Labor–Management Relations: Understanding and Practicing Effective Negotiations

Periodic collective bargaining between employers and unions, combined with contract administration and workplace dispute resolution, has provided many core insights for the broad field of negotiations. Over the past twenty-five years, this arena has advanced knowledge regarding the interdependence of integrative and distributive bargaining, the concurrent shaping of attitudes, the management of internal relations (within a party), and the roles of elected and appointed agents. Public sector negotiations have provided new insights into the dynamics of multilateral bargaining as well as a broad array of mediation and arbitration models. While the number of labor agreements negotiated each year has declined over the past half century, at least 23,000 private sector agreements are still executed each year and fundamental changes in industrial relations systems make continued attention to labor–management negotiations of increasing importance. In particular, this arena now features highly structured approaches applying interest-based bargaining principles and presents profound challenges as power relations shift in multiple ways.     

Renewing IMF surveillance: Transparency, accountability, and independence

In this paper, we present a vision for IMF surveillance that seeks to produce a more accountable, transparent, and independent surveillance process. First, to make surveillance more focused, the IMF’s assessment should be principles-based; that is, the Fund should assess the overall coherence of exchange rate, monetary, fiscal and financial policies, with a view to analyzing their effects on external stability. Second, the IMF should have a governance structure that increases incentives to support candid, transparent assessments of surveillance. In practice, this entails a different role for the Executive Board: the Board will set out the Fund’s strategic framework for surveillance; the Managing Director and the staff will conduct surveillance. These reforms clarify the roles and responsibilities of the IMF and its member countries in the surveillance process. Also, our proposed reforms aim at making surveillance more even-handed and objective. We believe that this principles-based approach can bolster the credibility and legitimacy of surveillance, giving the Fund greater influence on the economic policies of members.

Context matters: interim stabilisation and second generation approaches to security promotion

The scale and ferocity of post-war violence regularly confounds the expectations of security and development specialists. When left unchecked, mutating violence can tip ‘fragile’ societies back into all out warfare. In the context of formal peace support operations, conventional security promotion efforts are routinely advanced to prevent this from happening. These include disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) and wider security system/sector reform (SSR). There are also lesser known but no less important interventions to promote security that deviate from—but also potentially reinforce and enhance—DDR and SSR. Faced with dynamic post-war contexts, erstwhile warring parties, peace mediators and practitioners have crafted a host of innovative and experimental security promotion initiatives designed to mitigate risks and symptoms of post-war violence including interim stabilisation measures and second generation DDR. Drawing on a growing evidence base, the article sets out a host of contextual determinants that shape the character and effectiveness of security promotion on the ground. It then issues a typology of emergent practices—some that occur before, during and after DDR and SSR interventions. Taken together, they offer a fascinating new research agenda for those preoccupied with post-war security promotion.     

Socioeconomic impacts of the proposed federal gaming tax

We review the history of gaming and its taxation in the U.S., particularly in regard to the idea of “sin taxes” which were often presented as policy instruments intended to control problem gamblers. The review suggests that raising taxes neither encourages moderation nor replaces negative external costs. We follow the review with a socioeconomic impact analysis of a proposed four percent Federal Gaming Tax by simulating its impact on Clark County, Nevada for the period 1995-2004 using a large scale econometric multi-regional model. Clark County is of interest because it is where Las Vegas is located. The analysis reveals that the proposed tax would lead to a measurable decline in Clark County's jobs, population, disposable income, and total industrial during the forecast period. By 2004, total industrial output would be 1.3 percent lower under the proposed tax and Clark County would experience a loss of $1.39 in real disposable income for every gaming tax dollar collected by Federal Government. These reductions, coupled particularly with the loss of thousands of jobs in Las Vegas area hotels/casinos predicted by the analysis suggest that increased demands on social services in Clark County would result. These findings, together with the lack of evidence that raising taxes would promote moderation or reduce external negative costs, lead us to argue that excise taxes represent an unattractive option.     

Revealed preferences of a state bureau: Case of New Mexico's underground storage tank program

Leaking underground storage tanks (USTs) are a pervasive national environmental problem. Cleanup of leaking USTs is largely publicly financed and under the control of state agencies. In the transition to new compliance standards, individual states have taken advantage of provisions in federal regulations to implement their own programs. This raises the policy question of environmental federalism and the appropriate locus of government control. The objectives of this study are to examine the revealed preferences of a state UST bureau. New Mexico was one of the first state programs to use risk assessments in setting funding priorities. We analyze the statistical determinants of funding decisions and find strong evidence that risk information is used. Although our case study provides a measure of support for state control, the argument is strengthened if public financing is limited to the cleanup of historical pollution, rather than a means for providing insurance for prospective pollution. ©1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

An experimental study of the effect of structured videotape feedback on adolescent group psychotherapy process

Group psychotherapy with disturbed undersocialized adolescents requires modification of traditional group psychotherapy methods. The effectiveness of a structured, brief video-tape feedback and discussion on group psychotherapy process with this population was studied by an analysis of detailed ratings of each statement, or process unit; in randomly selected videotapes from a control and experimental group during a nine-month period. Significant differences in level of intimacy of verbal content and in frequency of feedback about behavior in content indicate that this technique is effective in facilitating group psychotherapy goals.Received Ed.D. from University of Kentucky. Research interests are group psychotherapy process and methodology.Received M.A. from North Carolina State University. Research interest is adolescent group psychotherapy.Received Ph.D. from North Carolina State University. Research interest is adolescent group psychotherapy.Received M.A. from University of North Carolina. Research interest is group psychotherapy process.Received Ph.D. from Purdue University. Research interets include analysis of small group processes.     

The nuclear family,ideology and AIDS in the thatcher years

Thanks to Willem De Haan, Pompe Institute, Utrecht University, for his regular intellectually corrective efforts and to my colleague Gillian Douglas for encouraging the solo rewrite and for her helpful suggestions.