Grassroots support organisations in Peru

Private developmental organisations have emerged rapidly and forcefully in Peru, amid a turbulent national context of change and acute social and economic instability over the last two decades. While no official statistics exist on the number of such organisations (there is no single entity that oversees or registers their activity), independent studies and surveys indicate that almost 350 groups, of diverse objectives and coverage, are currently operating throughout the country. The forces and influences that have shaped this sector are complex, and this article does not attempt to address each individually. Rather, it focuses on those deemed most relevant: the factors that have left their mark on the sector of private development institutions as a whole.     

Policy‐making and administrative discretion: The case of immigration in Canada

Abstract: Decisions in complex and controversial policy areas are often left to civil servants. As a result, civil servants use their discretionary power to make decisions that will likely have important consequences for society. This is the case with immigration. Partially based on interviews conducted with Canadian and Quebecois immigration agents, the authors note that the use of the judgement of civil servants is an important factor in the selection process of newcomers. The authors recognize also that discretion can take different forms: procedural discretion, selection grid discretion, and final decision discretion. This case study enables a better understanding of both the use of judgement in the decision‐making process and the role of street‐level civil servants in the policy implementation process. Sommaire: Les décisions se rapportant à des domaines de politiques complexes et prêtant à controverse sont souvent laissées aux mains des fondionnaires. Ainsi, les fonctionnaires usent de leur pouvoir discrétiormaire pour prendre des décisions qui auront vraisemblablement des conséquences importantes pour la sociéte. C'est précisément le cas de l'immigration. Se fondant partiellement sur des entrevues effectuées par des agents d'immigration canadiens et québécois, les auteurs remarquent que dans le processus de sélection des nouveaux arrivants, le jugement de ces agents est un facteur important. Les auteurs reconnaissent également que la discrétion peut prendre différentes formes: la discrétion procédurale, la discrétion relative à la grille de sélection et la discrétion en matière de décision définitive. La présente étude de cas permet de mieux comprendre à la fois le recours au jugement dans le processus décisionnel et le rôle des fonctionnaires de la base dans le processus de mise en æeuvre des politiques.     

Is there empirical evidence of a David E. carkut trend towards “managerialism”? A longitudinal study of six countries

Abstract: In the past decade, there has been a considerable amount written about the development of “managerialism” and the “new public management” (NPM) in the Western, primarily Westminster-type, democracies. There has even been some concern expressed that the trend towards managerialism, with its lack of emphasis on the acquisition of technical competence, may be undermining policy capacity and the career public service itself. This paper addresses the question of whether there has been a trend towards managerialism over time. Specifically, this paper looks at whether changes in three objective measures of “managerialism” - mobility, education, and management type - indicate a shift towards managerialism in the senior levels of selected departments in Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and Mauritius, during the period between 1971 and 1991. There is little evidence of such a trend. There has been, however, a slight shift in the “management type” of senior bureaucrats towards administrative rather than towards technical expertise and an increase in the number of administratively managed departments. If there is a large scale shift towards managerialism, it must be manifested in improved management skills on the part of technical managers or in improved technical knowledge and skills on the part of administrative managers. Sommaire: Au cours de la dernière décennie, de nombreux auteurs ont examiné la montée du nouveau management public et des préoccupations de gestion dans les démocracies occidentales, surtout celles du type Westminster. Certains se sont dit inquiétés par la possibilité que cette tendance, qui met moins l'accent sur l'acquisition de compétences techniques, risque de miner la capacité de formuler des politiques et la Fonction publique de carrière. Dans cet article, on se demande si effectivement cette tendance s'est matérialisée au fil des années. Plus précisément, on y examine si l'évolution des trois mesures objectives du nouveau management public que sont la mobilité, la formation et le type de gestion, indique un changementaux niveaux supérieurs de certains ministères choisis, de 1971 à 1991, dans les pays suivants: Australie, Grande-Bretagne, Canada, Nouvelle-Zélande, États-Unis et l'lle Maurice. Selon l'auteur, une telle tendance ne semble pas avoir eu lieu. Cependant, il y a eu un léger glissement du «type de gestionnaire» supérieur vers la compétence administrative plutôt que technique, ainsi qu'une augmentation du nombre de ministères gérés suivant les principes du nouveau management public. Un déplacement massif vers ce dernier doit se manifester soit par de meilleures capacités de management chez les gestionnaires techniques, soit par de meilleures connaissances et aptitudes techniques chez les gestionnaires administratifs.     

Discussion Law & Society Review at Fifty: A Debate on the Future of Publishing by the Law & Society Association

This contribution presents a series of statements on the future of publishing by the Law & Society Review and the Law & Society Association generally. Framed by the first author's introductory and concluding comments are contributions by Halliday, Liu, Morrill, Seron, and Silbey. This debate, based on a LSR 50th anniversary panel held at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the LSA, is intended to open up a broader conversation among members of the Association. Positions by individual contributors can only be linked to them and not to the group of contributors.     

“Bending” Evidence for a Cause: Scholar‐Advocacy Bias in Family Law

There are a number of salient public policy issues in the family law field that have invoked impassioned policy debates on a recurrent basis. In the absence of a body of research to address these critical concerns, advocates under the guise of social science scholarship have exacerbated the confusion and controversy by construing the scant available research evidence to justify their own ends, without regard to the relevance, quality, utility, and limitations of the studies. This is one of two articles on this problem that we have named “scholar‐advocacy bias.” In this article, we discuss the difference between truth in social science and truth in law. We identify common ways in which social science researchers and reviewers of research—wittingly or unwittingly—can become advocates for ideological positions and social policies at the expense of being balanced reporters of research evidence as illustrated by recent debates about overnight parenting of infants and toddlers. We also consider how adherence to established scientific principles and methods prevents the misuse of research in this way.     

The Use of Incarceration in the United States

The past two decades have produceda profound increase in imprisonment in theUnited States, resulting in a prison populationof two million and expenditures of over $35billion annually on corrections, while otherimportant government services are underfunded. Imprisonment is highest for minority maleslargely because of the War on Drugs, which hasalso dramatically increased the incarcerationof women and created nearly 1.5 millionchildren having a parent incarcerated. Inresponse to this trend, the American Society ofCriminology (ASC) directed the ASC NationalPolicy Committee (NPC) to draft a policy paperon the incarceration issue. This articleexplains the main ideas, themes, andrecommendations of the full policy paper. Itanalyzes the sources and effects of theincreased use of imprisonment, drawingattention to the negative effects of excessiveincarceration. The paper and itsrecommendations reflect a concern that the ASCneeds to set a research agenda that isindependent of the federal government andconventional wisdom. The NPC hopes this paperwill stimulate a healthy and much overduedebate on the role of the ASC in public policyin general, and the merits of widespreadincarceration in particular.