Leveraging Administrative Data to Better Serve Children and Families

The challenge of complex social issues drives the need for data systems that can connect information across multiple service delivery systems. Integrated data systems provide significant value for needs assessment, program planning, policy decision making, and collective impact evaluation across a range of social issues. This case study describes a mature county‐based integrated data system. The case study has three aims: (1) to highlight the value of integrated data systems to research, (2) to outline common challenges that such initiatives face, and (3) to present several ongoing considerations for the field that could inform policy recommendations to facilitate the use of integrated data. The authors present examples from the experience of developing this integrated data system, including involvement in the design and evaluation of the first county‐level social impact bond. The case study highlights the benefits and limitations of integrated data use in research and the potential to advance evidence‐based social decision making.     

Autonomous Local Climate Change Policy: An Analysis of the Effect of Intergovernmental Relations Among Subnational Governments

Local governments have emerged as important players in climate change governance, both at home and on the international stage. Likewise, action by states and provinces has been increasingly highlighted, particularly as national actors have moved slowly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But to what extent do local governments act independently from state and provincial governments in the area of climate change mitigation? Using an explicit process tracing approach, the article tests two hypotheses regarding the influence of upper level subnational governments on local policy. In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, a city that is a climate change leader, provincial government intervention cannot explain the results of climate change mitigation policy making. This suggests that local governments can exercise an important degree of autonomy over climate change policy, but also implies that where municipalities are less independently committed to climate action, active upper level government intervention will likely be needed.     

Law School Climates: Job Satisfaction Among Tenured US Law Professors

In this article, we combine quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate why post‐tenure law professors of color and women professors within the US legal academy are differentially dissatisfied with their work lives. Previous social science research has indicated lingering difficulties for professionals from traditionally marginalized groups as they advance to higher levels. Post‐tenure law professors have been understudied relative to similar senior‐level professionals. Mixed methods allow us to isolate institutional structure and implicit cultural bias as key mediators of this dissatisfaction, converging on issues of respect, voice, and collegiality as crucial. We use the example of the legal academy to show how empirical research can shed important light on the realities of legal professionals—here, the faculty who are training the next generation of US attorneys. Following in the new legal realist tradition, we demonstrate the power of mixed empirical methodologies for grasping social realities pertinent to law.     

Corporate Colonialism and the “Crimes of the Powerful” Committed Against the Indigenous Peoples of Canada

Canada is both a capitalist and colonial society, one founded on the seizing of Indigenous lands for capitalist purposes. In the process, a variety of “crimes of the powerful” were committed, including the theft of Indigenous lands, the forcible confinement of Indigenous people onto reserves, and the subjection of Indigenous children to physical and sexual assaults via the residential school system. In more recent times, the corporate quest for extractive resources has created further harms for Indigenous communities. The lives of too many Indigenous people in Canada are now contoured by complex poverty, Indigenous children are over-represented in the child welfare system, and Indigenous adults are over-incarcerated in prisons and jails. Using a “crime” lens, this paper brings an awareness of Canada as a capitalist and colonial society—conceptualized here as “corporate colonialism”—to the foreground. In the process, the various manifestations of the “crimes of the powerful” against the Indigenous peoples of Canada are exposed.     

Integrating Institutional and Behavioural Measures of Bribery

Bribery involves individuals exchanging material benefits for a service of a public institution. To understand the process of bribery we need to integrate measures of individual behaviour and institutional attributes rather than rely exclusively on surveys of individual perceptions and experience or macro-level corruption indexes of national institutions. This paper integrates institutional and behavioural measures to show that where you live and who you are have independent influence on whether a person pays a bribe. The analysis of 76 nationwide Global Corruption Barometer surveys from six continents provides a date set in which both institutional and individual differences vary greatly. Multi-level multivariate logit analysis is used to test hypotheses about the influence of institutional context and individual contact with public services, socio-economic inequalities and roles, and conflicting behavioural and ethical norms. It finds that path-determined histories of early bureaucratization or colonialism have a major impact after controlling for individual differences. At the individual level, people who frequently make use of public services and perceive government as corrupt are more likely to pay bribes, while socio-economic inequality has no significant influence. While institutional history cannot be changed, changing the design of public services is something that contemporary governors could do to reduce the vulnerability of their citizens to bribery.     

A gendered analysis of goat ownership and marketing in Meru,Kenya

Studies show that women are more likely to own small, rather than, large livestock. This study sought to establish gendered preference for different livestock species while focusing on the gendered differences in ownership, management, and marketing of goats in Meru, Kenya. Men demonstrated a higher preference for cattle than women, who had a higher preference for poultry than men. Men and women preferred goats equally, but women derived and managed more income from goats than men. Development projects should apply a gender lens before introducing different livestock species as gender differences exist in the preference and the management of different livestock.     

Disconnected relationship values and marriage policies in England

The article examines relationship values which influence the government’s marriage-related policies. It constructs a framework of core values as the ‘conception of the desirable’ to highlight a central problem for the government: there are many conflicting values that can be identified as potentially relevant. Traditional morality and equality highlight marriage as the ultimate goal for heterosexual and same-sex couples by emphasising responsibility, commitment and stability to encourage and strengthen couple relationships. The articulation of these values associated with celebrating marriage is evident in policies such as transferable tax allowances for married couples and couple relationship education. However, marriage is a public and a private institution which encompasses disconnected values. The article analyses the different values that policy-makers confront by examining evidence from interviews with stakeholders which suggests that marriage-related policies do not necessarily resonate with various actors’ understanding of relationship values. They compete with values such as individual autonomy, the desire for financial security and diverse relationships.