Governance landscapes for emerging technologies: The case of cryptocurrencies

Scholars call for “adaptive governance” to balance concern about technology uncertainty with the need for innovation in the governance of emerging technologies. Yet, empirical assessment of such governance systems remains sparse. Do the actors interested in the potential regulation of an emerging technology focus on their own interests and opportunities, or do they think in terms of the collective interest? We focus on the actors who embed such systems from a novel landscape perspective that combines two dimensions of governance: the nature of the regulatory target, and the nature of the process they advocate for governing the target. We present data from over 70 actors in the area of cryptocurrencies for evaluating this new logic.     

An evaluation of a private alternative probation and counseling program: Predicting program outcomes from client characteristics

The purpose of this evaluation was to determine if client characteristics affected selected program outcomes. The sample consisted of 475 clients admitted into a for-profit, private alternative probation and counseling program between November 1, 1998 and February 28, 1999. Multiple regression analyses identified race, previous alcohol and drug treatment, and employment status as significant predictor variables of client compliance. Being able to target client characteristics that are associated with successful program outcomes can help programs fulfill their goals of diversion and costeffectiveness, thus making the most effective use of scarce resources.     

Aid: A mixed blessing

Despite a growing emphasis by aid agencies on local participation and consultation, the recipients of aid commonly have mixed, if not hostile, responses to relief assistance. Agencies need to acknowledge the inequalities that are inherent in an aid relationship, and be more judicious in determining their proper role. The author calls for aid providers and recipients to accept our innate human equality and our circumstantial inequality in order to establish relationships of mutual respect and contemporaneous enjoyment of each other.     

The Authoritarian Executive? Horizontal and Vertical Accountability in Nicaragua

This article uses empirical evidence from Nicaragua to examine Guillermo O'Donnell's argument that new democracies often become undemocratic delegative democracies and that vertical accountability is not enough to stop such encroaching authoritarianism. While events in the last five years have focused attention on illegal executive behavior by former president Alemán, Nicaragua's democracy actually has experienced authoritarian presidencies under all the major parties. Elections and popular mobilization have strengthened the independence of the legislature, however. Mechanisms of vertical accountability thereby have proven more effective than expected in restraining executive authoritarianism and fostering institutions of horizontal accountability. The case of Nicaragua shows that citizens can use the power balance and separate institutional mandate of presidential democracy to limit authoritarianism.     

Liberals and Australian Foreign Policy*

Since the Second World War, Liberal governments trying to adapt to a rapidly changing international environment have been mindful of Australian interests, and especially the ongoing search for security. Adapting to declining British power, to militant communism in East and Southeast Asia, and to a new, under‐defined alliance with the United States was no easy task. The Colombo Plan for aid to South and Southeast Asia and the dismantling of the White Australia Policy represented two forms of positive engagement with Asia. Since the 1970s, Liberal governments have played significant roles in the strengthening of the Commonwealth; strengthening ties with key countries in Asia; and maintaining a sometimes problematic security relationship with the United States. On this latter point, however, the most recent Liberal governments have not performed well, in becoming more subservient to the Americans.     

Individual and contextual influences on delinquency: the role of the single-parent family

Research indicates that children are at risk for delinquency if they live in a single-parent family and if they live in areas with high levels of family disruption. Although there is a substantial amount of research on both the individual and aggregate relationships, examining delinquency at either of these two levels alone is not appropriate. Specifically, families do not exist in isolation as individual-level research inherently assumes, and aggregate research is concerned with explaining rates of delinquency as opposed to explaining influences on individual behavior. The current research used data from thirty-five schools, an important adolescent context, to determine the individual- and school-level effects of single-parent families on delinquency. The results from an overdispersed Poisson HLM regression model suggest both individual and aggregate effects, with a potential buffering effect of intact families regardless of any adolescents' specific family structure.