Does involuntary outpatient commitment lead to more intensive treatment?

Studies of involuntary outpatient commitment (OPC) among persons with severe mental illness have concluded that OPC is only effective in improving treatment outcomes when it is sustained for 6 months or longer and is combined with frequent outpatient services. This article explores factors that influence the delivery of outpatient services to subjects in a randomized trial of OPC and finds 2 general patterns. Outpatient visits were more frequent among all subjects with apparent clinical need, regardless of study assignment, and among subjects whose OPC was sustained beyond an initial court order. These results suggest that, in practice, sustained OPC represents a consensual agreement between clinicians and the court to more intensively address the complex needs of persons with severe and persistent mental illness.     

A New Dynamism in World Politics: Increasingly Skillful Individuals?

Our inquiry is the first phase of a project designed to explore systematically whether individuals are becoming more equipped to play a central role in world affairs. It hypothesizes that individuals have undergone a skill revolution, leading them to be more analytically competent, emotionally capable, and politically effective in assessing events, developing alternatives, and executing effective political action. The first phase is confined to the skills of elites: we tested the predicted generational changes by analyzing the skills of three types of individuals—elected officials in the U.S. Congress, witnesses at congressional hearings, and contributors to the daily press in three countries—in two widely separated epochs as they evaluated events across three issue areas—foreign affairs, international trade, and human rights. In doing so we randomly selected nearly one thousand paragraph-sized statements and coded them according to the methodology prescribed by the Integrative Complexity Coding Manual. All in all, our findings supported the hypothesis: the skill level of the sampled individuals was found to have increased over several generations by a statistically significant (P < .001) average greater than 10 percent. Each issue area also showed gains in the same direction between the two epochs and across all types of elites; and all of these results also met the 95 percent confidence level for statistical significance. Inasmuch as this finding does not negate the possibility of a long-term trend toward more capable publics, it points to the need for further research into the dynamics whereby world politics may become increasingly sensitive to demands at the micro level.     

Institutionalizing Legal Consciousness: Regulation and the Embedding of Market Participants in the Securities Industry in Ghana and Fiji

How do differences in the implementation of regulation impact market behavior? I propose a theoretical framework to understand this impact as part of the process of embedding market participants through the institutionalization of legal consciousness within a field of action. I use this framework to understand the impact of the difference in the implementation of securities regulation in Ghana and Fiji. In Fiji, where the regulatory agency is more present and process‐oriented, brokers operate with a greater orientation toward formal rules. In Ghana, where the regulatory agency is distant and auditing, brokers rely on explicit enforcement of floor‐based norms. Conceiving of legal consciousness as an emergent feature of a field of social action advances the understanding of how legality is institutionalized, since the emergent structure shapes the orientations, behavior, and relations of actors within the field.     

Encouraging Tax Compliance With Positive Incentives: A Conceptual Framework and Research Directions*

Drawing on learning and social psychological research, we identify the processes by which positive incentives induce compliance with regulatory laws, using tax as a specific example. We evaluate the likely effects of various positive incentives on four different dimensions of compliance decisions: instrumental consequences, normative considerations, internalized motivation, and allegiance to authority. Linking incentives specifically to compliant behavior invokes a cost/benefit analysis, lowers intrinsic motivation and allegiance to authority, and requires authorities to monitor citizens and to distinguish between compliant and noncompliant behaviors. The alternative is to present the incentives as an attempt by the enforcement authorities to cooperate with the citizens. This method is less likely to invoke cost/benefit calculations; requires less intervention by authorities; and increases intrinsic motivation, consideration of normative issues, and allegiance to authorities. Prior research suggests that respectful treatment and praise may be more effective incentives for inducing long-lasting compliance than are materialistic incentives because people have a strong tendency to reciprocate actions they receive from authorities. Our analysis leads to proposals for program implementation and evaluation and raises some theoretical questions that need additional research.