Notes on contributors

‘Women's empowerment’, as used by international development organisations, is a fuzzy concept. Historical textual analysis and interviews with officials in development agencies reveal its adaptability and capacity to carry multiple meanings that variously wax and wane in their discursive influence. Today a privileging of instrumentalist meanings of empowerment associated with efficiency and growth are crowding out more socially transformative meanings associated with rights and collective action. In their efforts to make headway in what has become an unfavourable policy environment, officials in development agencies with a commitment to a broader social change agenda juggle these different meanings, strategically exploiting the concept's polysemic nature to keep that agenda alive. We argue for a politics of solidarity between such officials and feminist activists. We encourage the latter to challenge the prevailing instrumentalist discourse of empowerment with a clear, well articulated call for social transformation, while alerting them to how those with the same agenda within international development agencies may well be choosing their words with care, even if what they say appears fuzzy.     

Strategy and tactics in organizational change

This paper is first concerned to review the characteristics of dominant strategies in race relations and organizational change as they affect local government. It is argued that these strategies make invalid assumptions, are unsupported by evidence of their effectiveness and offer too few options for organizational change through the intervention of an innovator in the form of the race relations adviser. An alternative change strategy is outlined with a brief case study illustrating the similarities between this strategy and the practice of one race relations adviser in a shire county. A significant omission from this analysis has been the issue of local community involvement. This has not been discussed because the focus of the analysis has been on internal structures.     

Learning for change: The art of assessing the impact of advocacy work

The field of advocacy work is growing and changing rapidly and there is much to be done in exploring not only how best to carry out effective advocacy, but also how best to use the tools of monitoring & evaluation and impact assessment (M&E/IA) to promote learning, improve accountability, and assess the value of advocacy. This paper starts by exploring the complex and changing nature of advocacy work, arguing that standardised forms of M&E/IA are likely to be inappropriate--they will probably provide misleading information, and may create perverse incentives that undermine joint action. However, while there are obvious pitfalls, there are few ready-made answers. The authors suggest that NGOs involved in advocacy at all levels should identify essential elements of their work at the outset and ensure that they monitor and evaluate those areas that they deem most important. Indeed, evidence shows that short-term successes of advocacy work may often be won at the expense of longer-term aims-- such as building capacity among partners and contributing to more fundamental change in the future. Throughout, the authors argue that an analysis of power and power structures should guide advocacy strategy and the ways in which advocacy can effectively be evaluated. A successful M&E approach must be flexible enough not only to adapt to external events, but also to be a tool for reshaping the campaign. Those of us concerned with developing M&E/IA tools for effective and accountable advocacy need to start breaking new ground.     

A path analytic approach to the validation of a taxonomic system for classifying child molesters

This study examined the validity of the most recent revision of a taxonomy for child molesters developed at the Massachusetts Treatment Center (MTC:CM3). The taxonomy is distinguished both from earlier versions of this system and from other systems, by three major changes: (a) the partitioning of the regressed/fixated dichotomy into two separate factors-level of social competence and degree of fixation on children, (b) the introduction of a new type (narcissistic) to fill an empirically determined gap between the object-related offender and the antisocial, exploitative offender, and (c) the differentiation of the violence in the sexual offense into nonsadistic and sadistic components. MTC:CM3 was used to classify 177 child molesters who were committed to the Treatment Center. Variables coded from the clinical files were rationally grouped according to developmental period and subjected to principal-components analysis (PCA). The PCA-derived components then were entered into a series of regression analyses. The resulting three path models indicated that the new subtypes created by the aforementioned refinements had distinct developmental courses and adult adaptations.     

New York City's approach to problem-employee counseling

Employee problems such as alcohol and drugs (and the emotional turmoil that leads to them) continue to slow productivity and increase turnover. For nine years, New York City has been an innovator in this area of personnel concern, abandoning the traditional warn-and-terminate method for the centralized and cost-effective outreach program that is outlined here.     

"Swinging in the park". An investigation of an autoerotic death

Death during autoerotic episodes is of special concern to law enforcement officials, the coroner or medical examiner, the family of the decedent, and to society as a whole. As in the probing of any violent demise, accurate preservation of all evidentiary material, complete photographic documentation, reconstruction of the scene, and interviews with family and acquaintances ("psychological autopsy") are mandatory for proper completion of the case. A recent, atypical instance of sexual asphyxia arising from a bizarre incident exemplifies the foregoing dicta and provides a vivid example of "psychopathia sexualis."