Do Partners in PPPs view Public and Private Management Differently?

Differences between public and private management have been studied extensively by comparing sectors, but not within cross‐sectoral collaborative arrangements. As participants in such arrangements have actually experienced both management styles, examining their perceptions of how these styles differ may contribute innovatively to existing literature. This paper compares such perceptions between public and private sector project members (N = 63) involved in four PPPs in the Netherlands. We assess (1) to what extent and under which conditions these project members view public and private management differently and (2) how they evaluate these differences. By triangulating quantitative and qualitative interview data, we examine Boyne's classical hypotheses and find that more than two‐thirds of the statements making reference to these hypotheses offer support for them; more so, the vast majority of such statements evaluate sectoral differences negatively. Intriguingly, type of PPP is a stronger determinant of perceived differences than the manager's sector of origin.     

Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach

The narrative and dual-cycle approach conceptualize and operationalize adolescents’ identity formation in different ways. While the narrative approach focuses on the construction of an autobiographical life story, the dual-cycle approach focuses on the formation of identity commitments. Although these approaches have different emphases, they are conceptually complementary. Yet, their empirical links and distinctions have only scarcely been investigated. Empirical knowledge on these links in adolescence and across time has been especially lacking. In the present research, it was therefore examined whether key characteristics of adolescents’ narration (autobiographical reasoning and agency) were concurrently and prospectively related to engagement in the dual-cycle processes of commitment making, identification with commitment, exploration in breadth, exploration in depth, and ruminative exploration. The findings from a cross-sectional sample of 1,580 Dutch adolescents (M_age?=?14.7 years, 56% female) demonstrated that autobiographical reasoning was significantly positively associated with the commitment and more adaptive exploration processes (i.e., in breadth and in depth). In addition, agency was significantly positively associated with the commitment processes and exploration in depth. Yet, these associations between the narrative characteristics and dual-cycle processes were only weak. Subsequently, the findings from a two-year longitudinal subsample (n?=?242, M_age?=?14.7 years, 62% female) indicated that on average commitment strength remained stable but exploration increased across middle adolescence. A stronger increase in identification with commitment and adaptive exploration (i.e., in breadth and in depth) was predicted by a higher degree of agency in adolescents’ narratives. Overall, these findings indicate that both approaches to identity formation are associated, but the small size of these associations suggests that they predominantly capture unique aspects of identity formation. Both approaches could thus complement and inform each other.

     

Towards Europeanisation through the proportionality test? The impact of free movement law on medical professional discipline

Medical doctors can exercise their free movement rights to escape the control of professional regulation at the national level. This “darker side” of free movement of doctors has received a lot of attention. This article will show that the free movement provisions play an increasingly important role in medical disciplinary cases. The application of free movement law can make a positive contribution to the protection of patient safety. However, disciplinary tribunals are unfamiliar with the structure of arguments based on the free movement provisions. While the case law on free movement of patients has encouraged a process of internationalisation of medical standards, free movement of doctors has not yet led to a similar process of Europeanisation of medical professional rules. Nevertheless, the proportionality test requires that disciplinary tribunals engage in a process of comparison between their own rules and the rules in other Member States.     

Collective Identity and Well-Being of Bulgarian Roma Adolescents and Their Mothers

In Europe and specifically in Bulgaria, Roma represent the largest indigenous ethnic minority exposed to severe discrimination, social exclusion, poverty, and compromised well-being. To improve their conditions, identifying sources of psychological well-being for Roma is theoretically relevant and practically important. This study investigated the relation between ethnic, familial, and religious identities as salient collective identity components for psychological well-being among 194 Roma adolescents (age: M = 16.11 years, SD = 1.36) and their mothers (age: M = 35.95 years, SD = 3.54). The results indicated that in line with marginalization models of acculturation, Roma youth and their mothers showed a low endorsement of both Bulgarian mainstream and Roma ethnic identity. The average scores of well-being were also low. For both groups, familial identity was stronger compared to Roma, Bulgarian, and religious identity. A path model showed that collective identity was a positive predictor of well-being in both adolescents and mothers and that the mothers’ collective identity was a predictor of adolescent well-being. Bulgarian mainstream identity had the strongest relationship with collective identity. It is concluded that, for Roma youth and their mothers, family is an important identity domain as it represents the most salient identification source that is not challenged in their environment.     

