One-Stop Shopping for Government Services: Strengths and Weaknesses of the Service Tasmania Experience

Government service delivery in Tasmania has undergone a customer-orientated shift, changing the nature of the relationship between the Government and the community. A Tasmanian State Government initiative named Service Tasmania utilizing information technologies and private sector style business administration values offers new possibilities in service delivery through its integrated whole-of-government approach. This initiative facilitates cross-agency customer-centered service delivery within the overall government framework. This article introduces an empirically based qualitative investigation into the implementation of Service Tasmania’s One-Stop-Shops. Particular interest is placed on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of implementing the Service Tasmania service delivery model. Data were analyzed by using a grounded theory approach comprising open, axial, and selective coding. Findings indicate that whilst some weaknesses in the approach have been uncovered the numerous strengths outweigh them. Some practical implications are identified for policy-makers and practitioners engaged in service delivery reform projects.     

The Brazilian military after the Cold War: In search of a mission

What purpose should Brazil’s armed forces serve in upcoming years? Democratization, the end of the Cold War, and Brazil’s economic crisis have prompted an unprecedented debate over this question by narrowing the range of tasks that the Brazilian military can pursue. This article investigates civilian and military support for various possible military roles and analyzes their compatibility with civilian control. It argues that the political weakness of the current government, the economic crisis, and growing social unrest militate against an expansion of the military’s conventional external defense mission and in favor of non-combatant domestic functions. This has begun to occur despite military enthusiasm for the former and military reservations about the latter. The military’s adoption of multiple domestic assignments in a country with a tradition of military interventionism poses risks to civilian control.     

Interest group demand for taxation

Researchers have typically ignored the determinants of the tax structure of the public sector. Political scientists have concentrated their analyses on the expenditure side of the public ledgers while economists have avoided the issue by assuming that taxes are exogenously determined. In this paper we have shown that a behavioral model of political interest groups can be employed to gain insights into the political selection of taxes. The theory provides a general complement to the well-documented analysis of special interest demand for public expenditures.Our analysis raises several important policy questions. First, is the influence of interest groups on the determination of tax systems desirable from a public policy perspective? For example, special interest groups dominated by high and middle income individuals may prefer regressive tax systems which reduce their own tax burden. Certainly the impact of interest groups on the well-known regressivity of state and local tax systems is an area worthy of additional investigation.     

Chemical composition and structure of the microcrystals formed between silver(I) and gamma-hydroxybutyric acid and gamma-hydroxyvaleric acid

This study examined microcrystals formed by silver with gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and gamma-hydroxyvaleric acid (GHV), the five-carbon analog of GHB, in the presence of silver, copper, and lanthanide nitrates. Distinct microcrystals formed with silver (+1) and lanthanum (+3) ions but not with the copper (+2) ions. The crystals formed with GHB were distinctly different than those formed with GHV and in all cases, the drug microcrystals were easily distinguishable from reagent crystals. X-ray diffraction analysis provided definitive structure for the microcrystals. The morphological differences between the silver-GHB and silver-GHV crystals were characterized using simple measurements such as size and angles provided by image recognition software. The utility of the test for casework was demonstrated using spiked beverage samples.