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.     

The Five Cs Model of Positive Youth Development: A Longitudinal Analysis of Confirmatory Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance

The understanding of positive development across adolescence rests on having a valid and equivalent measure of this construct across the breadth of this period of life. Does the Positive Youth Development (PYD) construct based on the Five Cs model have satisfactory psychometric properties for such longitudinal measurement invariance? Using longitudinal data derived from the 4-H Study of PYD, we assessed 920 youth (61.6% female) from a racially and ethically diverse sample (67.3% European American) who participated in three waves (Grades 8–10) of data collection. Building on prior findings that the Five Cs (i.e., Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, and Caring) model of PYD was a robust measure that could be assessed comparably during early adolescence, we tested a hierarchy of second-order confirmatory factor analysis models to assess the extent to which PYD can be measured equivalently across middle adolescence. Evidence was found for strict measurement invariance across three measurement occasions, including equivalence of first-order and second-order factor loadings, equality of intercepts of observed variables, and equality of item uniqueness and disturbances of the first-order factors. These results suggest that PYD can be measured in the same way across measurement occasions, a prerequisite for the study of development. Implications for research and application of being able to measure PYD equivalently across adolescence are discussed.     

Contingent and Non-Contingent Working in Local Government: Contrasting Psychological Contracts

Given that the contingent worker is likely to be a familiar presence in the public service workplace of the future, this paper explores the consequences of contingent work arrangements on the attitudes and behaviour of employees using the psychological contract as a framework for analysis. Drawing upon survey evidence from a sample of permanent, fixed term and temporary staff employed in a British local authority, our results suggest that contract status plays an important role in how individuals view the exchange relationship with their employer and how they respond to the inducements received from that relationship. Specifically, contingent employees are less committed to the organization and engage in organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) to a lesser degree than their permanent counterparts. However, contrary to our hypothesis, the relationship between the inducements provided by the employer and OCB is stronger for contingent employees. Such findings have implications for the treatment of contingent and non-contingent employees in the public services.     

The study of federalism, 1960–99: A content review of several leading Canadian academic journals

Abstract: A number of observers have suggested that there is a decline in the level of “traditional” federalism research undertaken in Canada. They contend that scholarly interest has shifted away from areas like fiscal federalism and the division of powers to newer areas of interest like social movements, identity politics and citizenship issues. An interdisciplinary review of a number of Canadian journals reveals, however, that studies in traditional areas of federalism are not in decline and continue to dominate the field in English‐language federalism scholarship. At the same time, the authors did not find a robust literature on federalism‐related issues in French for the forty‐year period under review. Sommaire: Un certain nombre d'observateurs semblent indiquer que le niveau de la recherche entreprise au Canada sur le féléralisme « traditionnel » a baissé. Us prétendent que les intelleduels se sont détournés des domaines comme le fédéralisme fiscal et la répartition des compétences pour s'orienter vers de nouveaux centres d'intérêt comme les mouvements sociaux, la politique identitaire et les questions relatives à la citoyenneté. Une étude interdisciplinaire d'un grand nombre de revues canadiennes révèle cependant que les études portant sur les secteurs traditionnels du fédéralisme ne sont pas en baisse et que ces secteurs continuent à faire l'objet de la majorité des bourses d'études en langue anglaise sur le fédéralisme. Par contre, nous n'avons pas parallèlement trouvé d'études importantes en langue française sur les questions liées au fédéralisme au cours de la période de 40 ans que nous avons étudiée.     

Corporatisation and Community Service Obligations: Are They Incompatible?

This article asks whether corporatisation is compatible with the notion of community service obligations (CSOs). Corporatisation provides only a minimal framework for the identification of social objectives as CSOs and their funding by government from budget. The community has certain expectations of utilities in relation to CSOs, which may be different from expectations held by governments. Models of corporatisation which have two shareholding ministers with competing objectives introduce a further potential source of conflict.
Historically, the characteristics of a CSO are ambiguous (IC 1991:81) and this presents difficulty in their costing and identification. Governments and corporatised entities have attempted to clarify the issues of definition, identification and costing. These and other issues such as transparency, budget funding, coverage, jurisdiction, public interest and community spirit are discussed in the context of corporatised government electricity utilities.     

Beyond the Overall Balance: The Significance of Particular Tasks and Procedures for Perceptions of Fairness in Distributions of Household Work

This paper outlines an approach to perceptions of fairness that extends beyond the usual emphasis on the overall balance of what each person does. The emphasis falls instead on perceptions of fairness associated with particular tasks and particular procedures (ways of achieving a task division or a redistribution of tasks). The approach is illustrated by the summarized results of a series of studies. Results are discussed in terms of research questions that might now be taken further and in terms of expectations that appear to underlie perceptions of fairness: in particular, ideas about the ownership of tasks and about behaviors appropriate in family relationships.