Neighbourly Injuries: Proximity in Tort Law and Virginia Woolf’s Theory of Suffering

2012 marks the 80th anniversary of Donoghue v Stevenson, a case that is frequently cited as the starting-point for a genealogy of negligence. This genealogy starts with the figure of the neighbour, from which, as Jane Stapleton eloquently describes, a ??golden thread?? of vulnerability runs into the present (Stapleton 2004, 135). This essay examines the harms made visible and invisible through the neighbour figure, and compares the law??s framework to Virginia Woolf??s subtle re-imagining and theorisation of responsibility in her novel Mrs. Dalloway (1925). I argue that Woolf critiques and supplements the law??s representations of suffering. Woolf was interested in interpreting harms using a framework of neighbourly responsibility, but was also critical of the kinds of proximities recognised by society. Woolf made new harms visible within a framework of proximity: in this way, we might think of Woolf??s work as theorizing a feminist aesthetic of justice, and as providing an alternate genealogy of responsibility to Donoghue v Stevenson.     

Identity Statuses as Developmental Trajectories: A Five-Wave Longitudinal Study in Early-to-Middle and Middle-to-Late Adolescents

This study tested whether Marcia's original identity statuses of achievement, moratorium, early closure (a new label for foreclosure), and diffusion, can be considered identity status trajectories. That is, we examined whether these statuses are distinct and relatively stable, over-time configurations of commitment strength,?levels of in-depth exploration of present commitments, and consideration of alternative commitments. The study examined identity development in a five-wave study of 923 early-to-middle (49.3% female) and 390 middle-to-late adolescents (56.7% female), covering the ages of 12-20. Using Latent class growth analysis (LCGA), the authors found that Marcia's (1966) statuses are indeed identity status trajectories. Two kinds of moratorium were also found: the classical moratorium and searching moratorium. Support was found for Waterman's developmental hypothesis of the identity status model: the number of achievers was significantly higher, and the number of diffusions lower, in middle-to-late adolescence than in early-to-middle adolescence. Females were more often in the advanced identity status trajectories, and stable differences were found between the trajectories in psychosocial adjustment. Study findings highlight that identity formation should be conceptualized as an over-time process.     

Supplementary vote; analysis, applications, and alternatives

The Supplementary Vote (SV) was invented as a compromise between the two-round runoff system and the alternative vote. This paper shows that in many ways it is not. Under SV voters rank order a limited number of candidates. If one candidate is supported by over 50% of the voters he/she is declared the winner. Otherwise, all but the top two candidates are eliminated from the contest. Then, all second preferences of voters are taken into account. The candidate winning most first and second votes is declared the winner. SV violates fundamental criteria used to evaluate electoral systems and is difficult for voters. The paper discusses an alternative to SV which avoids at least some of its most apparent flaws.     

Agencies without borders: Explaining partner selection in the formation of transnational agreements between regulators

Transnational collaboration between regulatory agencies has proliferated rapidly within the last three decades. However, given that information regarding the motives, trustworthiness, and capabilities of potential partners is typically imperfect, decisions about with whom to collaborate are inevitably characterized by a degree of uncertainty. To better capture these dynamics, this article uses a network analytical perspective and hypothesizes that agencies are more likely to form agreements with agencies to whom they are already indirectly connected (transitivity), that are highly connected (preferential attachment), or with whom they share tie-characteristics (assortativity). To test these hypotheses, a stochastic actor-oriented model is used to analyze an original, self-coded data set in which bilateral information exchange agreements between national securities agencies (n = 143) are mapped out over a 18-year period. The results show that the formation of agreements between regulatory agencies is driven by (i) the number of shared partners (i.e. triadic closure); and (ii) similarity regarding agency characteristics (i.e. homophily).