Community services for abused women: A review of perceived usefulness and efficacy

This review of 12 studies examines both the types of community and professional services that abused women most frequently contact, and how useful and effective the women perceive those services to be. These studies show that police, social service agencies, clergy, crisis lines, physicians, psychotherapists, women's groups, and lawyers are the sources of assistance abused women most frequently contact. However, the studies reveal that some of these services are not necessarily perceived as very useful or effective. Women tend to contact different services depending on the type of abuse suffered. Abused women report that crisis lines, women's groups, social workers, psychotherapists, and physicians are helpful most of the time for all types of abuse, and that police officers, lawyers, and clergy are not helpful in most types of abuse. Results of this review suggest the need for education of professionals and community service providers in understanding needs of abused women.     

Australian Public Administration in 1997

This is the third in the AJPA s resumed series of administrative chronicles. Earlier administrative chronicles (AJPA 55(1) 1996 and 56(1) 1997) by Jenny Stewart and Scott Prasser have focused on the general principles of administrative change at the Commonwealth and state levels. Judith Homeshaw reviews the year 1997 by evaluating the developments since the milestone machinery of government reforms of 1987. She then reviews the prospects for further reform in New South Wales and Tasmania.     

MEDIATOR STRATEGIES FOR LAWYERS

This article explores the use of a four-way conference by attorneys to effect settlement. The author describes the process, analyzes factors leading to success, and gives a case example.     

Freedom of Speech in Union Representation Elections: Employer Campaigning and Employee Response

In 1977 the National Labor Relations Board announced that it would no longer probe the truth or falsity of statements made in the course of representation campaigns. This decision, Shopping Kart Ford Market, overruled longstanding Board policy and was itself overruled the following year. Now, in August of 1982, the Board has again made a commitment to nonprobing and has reinstated the Shopping Kart standard (Midland National Life Insurance Co.,___ N.L.R.B.____, 110 L.R.R.M. 1489 (1982)). Such seesawing of Board positions suggests the difficulty of attempting to protect freedom of speech while simultaneously supporting other national labor policy goals, including employee freedom of choice and the integrity of representation elections. Critical to determining the appropriate standard for campaign speech is an understanding of how employees respond to misrepresentations or coercion in an employer's campaign rhetoric. This paper investigates the relationship between employer campaigning and employee response. Both employer and labor organization will have incentives to prevent coercive or misrepresentative speech at certain levels of violation severity. But in an intermediate range of speech in which that is not the case, the Board has a unique role to play in protecting the rights of individual employees and the public interest in the integrity of elections.     

Authority in Arctic governance: changing spheres of authority in Greenlandic offshore oil and gas developments

The Arctic has rapidly transformed from a “frozen desert” into a theater for high-level politics. Climate change and socioeconomic interdependencies bring the World more and more to the Arctic and vice versa. Increased geological knowledge, new technologies, and high-energy prices make it possible to develop oil and gas resources in the Arctic; however, the effectiveness of oil spill response techniques remains a key concern. To understand oil and gas exploration in the Arctic governance setting, and especially the authority of Greenland, we combine a multi-level governance framework with the concept sphere of authority from post-international theory. The Arctic sphere of authority on oil and gas consists of many different governance arrangements, of which the most well-known governance arrangement is the Arctic Council. This paper focuses on the authority of Greenland in the changing oil and gas governance arrangements in the Arctic. Crucial is the changing Danish–Greenlandic relationship, in which the development of a Greenlandic oil and gas sector is seen as a tool to become financially independent. It can be concluded that the capacity of the Greenlandic government and civil society actors should be the primary guideline for the pace in which oil and gas activities are being developed. Taking this approach will ensure that the Greenland is retaining its central position and high degree of influence on the governance of oil and gas development in its country. Otherwise, it will lose influence and benefits will flow elsewhere.