Perspective and procedural justice: Attorney and litigant evaluations of court procedures

A comparison of the procedural justice judgments of attorneys and those of lay people judging the same procedures offers an opportunity to generate new information on what factors affect judgments of fairness. In a survey of reactions to conventional and innovative procedures in a United States district court, attorneys and lay people involved in tort and contract cases were asked to judge the overall fairness of court procedures and the fairness of specific procedures used in arbitration hearings. The respondents were also asked for their judgments concerning the favorability of the procedure's outcome, the opportunity to have the case heard and decided by an impartial third party, and their side's control over what happened in the case, all of which are factors found in previous studies to affect procedural fairness judgments. The results showed that, while attorneys gave higher overall fairness ratings than did litigants, the difference was not affected by the procedure assigned to the case. In addition, attorneys and litigants appeared to use the same standards to evaluate the fairness of procedures, although they disagreed about where the procedures they experienced fell on these dimensions. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Law Enforcement Fusion Centers: Cultivating an Information Sharing Environment while Safeguarding Privacy

The national network of fusion centers, of which there are currently 78 nationwide, was created in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and continue to play an integral role in contemporary law enforcement. Their mission, put simply, is to facilitate information sharing across disparate agencies and organizations. Despite a significant presence within the law enforcement landscape, fusion centers have received relatively minimal scholarly attention. This limited literature alludes to operational challenges and public concerns that inhibit fusion center effectiveness. More specifically, little information is known about how fusion centers develop relationships with external partners as well as institute mechanisms to safeguard against violations of individual privacy. The present research employs a combination of national survey data and three in-depth case studies of fusion centers in Florida, Nevada, and Michigan to provide initial answers to these questions. Implications for improved policy and practice are discussed.     

The spread of famine in Africa: Avoiding the worst

The aim of this article is to provide an evaluation of Uganda's current strategy to fight corruption. Like many countries on the African continent, Uganda has deemed it necessary to make attempts to reduce and control corruption within the public sector. As awareness of the deleterious and debilitating effects of corruption has grown, so too have both internal political factors and external pressures from aid donors increased in order to push for fundamental change in this respect. In terms of the donors, many have stipulated specific conditions relating to a good governance agenda based upon adherence to public integrity and minimum standards of public conduct. Sensitivity to pressure also stems in part, from a wish by government to be seen to be actively responding to donor concerns. Internal pressures stem from a growing desire by the public to demand accountability from those in government.     

The DPA: Perspectives on its past and present

This essay examines the origins, development and current issues involving U.S. doctoral education in public administration by focusing particularly upon the DPA degree-—the first doctorate offered in the field. The article argues that the growth of the DPA coincided with the rapidly expanding needs for professionals in governmnt and the growth of American higher education in the postwar era. As a result, early DPA education contained a significant “professionalixing component” in its course work and dissertation research. The sharp public reactions against government professionals and professionalism in the late 1970s and 1980s combined with a new scientific research emphasis for doctoral education stressed by NASPAA's Comprehensive Schools Section, October 20, 1981, called into question the older professional assumptions upon which the DPA was created as a degree program. These trends now raise fundamental intellectual issues regarding its future and serve to fragment the once cohesive programmatic orientation of PA doctoral education today.     

Emphasising the Problem or the Solution in Charitable Fundraising for International Development

We conduct a laboratory experiment to test the effect on charitable donations to international development NGOs (INGOs) of emphasising current deprivation in a developing country, versus emphasising the potential good a donation can achieve. Using a double-blind dictator experiment with earned endowments, we find that varying the information/emphasis has no significant effect on total donations, nor on the probability of donating. We find suggestive evidence that an emphasis on current deprivation may raise the variance of donations, and thus the size of donations conditional on donating, but the effect is not significant in hurdle models that explicitly recognise this.