Trickster, Hero, Helper: A Report on the Lawyer Image

This study presents evidence that there are three distinct images of lawyers that are held by both lawyers and the public. The lawyers' professional subculture and values are explored through examination of the three images and their interrelationships as seen from differing perspectives. Implications are drawn concerning issues of lawyer identity, social responsibility, lawyer-client relations, and the unity of the bar. The images are related to other symbolic structures, including the adversary system, the family, and Western myth.     

Workplace harassment: A test of definitional criteria derived from an analysis of research definitions and Canadian social definitions

Public awareness of the occurrence and effects of workplace harassment continues to grow. However, despite increasing awareness, ambiguity remains about how harassment is defined and, consequently, how to determine whether a questionable situation should be judged as harassment. For this research we reviewed definitions of workplace harassment and identified four elements that were frequently included as criteria for making judgments of whether harassment had occurred (i.e., repetition, intent, perceived intent, consequences). In two separate studies, fictional scenarios were used to evaluate the extent to which participants' judgments about harassment were affected by the presence or absence of the four elements. Ratings of the scenarios provided by student participants (study one; N = 160) and a convenience sample of community participants (study two; N = 292) with varying levels of work experience and diverse professional backgrounds were analysed. According to our results the four elements significantly influenced participants' judgments of harassment. The intent of the harasser had the strongest and most consistent effect on harassment judgements and whether the behaviour was repeated had the weakest and least consistent effect. In addition to the unique effects of the individual elements, significant interactions between the elements emerged and suggest that harassment judgements depend on the interplay of a variety of factors. Though the results of these studies add to the growing body of research that focuses on defining workplace harassment, they also highlight the need for additional research in the area.     

Book reviews

Policy Evaluation in the Public Sector: Approaches and Methods. By Colin Palfrey, Ceri Phillips, Paul Thomas and David Edwards. Avebury, 1992. Pp. 176. £32.50 hb.

Managing for Service Quality. By Chris Skelcher. Managing Local Government series, Longman, 1992. Pp. 125. £16.95 pb.

Working Together for Better Community Care. By Randall Smith, Lucy Gaster, Lyn Harrison, Linda Martin, Robin Means and Peter Thistlethwaite. School of Urban Advanced Studies, University of Bristol, 1993. Pp. 228. £11.95 pb.

Citizen Involvement: A Practical Guide for Change. By Peter Beresford and Suzy Croft. Practical Social Work series edited by Jo Campling. Macmillan, 1993. Pp. 240. £32.50 hb, £9.50 pb.

Implementing Housing Policy. Edited by Peter Malpass and Robin Means. Buckingham, Open University Press, 1993. Pp. 199. £37.50 hb, £12.99 pb.

In Support of Education: The Functioning of Local Government. By Philippa Cordingley and Maurice Kogan. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1993. Pp. 122. £11.50 pb.

Tourism, Museums and the Local Economy: The Economic Impact of the North of England Open Air Museum at Beamish. By Peter Johnson and Barry Thomas. Edward Elgar, 1992. Pp. 160. £29.50 hb.

The A‐Z of Council Tax and Council Tax Benefit: A Citizen's Guide. Association of District Councils, December 1992. £8.00.     

List of Contributors

The emergence of regional parliamentary assemblies (RPAs) in Africa has been on the ascendancy since the mid-twentieth century. The essence of these parliaments is to contribute to regional economic and political integration through oversight, legislation and representation. However, the ability of Africa's RPAs to perform these functions has been challenged by institutional and legal factors. Using five regional parliaments (the East African Legislative Assembly, the Economic Community of West African States Parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union of Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the Pan-African Parliament and the South African Development Community Parliamentary Forum) as case studies, this paper examines the impact of these challenges on the functionality and viability of Africa's RPAs. It finds that given that these parliaments lack legitimacy of authority and enabling status of operation, they exist merely as deliberative, consultative and advisory bodies rather than independent organs of regional economic communities with full legislative and oversight powers. Consequently, the paper recommends, among other things, the amendment of their constitutive acts to grant them full legislative and oversight functions, and the election of their members by universal adult suffrage in order to give them legitimacy of authority.     

Free voting in a provincial parliament: The case of ‘same‐sex’ legislation in Ontario, 1994

Previous research on parliamentary free voting, which has been confined exclusively to national parliaments and almost exclusively to the British House of Commons, has found relatively little constituency impact on members’ voting decisions, even on the most contentious issues of social policy. Since sub‐national parliaments tend to be smaller, less professionalised, and (arguably) ‘closer to the people’, it is possible that a more significant ‘constituency connection’ might be observed in these legislative arenas. This study extends the literature on this topic by empirically examining the fate of a recent homosexual rights bill in the Ontario Legislative Assembly. Contrary to expectations, none of the constituency characteristics used in logistical regression models generates a significant MLE coefficient, suggesting that Canadian provincial legislators may be even less sensitive to constituency preferences than their national counterparts.     

Parliamentary scrutiny as a function of interparliamentary cooperation among subnational parliaments

ABSTRACT

The paper analyses the scrutiny activities of three different types of institutionalised form of interparliamentary cooperation with participation of subnational parliaments: the Conference of European Legislative Assemblies; the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference; and the Interregional Parliamentary Council of the Grande Région. For the purpose of analysis, the analytical parameters of parliamentary functions are modified and applied to the forms of institutionalised interparliamentary cooperation. It is shown that the exertion of scrutiny activities increases in relation to the age and institutionalisation of an interparliamentary cooperation. Ex ante control, which may consist of as little as demands, develops more easily than ex post control. Moreover, the exercise of the scrutiny function becomes more difficult when the level(s) that populate(s) the interparliamentary cooperation is/are not congruent with the level(s) that populate(s) the executive body of the respective international organisation. Interparliamentary cooperation of subnational parliaments struggles to scrutinise an organisation in which national executives play a major role.     

Competence to Complete Psychiatric Advance Directives: Effects of Facilitated Decision Making

Psychiatric advance directives (PADs) statutes presume competence to complete these documents, but the range and dimensions of decisional competence among people who actually complete PADs is unknown. This study examines clinical and neuropsychological correlates of performance on a measure to assess competence to complete PADs and investigates the effects of a facilitated PAD intervention on decisional capacity. N=469 adults with psychotic disorders were interviewed at baseline and then randomly assigned to either a control group in which they received written materials about PADs or to an intervention group in which they were offered an opportunity to meet individually with a trained facilitator to create a PAD. At baseline, domains on the Decisional Competence Assessment Tool for PADs (DCAT-PAD) were most strongly associated with IQ, verbal memory, abstract thinking, and psychiatric symptoms. At one-month follow-up, participants in the intervention group showed more improvement on the DCAT-PAD than controls, particularly among participants with pre-morbid IQ estimates below the median of 100. The results suggest that PAD facilitation is an effective method to boost competence of cognitively-impaired clients to write PADs and make treatment decisions within PADs, thereby maximizing the chances their advance directives will be valid.