A Cross-National Comparison of the Internal Effects of Participation in Voluntary Organizations

This article draws on two recent and largely untapped sources of data to test empirically the Tocquevillian argument about the impact of involvement in civic organizations on individual attitudes and behaviors. Our analysis is based on two related studies – the European Social Survey (ESS) and the US 'Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy' (CID) survey – that incorporate innovative and detailed measures about respondents' involvement in voluntary associations in nineteen European countries and in the United States. These surveys provide us not only with rich individual-level data within a cross-national comparison, but they also allow us to develop and test a new measure of civic involvement that distinguishes between different levels of participation. After employing our 'civic involvement index' in pooled and individual country analyses, we find general support for the Tocquevillian argument. On average, those persons with greater levels of involvement in voluntary organizations also engage in more political acts, have higher life satisfaction and are by and large more trusting of others than those who do not. These findings highlight the general importance of actual involvement as opposed to nominal membership.     

A Person-Centered Analysis of Risk Factors that Compromise Wellbeing in Emerging Adulthood

The transition to adulthood is a major life course transition that can pose risk to wellbeing. Research is needed to identify patterns of risk for compromised wellbeing, in order to best identify supports for individuals during this potentially vulnerable transition. The purpose of this study was to identify profiles of risk in an emerging adulthood sample, and to relate these profiles to mental health and subjective and academic wellbeing. Undergraduate emerging adults (N?=?903, 82?% female), aged 18–25 years (M?=?21.14, SD?=?1.75), completed a series of questionnaires about risk factors, mental health, and academic variables. Results from a latent profile analysis identified four distinct risk profiles: Low Risk (76?%), Low Social Support Risk (4?%), Financial Risk (11?%), and Multiple Risk (8?%). The risk profiles were subsequently related to mental health and subjective and academic wellbeing outcomes, using a pseudo-class draws approach. Analyses indicated that the risk-pattern profiles differed in several ways across outcomes. Implications for targeted interventions are discussed.     

Amending the Youth Criminal Justice Act, 2007–2012: dynamics and contingencies of a ‘transforming Canada’ agenda

This paper addresses the Conservative Party of Canada's three-phase effort (2007–2012) to amend the Youth Criminal Justice Act to prioritise public protection, accountability and victims' rights over prevention and rehabilitation. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and criminology and critical policy scholarship, the paper situates this tough-on-crime initiative in relation to a US-led punitive turn that Canada is belatedly catching-up on, positions this catch-up effort in relation to the Conservative's larger transforming Canada agenda, and explores cultural, institutional and political contingencies salient to its impacts on Canadian law and society.     

New Unionism? Teacher Unions,Social Partnership and School Governance in England and Wales

Abstract

In the post-war period teacher unions in England and Wales have experienced considerable turbulence regarding their participation in the structures of system governance. Participation in governance had traditionally been conducted through the processes of collective bargaining until the abolition of national negotiating rights in 1987. After an extended period of exclusion from governance networks this situation was reversed in 2003 following the establishment of a ‘social partnership’ between employers and education unions. This article draws on data from the Economic and Social Research Council funded project ‘Workforce remodelling, teacher trade unions and school-based industrial relations’ to assess the significance of the social partnership for system governance. It combines empirical data from England and Wales with research frameworks drawing on teacher union research in the USA to contrast social partnership with collective bargaining and to assess whether social partnership working represented a genuinely new approach to governance and, in turn, a form of ‘new unionism’.     

Testing a Financial Incentive to Promote Re‐employment among Displaced Workers: The Canadian Earnings Supplement Project (ESP)

This article presents findings from a randomized experiment conducted in four Canadian provinces to measure the effects of a generous financial incentive that was designed to promote rapid re‐employment among workers who were displaced from their jobs by changing economic conditions. The incentive tested was an earnings supplement which, for as long as 2 years and as much as $250 weekly, would replace 75 percent of the earnings loss incurred by displaced workers who took a new lower‐paying full‐time job within six months of receiving a supplement offer. Findings from the experiment indicate that although persons offered the supplement understood its terms and conditions, only 2 out of 10 actually received supplement payments. Furthermore, the supplement offer had little effect on job‐search behavior, employment prospects, or receipt of unemployment insurance. Nevertheless, persons who received supplement payments benefited from them substantially. On average, they received payments for 64 weeks, totaling $8,705. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Does supported employment work?

Providing employment‐related services, including supported employment through job coaches, has been a priority in federal policy since the enactment of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act in 1984. We take advantage of a unique panel data set of all clients served by the South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs between 1999 and 2005 to investigate whether job coaching leads to stable employment in community settings. The data contain information on individual characteristics, such as IQ and the presence of emotional and behavioral problems, that are likely to affect both employment propensity and likelihood of receiving job coaching. Our results show that unobserved individual characteristics and endogeneity strongly bias naive estimates of the effects of job coaching. However, even after correcting for these biases, an economically and statistically significant treatment effect remains. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The unloved relationship? Dynamic capabilities and political‐market strategy: a research agenda

• In this developmental article, the authors outline a five‐stage system to classify levels of relationship engagement (LRE) between firms and government actors when developing their political‐market strategies (PMS) as part of a wider stakeholder management programme. In an attempt to develop the research agenda in this increasingly important area, the authors propose a set of hypotheses to drive forward the research agenda. Overall, we argue that firms can develop PMS into a dynamic capability but further research is needed to determine whether or not the capability developed is first or second order (i.e. contributing to other sources of competitive advantage).

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of compensation in siting hazardous facilities

Empirical evidence indicates that compensation can prove effective in gaining public acceptance for siting facilities on the benign end of the spectrum (e.g., landfills, prisons), but is subject to serious limitations when it comes to facilities that the public regards as particularly risky or of questionable legitimacy such as nuclear waste repositories. These facilities require creative mitigation measures such as independent inspections of the facility and local shutdown power. Even then they may be viewed as too risky to be acceptable with or without compensation. This article proposes a two-stage siting process which recognizes the importance of regulations and safety standards (Stage 1) while employing a voluntary process with compensation to address concerns with equity and efficiency (Stage 2).     

Reducing women's poverty by shifting social security benefits from retired couples to widows

This article examines proposals to transfer Social Security benefits from married couples to surviving widows in terms of effects on poverty rates, trust fund expenditures, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) expenditures. Because widows are much more likely to be living in poverty than older married women, it makes sense to consider Social Security benefits in a lifetime framework and transfer some benefits from the time both the husband and wife are alive to the time when there is only one survivor, usually the wife. Because of expected life span and age differences of marital partners, a $1 reduction of the couple's benefit can finance a $1.45 increase in the widow's benefit. The 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) matched to the Social Security Administration's benefit records are the basis for the estimates.