Informing Policy-Making at Sub-Local Authority Spatial Levels: Using Small Area Micro-Data from the 2001 Census

This article discusses how the release of small area microdata (SAM) from the 2001 UK Population Census could help provide better information in the policy-making process at sub-local authority spatial levels. An experimental set of SAM from the 1991 Census, provided by National Statistics, was used to develop a methodology which can provide SAM estimates of the effects of area at ward level, and can separate these spatial effects from compositional influences due to characteristics of the local area population. These SAM-based results appear to be at variance with census tabular data. It is concluded that 2001 Census SAM could provide an important further source of information for improved policy and target setting at the local area level.     

Trauma Systems Therapy in Residential Settings: Improving Emotion Regulation and the Social Environment of Traumatized Children and Youth in Congregate Care

Although abundant evidence exists indicating the prevalence of trauma exposure among youth in residential care, few models exist for creating trauma-informed milieu treatment. This article outlines the problem and describes the implementation of Trauma Systems Therapy (TST) in three residential centers. TST is unique in emphasizing youth emotions and behaviors as well as the role a distressed or threatening social environment may play in keeping a traumatized youth in a dysregulated state. This dual emphasis makes TST specifically appropriate to implementation in congregate care, focusing assessment and intervention strategies on both clinical treatment and the functioning of the therapeutic milieu itself. Data are reported on incidents of the use of physical restraint; numbers of disrupted foster care placements following discharge from residential treatment; and scores on psychometric measures of children’s functioning and emotion regulation capacity. Knowledge gained through TST implementation in these three residential centers has important implications for developing a model of trauma-informed congregate care.     

Aligning Ideologies and Institutions: Reorganization in the HIV/AIDS Services Administration of New York City

How effective was organizational reform implemented inside one critical New York City health agency? Specifically, we examine the extent to which the reorganization of the HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) into the Medical Insurance Services Administration (MICSA) achieved three goals: (1) realizing synergies among the component MICSA programs; (2) cross‐fertilizing ideas among MICSA agencies; and (3) facilitating HASA operations through the lens of organization change theory. Qualitative methods including interviews, site visits, and document analysis triangulate the effects of the reorganization. Implications for organization change literature are explored, especially highlighting where more theoretical and empirical studies are needed.     

The Electoral Consequences of Direct Political Action: Evidence from Brazil

Democracy affords citizens the ability to influence policy through participation in elections and through direct political action. Though previous scholarship evaluates the impact each strategy has on outcomes, little if any work exists that examines how one strategy, direct action, affects success in the other, elections. This study analyzes the relationship between land occupations and the electoral success of the Workers' Party in Brazil between 1996 and 2006. It finds that the relationship varies in presidential and mayoral elections depending on income inequality and incumbency. Once the PT captures the presidential office in 2002, these effects disappear, suggesting that the effect of political protest also depends on who is in office.     

Critical evaluation of planning frameworks for rural water and sanitation development projects

Poor initial planning processes have been implicated in the high failure rate of rural water and sanitation development projects. This article critically examines 17 existing planning frameworks for rural water supply and sanitation projects with respect to key attributes of good planning practice, in order to discover the extent to which these address the elements of planning that relate to sustainability. It identifies sustainability-related factors from the sector that have been recognised as such and incorporated into current frameworks, as well as factors that are not yet well covered, and makes recommendations to practitioners wishing to employ such frameworks.     

How Close is Too Close?: The 2012 Election in the Electoral College

While it is too soon to predict the 2012 presidential winner, it is not too early to know that the general election is likely to be a fiercely competitive contest that will, assuming no major unexpected events occur (e.g., another recession), come down to a few thousand votes in a few swing states, most probably including Ohio. When a presidential election is this close, there exists the possibility that the popular vote winner and the electoral vote winner will differ, which has happened four times before (1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000), but continues to be controversial. More ominously, there is also a small, but real chance of an electoral vote tie between the candidates, which would then place the selection of the president in the House of Representatives and the vice president in the Senate. Even though congressional selection is the constitutionally prescribed remedy and has historical precedents (1800, 1824), it seems unlikely that the Electoral College would long survive what would surely be a spirited public debate over who should choose the president. Thus, the 2012 election results may be too close to sustain the legitimacy of the presidential selection method.     

The Use of the Adult Attachment Scale with Domestically Violent Men

Empirical evidence highlights the utility of examining attachment styles in exploring the etiology of intimate partner violence perpetration, with insecure attachment styles regularly identified as underscoring domestically violent men. This study applied the 18-item self-report Adult Attachment Scale (Collins & Read, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(4), 644–663 1990) to 176 men entering a domestic violence perpetration counseling program. Factor analyses failed to result in the three factor model of the AAS. Subsequent item analyses indicated participants’ random and contradictory response style negated the possibility of any coherent factor structure. The results of this study caution investigators on the validity of self-report data with domestically violent men and offers both research and clinical/conceptual implications.