Answering the Public Choice Challenge: A Neoprogressive Research Agenda

A neoprogressive research agenda is developed to challenge public choice theory's position as the new orthodoxy in both understanding and guiding policy choices about urban service delivery. Such a challenge requires more than accumulating negative empirical tests. Rather, we must accept the new burden of proof laid on proponents of progressive reform institutions by the theories of nonmarket failure and quasimarkets, ideas that undermined the intellectual pillars supporting progressive reform institutions and can only be challenged by new ideas. Public choice theory itself, broadly considered, is proposed as a valid source of such new ideas. Three research programs, in part already underway, are outlined as essential building blocks in the research agenda, focusing, respectively, on blunting the rough edges of the theory of nonmarket failure, coordinating the empirical critiques of quasimarkets in a new theory of quasimarket failure, and developing the new institutionalism so that it can provide the basis for comparing the production outcomes of alternative urban institutions.     

Family Characteristics and Adolescent Competence in India: Investigation of Youth in Southern Orissa

This study examines the relationship among a host of family characteristics and indicators of adolescent competence in a sample (N = 107) of 8th- and 9th-grade students in one school located in Berhampur city in Orissa state, India. Social competence (SC) and antisocial behavior (AB) were assessed by teachers, and adolescents evaluated various areas of their own competence on a perceived competence scale. Final examination grades also were obtained as a general measure of cognitive competence. The results indicated that families of more socially competent participants tended to be verbally and emotionally expressive; democratic with regard to discipline, input, and decision making; close but not enmeshed; higher in their level of parent–adolescent communication and family ideals; and lower in external locus of control. Consequently, families of more antisocial adolescents had more conflict and enmeshment and were more external-locus-of-control oriented and either permissive or authoritarian. Finally, several personal and family demographic traits were positively associated with SC and negatively associated with AB, including gender (girls higher in SC and lower in AB than boys), age and grade (older students and those in grade 9 more competent and less problematic), education level of mothers and fathers (positively related to SC and negatively to AB), and birth order (middle children in the family lower in self-perceptions of competence than oldest or youngest children). The findings have implications for parenting and family-life education efforts in India that could have a major impact on the development of adolescent competence.     

Tools for project development within a public action framework

This paper focuses on the contradictory relationship between tools, always open to criticism as technocratic and mechanistic, and processes of development. It focuses on the tools often known as Logical Framework Approach (LFA) which are increasingly used as process tools by many different agencies, including those who espouse values of participation and empowerment. We assess the tools from the perspective of their use in public action-based approaches, as a means to improve clarity and focus in multi-actor interventions. No one tool can fulfil the range of tasks required in complex situations and LFA is useful as one of various options. We consider two of its limitations. First, it can be used in many different styles, including as a means to analyse public interest as contested terrain, or as a technocratic tool. Second, the focus on viewing assumptions as immutable can limit the effectiveness of interventions.     

Toward an understanding of the perception of hiv/aids-related risk among prison officers

One consequence of the drug war has been the incarceration of many offenders who pose a health risk to staff. This article presents an analytical framework to examine the factors that influence staffs' perceptions of the threat of infection. Four risk domains influence an officer's self-rated threat of exposure: (1) psychosocial factors, (2) HIV/AIDS-related knowledge, (3) perception of risk in the prison environment, and (4) risk reduction efforts. Officers with lower levels of education, those who worked with medium and maximum custody inmates, and those who had more high-risk encounters with inmates rated their chances for infection as high. Findings are discussed in light of their practical and theoretical applications.     

Juror Judgments in Civil Cases: Hindsight Effects on Judgments of Liability for Punitive Damages

An experiment was conducted to investigate whether hindsight bias influences an important class of legal decisions—civil jurors' judgments of liability for punitive damages. Jury-eligible citizens were shown a videotaped summary of the circumstances surrounding an environmental damage lawsuit. Some subjects were presented a foresight perspective and asked to judge whether or not a railroad should comply with an order to stop operations on a section of track that had been declared hazardous. Other subjects were asked to judge whether the railroad was liable for punitive damages after an accident occurred. Three independent variables were manipulated: temporal perspective with one third of the subjects assessing risks in foresight and two thirds assessing risks in hindsight; subject role with one half of the subjects asked to assume the role of a juror rendering a verdict and one half the role of a citizen whose personal opinion was solicited; and, in the hindsight conditions only, the amount of damage ($240,000 vs. $24,000,000) caused by the accident. Almost all measures of participants' judgments and thoughts about the case showed dramatic foresight–hindsight differences. The participants' role had an effect on some measures; for example, participants in the juror role exhibited slightly smaller hindsight effects when judging liability than did those in the citizen role. The magnitude of the damage caused by the accident had no effects on any measures.     

Juror Judgments in Civil Cases: Effects of Plaintiff's Requests and Plaintiff's Identity on Punitive Damage Awards

Two experiments were conducted to study the manner in which civil jurors assess punitive damage awards. Jury-eligible citizens were shown a videotaped summary of an environmental damage lawsuit and told that the defendant had already paid compensatory damages. They were asked to judge liability for punitive damages and, if damages were to be assessed, to assign a dollar award. Three independent variables were manipulated in the case materials: the dollar amounts that were explicitly requested by the plaintiffs in their closing arguments to the jury, the geographical location of the defendant corporation, and the location of the lead plaintiff. Consistent with prior findings of anchor effects on judgments, we found that the plaintiffs requested award values had a dramatic effect on awards: the higher the request, the higher the awards. We also found that local plaintiffs were awarded more than were geographically remote plaintiffs, while the location of the defendant company did not have reliable effects on the awards. The implications of these results for procedures in civil trials and for theories of juror decision making are discussed.     

The social,behavioral, and health effects of phencyclidine (PCP) use

This study examined the perceived social, behavioral, and health effects of phencyclidine (PCP) use among a sample of 200 users in northern California. The study population, generated through snowball sampling techniques, included heavy chronic, light chronic, and recreational users; the vast majority of subjects were not in treatment facilities. Subjects reported that PCP use—particularly long-term, extensive use—resulted in frequent disruption of education and employment, impairment of relationships with parents and with lovers or spouses, involvement with the criminal justice system, and deterioration of physical and mental health. These findings provide systematic documentation of the extent to which problems previously associated with PCP use occurred among this population of users. In addition, the results illustrate the importance of examining the effects of PCP use in light of the psychosocial developmental processes of adolescence and early adulthood.This research was supported by Research Grant No. DA02293 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.Received M.S. in psychology from California State University, Hayward.Received Ph.D. from University of Iowa.