Defining the Client in the Public Sector: A Social-Exchange Perspective

Government reformers urge the adoption of a private-sector-style "customer focus," but critics see it as inappropriate to the public sector, in particular because it devalues citizenship. This article first argues that most public-sector organization-client interactions differ from the private-sector customer transaction and offers a typology of these interactions. But second, it proposes that the central feature of the customer model—the notion of exchange—can be broadened in a way that accentuates the importance of administrators' responsiveness to their publics. In a social-exchange perspective, government organizations need things from service recipients—such as cooperation and compliance—which are crucial for effective organizational performance; eliciting those things necessitates meeting not only people's material needs but also their symbolic and normative ones. Engaging in these different forms of exchange with clients is not necessarily inconsistent with an active citizenship model.     

Dealing with unfinished Indigenous business: The need for historical reflection

The commitment by both major political parties to the abolition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission symbolises profound problems that continue to bedevil movement towards meaningful reconciliation in Australia.
Unlike Australia, long-established treaties in Canada, the United States and New Zealand as well as greater theoretical clarity in identifying the process of colonization and its ill-effects on Indigenous peoples have provided stronger foundations for policy and more positive outcomes.
This article provides a theoretical framework for understanding the effects of colonisation in Australia, and policy prerequisites for redressing its damaging effects. These include a treaty, improved economic resources and stronger political, intellectual and property rights.     

Intuitive Ethics and Political Orientations: Testing Moral Foundations as a Theory of Political Ideology

Originally developed to explain cultural variation in moral judgments, moral foundations theory (MFT) has become widely adopted as a theory of political ideology. MFT posits that political attitudes are rooted in instinctual evaluations generated by innate psychological modules evolved to solve social dilemmas. If this is correct, moral foundations must be relatively stable dispositional traits, changes in moral foundations should systematically predict consequent changes in political orientations, and, at least in part, moral foundations must be heritable. We test these hypotheses and find substantial variability in individual‐level moral foundations across time, and little evidence that these changes account for changes in political attitudes. We also find little evidence that moral foundations are heritable. These findings raise questions about the future of MFT as a theory of ideology.     

The Human Dimensions of Pollution Policy Implementation: Air quality in rural China

The People's Republic of China is experiencing severe air pollution with very serious public health and economic consequences. Over the past decade, the Chinese government has sought to utilize bureaucratic, political, legal and educational vehicles to address these problems. This paper examines the ways in which those policy measures have been communicated to, understood by, and acted upon by the citizenry, drawing in important part on household and epidemiological surveys conducted in Anhui. Our study suggests that the central government's message has yet to be absorbed to the degree intended and then considers both why this has been the case and how the effectiveness of policy mechanisms might be enhanced.     

A Public Management Road Less Travelled: Clients as Co-producers of Public Services

Since the end of the 1970s, alternatives to internal government production of public services have assumed increasing prominence. The most important of these has been contracting out, but a less travelled road has been co-production: the involvement of citizens, volunteers and clients in producing public services as well as consuming them. This article focuses on client co-production. It argues that by ignoring this option, governments have closed off one important option in the repertoire of management approaches. It demonstrates the necessity of client co-production to service-delivery and legal compliance, and considers examples of government agencies which have sought to harness it in positive ways.     

Hubyar: Alevi Texts

Following their exposition of religious practice among the Hubyar Alevi of Central Turkey in a previous issue (British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 37(3) (December 2010), pp. 287–334.), the authors offer a selection of seven deyi? sung by cantors during Hubyar ceremonies, of which they are an indispensable part. This is the first time such Hubyar texts have been published in the West. They are largely specific to the Hubyar, but the notes review their context in both general Alevi and Sufi terms. The authors also attempt to explain the meaning of allusions which are often inaccessible to the non-specialist Western reader.