"The Quest": The Strange Life of W. J. Garnett

This article investigates the career of a British diplomat, William Garnett, whose unusual life has until know been neglected by historians. Garnett's papers, held at Lancashire Record Office, are a particularly rich source for historians of British diplomacy, the British Foreign Office, and overseas travel in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Garnett was often outspoken and indiscreet in his private correspondence and his archive, on which this article draws, provides valuable insights into British representation and British policy in the countries to which he was posted in the period 1902-1919.     

The accountants are coming! How accountants can help policymakers in social program evaluation

Recently, numerous writers, accountants and non-accountants alike, have considered the relative merit of extending the scope of accountants' activities to include a role in social program evaluation. This paper attempts, firstly, to offer a framework which identifies various aspects of the evaluation process and, secondly, to highlight the contribution accountants can make within that framework. The paper consists of three sections. The first section considers activities which are typically performed by accountants in the profit-seeking sector of economy. The second section describes various facets of evaluation and the stages of program development, and attempts to integrate the two via a differential evaluation process. In the concluding section, it suggests that accountants do have a significant contribution to make to social program evaluation, and that this contribution is consonant with their role in profit-seeking enterprises. However, the paper also seeks to caution about the areas where accountants cannot and should not be expected to make contributions without specific training beyond their accounting expertise.     

Recidivism as a feedback process: An analytical model and empirical validation

A feedback model of the criminal justice system (CJS) incorporates the continuing input of people arrested for the first time (virgin arrests) and the recycling of individuals with prior arrests (recidivists). Such a model is needed to enable CJS planners to assess the impact of possible actions on the future arrests and system workloads. Using an empirically determined estimate of the number of virgin arrests in the U.S. as input to a feedback model of the CJS, recidivism parameters, probability of rearrest, and average time between arrests were estimated by matching the output of the model to the total arrests in the U.S. in the period 1960–70. The average deviation between the model output and total U.S. arrests was minimized at less than 4% when the probability of rearrest is equal to 0.875 and the average time between arrests equal to 1.1. years. The relative sensitivity of total arrests to changes in virgin arrests and the probability of rearrest are also presented.     

A lifetime of intimate partner violence: coping strategies of older women

Little is known about how older women cope in long-term abusive intimate relationships. Understanding their coping strategies may give insight into how to further support their effective coping efforts. Interviews were conducted with 38 women older than age 55 years. Grounded theory analysis demonstrated that women who remained in their abusive relationships employed mainly cognitive (emotion-focused) strategies to find meaning in a situation that was perceived as unchangeable. By reappraising themselves, their spouses, and their relationships they refocused energies in certain roles, set limits with their abusers, and reached out to others (friends, family, and community organizations). Some women appeared to thrive, others merely survived, but all maintained the appearance of conjugal unity.     

Federal Oversight, Local Control, and the Specter of "Resegregation" in Southern Schools

Analyzing data for the 100 largest districts in the South andBorder states, we ask whether there is evidence of "resegregation"of school districts and whether levels of segregation can belinked to judicial decisions. We distinguish segregation measuresbased on racial isolation from those based on racial imbalance.Only one measure of racial isolation suggests that districtsin these regions experienced resegregation between 1994 and2004, and changes in this measure appear to be driven largelyby the rising nonwhite percentage in the student populationrather than by district policies. Although we find no time trendin racial imbalance over this period, we find that variationsin racial imbalance across districts are nonetheless associatedwith judicial declarations of unitary status, suggesting thatsegregation in schools might have declined had it not been forthe actions of federal courts.     

Variations in Organizational Participation in Government: The Case of Denmark*

The main purpose of this article is to refine, modify, and elaborate some central propositions and assumptions in the scholarly debate on corporatism or corporate pluralism. The empirical base is a data archive containing information on practically all interest groups in Denmark. Hypotheses are formulated and tested concerning variations in direct representation and participation of interest groups in public policy-making across (a) types of interest groups, (b) organizational resources, (c) organizational structures, and{d) political issue areas. Contrary to prevailing propositions in the literature on corporatism, the Danish case shows that corporate structures and practices go hand in hand with a system of interest groups characterized by myriads of interest groups, and an overall, rather decentralized structure.