Enhancing citizen participation: Panel designs,perspectives, and policy formation

Even though a citizen participation component is included in nearly every major local government planning and policy initiative, most citizen participation techniques have been judged to be less than adequate tools for informing policy makers about the people's will. Recently, having planners or policy analysts work closely with long-standing citizen panels composed of a randomly selected sample of community members has been proposed as one appropriate response to many of the inadequacies of traditional techniques. In this article, staff from a municipal government policy analysis unit describe and critique a yearlong citizen panel project focused on developing a transportation master plan in a university community. They argue that panels can overcome many of the limitations to effective citizen participation. The authors also suggest that panels can work well, but only if policy analysts assume more pro-active and advocacy roles than those routinely found in local government.     

In Love with <Emphasis Type="Italic">Inspector Morse</Emphasis>: Feminist Subculture and Quality Television

This article consists of textual analysis of a highly successful television series, Inspector Morse, combined with qualitative audience study. The study of Morse and the fan culture surrounding it is presented in the context of a discussion of recent feminist work on the texts and audiences of popular culture. The textual analysis focuses on those elements of the programmes which contribute to its success as ‘quality’ television, and particularly on Morse as an example of the role played by nostalgic representations of Englishness in ‘quality’ media texts of the 1980s. The article goes on to discuss whether the presence of such representations in these programmes leads inevitably to a convergence of ‘quality’ and conservative ideology. The discussion of the ideological subtexts of the programmes then focuses on the area of gender representation, and on the extent to which feminist influences are discernible in this example of quality popular culture, particularly in its representations of masculinity. The second part of the article presents an analysis of a discussion group involving fans of the series, which was organized as part of a larger qualitative study of the fan culture surrounding the programmes. There is a detailed discussion of the impact of the social dynamics of the group on their readings of Morse. The analysis also focuses on the ways in which the discourses identified in the textual analysis, such as gender representation, quality and Englishness, are mobilized in talk about the programmes. Finally, the nature of the group made it possible to discuss the construction of a feminist subcultural identity in talk about a mainstream media text, and to identify irony and critical distance as key components of that identity, particularly in the discussion of the pleasures offered by the romance narratives of the programmes.     

Methodological artifacts in tests of rational choice theory

Criminal decision making is an inherently natural and highly individualized process; however, rather than allowing participants to self-identify the costs and benefits that impact their own decisions to offend, rational choice researchers have typically provided participants with a uniform list of consequences to consider. Indirect evidence suggests this technique may alter the participants’ perceptions of consequences, yet no study to date has examined this supposition directly. In the current study, participants were randomly assigned to experimental conditions in which they either received a list of traditional costs and benefits to assess or were asked to self-generate their own list to assess. As in past research, when participants were allowed to self-generated consequences they identified several “novel” costs/benefits that have certainty/severity rating comparable to many of the traditionally examined consequences. Results also showed that consequences are more likely to be perceived as possible outcomes (i.e., receive a non-zero probability) when they are presented by researchers than when they are self-generated. Finally, the average certainty and severity of negative consequences do not differ across condition, while ratings of the certainty and value of benefits from crime are relatively lower when they are presented by researchers. Implications for rational choice theory and survey research in criminology more broadly are discussed.     

A Longitudinal Investigation of Cognitive Self-schemas across Adolescent Development

Research in developmental psychology highlights youth’s self-schemas as one possible pathway to improve adolescents’ functioning and promote positive developmental outcomes. Despite this, the trajectory of positive and negative self-schemas is relatively understudied. This study addresses this limitation by empirically examining the trajectory of self-schemas in a community sample of 623 youth (M?=?13.04 years; 54% female; 49% African American, 4% Biracial, 47% European American) who were followed over a seven-year period. Caregivers completed measures of parenting practices, maternal rumination and negative inferential style, and adolescents completed a computerized behavioral task assessing self-schemas (i.e., mental frameworks that guide attention, interpretation, and memory of one’s experiences). Multilevel growth curve modeling results demonstrated a quadratic slope for negative self-schemas and no mean-level change for positive self-schemas. These trajectories did not vary by gender or racial group. However, parenting factors differentially influenced the trajectories. Specifically, higher levels of parental involvement at baseline, or an active interest and engagement in a child’s experiences and activities, related to lower levels of negative self-schemas during adolescence. Additionally, higher levels of parental rumination and parental negative control at baseline related to lower levels of youth positive self-schemas at baseline. These findings contribute to models of youth cognitive development.

     

Cognitive Vulnerabilities Amplify the Effect of Early Pubertal Timing on Interpersonal Stress Generation During Adolescence

Early pubertal timing has been found to confer risk for the occurrence of interpersonal stressful events during adolescence. However, pre-existing vulnerabilities may exacerbate the effects of early pubertal timing on the occurrence of stressors. Thus, the current study prospectively examined whether cognitive vulnerabilities amplified the effects of early pubertal timing on interpersonal stress generation. In a diverse sample of 310 adolescents (M age = 12.83 years, 55 % female; 53 % African American), early pubertal timing predicted higher levels of interpersonal dependent events among adolescents with more negative cognitive style and rumination, but not among adolescents with lower levels of these cognitive vulnerabilities. These findings suggest that cognitive vulnerabilities may heighten the risk of generating interpersonal stress for adolescents who undergo early pubertal maturation, which may subsequently place adolescents at greater risk for the development of psychopathology.     

Rwanda and the question of Commonwealth relevance

Rwanda’s accession to the Commonwealth is often cited as a reason for the organisation’s continued relevance. And yet, in spite of this positioning as poster child for a more cosmopolitan Commonwealth, there is very little evidence, in the corpus of Commonwealth literature, to show how accession of states such as Rwanda boost the argument for relevance. In 2015, I travelled to Rwanda to gain an understanding of the effect that Commonwealth membership has had on the country and vice versa. Using this evidence, I draw conclusions about the effect that Rwanda and the Commonwealth have had on each other.     

Optimal feeder roads in developing countries: The case of Thailand

The economic rationale of the construction of feeder roads in LDC's is that such roads stimulate agricultural activity within the area of influence of the road. Nearly all project reports prepared by contractors stress the probable agricultural benefits of feeder road construction but the evidence of a limited number of post‐construction appraisals suggests that such benefits may be small or nonexistent. It is the purpose of this article to examine the economic theory underlying the possibility (or non‐possibility) of induced benefits. The article concludes with an application of the theoretical results to feeder road construction in Thailand.