The long‐term effects of housing assistance on work and welfare

This paper examines the long‐term effect of project‐based housing assistance—public housing and private assisted housing—on work, earnings, and welfare receipt. We use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics–Assisted Housing Database to identify women ever living in project‐based assisted housing and to create comparison groups using propensity scores. Analyses show no evidence that moving into this type of assisted housing is associated with sustained reductions in employment rates, work hours, or earnings. Although welfare rates decline, they remain higher for assisted housing recipients compared with nonrecipients. Overall, these findings align with those of recent experimental and nonexperimental studies that include other forms of housing assistance and cover different time periods. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Public Management of Risk: The Case for Deliberating among Worldviews

This article argues that the public management of risk faces inherent "wicked issue" problems which are further accentuated in the context of the contemporary regulatory state. It is suggested that in order to overcome these limitations and inevitable trade-offs, there needs to be a more conscientious effort in setting out distinct components of any public management of risk, which should be considered and discussed through the lens of distinct worldviews contrasting interpretations and solutions, as well as potential "black-spots." It is only by acknowledging limitations of any one strategy and by considering plural solutions that there is less likelihood of disappointment when dealing with crises and disasters.     

Der Europ?ische Gerichtshof als Motor der Integration: Eine akteursbezogene Erkl?rung

For nearly five decades, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has developed a decisively pro-European case law and has become the ??engine of integration??. Institutional explanations shed light on the Court??s room for manoevre. They have to be complemented by actor-centered explanations that shed light on the judges?? motives of action. The explanation offered by the following paper is unfolded in two steps. In the first one, the article describes idiosyncrasies of the European law discourse that already shaped the judges before they were appointed. The analysis of the idiosyncrasies corresponds to a scepticism towards the idea of national sovereignty, a belief in the necessity of creative and idealist, law-augmenting judges and a dominance of output-oriented legitimization strategies. In a second step, the article shows that in the sociological sense the ECJ judges constitute a group. While the individual judges share an understanding of the aims and functions of European law, the group develops its own identity and grants status to those who perform successful actions with respect to the common integration agenda. This explanation is more realistic than ??rational choice?? explanations which point to the direct and personal benefits that judges derive from their pro-European case law.     

Partners in clime: Public‐private partnerships and British Columbia's capacity to pursue climate policy objectives

Governments are increasingly using public‐private partnerships (P3s) to draw the private sector into more active participation in infrastructure development. Climate action initiatives have not typically yielded profitable results for the private sector, and might therefore constrain the placing of conditions by governments on P3 arrangements. This article investigates a major P3 infrastructure project in British Columbia – the Canada Line extension to Vancouver's urban rail transit network – and concludes that the P3 organization did not constrain the government's capacity to pursue policy objectives for climate action. This counterintuitive result occurred because public sector leadership enabled an effective engagement with environmental policy priorities.     

South Africa: capital accumulation and violence

This article analyses the conditions of capital accumulation in South Africa, and seeks to explain the authoritarian and racially discriminatory features of the South African social structure in terms of (a) the specific historical processes of change (mercantile colonial conquest, primitive accumulation in mining and farming) and (b) the specific features of contemporary capitalism, notably the capital-intensive structure of industry. The authoritarianism embodied, for example, in the extra-economic coercion of black labour is seen as reflecting the circumstances of the struggle between capital and labour under conditions where capital-labour contradictions exist alongside the contradiction between South African capitalism and the ‘dependent’ societies it has preserved/recreated. The implications of this situation for strategies of socialist change are briefly evaluated.     

Conflict and cohesion in the British labour party and French communist party

The article examines the differing organisational structures and political cultures which provide the bases for cohesion in the PCF and British Labour Party. It argues that the electoral decline of the two parties since the late 1960s, and the rise of new political forces to challenge their primacy on the Left, have generated growing internal conflict in each case. Despite the greater pressures towards unity in the PCF such conflicts have threatened the existing bases of cohesion in both parties. The article concludes by considering the possibilities of surmounting the current problems.     

基础设施网络整合与跨区域治理——“哈大齐”工业走廊与松花江水污染案例分析

在全球化和信息化背景下,区域管理正在从传统的都市区(Metropolitan)管理过渡到巨型都市区(Megapolitan)或者城市走廊(City Corridor)的管理.从社会技术系统(Societal-techno System)视角,将区域管理作为一个涉众系统(Multi-actor System)考虑,研究物理系统与社会网络之间的交互作用,通过研究基础设施网络和跨区域治理关系,探索涉众系统情境下的政策制定模型.采用理论分析和案例研究相结合的方法,利用哈大齐工业走廊案例和松花江水污染案例进行了研究.结果发现,基础设施整合具有嵌入性特征;基础设施整合和专业化分工网络的形成,是跨区域治理的基础,所形成的城市网络,其核心功能体现在"分散的集中化"上,以保证有效的基础设施整合、分工网络的形成和提供高级生产者服务;在跨区域治理政策制定中,应该采用自上而下和自下而上组合的基于规则和过程的涉众情境下的政策制定过程,以实现社会、政府和市场之间的均衡.