John Stuart Mill on the Antipodes: Settler Violence against Indigenous Peoples and the Legitimacy of Colonial Rule

J.S. Mill's support for colonialism and empire has attracted recent critical attention in the context of debates about his status as a modern egalitarian liberal, and liberalism's historical justification for empire. While Mill defended imperialism for most of his life on the grounds that it brought progress and civilization to historically backward peoples, his later correspondence reveals that he became increasingly concerned that settler violence against subordinated populations, notably in New Zealand, India and the West Indies, undermined the civilizing mission. Mill had been a strong advocate for settler societies in Australia and New Zealand, but came to fear that colonial abuses of power over indigenous peoples would vitiate the utilitarian benefits of colonial self‐rule.     

Does organizational adaptation really matter? How mission change affects the survival of U.S. federal independent agencies, 1933–2011

Public administration scholars tend to take for granted that organizational adaptation is important. This common notion that public organizations must adapt to stay alive has not been put to the test in the field of public administration, however. Intriguingly, organization ecologists find that adaptation does not matter and might even be counterproductive for individual organizations. They argue that the absence of adaptation—which they refer to as structural inertia—actually enhances the likelihood of survival. But organization ecologists focus mostly on nonpublic organizations. This prompts the question whether adaptation in public organizations really matters. In this article, we test these contrasting claims (while controlling for design features) on a population of U.S. federal independent public agencies (n = 142). Our findings suggest a subtle narrative. We conclude that proactive adaptation increases termination hazards. But inertia does not seem to significantly enhance survival chances.     

Why do Adolescents Gather Information or Stick to Parental Norms? Examining Autonomous and Controlled Motives Behind Adolescents’ Identity Style

Self-determination theory (SDT) distinguishes between autonomous and controlled reasons for people’s behavior and essentially states that beneficial effects for individuals’ psychosocial adjustment will accrue when behavior is guided by autonomous (rather than controlled) motives. The present study tested this assumption in the area of adolescents’ identity styles. In a sample of mid-adolescents (N = 247; 53% female), it was found that the motives for using an information-oriented or a normative identity style explained additional variance beyond the identity styles as such in two of the adjustment outcomes examined. Specifically, autonomous motives underlying these two identity styles were positively related to commitment and personal well-being, whereas controlled motives were negatively related to these same adjustment outcomes. Perceived autonomy-supportive parenting was examined as a possible antecedent of the motives behind identity styles. Consistent with hypotheses, it was found that autonomy-supportive parenting was positively related to autonomous motives and negatively to controlled motives underlying identity styles. Implications for future research on the motivational dynamics behind identity development are discussed.     

The Neoliberal State and the Uses of Indigenous Culture

The strong public support for displays of Maori culture since the mid-1980s in New Zealand under biculturalism appears paradoxical. Cultural values of respect for tradition, community, hierarchy, and attachment to place are promoted abroad and incorporated into public institutions at home at the same time as neoliberal economic policies emphasize individualism, self-reliance, rational behavior, and mobility. This article argues that Maori cultural practices supply the values of communal belonging and solidarity that were previously associated by the public with the New Zealand state. Thus, they support a postmodern conception of national identity and guarantee the legitimacy of the neoliberal state.     

The clinical context of technology assessment

One important aspect of the evaluation of a new medical technology is the clinical context in which the technology will be used. This context includes the disease to be diagnosed or treated, alternative methods of diagnosis or treatment, and the epidemiology of both the illness itself and health services. This paper presents a simple clinical paradigm of use in assessing new technologies.     

Why meta-research matters to regulation and governance scholarship: An illustrative evidence synthesis of responsive regulation research

This article is an introduction to meta-research, a systematic and replicable process of synthesizing research findings across a body of original research. After introducing the reader to the core of meta-research methodology, meta-research logic and tools are applied to present an evidence synthesis of empirical research on responsive regulation. The article concludes with a meta-research agenda for regulation and governance scholarship, and five key lessons from the empirical responsive regulation literature.     

TAIWAN'S GROWING SECURITY VULNERABILITY: FROM CHEN SHUI-BIAN TO MA YING-JIU

Taiwan-China relations have experienced a remarkable détente since KMT candidate and cross-strait moderate Ma Ying-Jiu was elected president on Formosa in 2008. Yet despite the rapprochement and its concomitant reduction of military tensions across the Taiwan Strait, the island's security position vis-à-vis China has been in steady decline since the early 2000s. Ma's expectation that closer economic and diplomatic ties with Beijing will result in greater international space for Taiwan have so far not yet been realised. On the contrary, deeper connections with the mainland seem to but accelerate the growth of Taiwan's security vulnerability.     

Experimentation in policy design: insights from the building sector

The current article questions how experimentation in policy design plays out in practice. In particular, it is interested in understanding how the content and process of policy-design experiments affect their outcomes. The article does so by building on an original study into 31 real-world examples of experimentation in policy design in the building sector in Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States. All examples aim to improve the environmental sustainability of the building sector. The article finds that these 31 examples have attracted moderate to substantial numbers of participants (policy outcome HO.i), but have not achieved substantial numbers of buildings built or retrofitted with high levels of sustainability (policy outcome HO.ii). By carefully unpacking these policy designs into a number of key characteristics, it finds that this mismatch between the two outcomes may partly be explained by flawed policy-design processes. The article concludes with the main lessons learnt and provides some suggestions on how to improve experimentation in policy design.     

Progressiveness and the New Right: The Electoral Relevance of Culturally Progressive Values in the Netherlands

Whereas electoral support for new-rightist parties is often understood as driven by ethnocentric anti-immigrant sentiments, scholars have noted that new-rightist politicians have, surprisingly, stressed culturally progressive arguments in the last decade. Using recent Dutch survey data (N = 1,302) especially collected for this purpose, the article analyses the electoral relevance of three types of cultural progressiveness for voting for the new right and their relation to the well-documented anti-immigrant agenda. The analysis shows that neither moral progressiveness nor aversion to public interference of religious orthodoxy underlies the new-rightist vote. Support for freedom of speech proves relevant, but, in accordance with literature on the new right’s electoral strategy and with theorising on framing, this only leads towards the new right among those who are ethnocentric. These findings are discussed in the light of electoral competition, and questions for further research are formulated.