Implementing pay reform in the public sector: Different approaches to flexible pay in sweden and the united states

A set of implementation criteria drawn from the United States experience provide a framework for examining pay reform in the Swedish public sector. The study finds that the Swedish approach is quite distinct and this may be attributable to unique features in the Swedish labor market. The reform toward flexible or individualized pay in government agencies appears to be based on an assumption of greater cost efficiency in human resource management and a broad unwillingness to employ objective measures of individual or organizational productivity. Consequently the study calls into question the utility of an analytical framework based on the Anglo-American experience for examining the Swedish case.     

A comparison of the effects of witnessing community violence and direct victimization among children in Cape Town, South Africa

This study is based on a sample of children from the Cape Town area in South Africa. The study compares the effects of witnessing school or neighborhood violence compared with being victimized in each context on psychological distress. The findings suggest that in the context of the school, victimization has a somewhat stronger effect on distress than witnessing violence. However, in the neighborhood, the opposite was the case. "Unknown locus of control" was also analyzed as a moderating variable. The findings are interpreted in the context of violence in South African society. The study also investigates the overlap between witnessing violence, victimization, and perpetration in the child's school and neighborhood. The vast majority of victims had been witnesses as well as perpetrators. Longitudinal research, which could track involvement in various forms of violence starting at a very early age, is needed to clearly assess the differential impact of each form of violence.     

Four poems

S. Lewis, B. Keating, D. Russel: Inconclusive by Design: Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Federal Environmental Research, Environmental Health Network: Harvey, LA and National Toxics Campaign Fund: Boston, MA, May 1992.

Darrow Schecter: Radical Theories: Paths Beyond Marxism and Social Democracy. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994.

Peter Freund and George Martin: The Ecology of the Automobile. New York: Black Rose Books, 1993.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Abstract

A Handbook for Cultural Trustees: A Guide to the Role, Responsibilities and Functions of Boards of Trustees of Cultural Organizations in Canada , Marion Paquet, with Rory Ralston and Donna Cardinal. Waterloo, Ont.: University of Waterloo Press, 1987. 75 pages, $22.95. Reviewed by Brann J. Wry.

Bureaucratizing the Muse: Public Funds and the Culture Worker , Steven C. Dubin. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1987. 226 pages, index. Reviewed by George C. Koch and Joan Jeffri.     

Drug use in India: Historical traditions and current problems

By all accounts, drug abuse in India — as elsewhere around the world — is reaching near epidemic proportions. Although India has been a world producer of legal drugs for pharmaceutical markets, it also has an ancient tradition of using drugs in daily activities and ceremonial rituals. Only in recent years has this historically drug‐rich country developed a drug abuse problem. Because of its history of tolerance of drug use in culturally sanctioned activities, India offers a rich site for investigating the conditions that foster responsible and irresponsible use of drugs. Global efforts at crop reduction, interdiction, and criminal sanctions continue to be disappointing at best. A more realistic approach may be to identify factors that make drugs particularly alluring to some segments of the population and not to others. This approach emphasized responsible conduct in drug‐rich environments rather than depending on the increasingly unlikely eradication of the supply.     

Understanding Strategic Planning and the Formulation and Implementation of Strategic Plans as a Way of Knowing: The Contributions of Actor-Network Theory

ABSTRACT

This article has two purposes: first, to take seriously the notion of strategic planning as a way of knowing, and second, to argue that actor-network theory provides a particularly apposite method for understanding whether and how strategic planning works in particular circumstances. Pursuit of these purposes also helps illuminate possible contributions of strategic planning to inclusive, participative, and democratic public management. The paper is illustrated with examples from the 1995 and 2007 strategic planning and subsequent implementation efforts of MetroGIS, an organization created to foster widespread sharing of geospatial information primarily among public organizatons serving the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota, USA, and further, to enhance their individual and collective effectiveness. The Metropolitan Council, the regional government, is the primary sponsor of MetroGIS, which is comprised of over 300 organizational partners across the region. Conclusions are offered about the importance of viewing and studying strategic planning as a way of knowing and as a potential vehicle for inclusive public management in a democratic society.

[A table featuring a complete timeline of the major MetroGIS accomplishments between 1995 and 2008; the controversies, participants, processes, technologies, and artifacts involved; and the outcomes or major consequences resulting from the accomplishment is included as an online supplement on the publisher's website.]     

Designing Public Participation Processes

The purpose of this Theory to Practice article is to present a systematic, cross‐disciplinary, and accessible synthesis of relevant research and to offer explicit evidence‐based design guidelines to help practitioners design better participation processes. From the research literature, the authors glean suggestions for iteratively creating, managing, and evaluating public participation activities. The article takes an evidence‐based and design science approach, suggesting that effective public participation processes are grounded in analyzing the context closely, identifying the purposes of the participation effort, and iteratively designing and redesigning the process accordingly.