Legal Constraints and the Choice of Educational Grant Structures

Recent empirical work suggests that legalconstraints are significant in choosingstate educational grant structures. Unfortunately, the literature has not takensuch constraints into account, thus callinginto question particular grant structurerecommendations. This paper studies theconditions under which a legislature, underorder to reform its educational grantstructure, prefers foundation grants overdistrict power equalization grants. Atheoretical model is presented in which thechoice is shown to depend on the legalbasis of the court's decision, and theempirical validity of this conclusion isdemonstrated using Connecticut data and aseparate model of school districtexpenditure choice.     

'Designing Better Health Care in the South': A Case Study of Unsuccessful Transformational Change in Public Sector Health Service Reform

This article presents a case study of a project known as 'Designing Better Health Care in the South' that attempted to transform four separately incorporated health services in southern Adelaide into a single regional health service. The project's efforts are examined using Kotter's (1996) model of the preconditions for transformational change in organisations and the areas in which it met or failed to meet these preconditions are analysed, using results from an evaluation that was commenced during the course of the attempted reform. The article provides valuable insights into an attempted major change by four public sector health organisations and the facilitators and barriers to such change. It also examines the way in which forces beyond the control of individual public sector agencies can significantly impact on attempts to implement organisational change in response to an identified need. This case study offers a rare glimpse into the micro detail of health care reform processes that are so widespread in contemporary health services but which are rarely systematically evaluated.     

North-South Climate Change Negotiations: A Sequential Game with Asymmetric Information

This article determines the conditions under which theSouthern countries should act together, or separately, whilenegotiating with the North about climate change policy andabout the conditions for future Southern engagement. The papermodels the international negotiations with complete and withasymmetric information in a dynamic framework. Results showthat, depending on their characteristics, the differentplayers can obtain benefits delaying the moment of theagreement.     

Testing Riker's Party-Based Theory of Federalism: The Argentine Case

This study seeks to advance our understanding of the institutionalunderpinnings of federalism by evaluating William H. Riker'sstudy of party causality. Using data from federal funds transfersin Argentina, a federation exhibiting high levels of fiscaldecentralization despite its centralized party system, it isshown that when governorships are held by opposition parties,the overall amount of federal funds transferred to provincesincreases considerably. In addition, changes in the partisancomposition of the national government are also associated withsteep increases in the share of provincial federal funds, whereas,more controversially and challenging prominent recent studiesof decentralization in Latin America, divided government atthe national level leads to centralization of intergovernmentalfunds. These findings support Riker's contention that politicalparties exercise a decisive influence over the distributionof fiscal powers between states and the national government.     

Political Partisanship and Welfare State Reform in Advanced Industrial Societies

In this article we evaluate two claims made in recent studies of the welfare states of advanced industrial societies: first, that welfare states have remained quite resilient in the face of demands for retrenchment; and second, that partisan politics have ceased to play a decisive role in their evolution. Addressing the first claim, we present analysis from a new data set on unemployment insurance and sickness benefit replacement rates for 18 countries for the years 1975–99. We find considerably more evidence of welfare retrenchment during the last two decades than do recent cross-national studies. Second, we examine the "end of partisanship" claim by estimating the effects of government partisanship on changes in income replacement rates in sickness and unemployment programs. Our results suggest that, contrary to claims that partisanship has little impact on welfare state commitments, traditional partisanship continues to have a considerable effect on welfare state entitlements in the era of retrenchment .     

Social networks and non‐market strategy

To date, the field of non‐market strategy has little to offer in the way of an integrated perspective on the simultaneous management of strategic issues and corporate stakeholders. This paper employs social network analysis to make a number of theoretically grounded conjectures about the delicate relationships between stakeholder behaviour and issue evolution. It is found that social network analysis has the potential to enrich and integrate theoretical perspectives in the field of non‐market strategy, offering solutions to a set of previously unresolved puzzles. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Adolescent Depressed Mood in a Multiethnic Sample

This research assessed whether there is an impact of race-ethnicity on depressed mood among adolescents, independent of socioeconomic status, whether gender differences in depressed mood are apparent within all race-ethnicity subgroups, and whether pubertal development influences depressed mood in a similar manner within gender and race-ethnicity subgroups. A three-stage, area probability sampling frame was utilized to select adolescents, ages 12–17 years, for an in-person interview. Depressed mood was assessed by the Children's Depression Inventory. Compared to Whites, African Americans, or Asian Americans, Latinos reported more symptoms of depressed mood, a finding that was independent of socioeconomic status. Advancing puberty was associated with depressed mood only among females, but the timing of pubertal changes, relative to ones peers, was related to depressed mood among both males and females, and among Latinos.     

Bonding in a High-Risk and a General Sample of Children:Comparison of Measures of Attachment and Their Relationship to Smoking and Drinking

Bonding in parent, peer, and school domains were compared in a general sample of children and a sample of children of methadone-treated parents. Bivariate comparisons revealed that children of methadone-treated parents had lower SES, and were significantly more likely to smoke cigarettes but not more likely to drink alcohol. Several measures of attachment were significantly different between the two samples across parent, peer, and school domains. Multivariate analyses indicated that the children of methadone-treated parents were more likely to smoke, even after accounting for the effects of demographic and attachment variables. For drinking, sample membership was not found to be significant. Attachment to school decreased the odds of both smoking and drinking in both samples. Peer attachment had no effect on the odds of smoking initiation; however,loyalty to best friend did predict increased odds of drinking initiation.