Public Service Recruitment Practices and Implications for Sustainable Development in Ebonyi State,Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Despite several reforms in Ebonyi public service, little or no indices of sustainable development has been recorded in decades. This study aims at examining the aspect of recruitment processes and how guaranteed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) attainment is affected. The findings drawn from three different ministries in Ebonyi State Civil Service (EBSCS) reveal that the processes of recruitment are characterized by nepotism, political interference devoid of merit, and professionalism. This implies that guaranteed sustainable development in Ebonyi state is at risk of attainment. This conclusion proves the relationship between Public Service Recruitment (PSR) processes and development. In view of the above, it argues that a new PSR reform should be instituted if the country is to achieve the targets set in the SDGs. This is hoped to promote accountability, transparency, and sound administrative governance in the public sector.     

The impact of license plate recognition technology (LPR) on trust in law enforcement: a survey-experiment

Objectives

We examine the extent to which individuals' knowledge of an advanced police technology (license plate recognition or "LPR") may impact perceptions of police. Technologies with the capacity to track individuals' movements are becoming increasingly common in police practice. Although these technologies may yield positive benefits, their use may also heighten community concerns about increased surveillance, data storage, and data security, thereby potentially negatively impacting community-police relationships.

Methods

We utilize a survey-based experiment with randomized assignment of participants (n=405) to investigate the impact of individuals' knowledge of LPR use on a variety of police perceptions, including trust in police, community approval, respect for citizens, and respect for individual rights.

Results

Most respondents were unaware of LPR use prior to the survey. When compared with a control group, respondents who encountered brief mentions of LPR functions on the survey expressed significantly lower levels of trust in police. Additionally, "strong agreement" with other positive statements about police also appears to have declined in this sample in response to LPR information. Notably, the sample contained high pre-existing levels of trust and support for police, factors which may have moderated the impacts of LPR information.

Conclusions

These results support the hypothesis that awareness of LPR use may negatively impact perceptions of police, including trust in police. More generally, although technologies like LPR represent technological innovations, they may also yield unintended consequences, including the potential to undermine police-community relations if adoption decisions are not accompanied by sufficient transparency or community support.

     

Verbal Aggression Among Male Alcoholic Patients and Their Wives in the Year Before and Two Years After Alcoholism Treatment

Our earlier reports on 88 male alcoholics and their wives showed that domestic violence decreased significantly in the first and second year following a behavioral marital therapy (BMT) alcoholism treatment program. The present study examined verbal aggression in this same sample. In the year before BMT, verbal aggression was significantly greater—being five to seven times more prevalent for clinically elevated aggression and substantially more frequent—for the alcoholic husbands and their wives than for a demographically matched, nonalcoholic comparison sample. In the two years after BMT, both alcoholic men and their wives showed significant and substantial reductions in verbal aggression as compared with the year before BMT. Despite these significant reductions from the year before BMT, verbal aggression in the two years after BMT remained significantly elevated relative to demographically similar nonalcoholic controls. As predicted, relapsed alcoholics and their wives showed more verbal aggression in the 2 years after BMT than both couples with a remitted alcoholic husband and demographically similar nonalcoholic controls, whereas remitted alcoholics and their wives had similar levels of verbal aggression to the nonalcoholic controls. Further, frequency of drinking was positively correlated with verbal aggression in the 2 years after BMT; verbal aggression was greater when the alcoholic husband drank more frequently.     

Welfare and child support: Complements,not substitutes

In most states, child support paid on behalf of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants is used to offset TANF and child support administrative expenditures; this policy primarily benefits taxpayers. In contrast, Wisconsin allowed most custodial parents to keep all support paid on their behalf. This policy, which treats welfare and child support as complements, was evaluated through an experimental design. This paper reports the key results of the experimental evaluation, using state administrative data to examine the effects on child support outcomes and governmental cost. We find that when custodial mothers keep all child support paid on their behalf, paternity establishment occurs more quickly, noncustodial fathers are more likely to pay support, and custodial families receive more support. These outcomes are achieved at no significant governmental cost. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Anthropology of Extraction: Critical Perspectives on the Resource Curse

Abstract

Attempts to address the resource curse remain focussed on revenue management, seeking technical solutions to political problems over examinations of relations of power. In this paper, we provide a review of the contribution anthropological research has made over the past decade to understanding the dynamic interplay of social relations, economic interests and struggles over power at stake in the political economy of extraction. In doing so, we show how the constellation of subaltern and elite agency at work within processes of resource extraction is vital in order to confront the complexities, incompatibilities, and inequities in the exploitation of mineral resources.     

