Abstract principles and concrete cases in intuitive lawmaking

Citizens awaiting jury service were asked a series of items, in Likert format, to determine their endorsement of various statements about principles to use in setting child support amounts. These twenty items were derived from extant child support systems, from past literature and from Ellman and Ellman's (2008) Theory of Child Support. The twenty items were found to coalesce into four factors (principles). There were pervasive gender differences in respondent's endorsement of the principles. More importantly, three of these four principles were systematically reflected, in very rational (if complex) ways, in the respondents' resolution of the individual child support cases they were asked to decide. Differences among respondents in their endorsement of these three principles accounted for differences in their patterns of child support judgments. It is suggested that the pattern of coherent arbitrariness (Ariely et al., Q J Econ 118(1):73-105, 2003) in those support judgments, noted in an earlier study (Ellman, Braver, & MacCoun, 2009) is thus partially explained, in that the seeming arbitrariness of respondents' initial support judgments reflect in part their differing views about the basic principles that should decide the cases.     

A Randomized Comparative Effectiveness Trial of Two Court‐Connected Programs for High‐Conflict Families

Parents who experience great amounts of legal conflict as they dissolve their relationship and arrive at their parenting arrangements require an outsize proportion of courts’ time and resources. Additionally, there is overwhelming evidence that conflict has a deleterious effect on their children. We partnered with the family court to conduct a study comparing the effectiveness of two programs for families deemed by their judge to be high conflict and thereby mandated to a program. Both involved one 3‐hour session; the existing program, Parent Conflict Resolution (PCR), used exhortational lecture and video; the newly designed experimental program, Family Transitions Guide (FTG), based on motivational interviewing, employed exercises attempting to get parents to decide for themselves what they needed to do for the sake of their children. Parents were assigned at random to one of the two programs (the literature often terms this a randomized clinical trial) and were interviewed just before it began and 9 months later, as was a child. Results showed that child's report of their own well‐being was significantly improved by FTG as compared to PCR and that these effects were mediated by children feeling less caught in the middle. On several variables, parent report showed that parents in PCR as compared to FTG felt decreased problems in co‐parenting and less interparental conflict, although the effects were not consistent across mother and father report. There was also evidence of diminished legal conflict over 9 months in FTG as compared to PCR.     

Defining and Defending the New Public Management

Book reviewed:
Lawrence R. Jones and Fred Thompson, Public Management: Institutional Renewal for the Twenty-First Century     

America and the Peace Talks

Abstract

During the ‘cleaning house’ period of a new administration, we are usually barraged with predictions of how all the changes will affect policy. New appointees and their past records are carefully scrutinized by the prognosticators. Such is the case with the newly chosen implementers of American Vietnam strategy. Henry Cabot Lodge is noted for his unbending anti-Communism. Henry Kissinger comes through as the hard-nosed intellectual with new, realistic solutions for the Vietnam dilemma. Ellsworth Bunker is the behind-the-scenes diplomat deferring punctiliously to Saigon's grievances. And yet what is most striking after two months of transition and new faces added to or replacing the old, is that the political climate in Washington and Paris and the traditionally defined objectives of American policy in Asia are basically unchanged. Looking at the resumption of the Peace Talks in Paris, it is already clear that basic American assumptions — and not personalities — will determine the American position in the months ahead.     

Simulation,the case method,and case studies: their role in public management teaching and research

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to expound the virtues of the case method, thereby conferring upon it the academic respectability it merits, but has not received. To do this, the paper discusses the use of simulations, cases and case studies in public management teaching and research. It is now important that public management training include a wide variety of skills, which can best be taught by simulation. Role-playing simulation and the Harvard case method are both discussed as specific types of simulations. The author's experience with two IPAC cases is presented to show how cases and simulations can be used in the classroom. Finally, the case study approach to research is discussed in terms of comparative case methodology and the use of Bayesian, or experience-based, statistics, as a way of testing hypotheses formulated in comparative case studies. Sommaire: Le but de cet article est d'exposer les avantages de la méthode d'étude de cas, lui conférant ainsi la respectabilité universitaire qu'elle mérite, mais qu'on ne lui a pas accordée. Afin d'atteindre cet objectif, le document examine l'utilisation des simulations, des cas et des études de cas dans l'enseignement et la recherche en administration publique. Il est important à l'heure actuelle que la formation en matière d'administration publique touche un large éventail d'habiletés, la meilleure façon d'y parvenir étant d'avoir recours aux simulations. La technique de mise en situation et la méthode des cas appliquée à Harvard sont étudiées en tant que types particuliers de simulations. L'auteur présente sa propre expérience avec deux cas de l'iapc afin de montrer comment on peut avoir recours aux cas et aux simulations dans l'enseignement. Enfin, l'auteur se penche sur l'étude de cas orientée vers la recherche en terme de méthodologie comparative, ainsi que sur l'utilisation de la statistique de Bayes, statistique fondée sur l'expérience, pour tester les hypothèses formulées dans des études de cas comparatives.