When new public management fails: Infrastructure public–private partnerships and political constraints in developing and transitional economies

Amidst calls for more scrutiny of the failure of infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs), uncertainty about how we can measure failure remains, and little systematic evidence illuminates its likelihood. Our mixed‐methods design explores the notion of failure and identifies the conditions under which it happens. The first phase of our research employs documentary analysis and semistructured expert interviews, and identifies project cancellation as capturing the most severe occurrences of failure. A second phase statistically analyzes a unique World Bank data set capturing the provisions of over 4,000 infrastructure PPPs launched between 1990 and 2015 in 89 countries. We find robust evidence supporting the theoretical claim that PPPs are less likely to be canceled in countries with more veto points among their political institutions to restrain politicians from intervening in policy implementation. Cancellation is a rare, but valid indicator of failure, and the importance of veto players clarifies how political risk operates in this context.     

Cities and places in provincial policy agendas

This article uses a new dataset of coded Alberta Throne Speeches from 1906 to 2017 to identify patterns of provincial policy attention to place and urban place across policy issues and time. We discuss three main findings. First, provincial attention to place and urban place is influenced by policy domain: place‐based attention is generally absent in some policy domains, such as macroeconomic policy, and prevalent in others, such as health care. Second, place‐based attention is patterned over time, with a noticeable peak in the post‐war “province‐building” years and distinct troughs in other periods. Finally, we discuss the related but distinct patterns of attention to place and urban place across policy domains and time.     

Emotional Coregulation in Mexican-Origin Parent–Adolescent Dyads: Associations with Adolescent Mental Health

Research on the health benefits and consequences of close relationships has suggested the linkage in daily emotions (i.e., coregulation) between close partners is an important relationship dynamic. While the coupling of daily emotions among family members (parent–child and marital dyads) has been widely documented, research examining emotional coregulation among ethnic minority youth during adolescence, a period marked by heightened emotion and risk for psychopathology, remains an important area in need of exploration. This study examined correlates of emotional coregulation in a sample of Mexican-origin adolescents (M_age?=?15.02, SD?=?.83) and their parents (M_age?=?41.93, SD?=?6.70). Dyads reported on daily levels of distress and happiness for 14 consecutive days across two waves of data collection a year apart (n_wave1?=?428 dyads, n_wave2?=?336 dyads). Dyads who reported getting along were more likely to coregulate their daily happiness. Importantly, coregulation of distress was only present in older adolescents who reported above average levels of internalizing symptoms. The results suggest coregulation of distress may shape or be shaped by poor mental health during the later years of adolescence, a time when youth may be establishing a degree of emotional autonomy from parents.

     

Auckland,New Zealand – fair game for central party politics

This paper explores the influence of central party politics in Auckland local government, in New Zealand’s largest city, following the 2010 amalgamation. Political parties have been an accepted and dominant presence in European representative democratic local government, throughout the 20^th century. Not so, however, in New Zealand and Australia, where citizens have ‘flocked to the banner “Keep Politics out of Local Government”. Our analysis of the self-declared party accreditation status of candidates and elected members demonstrates that political affiliation, at least in the main centre Auckland, is on the rise, counter to assumptions that New Zealand local government is largely removed from central politics.