Thick Red Tape and the Thin Blue Line: A Field Study on Reducing Administrative Burden in Police Recruitment

Police departments struggle to recruit officers, and voluntary drop-off of candidates exacerbates this challenge. Using four years of administrative data and a field experiment conducted in the Los Angeles Police Department, the authors analyze the impact of administrative burden on the likelihood that a candidate will remain in the recruitment process. Findings show that reducing friction costs to participation and simplifying processes improve compliance, as behavioral public administration would predict. Applicants who were offered simpler, standardized processes completed more tests and were more likely to be hired. Later reductions to perceived burden led to an 8 percent increase in compliance, with a 60 percent increase in compliance within two weeks. However, removing steps that would have allowed for better understanding of eligibility kept unqualified candidates in the process for longer, reducing organizational efficiency. These results extend the field's understanding of how administrative burden can impact the selection of talent into government.     

Four women,for women: Caribbean diaspora artists reimag(in)ing the fine art canon

ABSTRACT

This article examines changing representations of women of colour within the realm of the visual arts and considers the aesthetic qualities, historical significance and cultural impacts of a diverse body of image-making spanning several centuries. The research focuses on selected works from the portfolios of the following four, early to midcareer artists of Caribbean heritage, whose nuanced depictions of black and brown womanhood in the twenty-first century have achieved international acclaim: American interdisciplinary artist Aisha Tandiwe Bell; American collagist Andrea Chung; French figurative painter Elizabeth Colomba; Danish photographer, video artist and performance installationist Jeannette Ehlers. The complex diasporic identities and imagery reflected in the oeuvres of these four contemporary artists are contrasted with fine art from earlier eras. The compositional, technical and social modalities of a number of notable works are assessed to determine why some have become celebrated images within the international canon and others have been deemed problematic.     

Are transformational and transactional types of leadership compatible? A two‐wave study of employee motivation

Transformational and transactional leadership strategies have become prominent in public administration research, but it is unclear whether they are compatible or whether they could undermine each other. We examine the combined and interactive effects of transformational and three types of transactional leadership (contingent verbal rewards, material rewards, and sanctions) on employee work motivation, conceptualized as work engagement and intrinsic motivation. Panel analyses using repeated measures of 385 leaders and 3,797 employees show that transformational leadership and contingent verbal rewards increased employee motivation. However, simultaneous use of contingent material rewards undermined the benefits of transformational leadership. Thus, the motivational potential of service‐ or community‐oriented visions was undercut when leaders also appealed to extrinsic material motives. This could help explain why financial incentives do not always have the expected benefits in public organizations. We therefore argue that research and practice should pay more attention to how different leadership strategies work in combination.     

Meeting the Mandates of Gault: Automatic Appointment of Counsel in Juvenile Delinquency Proceedings

In 1967, the United States Supreme Court ruled that children facing delinquency charges have a constitutional right to defense counsel. Despite that mandate, state assessments of juvenile defense systems have consistently found high rates of waiver of counsel. Children are facing harsh punishments with potentially lifelong consequences without the benefit of a trained defense attorney at their side. Given the severity of the consequences of juvenile court involvement and society’s understanding of the developmental science behind adolescence, this article argues that to meet constitutional requirements, juvenile courts must automatically appoint defense counsel for all children facing delinquency charges.     

The Lethality of Female Suicide Bombers

Over the past 50 years, suicide bombings have become an increasingly common tactic of politically motivated violence, and a rising number of these attacks feature women perpetrators. Prior literature suggested that female-perpetrated suicide bombings occurring between 1985 through 2008 inflicted greater casualties, which may account in part for their increased use by terror groups. The current research project ascertains whether sex continues to predict the lethality of suicide bombing attacks perpetrated by terror groups over the decade leading up to 2016. The study utilizes secondary data sampled from the Global Terrorism Database (N?=?881) and the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (N?=?1,722). A negative binomial model regressing lethality against perpetrator and conflict covariates did not observe a statistically significant relationship between sex and lethality. Male and female suicide bombers demonstrated similar lethality in suicide bombing events between 2005 and 2016, although scatterplots suggest some aberration during the years 2009, 2010, and 2016. Pairwise comparisons of perpetrator sex by conflict observed some variation in the lethality of attacks, with female suicide bombers from Al Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq, and Iraqi rebel groups found more lethal than male suicide bombers from Boko Haram and the Nigerian rebels. The current research project contributes to the literature by demonstrating the evolving nature of terrorism and tactics relevant to the lethality of politically motivated violent attacks.     

Thinking Differently On Growth

GDP should not be the focus of development By Ann LeeThe constant scrutiny by Wall Street and policy makers of countries’GDP growth can distort development incentives and result in disastrous unintended consequences.Clearly,for a country to prosper,sufficient economic activity must be generated in order to     

Another Form of Aboriginal Exemption — Employment as Protection Against Removal

The Queensland Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act 1897, which introduced the system of exemption certificates, also initiated another form of “exemption” — one based on employment. The Act permitted “lawfully employed” Aboriginal people to be “excepted” from forcible removal to reserves. Those placed on an Aboriginal reserve faced a restrictive life of disconnection from Country, kin networks, and traditional practices and way of life. Many Aboriginal people found employment in the pastoral industry and thus avoided the Act's provision of removal to a reserve. This paper interrogates government records and reports to provide an understanding of the development and implementation of this legislation and the racial ideologies underpinning it. The 1898 diary of a Queensland pastoralist who employed Aboriginal men on his station is also examined to obtain an understanding of the roles, experiences, and position of Aboriginal people in the pastoral industry during this period. These findings reveal that despite hardships faced in the pastoral industry, Aboriginal people found advantages in this form of employment. Through their highly sought-after pastoral skills and expertise, and strategic engagement with Europeans, Aboriginal people excelled in the pastoral industry, and many achieved significant levels of freedom and success.