Implementing ILO child labour convention 182: lessons from the gold-mining sector in Burkina Faso

This article explores the implementation of Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour in the mining sector in Burkina Faso. It highlights key lessons from a project funded by DFID and Save the Children UK and implemented by COBUFADE, a Burkinabe NGO. Children were found to be important and capable actors in the fight against child labour, notably in research and lobbying, and the article explores the role that civil society can play in taking local voices to national policy makers and in linking the different actors implicated in Convention 182.     

The Swedish Legal Services Policy Remix: The Shift from Public Legal Aid to Private Legal Expense Insurance

A number of governments in the 1960s and 1970s pursued the goal of equal access to legal services by establishing publicly funded legal aid schemes. Some societies also promoted Legal Expense Insurance (LEI) to fill some of the gaps in legal aid. The recent trend to small government means many societies are keen to experiment further with legal services policy. This article examines one such experiment in Sweden where reforms included major cuts to public legal aid and requiring most people to rely on private LEI. But how well does this policy mix promote equal access to legal services? And are there lessons for other societies? In this article I describe and assess the policy remix. I argue that the reforms are a bold policy experiment but that they had mixed and some undesirable consequences, and that there are few lessons for other societies.     

大学与创新：多样性和临界质量（critical mass）

创新指以新的方式应用知识,以解决实际问题。与大学相关的知识创新模式主要有三种,即传统模式、线性模式和互动模式。临界质量(criticalmass)是指为提供一个可实现充分互动的环境而进行的资源集中。而最明显的资源集中就是人员的集中。这适用于大学内的各个组织、作为一个整体的若干大学、大学所在的地区以及各大学的联合。促成资源集中的体制所实现的临界质量对创新具有深远的积极影响。在一个地区内,所有的智力资本都为临界质量服务。智力资本能够进一步吸引投资和服务。具有足够临界质量的大学能够积聚极其庞大的智力资本。临界质量既有其深度又有其广度,而广度才是创新的关键。多样性和拥有自主权的参与者之间的互动有助于创新,因此大学应保留学术价值、保持传统角色。教学和研究是大学的主要任务,是大学推动创新的主要途径。我们应该将提高学生创新才能战略纳入大学教育的总体任务中。对大学而言,人员的流动可能比思想的交流更为重要。在大学创新与研究机构的关系方面,大学除了让学生体验创新以外,还应考虑其多样性和临界质量战略的重要性,在拓宽其学科范围的过程中提供一些有价值的东西。     

Not everyone strongly supports the death penalty: Assessing weakly-held attitudes about capital punishment

Polls exploring attitudes toward the death penalty typically impose a simple, dichotomous response structure: respondents are asked whether or not they support or oppose capital punishment. This polling strategy deprives respondents of expressing an indication of the strength of their opinions. When asked whether they support (or oppose) the death penalty “strongly” or “not strongly,” significant proportions of respondents select the latter category. This suggests that many proponents and opponents of the death penalty have weakly-held views regarding the issue. These respondents are of great interest because they are the individuals most likely to change their views. This article analyzes responses to two national surveys in order to explore the variables that differentiate respondents with strongly-held and weakly-held views. A theoretical account is offered to explain why some people have weakly-held views on this critical social issue.     

Citizen assessment of local criminal courts: Does fairness matter?

Public opinion about local court systems is an important area of scholarly inquiry that has received little empirical attention. This study utilized a survey implemented by the National Center for State Courts to examine the effect of perceptions of fairness (egalitarian and discriminatory) on respondent satisfaction with local court handling of criminal cases (violent criminal, drug, and juvenile delinquency). Findings from OLS regression analyses indicated that perception of both egalitarian and discriminatory fairness had an impact on respondent reported satisfaction with local court handling of criminal cases. The results of the analyses also suggested that instrumental concerns, in the context of perceptions that courts resolve cases in a timely manner, had a significant impact on public assessment of local criminal courts. By contrast, prior experiences with local courts and respondent demographic factors had little direct influence on respondent satisfaction with local criminal court handling of cases. Direction for future research and implications of the findings are discussed.     

Routine Activities and Deviant Behaviors: American, Dutch, Hungarian, and Swiss Youth

The current investigation examined cross-national similarities and differences in routine activities, measures of deviance, and their relationship in representative samples of 7,000 adolescents aged 1519 years (mean age: 17.5 years) from Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. For the majority of youth, most of their time was spent in solitary activities, followed by peer activities, community/sports activities, and family activities; Hungarian youth reported spending a much greater amount of time with the family than adolescents from other countries, while Dutch youth spent far more time in solitary activities than their peers. Rates of total deviance were remarkably similar for American, Dutch, and Swiss youth; Hungarian youth reported substantially lower rates than all other adolescents. Finally, findings indicated that routine activities accounted for 18% for males and 16% for females of the variance explained in total deviance. Furthermore, with the exceptions of alcohol and drug use, country had very little or no explanatory power in deviance. The current study suggests that the utility and the explanatory power of the routine activities framework replicates across national boundaries.     

'Sir Douglas in Euroland'. Treasury officials and the European Union, 1977–2001

'… every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less …'
John Donne
The European Union (EU) is now, in the author's view, a pervasive part of the UK Treasury's culture, much more than is generally recognized. Drawing on personal experience as a Treasury official, the author describes the impact of the EU on the Department's culture, organization and work. Relations with other departments, finance ministries in other member states and the EU institutions are examined in order to demonstrate the depth and complexity of Treasury involvement in the EU. Key policies are discussed, to illustrate how Treasury culture has changed in recent decades.     

Are counter-terrorism strategies effective? The results of the Campbell systematic review on counter-terrorism evaluation research

The events of September 11th have led to massive increases in personal, commercial, and governmental expenditures on anti-terrorism strategies, as well as a proliferation of programs designed to fight terrorism. These increases in spending and program development have focused attention on the most significant and central policy question related to these interventions: Are these programs effective? To explore this question, this study reports the results of a Campbell Collaboration systematic review on evaluation research of counter-terrorism strategies. Not only did we discover an almost complete absence of evaluation research on counter-terrorism interventions, but from those evaluations that we could find, it appears that some interventions either did not achieve the outcomes sought or sometimes increased the likelihood of terrorism occurring. The findings dramatically emphasize the need for government leaders, policy makers, researchers, and funding agencies to support both outcome evaluations of these programs as well as efforts to develop an infrastructure to foster counter-terrorism evaluation research.     

Barriers in Screening Women for Domestic Violence: A Survey of Social Workers, Family Practitioners, and Obstetrician–Gynecologists

Domestic violence (DV) is a pervasive and serious threat to women's lives and well-being. Medical social workers, family practitioners, and obstetrician–gynecologists are in key positions to screen and offer help. Florida NASW members and board certified family practitioners and obstetrician–gynecologists were mailed a psychometrically tested scale. A total of 388 surveys were analyzed. Education (especially the number of in-service hours) and the presence of institutional supports, decreased barriers to screening, increased screening behaviors, and lead to increased victim identification. Only 20.8% of participants always or nearly always routinely screened for DV; 24.0% reported that routine screening did not apply to their role. Self-Efficacy was the strongest predictor of screening behavior with Fear of Offending, Safety Concerns, CEUs/CMEs, and in-service hours contributing approximately equally to the prediction of screening behavior.