Autonomy and distance from the centre as drivers of innovation in the public sector: Testing a positioning-based hypothesis

A generally accepted assumption is that innovation in the public sector is easier when managers have more autonomy. Previous research has revealed a paradox: the most innovative organizations are autonomous organizations, but also central agencies, more so than ministries. What has not been documented so far in Canada is the quality and nature or type of innovation by location. We developed a database of applications for IPAC's innovative management award with 1712 innovations in federal and provincial governments over the past 29 years. Using statistical analysis that takes into account the proximity of applicant organizations to political power, we provide a picture of innovation and institutional position in the public sector in Canada.     

Colonia Housing Conditions in Model Subdivisions: A Déjà Vu for Policy Makers

The informal self-help settlements in Texas known as colonias have received considerable attention as a public policy problem at both the state and federal levels. These settlements proliferated throughout the border region since the late 1970s and research has highlighted the extreme poverty, austere levels of infrastructure, exploitative land sale practices, and poor housing conditions that characterized these settlements. However, both scholars and policymakers have overlooked the continued spread of self-help settlements known as “model subdivisions,” which barring the presence of basic water, wastewater, and electricity services, are nearly identical to colonias. We present the results of household surveys conducted with residents in 24 model subdivisions in Hidalgo County, Texas, in June 2014. The results suggest that, unbeknown to legislators, many of the problems that characterized colonias are now being reproduced in hundreds of model subdivisions that have formed since the 1990s, and which now require concerted attention and intervention by policy makers.     

The Counterrevolutionary Campus: Herbert Marcuse and the Suppression of Student Protest Movements

Abstract

With the recent surge of college protests against various forms of economic, political, social, and racial injustice, there have been persistent and pernicious reactions from other students, administrators and public figures that function to undermine the emancipatory impulses animating these demonstrations. The reactions are often justified under the banners of tolerance, chastising students to listen instead of protest. This article, focusing on Marcuse’s concepts of repressive toleration and counterrevolution, evaluates the reactionary responses to these events, as well as the critical potential of this fledgling student sensibility, a burgeoning refusal represented by protest events at American universities. We maintain that many of the calls for tolerance are actually demands for silence and belong to a wider counterrevolutionary phase of late capitalism observed by Marcuse. Bedrock liberties are dialectically inverted whereby speech and toleration are repressively deployed against demands for justice. This article concludes by arguing that it is crucial to the success of this resurgent sensibility for justice—and progress toward a radical socialist movement that coincides with the emancipatory vision of Herbert Marcuse—that the counterrevolutionary character of the responses are demystified.     

Fluorescence Imaging of Posterior Spiracles from Second and Third Instars of Forensically Important Chrysomya rufifacies (Diptera: Calliphoridae),

Entomological protocols for aging blowfly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larvae to estimate the time of colonization (TOC) are commonly used to assist in death investigations. While the methodologies for analyzing fly larvae differ, most rely on light microscopy, genetic analysis, or, more rarely, electron microscopy. This pilot study sought to improve resolution of larval stage in the forensically important blowfly Chrysomya rufifacies using high‐content fluorescence microscopy and biochemical measures of developmental marker proteins. We established fixation and mounting protocols, defined a set of measurable morphometric criteria and captured developmental transitions of 2nd instar to 3rd instar using both fluorescence microscopy and anti‐ecdysone receptor Western blot analysis. The data show that these instars can be distinguished on the basis of robust, nonbleaching, autofluorescence of larval posterior spiracles. High‐content imaging techniques using confocal microscopy, combined with morphometric and biochemical techniques, may therefore aid forensic entomologists in estimating TOC.     

Doing Politics: Journey to the Centre of the (Academic) Universe: 20 Steps on Getting Published in Journals

As postgraduate students, researchers or junior lecturers, we all aspire to climb the highest peaks of academic life, to bask in our reflected glory and to have the (small disciplinary) world at our feet. Yet how do we assail those peaks? More often than not, they seem like sheer cliff faces or mountain ranges where the noviciate assemble at the bottom and gaze skywards in disbelief. When we look around at academics who have successfully scaled those heights, it is obvious that an effective publication record is essential, where refereed journal articles are particularly prized. Yet the numbers who gather to attempt their own ascent ask the question – is there any straightforward publication route the beginner can follow? Surely we cannot all be left to cut our own path without really knowing where, how, or even whether we should be travelling at all? This article argues that writing academic journal articles has been mystified. For many wanting to get started, it seems like the final destination is a secret place, somewhere that you might stumble across but one where the locals jealously guard the short-cuts. Here we aim to de-mystify journal article writing and provide 20 steps for the prospective writer. These 20 steps, however, provide more a series of useful directions than a definitive map of the terrain. As beginning academics themselves, the authors are, at best, merely amateur cartographers.     

The development and reform of court organization and administration

Over the past decade, court reform has become an integral part of the process of economic, political and administrative development. This article will examine the causes and consequences of court reform's new role. After reviewing the key national and international actors and examining the political and economic assumptions used to justify this initiative, the article will then argue that (1) the priority of judicial reform in the development agenda is linked not only to a theory of the role of courts and law in political and economic development, but also to the emergence of the field of judicial administration and court management, beginning in the United States and extending to a number of other countries; (2) the limitations built into the judicial administrative reforms implemented in OECD countries may be accentuated in the developing world; and (3) the very success of judicial administration as a field allows it to be used, in conflict with its fundamental tenets, to advance the political agendas of OECD countries as well as developing and transitional regimes. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Charles Peirce’s Categories and the Growth of Reason

Charles Peirce’s semeiotic is inseparable from his account of the three categories of experience and his metaphysics. The discussion summarizes his account of the categories and considers the way they have ontological implications. These implications are then focused on Peirce’s Apapism, which is his way of referring to a theory of evolution. Finally, some suggestions are offered for a way the semeiotic with the metaphysical implications, especially their relevance for a theory of evolution, propose how Peirce might apply them for questions of jurisprudence.

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