBA+ framework with the aim of addressing the conceptual shortcomings identified in our analysis. Ultimately, we demonstrate how a more explicit engagement with notions of intersectionality, power and policy's instrumental and productive aspects can enrich the ways we think about public policy as both a mechanism and a venue for transformative change.     

Anatomy of a government massacre: Abuses of hostage‐barricade protocols during the Waco standoff

A systematic evaluation of the FBI's crisis negotiations with the Branch Davidians during a 51‐day standoff in 1993 is conducted. The analysis uncovers extensive violations of basic hostage‐barricade standards and protocols. The violations appear shortly after negotiations began indicating a premature disregard for the publicly declared goal of a peaceful resolution. Failed negotiations subsequently were cited by FBI officials as a rationale for organizing a violent and dangerous CS gas assault on the barricaded group, resulting in the destruction of the religious community and the deaths of 74 people. The violations do not appear to be random, incidental, or the result of disorganization, as officials claim. The data indicate that the FBI's on‐scene commanders and tactical component of the Hostage‐Rescue Team (HRT) contributed largely to the failed negotiations through methods of increased tactical pressure and psychological warfare providing justification for the high‐risk assault. The thesis is advanced that the HRT command may have pursued furtively what some insiders call a ‘Western’ view of hostage‐barricade incidents ‐ i.e., that negotiations should be used as a means of manipulating people into positions where a tactical solution can be executed. In this context, the standoff is analyzed as a government massacre. Possible motives for this state violence are linked to the sect's defiant posture, aspects of police culture, effective demonization of the sect, and the disturbing trend of ‘militarization’ within law enforcement.     

Uncertainty and disaster‐avoidance behaviour in peasant farming: Evidence from Bangladesh

A sample of smallholding farmers in the Pabna region of Bangladesh provide data to test predictions of a safety‐first model and of a profit maximisation model of farmer behaviour. Of the two sets of predictions, the data tend to support those of the safety‐first model more frequently than they support the predictions of the profit maximisation model. While the degree to which the former model ‘out‐performs’ the latter is not great, it is important to note that when the major inputs (land and human labour) and the major outputs (rice and jute), are focused upon, the safety‐first model performs much better than the profit maximisation model.     

Using the Results from Rigorous Multisite Evaluations to Inform Local Policy Decisions

Evidence‐based policy at the local level requires predicting the impact of an intervention to inform whether it should be adopted. Increasingly, local policymakers have access to published research evaluating the effectiveness of policy interventions from national research clearinghouses that review and disseminate evidence from program evaluations. Through these evaluations, local policymakers have a wealth of evidence describing what works, but not necessarily where. Multisite evaluations may produce unbiased estimates of the average impact of an intervention in the study sample and still produce inaccurate predictions of the impact for localities outside the sample for two reasons: (1) the impact of the intervention may vary across localities, and (2) the evaluation estimate is subject to sampling error. Unfortunately, there is relatively little evidence on how much the impacts of policy interventions vary from one locality to another and almost no evidence on the implications of this variation for the accuracy with which the local impact of adopting an intervention can be predicted using findings from an evaluation in other localities. In this paper, we present a set of methods for quantifying the accuracy of the local predictions that can be obtained using the results of multisite randomized trials and for assessing the likelihood that prediction errors will lead to errors in local policy decisions. We demonstrate these methods using three evaluations of educational interventions, providing the first empirical evidence of the ability to use multisite evaluations to predict impacts in individual localities—i.e., the ability of “evidence‐based policy” to improve local policy.     

Mass Media and Electoral Preferences During the 2016 US Presidential Race

Political Behavior - This paper uses analyses of commercial polls alongside content-analytic measures of sentiment in the content of nine newspapers to explore the relationship between voter...