Designing a merit‐based process for appointing boards of abcs: Lessons from the Nova Scotia reform experience

Abstract: Efforts to design merit‐based appointment systems for the boards of government agencies, boards and commissions (abcs) have gained greater priority over the past decade in order to enhance public confidence in the integrity of the political process, improve the governance of organizations operating at arm's length from ministers, and reduce the risks to the public interest and public purse that come with incompetent boards. The Nova Scotia reform experience in this regard is instructive because this province's appointment regime not only encompasses a legislative committee veto over ministerial appointments, a power unique to this province in the Canadian and comparative Westminster systems, but also uniquely sets the merit standard as relative‐merit, that is, the appointment of the most qualified of all applicants, and not merely a qualified candidate. This article reviews this provincial experience and concludes that a merit‐based appointment system that pursues relative merit can be created but only by restricting the authority of ministers to a veto over the appointment of candidates nominated by the abcs themselves. Sommaire: Ces dix demières années, les efforts déployés pour concevoir des systemes de nomination au mérite pour les conseils d'administration d'organismes, des régies et des commissions du gouvernement ont obtenu une priorité beaucoup plus grande, et cela, afin de rehausser la confiance du public envers I'intégrite du processus politique, d'ameliorer la gouvernance d'organismes fonctionnant sans contrôle ministériel direct et de réduire les risques que représentent les conseils incompétents pour le bien et les deniers publics. L'expérience de la réforme entreprise en NouvelleÉcosse est à cet égard instructive pour les partisans de la réforme. Le régime de nomination de cette province comporte non seulement un droit de veto de la part d'un comité législatif sur les nominations ministéielles, pouvoir unique à cette province dans le systéme canadien et le systéme comparatif de Westminster, mais il établit également la norme de mérite comme un mérite relatif, c'est‐à‐dire la nomination de la personne la mieux qualifiée parmi tous les candidats et non simplement la nomination d'une personne qualifiée. Le présent article examine I'expérience de cette province et conclut qu'un système de nomination au mérite visant le mérite relatif peut être mis en place, mais seulernent à condition de limiter le pouvoir des ministres à opposer leur veto à la nomination de candidats par les organismes, régies et commissions gouvernementaux.     

Community Participation, the Environment, and Democracy: Brazil in Comparative Perspective

Grassroots environmental activism among Latin America's poor has altered the debate over environmental policy, social welfare, and citizenship. Yet the question remains whether this social mobilization of the poor is part of a larger trend toward broader environmental concerns and democratic political participation, or a shortlived movement susceptible to the same pressures that have dissolved community mobilization in the past. This article compares Brazil with other Latin American and European countries in surveys of environmental awareness, concerns, and reported behavior. It finds that Brazilians residing in the urban periphery link their own local environmental concerns to more global considerations, and that concern for and activism on environmental issues is positively related to wider community involvement.     

Blind Alleys: Can We Define Sovereignty?

Two recent works on sovereignty have argued that the term is indefinable and that all we can do is to analyse the definitions of others. The argument rightly centres upon the problematic link between sovereignty and the state. However it does not follow that because the whole notion of state sovereignty is problematic, sovereignty itself cannot be defined. This article suggests that a way out of this blind alley is to detach the idea of sovereignty from the institution of the state, so that an historically sensitive definition of the term becomes possible.     

Moderating effects of adolescent social orientation on the relation between social support and self-esteem

The study assessed whether the impact of social support on self-esteem is moderated by the adolescent's orientation toward the source of aid. Questionnaires were administered to 84 Israeli adolescents regarding self-esteem, perceived level of support from parents and peers, and preference, or orientation, for support from these sources. Regression analyses indicated that the positive effect of social figures' support on self-esteem increased as a function of interest in receiving aid from the specific source. Correlational analyses also revealed that heightened orientation toward parents was associated with higher levels of perceived parental support, whereas heightened orientation toward peers was associated with higher levels of peer support and lower levels of parental aid. These findings were consistent with self-evaluation maintenance and social provision theories, which suggest that the individual has an active role in selectively seeking out and filtering external social influences.His doctorate in educational psychology is from UCLA. Current research interests include stress and coping across the life span, social sources of adolescent self-esteem, and intergroup relations in the junior high school.Her doctorate in clinical psychology is from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her research interests include family relations, social and emotional development in children and adolescents, and developmental psychopathology.Her research interests focus on social support in the family.     

Culture,self, and“URI”: Anti-Americanism in contemporary South Korea

As a much debated phenomenon in contemporary South Korea, anti-Americanism has been seen primarily as a response to the perceived political and economic domination of the United States in Korean affairs. This article suggests that such a view, however, is incomplete without consideration of the cultural and psychological context in which contemporary discourses of cultural nationalism have arisen: specifically, an indigenous cultural psychology characterized by an emphasis onuri (“we”)—a collective sense of socially diffuse yet unified and homogenous selfhood. As one variety of contemporary national cultural discourse, anti-Americanism is a response to certain to certain unwelcome trends in cultural development that have already begun to undermine the collective sense of Korean selfhood, as reflected in part in Korean concern over the Western “cultural invasion,” and Korean critiques of American bias and arrogance in dealings with Korea. However, far from being a static concept concerned only with defensive protection of Korean identity,uri also reflects Korean concern for re-formulating national cultural identity in terms more accommodating to the outside. Ultimately, anti-Americanism needs to be seen in the context of a Korean cultural psychology, which posits the enduring value of a collectively defined selfhood as an alternative to the prevailing individualist representations of the West. Diane M. Hoffman is an anthropologist and independent scholar with research interests in contemporary Korean culture and Korean-American intercultural relations.     

Public school adjustment of delinquent boys after release from a juvenile corrective institution

This paper concerning the public school adjustment of delinquent boys after release from a juvenile corrective institution is based on research data obtained as part of a followup study. Seventy-two percent of the 94 teenage boys in our sample returned to school in the community, but over three-fourths of them dropped out. Although we examined several factors associated with the boys' post-release school adjustment, we focused our inquiry on the small group of 14 boys who completed high school. A few personal and social factors were related to public school outcome, i.e., whether the boys graduated or not. However, we also found that all the boys who finished high schol had received some suppoprt from a structured environment or from interested people in contrast to a majority of the boys who dropped out. None of the boys who graduated was involved in antisocial behavior while in school and only two, or 14%, had gotten into serious legal trouble during the 3-year followup period in comparison to 40% of the boys who dropped out and 50% of those who never attended school after release.Received Ph.D. from University of Houston in 1956. Currently Clinical Psychology Fellow at The Menninger Foundation. Major interest is in child and adolescent psychology.Graduate work, sociology, University of Kansas. Major interest is in juvenile delinquency.