The draw of home: How teachers' preferences for proximity disadvantage urban schools

This paper explores a little‐understood aspect of labor markets, their spatial geography. Using data from New York State, we find teacher labor markets to be geographically very small. Teachers express preferences to teach close to where they grew up and, controlling for proximity, they prefer areas with characteristics similar to their hometown. We discuss implications of these preferences for the successful recruitment of teachers, including the potential benefits of local recruiting and training. We also discuss implications for the modeling of teacher labor markets, including the possible biases that arise in estimates of compensating differentials when distance is omitted from the analyses. This study contributes to the literature on the geography of labor markets more generally by employing data on residential location during childhood instead of current residence, which may be endogenous to job choice. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

UNFCCC negotiations (pre-Kyoto to COP-9): what the process says about the politics of CDM-sinks

One of the most contentious issues in the negotiations aimed at operationalizing the Kyoto Protocol was the treatment of sinks and, particularly, the eligibility of sinks projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This paper attempts to analyse the politics underlying these negotiations, drawing on methods of process tracing, key informant interviews, negotiating texts and secondary literature. Tracing the sinks debate and highlighting key lessons about the nature of global environmental agreements and their institutional arrangements is the first step to recounting the history of the politics of one of the major contemporary international environmental debates. The paper shows that the Kyoto Protocol negotiations on sinks and CDM-sinks were multilaterally supported as a practical solution, but went ‘off track’ due to actors’ interests and tradeoffs. As regards future negotiations on forest sinks in developing countries under the framework of the UNFCCC, the paper argues that these are likely to be influenced by similar constraints, and also by the conservation and development agenda of its supporters; as well as the experience gathered on the CDM and the interests and concerns of developing countries. We broadly frame the paper within the literature on global environmental politics.

Soft Power and State–Firm Diplomacy: Congress and IT Corporate Activity in China

In today's globalized political economy, diplomacy between nation-states (state–state diplomacy) now exists alongside state–firm diplomacy, the negotiations between multinational corporations (MNCs) and the countries in which they do business. While the state must be committed to the interests of its MNCs in the interest of domestic state–firm diplomacy (maintaining a supportive business environment), it still has recourse to address failures in corporate diplomacy and to maintain the appearance of dominance on the world stage. This paper examined these strategies through a critical analysis of prepared testimony at the February 2006 congressional hearing regarding the controversial actions of four U.S. IT MNCs (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Cisco) operating in China. I conclude that when the government is constrained from using its hard power on its MNCs, soft power becomes its most effective tool. Image, suggestion, and appearance—soft power—can be considered more important than legislation itself—hard power—and perhaps even the currency of current state–firm relations.     

Joined‐Up for What? Response to Carey and Harris on Adaptive Collaboration

Carey and Harris present the concept of adaptive management as a practice for supporting effective collaboration, suggesting that performance information be used to modify actions. They observe that end‐outcome performance information is less useful because of long delays between actions and effects, and recommend instead that the performance information should concern the collaborative process itself. The New Zealand government has followed a similar path to the Australian journey described by Carey and Harris. First, New Zealand tried using end outcomes to drive collaboration. Then, New Zealand tried using process measures, but found that the resulting collaboration lacked purpose and urgency. More recently, New Zealand has found great success in using intermediate‐outcome measures to drive adaptive collaboration: measures with intrinsic value, but short delay between action and effect. We echo Carey and Harris’ call for adaptive collaboration, but write to suggest that intermediate outcomes, rather than process measures, may drive more purposive management.     

Penalizing women’s fear: intimate partner violence and parental alienation in Canadian child custody cases

ABSTRACT

This paper explores Canadian family law cases involving claims of parental alienation and of family violence from 2014–2018, reporting the data on these claims, their resolution, and their impacts upon custody and access. A close reading of those cases where both alienation and intimate partner violence claims are made reveals troubling patterns in how intimate partner violence is discounted in this context. We suggest that the rise of shared parenting as a dominant norm assists in understanding why alienation has achieved such unquestioned status, and call for greater focus on safety and women’s and children’s voices.     

Examining the Mediating Effect of Self-Efficacy on Approval of Aggression and Proactive Aggression

Proactive aggression (PA) is goal-directed, hostile social behavior that has been linked to detrimental outcomes. It has been theorized that adolescents who believe aggression is a normal and acceptable social response (approval of aggression) are more likely to show PA. Confidence in one’s ability to behave aggressively (self-efficacy about aggression) is understood to mediate this relationship. A mixed-gender sample of 860 Australian, 12–14 year old adolescents was used to investigate gender differences and the mediating effect of self-efficacy for aggression on the relationship between approval of aggression and PA. As hypothesized, approval of aggression, self-efficacy, and PA demonstrated significant positive relationships, with males also scoring significantly higher on these three variables than females. Furthermore, self-efficacy was found to significantly and partially mediate the relationship between approval of aggression and proactive aggression for both genders. Implications for the understanding and prevention of aggressive behavior in adolescents are discussed.     

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Detecting and Responding to Elder Mistreatment: Creating a University-Community Partnership

As the aging population grows, the problem of elder mistreatment is escalating. Cases of elder mistreatment are anticipated to increase further as the—baby boomers age and the number of elderly individuals living and receiving care at home increases (Stiegel 2006; Kennedy 2005; Meeks-Sjostrom 2004). While there has been increasing attention placed on understanding the dynamic of elder mistreatment, advancement of public policy and scholarly work has been hampered due to the fact that much of this work occurs in disciplinary silos. This paper spotlights one example in which university scholars from various disciplines partnered with social service providers, legal professionals, and healthcare educators in the community to enhance the development of a sustainable comprehensive elder justice network.     

Institutional vehicles for place-shaping in remote Australia

Some communities in remote Australia represent the most impoverished people in the country, with the problem especially acute amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. Effective remedial intervention is often undermined by the absence of democratically elected, local government institutions. Place-shaping as a developmental process enables local people to become agents of change, and thereby self-determine and shape their places for the future. This paper considers the different institutional structures which could underpin place-shaping in remote settlements. Drawing on a range of governance structures, an emphasis on less traditional entities and polity-forming bodies may better serve the interests of remote people.     

Asian Experiences

A personal view of East Asia, focusing on China, this article examines the efforts of Chinese and British officials in Hong Kong during the mid-1980s to develop practical and durable local solutions, since the survival of a vigorous Hong Kong was a mutual interest. Japan was a very different challenge and a hugely enjoyable posting. There was an ever wider and stronger bilateral agenda. Japan's recovery from recession was slow but demonstrated impressive inherent capability.