Rorty's Poetic Politics

In reading Rorty as political theorists we must separate his critique of epistemology from his advocacy of a new style of philosophy. If we concentrate on the detail and presuppositions of the latter, we will find insufficient reason to grant that his political project is coherent or that it derives any support from his attack on 'Enlightenment' philosophy. We will see that historicist accounts can never reasonably compel belief; that no-one (save the epistemologist manque craving a role) could accept that there is a compelling social need for poetic and literary exclamations; and that great men cannot be allowed to set our political agenda.     

Making the Harder Yards: Environmental Policy Integration in Australia

Solutions to environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and land and water resource degradation require long term integration of economic, social and environmental policies. This poses challenges to specialised, hierarchical public administration systems. The study reported here examined strategies, structures and processes to enable environmental policy integration in six Australian states and territories, and some federal arrangements. The study found that the most prominent success factors, barriers and gaps that affect environmental policy integration relate to leadership, long term embedding of environmental policy integration and implementation capacity. Factors deserving further research and policy attention include leadership, cultural change and capacity building; embedding sustainability in structures and processes; development of a long term evidence based approach; strengthening decentralised implementation arrangements; and evaluation of policy integration initiatives.     

Sentencer orientation and case details

Qualitative measures of magistrates' sentencing orientations were incorporated with archival case data into a multivariate statistical model to examine the contribution of orientation-case variable interactions to penalties imposed on 678 drink-drivers by 8 magistrates in two Australian courts. Sentencing orientations included severity, emphasis on deterrence, use of tariffs, and attention to accident potential. The 44 case variables included blood alcohol concentration, prior offenses, and type of legal representation. Penalties included fine and license loss. Five orientation-case variable interactions contributed 20% of the explained variance in penalties after controls for case variables. Court effects were strong regardless of individualized orientations. The authors conclude that sentencing disparties reflect both personal schemas and court context. Reforms involving information systems should attend to the effects of sentencing orientations on individuals' use of case information.     

Development and Properties of the Adolescent Friendship Attachment Scale

Two studies are reported presenting the development of the Adolescent Friendship Attachment Scale (AFAS), a 30 item self-report measure of adolescent close friendship conceptualized as an attachment relationship. Study One reports the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with a sample of 490 adolescents aged 13 to 19 years. A second-order factor model was supported with a single friendship attachment factor underlying three first order factors (Secure, Anxious/Ambivalent, Avoidant) similar to those reported in the broader attachment literature. The AFAS subscales were found to be appropriately reliable and demonstrated appropriate convergent and discriminant validity when compared to measures of attachment styles (the Relationship Questionnaire) and parental and peer group attachment (the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment). Study Two reports a successful replication of the factor structure with an independent sample of 787 adolescents. Further research evaluating the predictive utility of the AFAS is recommended. Ross. B. Wilkinson is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the Australian National University. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Australian National University in 1997. His major research interests include adolescent relationships and adjustment, adjustment to major life transitions, and attachment across the lifespan.     

On ensuring the availability of evaluative data for secondary analysis

This paper is based on a programmatic effort to elicit and reanalyze data stemming from the evaluation of social programs. The stress is on identifying problems and negotiating for data and analyzing it. This includes: researchers' reluctance to disclose data for documentation and data control systems; vague or nonexistent policy for assuring access. The possible solutions presented here are based on governmental regulation and policy for publicly supported evaluation.Individuals who kindly provided their reactions to earlier drafts of this paper and/or advice and information in other ways include: Ole Engberg, John Evans, Harold B. King, Sheldon Laube, William Madow, Richard Marciano, Margaret E. Martin, Keith Marvin, Marjorie Powell, Alice Robbin, Peter Rossi, Lee Sechrest, Ernst W. Stromsdorfer, and Frederick Mosteller. Not all their reactions and criticisms have been accommodated, and we alone bear responsibility for the opinions registered here.Development of this paper has been supported by NIE Contract C-74-0115. All unpublished documentation discussed here is on file at the Methodology and Evaluation Research Division (Lucina Gallagher, Librarian).     

New formulae for estimating stature in the Balkans

Recent studies of secular change and allometry have observed differential limb proportions between the sexes, among and within populations. These studies suggest that stature prediction formulae developed from American Whites may be inappropriate for European populations. The purpose of this investigation is to present more appropriate stature prediction equations for use in the Balkans to aid present-day identifications of the victims of genocide. The reference sample totals 545 white males obtained from World War II data. The Eastern European sample totals 177 males and includes both Bosnian and Croatian victims of the recent war. Mean stature for Eastern Europeans was obtained from the literature. Results show that formulae based on Trotter and Gleser systematically underestimate stature in the Balkans. Because Eastern Europeans are taller than American Whites it is appropriate to use this as an "informative prior" that can be applied to future cases. This informative prior can be used in predictive formulae, since it is probably similar to the sample from which the Balkan forensic cases were drawn. Based on Bayes' Theorem new predictive stature formulae are presented for Eastern Europeans.