Brexit and UK International Development Policy

In this article we explore the implications of Brexit for the UK and the EU's development policies and strategic directions, focusing on the former. While it is likely that the operational process of disentangling the UK from the various development institutions of the EU will be relatively straightforward, the choices that lie ahead about whether and how to cooperate thereafter are more complex. Aid and development policy touches on a wide range of interests—security, trade, climate change, migration, gender rights, and so on. We argue that Brexit will accelerate existing trends within UK development policy, notably towards the growing priority of private sector‐led economic growth strategies and blended finance tools. There are strong signals that UK aid will be cut, as successive secretaries of state appear unable to persuade a substantial section of the public and media that UK aid and development policy serves UK interests in a variety of ways.     

Using Active-Learning Pedagogy to Develop Essay-Writing Skills in Introductory Political Theory Tutorials

Building on prior research into active learning pedagogy in political science, I discuss the development of a new active learning strategy called the “thesis-building carousel,” designed for use in political theory tutorials. This use of active learning pedagogy in a graduate student-led political theory tutorial represents the overlap of several currents of political science education research. First, the graduate teaching assistant-led tutorial is a common complement to large lecture-based introductory courses in political theory. Second, where International Relations has led the expansion of active learning in political science, political theory has lagged behind other subfields (Archer &; Miller 2011 Archer, Candace C. and Melissa K. Miller. 2011. “Prioritizing Active Learning: An Exploration of Gateway Courses in Political Science.” PS: Political Science &; Politics 44(2): 429–434.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The thesis-building carousel is designed to develop skills necessary for political theory classes—essay writing and peer review. The article concludes with a discussion of how active learning activities designed for specialized spaces can be modified for use in traditional classroom settings, with the example of three forms of “summary carousels.”     

Political leadership and ‘non-traditional’ development cooperation

This article explores the relationships between (so-called) ‘non-traditional’ development cooperation (NTDC) and political leadership. Using the case studies of Brazil and South Korea, we propose that certain emblematic elements of NTDC discourse and practice can act to influence the relationship with political leaders in particular ways. These are (a) elevated language of affect, (b) interleaving of personal biographies with the developmental trajectories of states, (c) the use of NTDC to legitimise domestic policies and promote domestic political leadership, (d) the prominence of presidential diplomacy and (e) the challenges confronting rapidly expanding domestic development cooperation institutions and systems.     

The Real Thing: Transsexuality and Manhood in Rose Tremain's Sacred Country

Thinking about Mothers

Tess Cosslett, Women Writing Childbirth: Modern Discourses of Motherhood, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994, £13.99.

Roszika Parker, Torn in Two: The Experience of Maternal Ambivalence, London: Virago Press, 1995, £12.99.

Nancy Scheper‐Hughes, Death without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil, Los Angeles: California University Press, 1992, £15.00.

Female Tones and Timbres

Leslie C. Dunn and Nancy A. Jones (eds.), Embodied Voices: Representing Female Vocality in Western Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Felicia Miller Frank, The Mechanical Song: Women, Voice, and the Artificial in Nineteenth‐century French Narrative, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995.

Claire Kahane, Passions of the Voice: Hysteria, Narrative, and the Figure of the Speaking Woman, 1850–1915, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.

The Joy of Footnotes

Darian Leader, Why do Women Write More Letters Than They Post?, London: Faber and Faber, 1996, £9.99.     

Woman's hour at the women's library

This article, written by a BBC Producer, describes a Woman's Hour Radio Four programme that was broadcast from the new Women's Library, London Guildhall University, on Thursday 31 January 2002 to celebrate the Library's opening.