Distributional impact assessments and the record of the Coalition Government: the tyranny of numbers without interpretation

This paper reflects upon the gross discrepancies between the reassurances given in 2010 by the 2010-2015 UK Coalition Government that their budget and welfare cuts would fall ‘fairly’ across the income spectrum, and the reality of what had happened by the end of that government. It asks how the ‘distributional impact assessment’ provided with the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review could have been so wrong. In seeking to answer this question, types of systematic bias are considered along with a discussion of ‘marginality’ in assessments of impact. Drawing upon the role of ‘power’ in impact assessment, it traces the ways in which methodological assumptions can eclipse the real life effects of policies behind ‘the average’ as well as by the unfair selection of the ‘unit-of-analysis’.     

Cultural Stressors and Mental Health Symptoms Among Mexican Americans: A Prospective Study Examining the Impact of the Family and Neighborhood Context

Studies of stress consistently have linked individuals’ experiences of stress to maladjustment, but limited attention has been given to cultural stressors commonly experienced by minority individuals. To address this, the current study examined the links between cultural stressors and prospective changes in mental health symptoms in a sample of 710 (49 % female) Mexican American youth. In addition, the moderating role of both family and neighborhood cohesion was examined. In-home interviews were completed with youth, mothers (required) and fathers (optional) to collect data on youth’s experiences of cultural stressors (discrimination and language hassles) and internalizing/externalizing behavior, and mothers’ report of family cohesion and mothers’ and fathers’ report of neighborhood cohesion. Analyses revealed that youth’s experiences of discrimination and language hassles at 5th grade were related positively to increases in internalizing symptoms at 7th grade. Additionally, youths who reported higher levels of language hassles in 5th grade experienced increases in externalizing symptoms across the 2-year span. Both family and neighborhood cohesion emerged as significant moderating factors but their impact was conditional on youth’s gender and nativity. Limitations and future implications are discussed.     

Strategies for Improving Measurement Models for Secondary Data in Public Administration Research: Illustrations from the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey

This article builds on Fernandez et al.'s 2015 review of Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) research by focusing on two unexplored areas: measurement models and measurement quality. Employing the notion of an auxiliary measurement theory as an organizing framework, the author assesses the use of FEVS survey items to operationalize theoretical constructs and procedures in order to establish their psychometric quality. Results indicate that there is considerable variability in how FEVS items have been used to measure theoretical constructs, which is expressed as high levels of overlap across FEVS‐derived scales. Inconsistency in the assessment of measurement quality is evident as well, with a bias toward convergent validity. Three cautionary tales are presented to demonstrate the fragility of FEVS data when used with a compromised auxiliary measurement theory. The article concludes with recommendations for future FEVS studies.     

Meeting the Challenges of Industrial Restructuring: Labor Reform and Enforcement in Latin America

Despite a strengthening of collective labor rights in Latin America over the last 15 years, most labor movements in the region have lost power because neither the content nor the enforcement mechanisms associated with the labor reforms fully took into consideration the challenges presented by economic restructuring. Reforms facilitating union formation did not strengthen unions but instead increased union fragmentation. Collective bargaining structures did not respond to the exigencies of international outsourcing; and the initial round of reforms in the 1990s did not contemplate the need to strengthen labor law enforcement mechanisms at a time when heightened international competition created a need for greater state vigilance of labor standards. Recent reforms or proposed reforms hold more promise for labor, but truly union‐friendly labor relations regimes require deeper changes. A review of several Latin American cases is followed by a closer examination of Brazil and El Salvador.     

Deciding to Keep Peace: An Analysis of International Influences on the Establishment of Third-Party Peacekeeping Missions

Since the end of World War II, and particularly since the end of the Cold War, there has been an expansion in the number of third-party peacekeeping missions established throughout the world. Most of the expansion in peacekeeping missions in the past decade or so has occurred in states experiencing intrastate or civil conflicts. The questions addressed in this study are under what conditions do third-party actors either decide to establish or decide not to establish peacekeeping missions in intrastate disputes, and specifically, what effect do international-level factors have on the likelihood that third-party peacekeeping personnel will be deployed in an intrastate dispute? The previous literature on third-party peacekeeping and interventions is used to derive a set of theoretical arguments and hypotheses regarding the establishment of peacekeeping missions by third-party actors (the United Nations, regional organizations, and ad hoc groups of states) during the post-World War II period. Specifically, I argue that several factors originating at the level of the international system influence the occurrence of third-party peacekeeping missions. The results of statistical analyses of the hypotheses largely support the notion that a set of international-level factors significantly influences the decisions of third-party actors to establish or not establish third-party peacekeeping missions, that international-level factors are more important than state-level factors, that these factors often have different effects on the likelihood of different types of third-party peacekeeping.