Is It All About Retribution? The Flexibility of Punishment Goals

Social Justice Research - Current literature suggests that laypeople’s punishment is primarily driven by retributive reasons (i.e., to give offender their just deserts) rather than...     

Managerial capacity in conflict environments: Management effects of private military and security companies in Iraq

An enduring challenge of public administration research is examining whether public management affects the delivery of public policy results. This study extends managerial influence to include public policy delivery in an active conflict environment. Individual manager training is critical in conflict environments because limited bureaucratic capacity and general environmental confusion are common. Organizations under stress use substitute managers. We argue that substitute managers' effectiveness is conditioned by two factors: managerial capability and networking capability. We examine substitute managers in a unique context, the US–Iraq War. Managers coordinated private military and security companies (PMSCs) to provide coalition forces and the civilian population with multiple services. We argue that managers with prior management experience and network capability are more effective substitute managers. The results suggest that managers with prior experience and networking capability are associated with decreases in civilian casualties. The results provide important policy insights into public management and defence policy.     

Local Labor Demand and Program Participation Dynamics: Evidence from New York SNAP Administrative Records

This study estimates the effect of local labor demand on the likelihood that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries are able to transition out of the program. Our data include SNAP administrative records from New York (2007 to 2012), linked at the person‐level to the 2010 Census, and linked at the county‐month‐level to industry‐specific labor market conditions. We find that local labor markets matter for the length of time spent on SNAP, but there is substantial heterogeneity in estimated effects across local industries. Using Bartik‐style instruments to isolate the effect of labor demand and controlling for the changing composition of entrants and program rules brought on by the Great Recession, we find that fluctuations in labor demand in industries with high shares of SNAP participants—especially food service and retail—change the likelihood of exiting the program. Notably, estimated industry effects vary across race and parental status, with black participants being most sensitive to changes in local labor market conditions and mothers benefiting less from growth in local labor demand than fathers and non‐parents. We confirm that our results are not driven by endogenous inter‐county mobility or New York City labor markets and are robust to multiple specifications.     

Tuning In,Not Turning Out: Evaluating the Impact of Ethnic Television on Political Participation

Despite the importance of ethnic television within immigrant communities, its effects on political participation are unclear. On the one hand, ethnic media can mobilize and inform voters. On the other hand, it can serve as a source of diversion and reduce the desire to participate. To evaluate these competing possibilities, we implement a geographic regression discontinuity (GRD) approach involving Federal Communication Commission reception boundaries for Spanish‐language television stations in two states. Additionally, we replicate and unpack our GRD analyses using three nationally representative samples of Latinos. Across multiple studies, we find that access to Spanish‐language television is associated with decreases in turnout, ethnic civic participation, and political knowledge. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings on the ethnic politics, political communication, and social capital literatures.     

Focusing on quality care rather than ‘checking boxes’: How to exit the labyrinth of multiple accountabilities in hybrid healthcare arrangements

Accountability relations in modern-day welfare states have multiplied due to the complex interaction of institutional and sectoral logics. Against this backdrop, this article seeks to unravel complexities which surround accountability relations in hybrid healthcare arrangements. For this purpose, a framework of multi-faceted identity is suggested in order to theoretically grasp multiple accountabilities of healthcare professionals. Accordingly, healthcare professionals have a cross-cutting identity (being a professional) that is fortified with nested identities such as the one of partner, citizen and manager. Each identity facet is attached to a specific accountability form such as professional and civic society accountability. By focusing on three settings of healthcare provision—hospital, outpatient and integrated care—the usefulness of a multi-faceted identity framework will be illustrated. It is concluded that developing a more nuanced understanding of healthcare professionals’ multiple identities and attached accountabilities might be a good starting point for planning healthcare redesign.     

“Another roof,another proof”: the impact of mobility on individual productivity in science

The Journal of Technology Transfer - The mobility of highly skilled employees is seen as a critical way for organizations to transfer knowledge and to improve organizational performance. Yet, the...     

Informal Countermessaging: The Potential and Perils of Informal Online Countermessaging

Abstract

Online countermessaging—communication that seeks to disrupt the online content disseminated by extremist groups and individuals—is a core component of contemporary counterterrorism strategies. Countermessaging has been heavily criticized, not least on the grounds of effectiveness. Whereas current debates are focused on the role of government and large organizations in developing and disseminating countermessages, this article argues that such approaches overlook the informal production of countermessages. Recognizing the appetite for “natural world” content among those engaged in countermessaging, this article highlights some of the potential benefits of informal approaches to countermessaging. At the same time, the article also acknowledges the risks that may result from closer working between countermessaging organizations and informal actors.     

Private regulation,public policy,and the perils of adverse ontological selection

What problems can private regulatory governance solve, and what role should public policy play? Despite access to the same empirical evidence, the current scholarship on private governance offers widely divergent answers to these questions. Through a critical review, this paper details five ontologically distinct academic logics – calculated strategic behavior; learning and experimentalist processes; political institutionalism; global value chain and convention theory; and neo-Gramscian accounts – that offer divergent conclusions based on the particular facets of private governance they illuminate, while ignoring those they obfuscate. In this crowded marketplace of ideas, scholars and practitioners are in danger of adverse ontological selection whereby certain approaches and insights are systematically ignored and certain problem conceptions are prioritized over others. As a corrective, we encourage scholars to make their assumptions explicit, and occasionally switch between logics, to better understand private governance's problem-solving potential and its interactions with public policy.