Assessing the Accuracy of Life Event Calendar Data in an Offender Sample

Criminologists are increasingly interested in the effects of life-course dynamics on criminological development. However, detailed longitudinal data are difficult to obtain and possibly confounded due to recall errors. Life Event Calendars (LECs) are designed to reduce recall errors and are increasingly used as a method for obtaining valid retrospective data in criminological studies. Yet few studies exist that assess the accuracy of LEC data in offender samples. This study aims to fill this void. We compare data regarding the prevalence and timing of marriage, divorce, and childbirth obtained through an LEC to official registry data in a sample of convicted offenders. We examine whether the accuracy of the data vary by event or respondent specific characteristics. We conclude that the LEC data are quite accurate regarding the prevalence of marriage, divorce, and childbirth. The data are less accurate regarding the timing of these life events.     

Blunt force regulation and bureaucratic control: Understanding China's war on pollution

In the past decade, China has increasingly resorted to top‐down, “blunt force” solutions to environmental problems; officials forcibly shutter or destroy factories to reduce pollution, at immense cost to local growth and employment. Why would a high capacity state like China resort to such a costly method of pollution control? I argue that blunt force enforcement is targeted at overcoming principal–agent problems in the bureaucracy. When institutions are too weak to hold bureaucrats accountable, political leaders increase oversight by drastically reducing the number of steps and resources required to produce a regulatory outcome—resulting in blunt force measures. I illustrate this logic through case studies from China's multiyear war on pollution. Using original data on blunt force measures, I then show how localities with lower bureaucratic compliance face greater blunt force pollution enforcement. These findings reveal that when bureaucratic accountability is weak, states pay a very high cost for cleaner air.     

Performance regulation in a networked healthcare system: From cosmetic to institutionalized compliance

This article studies the role of a public regulator in managing the performance of healthcare professionals. It combines a networked governance perspective with responsive regulation theory to show the mechanisms that have added to significant changes in medical cost management in the Netherlands. In a five-year period, hospital practices transitioned from cosmetic compliance with performance regulation and strategic upcoding to institutionalized compliance more in line with regulatory goals. The article demonstrates how policy changes transformed incentive structures, introduced new forms of accountability, and added actors to the network with technocratic disciplining tasks. The networked character of performance regulation offered opportunities for a responsive, non-coercive regulatory strategy that engaged various actors in a regulatory conversation about strategic coding. Responsive regulation can reduce strategic responses to performance regulation and manage the gap between administrative and clinical logics. The case study contributes to our understanding of the effectiveness of responsive, non-punitive regulation in networked settings.     

Managing Value Conflicts in Public Innovation: Ostrich,Chameleon, and Dolphin Strategies

ABSTRACT

This paper develops a theoretical understanding of the management of value conflicts in public innovation. Drawing from the literatures on public values and on public innovation, various strategic approaches to managing conflict are discussed, conceptualized, and applied to two cases. The paper identifies three basic approaches for dealing with value conflicts: avoidance (ostrich strategy), coping (chameleon strategy) and learning (dolphin strategy). This model is used to analyze two technological innovation processes in the Netherlands, showing its value for empirical research. The paper concludes that continued high-level deliberation can impede innovation processes while local experimenting may support learning about value conflicts.     

Warwick Conference on Humanitarianism

This article reports on the Warwick Conference on Humanitarianism, where practitioners and academics shared their experiences of the problems and limitations of humanitarianism, and how they dealt with them.     

Comparing the Life-Cycle Costs of New Construction and Acquisition-Rehab of Affordable Multifamily Rental Housing

The cost of producing multifamily affordable housing may differ based on development type. Past attempts to compare the costs of producing multifamily housing through new construction or acquisition-rehab have been limited by an inability to adjust for variations in unit quality among different projects. The authors overcome this challenge by estimating the costs of developing and maintaining a property over a 50-year life cycle. Applying this approach to a convenience sample of 269 properties, the authors find new construction associated with life-cycle costs that are 25% to 45% higher than those of acquisition-rehab.     

More than a Friendly Visit: A New Strategy for Improving Local Governing Capacity

This article argues that in order to take into account changes in the governance era, performance assessment at the local level may well have to be refocused. Researchers will have to reconsider their strategies. They should consider the governance character of public administration and pay attention to co-operative settings and democratic aspects. In addition, researchers should think not just about gathering facts about the performance of local government, they should also try to contribute to a learning process. This paper presents a new strategy for assessing the capacity that local governments have to get things done. This strategy acknowledges the governance context of local authorities and casts a keen eye on the way local governments fulfil their functions and aim to involve various stakeholders. The evaluation of this assessment strategy shows its relevance, although minor improvements could be made.     

Foreign policy options for a new South Africa

Progress towards the creation of a post‐apartheid South Africa raises questions about future foreign policy. In this article a framework for analysis and forecasting is developed. The basic assumption is that a future foreign policy will be driven by the kind of regime which will emerge in a New South Africa. Such a regime will have to develop foreign policy orientations to deal with its regional and global environments and the manifestation of a variety of foreign policy issues in these environments.

A semi‐democracy is foreseen for a New South Africa which will adopt a regional leadership oreitnation towards its neighbours and a consumer orientation towards the global community. The framework makes provision for regime improvements which will lead to fuller international participation or regime decline which will result in international marginalisation.     

Comparable worth in the united states legal and administrative developments in the 1980's

During the 1980's, the concept of comparable worth has become closely identified with women's rights and sex discrimination concerns, and is now recognized by advocates and critics alike as one of the major affirmative action issues of the decade. Simply put, comparable worth refers to the idea of equal pay for dissimilar jobs of equal value to an organization.

According to comparable worth proponents, jobs traditionally associated with women have been systematically undervalued in the marketplace. The net result is a disparity in pay for women when compared with that for jobs largely held by men. It is also argued that this compensatory bias against women can be revealed and eliminated by assessing the economic value of disparate occupations through the use of objective standards of evaluation. For example, although secretarial and janitorial jobs are dissimilar in function, it is argued that pay equity can be achieved by assessing such factors as working conditions and the amount of training, responsibility and effort required for each job.

Critics of comparable worth take strong exception to these assertions. They argue that the wage differential between men and women is more the result of career choice and market forces than sex discrimination. Moreover, they contend that employers must often pay a higher wage for some occupations than others in order to remain competitive and to attract the best qualified personnel. Finally, critics of comparable worth maintain that job evaluation systems are inherently subjective. Therefore, any comparison of dissimilar jobs is at best arbitrary.

These conflicting points of view have formed the crux of the comparable worth debate during the past 10 years. The purpose of this review is to assess some of the outcomes and trends established by this debate as well as what those trends appear to indicate for the coming decade. To do so, we shall examine the comparable worth issue from legal, legislative and administrative perspectives.