Joint (ad)ventures and (in)credible journeys evaluating innovation: asset-based community development in Ethiopia

Acknowledging debates about what constitutes effective and useful evaluation practice, this paper explores the particular challenges of evaluating an innovative approach to community development for multiple stakeholders with different interests and different levels of confidence in particular evaluation methodologies. The innovation – applying an Asset Based approach to Community Development (ABCD) in an Ethiopian context – presents further challenges to evaluation because of its open-ended nature and problems of attribution. On the other hand, the culture of risk-taking encouraged by the supporters of innovation provides the space for genuine lessons to be learnt about failure as well as success.     

The sick accused: forensic and emergency aspects in the courtroom

Evaluation of the fitness of an accused person to participate in legal proceedings is a classic forensic activity. Before the trial, the forensic expert will already assess any preexisting somatic and psychological illnesses and give a written expert opinion describing the condition of the accused at the time of the examination and assessing whether he is fit to stand trial. Nevertheless, decompensation or aggravation of a disease may occur--especially in stress situations as they are to be expected for an accused in the courtroom--so that apart from the current evaluation of the state of health of the accused, emergency treatment may occasionally become necessary in the courtroom. The article tries to answer the question how the expert can meet this challenge.     

Corporations,Sovereignty and the Religion of Neoliberalism

This article seeks to contribute to the thinking of forms of corporateness, sociality and authority in the context of, but also beyond, neoliberalism, the neoliberal state and neoliberal accounts of the corporation. It considers neoliberalism in relation to the theological genealogies of modernity, politics and economy, and the way in which neoliberalism itself functions as a secular religion—one which intensifies liberal individualism and involves a blind faith in the market redefining all social interactions in terms of contract. I turn to the theological genealogies of sovereignty and economy, and of the corporation, as a way of grounding a radical consideration of collectivity and sociality. For, while the rise of neoliberalism is associated with the growth of multi-national or trans-national corporations, the privatisation of state assets and the corporatisation of public institutions, each of these involve not a diminishing of the state or the project of state sovereignty but rather its reformulation, reaffirmation and intensification. The corporation, despite being redefined as the interaction of fundamentally self-willing and contracting individuals operating in the market, is still fundamentally intertwined with state sovereignty. Attempts to address or respond to corporate power need to go beyond calls for greater regulation of corporations, increased corporate social responsibility or even the desire to eliminate corporate personhood. Rather, what is required is a greater emphasis on the notion of corporateness that undergirds the theological genealogy of the corporation—for if neoliberalism functions as a religion then part of the solution may be a theological one.     

Public pensions and voting on immigration

In a recent paper, Scholten and Thum (1996) analyze the impact of a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension system with a fixed replacement ratio on the immigration policy in a democracy. We extend the analysis of median voter's choice in two respects. First, in contrast to Scholten and Thum (1996) who assume myopic voting behavior, our paper considers fully rational agents and provides a solution under this more complex behavioral assumption. Voting with rational agents yields a more liberal immigration policy than with myopic voters. Second, we examine a different decision structure with a fixed contribution rate to the pension system. In this case the majority rule leads to a completely different solution.     

Beyond “financial incentives”: how stakeholders interpret Ontario's funding structure for midwifery

Abstract: The 1994 introduction of midwifery as a publicly paid service in Ontario created new incentives in the health-care system. Traditional economic models of financial incentives explain stakeholder responses in terms of the pursuit of financial gains and avoidance of financial losses. To explore and explain more social and political responses by stakeholders, we conducted a qualitative case study. We applied an alternative model of financial incentives to analyze funding arrangements as policy messages and to investigate how stakeholders interpret them. Interpretations of the midwifery funding structure follow three broad themes. First, payment structures make a policy statement about the legitimacy and autonomy of the midwifery profession and its status relative to other professions such as medicine and nursing. Second, funding mechanisms imply how midwifery's services will fit in with other health services (specifically, substituting for, adding to, or competing with traditional obstetrics). Finally, stakeholders caricaturize midwifery clients to illustrate whether public funding creates more or less equitable access to care. Ontario's experience with midwifery offers insights for understanding the social dimensions of financial incentives, as well as for anticipating issues that arise when using funding policies as instruments of health-care reform. Sommaire: L'introduction en 1994 des services de sage-femme déefrayés a même les deniers publics en Ontario a Créeée de nouveaux incitatifs au sein du systéme de soins de santé. Selon les modèles économiques d'incitatifs financiers classiques, les réactions des intervenants s'expliquent par la recherche de gains financiers ou l'effort d'éviter les pertes. Nous avons entrepris une étude de cas qualitative pour explorer et expliquer d'autres réactions sociales et politiques de la part des intervenants. Nous avons fait appel à un modèle d'incitatifs financiers alternatif pour analyser les schémas de financement en tant que messages politiques et pour vérifier la manière dont les intervenants les interprètent. Les interprétations de la structure de financement des services de sage-femme se rangent dans trois grandes catégories. Premièrement, les structures de paiement équivalent à une déclaration sur la légitimité et l'autonomie de la professon de sage-femme et sur son statut relativement à d'autres professions, telles que la médecine et l'infirmerie. Deuxièmement, les mécanismes de financement indiquent comment les services de sage-femme se rapportent aux autres services de santé (plus précisément s'agit-il là d'un substitut, d'un complément ou d'un concurrent des services obstétriques classiques?). Enfin, les intervenants tracent les portraits types de la clieritèle des sages-femmes pour déterminer si le financement public permet d'accéder aux soins voulus de manière plus ou moins équitable. L'expérience ontarienne dans le domaine des services de sage-femme aide à cerner les dimensions sociales des incitatifs financiers ainsi qu'à prévoir les questions qui se posent lorsqu'on utilise des politiques de financement comme instruments de réforme des soins de santé.     

