Reorienting development administration

Development By People: Citizen Construction of a Just World. By Guy Gran. New York: Praeger, UK distributor Holt‐Saunders, 1983. Pp.xxiv + 480. £34.50 and £9.95.ISBN 0 03 063294 3 and 063296 X.

No Shortcuts to Progress: African Development Management in Perspective. By Goran Hyden. London: Heinemann, 1983. Pp.xv + 223. £12.50 and £4.95. ISBN 0 435 96303 1 and 96302 3.

Development Projects as Policy Experiments: An Adaptive Approach to Development Administration. By Dennis A. Rondinelli, London: Methuen, 1983. £10.95 and £4.95. Pp.ix + 167. ISBN 0 416 73630 0 and 73640 8.

The Challenge of Integrated Rural Development in India: A Policy and Management Perspective. By Gerald E. Sussman. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, UK distributor Bowker, 1983. Pp.xvi + 178. £22. ISBN 0 86531 922 7.     

A Great and Revolutionary Law? The First Four Years of India’s Right to Information Act

India’s 2005 Right to Information Act (RTIA) is among dozens of national laws recently adopted similar to the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Drawing on several large studies examining the act’s implementation, the author finds that Indian citizens filed about 2 million requests for information under the RTIA during its first two and half years. However, use of the law was constrained by uneven public awareness, poor public planning, and bureaucratic indifference or outright hostility. Requirements for proactive disclosure of information are often ignored. The necessary mechanisms for enforcing the new law are also strained by a growing number of complaints and appeals. Nonetheless, RTIA advocates demonstrate its transformative potential and continue to press energetically for more effective implementation. Public authorities and civil society organizations have developed a number of practical innovations that may be useful for other developing countries to adopt when considering similar laws.     

Questions About Policy Transparency

Book reviewed:
Neal Finkelstein, ed., Transparency in Public Policy: Great Britain and the United States .     

The Reform Bubble Bursts

Books reviewed in this article:
Columbia Accident Investigation Board, Report, Volume One     

Predicting suicidal risk in a cohort of depressed children and adolescents

Background: In children and adolescents with a depressive disorder, predicting who will also go on to exhibit suicide-related behaviors (SRBs), including suicide attempt or self-harm, is a key challenge facing clinicians. Aims: To investigate the relative contributions of depressive disorder severity, hopelessness, family dysfunction, and perceived social support to the risk of suicide-related behaviors. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of a group of 10-16-year-olds with major depressive disorders and dysthymic disorder. Results: Child-rated depressive disorder symptom severity emerged as the greatest predictor of risk. Hopelessness and family dysfunction were also significant predictors of SRBs. In combination these variables were strong predictors, accounting for 66% of the variance. This is a cross-sectional study design, rather than longitudinal, therefore risk prediction over time was not possible. Conclusions: Understanding the child and adolescents depressive disorder symptom severity from their perspective, their level of hopelessness, as well as their family context is critical in understanding the risk of SRBs. These findings may help to provide direction for targeted interventions to address these clinical risk factors.