Predicting daily-life antisocial behaviour in institutionalized adolescents with Transgression-related Implicit Association Tests

This study investigated whether implicit attitude (IA) and implicit self-concept (ISC) towards transgression predicted daily-life antisocial behaviour (ASB) in institutionalized adolescents. Eighty-seven adolescents completed two Implicit Association Tests (IAT) assessing IA and ISC towards transgression, and reported four times a day during eight days the intensity of their ASB. Staff members concurrently reported the intensity of each adolescent’s ASB. Adolescents filled in the Inventory for Callous-Unemotional Traits and answered a semi-structured interview assessing conduct disorder. Multilevel regression analyses confirmed that adolescents’ ISC towards transgression significantly predicted their self - and staff-reported ASB over and above conduct disorder and callous-unemotional traits. However, adolescents’ IA towards transgression did not predict their ASB. Results indicate that ISC towards transgression is a reliable predictor of daily-life ASB in institutionalized adolescents. These results suggest that transgression-related ISC represents a promising target for ASB prevention in institutionalized adolescents.     

Autonomy and managerial reforms in Europe: Let or make public managers manage?

Drawing on a survey of top executives in central governments in 11 European countries (N = 5,190), this study explores variations in the extent and scale of managerial autonomy across and within European states. The article is based on a comparative, multidimensional and relational approach to autonomy. Confirming predictions of qualitative studies, it shows that these variations can partly be explained by the intensity of New Public Management (NPM) reforms and provides a typology of European countries connecting the intensity of neo‐managerial reforms (measured by the declared use of management tools) to the degree of managerial autonomy. Our findings support Donald Kettl's hypothesis differentiating countries where the ‘let the manager manage’ model prevails, as in the Northern countries, by contrast with those, such as the United Kingdom, dominated by the ‘make the manager manage’ programme. The promise of managerial autonomy has also not been delivered to the same extent across and within countries.     

Parental Autonomy-Support,Intrinsic Life Goals,and Well-Being Among Adolescents in China and North America

Self-determination theory proposes that prioritizing intrinsic life goals, such as community involvement, is related to well-being, whereas focusing on extrinsic life goals, such as financial success, is associated with lower well-being and that parenting influences the type of life goals that youth adopt. In a sample of 515 Chinese (56% female, mean age = 15.50) and 567 North American (52% male, mean age = 14.17) adolescents, a model of the relationships between parenting, life goals, and well-being was investigated and confirmed for intrinsic life goals. Across societies, autonomy-supportive parenting was associated with the endorsement of intrinsic life goals, which in turn was associated with well-being. Intrinsic life goals partially mediated the relationship between parental autonomy-support and well-being. These findings suggest that, cross-culturally, prioritizing intrinsic life goals is related to increased well-being among adolescents and that parents could encourage intrinsic life goals by being supportive of their children’s autonomy.     

The Renewed ‘Struggle for Syria’: From the War ‘in’ Syria to the War ‘over’ Syria

ABSTRACT

Syria is generally considered a case of non-intervention. One of the dominant (since the 1990s) kinds of intervention, namely multilateral humanitarian intervention, failed, as did other attempts by a select group of countries to implement a ‘red line’ concerning the use of chemical weapons. However, in this case, there is no sharp dichotomy between intervention and non-intervention. In lieu of an intervention that would tilt the balance and coordinate help to halt massacres, various rival and uncoordinated international and regional interventions overlapped over time, fuelling a market for violence. ‘Weakened interventionism’, as opposed to principled and hierarchical intervention, has manifested itself in Syria in a model recalling “the struggle for Syria” of the 1960s in a new, contemporary setting.     

Process Tracing in Public Administration: The Implications of Practitioner Insights for Methods of Inquiry

The field of public administration is often seen as a late adopter of cutting-edge research methods. Related disciplines like political science use more advanced research methods for single or small-n case studies including techniques like process tracing. Many elements of process tracing are analogous to investigations. To inform process tracing practices, political scientists looked at Sherlock Holmes novels. We draw on the experiences of a police inspector and a former soldier who worked with intelligence to offer insights on the implementation of process tracing, bridge the academic–practitioner gap, and increase the methodological rigor in public administration research.     

The institutional failures of International Monetary Fund conditionality

The purpose of this paper is to propose an analytical framework integrating the diverse explanations of the failure of IMF conditionality. The IMF is a key player in the running of markets in a global economy. The institutional failures of IMF conditionality are appreciated at two complementary levels: (a) its intrinsic bureaucratic bias, and (b) the inability of the IMF to manage the institutional change required for the development of market processes. A new approach of conditionality suggests the separation of the role of the IMF as financial backer from its role as adviser to countries confronted by the globalization process.

Citizen Advisory Committees: A Tool to Remedy the Shortcomings of the Contingent Valuation Method Within the System of Multi-Level Governance

The Contingent Valuation Method (CVM) is an economic analysis tool used to measure the utility of producing of public goods, based upon individual’s declared preferences. The public decision-maker is thus able to arbitrate between the expenditure to be made. The approach has been deployed in a centralist conceptual plan, leaving little room for citizens in the decision-making process and it has been undermined by the rise in power, notably in Europe, of multi-level governance. The decision-maker is no longer alone in this process and public decision-making must operate on the basis of common views adopted by various levels of government that should also establish much stronger links with the citizen-users of public goods. This article analyzes the operational impact of Citizen Advisory Committees (CAC) as participative tools of CVM that result in an effective cooperation between the various public actors and the civil society in public decision-making.     

A theory of predatory welfare state and citizen welfare: the French case

Public Choice - In this paper, we argue that the welfare state is an outcome of modern mass (total) warfare. The total war economy requires the participation of all citizens, erasing the...     

Canada and the Bureaucratic Politics of State Fragility

Canada's 2005 International Policy Statement announced that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces were committed to “whole of government” interventions in failed and fragile states. This led both the Canadian government and outside observers to declare that Canada was successfully harmonising the aims and practices of its internationally focused departments and crafting a synergised approach to interventions in failed and fragile states. Drawing on Halperin and Clapp's organisational theory of bureaucratic politics, this paper argues instead that the foreign affairs and defence departments embraced the idea of failed and fragile states to reinforce their organisational essences and recycle their existing missions, roles, and capabilities. In addition, the departments used a “whole of government” approach to secure their autonomy, fence their respective functions, and enlarge their unique capabilities, under the guise of greater efficiency.