Federal Cost Recovery in Child Support Enforcement: Incentives for Improving Long-Term Effectiveness

Over the last 15 years, the benefits of operating an efficient child support enforcement program has received greater attention. This article examines the general environment in which child support enforcement programs operate and describes the Virginia experience over the last three years, which has seen AFDC collections increase by over 45 percent and all collections increase by more than 60 percent.     

Reallocating liability to medical staff review committee members: a response to the hospital corporate liability doctrine

Under the doctrine of hospital corporate liability, the hospital governing board bears the responsibility for detecting the incompetence of its staff physicians. Since hospital governing boards are generally composed of lay community members, they lack the expertise to evaluate the clinical competence of their staff. Therefore, they must delegate their screening responsibilities to medical staff review committees. After analyzing the development of hospital corporate liability doctrine, this Note examines the respective policing capabilities of review committees and the governing board. The Note contends that the board should not be held liable for aspects of the policing process which it is incapable of controlling. The Note concludes that, given their superior ability to evaluate clinical competency, staff review committees should shoulder the responsibility for the clinical aspects of staff evaluation, leaving remaining aspects to the hospital governing board. The Note proposes that courts should recognize a cause of action for negligence against medical staff review committee members in order to upgrade the effective policing of the medical profession.     

Psychopathy among condemned capital murderers

Psychopathy is an important forensic mental health construct. Despite this importance, the research base of psychopathy among individuals convicted of capital murder is limited. Archival data were collected from a sample of 636 persons convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in the State of California. Psychopathy was assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R) instrument. Data on criminal careers and other behavioral disorders were also extracted. The sample mean PCL-R total score was 23.31 (SD = 9.92) and one-third of individuals in this sample were considered clinically psychopathic with PCL-R total scores of 30 or greater. Factor analytic examination yielded support for four facets: affective, interpersonal, lifestyle, and antisocial. Criterion validity findings revealed positive correlations of psychopathy scores with Antisocial Personality Disorder (ρ = 0.72), Conduct Disorder (ρ = 0.46), sexual sadism (ρ = 0.24), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ρ = 0.20), ADHD (ρ = 0.15), arrest charges (r = 0.56), prison sentences (r = 0.53), and age of arrest onset (r = −0.57). Individuals convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death reflect heterogeneity in psychopathy with some individuals exhibiting pronounced psychopathic features.     

Accuracy of comparison decisions by forensic firearms examiners

This black box study assessed the performance of forensic firearms examiners in the United States. It involved three different types of firearms and 173 volunteers who performed a total of 8640 comparisons of both bullets and cartridge cases. The overall false-positive error rate was estimated as 0.656% and 0.933% for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively, while the rate of false negatives was estimated as 2.87% and 1.87% for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively. The majority of errors were made by a limited number of examiners. Because chi-square tests of independence strongly suggest that error probabilities are not the same for each examiner, these are maximum-likelihood estimates based on the beta-binomial probability model and do not depend on an assumption of equal examiner-specific error rates. Corresponding 95% confidence intervals are (0.305%, 1.42%) and (0.548%, 1.57%) for false positives for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively, and (1.89%, 4.26%) and (1.16%, 2.99%) for false negatives for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively. The results of this study are consistent with prior studies, despite its comprehensive design and challenging specimens.