Do people want a ‘fairer’ electoral system? An experimental study in four countries

When judging how ‘fair’ voting rules are, a fundamental criterion used by both scholars and politicians is their ability or inability to produce proportional results – that is, the extent parties’ seat distribution after the elections accurately reflects their vote shares. How about citizens? Do citizens care about how proportional the outcome is? Or do they judge the outcome solely on the basis of how well (or poorly) their party performed? Taking advantage of a uniquely designed survey experiment, this article investigates the causal effect of proportionality on voter support for voting rules in four countries: Austria, England, Ireland and Sweden. The results show that proportionality drives support for the voting rules not above, but beyond party performance. There is little cross-country variation, which suggests that proportionality is appreciated in different contexts with little status quo bias. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the causal mechanisms linking electoral rules to voter support.     

Technocracy,the market and the governance of England's National Health Service

England's National Health Service, the fifth largest employer in the world, has become heavily influenced by expert authority and the market economy, which has had implications for accountability and the receptiveness of health decisions to stakeholder needs. One response has been the introduction of a range of regulatory provisions designed to facilitate effective governance and stakeholder engagement. These provisions are scrutinized using three conceptual devices: core accountability, social reporting and social learning. These devices have significant implications, as they enable technical experts to form closed communities, communicate among themselves mainly about economic and financial matters, and make decisions that aid the market without meaningful recourse to citizens. While technical experts are necessary to help manage complex areas, current arrangements reinforce an existing gap between economic and democratic values through hardened technocratic approaches to health care governance.     

Identifying Media Effects Through Low-Cost,Multiwave Field Experiments

Field experiments are notoriously difficult to implement when studying media effects. They are often prohibitively expensive, require the cooperation of a nonacademic entity, and measure effects some time after exposure to treatment. In this article, we outline a design for low-cost, multiwave field experiments of media effects. Researchers can implement this design on their own and can control the timing of when they measure effects. We demonstrate the feasibility of the design with an application to the study of presidential debates.     

Gender-Based Violence Prevention Workshops: An Experimental Evaluation of Efficacy

Gender-based violence has become an increasingly visible and salient public problem. In the Fall of 2015, the University of Connecticut’s Violence Against Women Prevention Program (VAWPP) implemented interactive workshops in first-year experience (FYE) classes to reduce rape myth acceptance, improve knowledge and understanding of the University’s affirmative consent policy, and increase confidence in interpreting cues related to sexual consent. This randomized experimental design tested whether these outcomes were realized as a result of the workshops. In almost all instances, the workshops substantially and statistically significantly decreased students’ rape myth acceptance, increased their knowledge and understanding of consent, and improved their confidence in cue interpretation.     

The Role of Public Service Motivation in Employee Work Engagement: A Test of the Job Demands-Resources Model

The study investigates the nature of public service motivation’s (PSM) relationship to employee work engagement. Using the Job Demands-Resource Model, the authors compare whether PSM as a resource is an antecedent to employee work engagement or has a buffering effect on job hindrances of perceived red tape in explaining employee work engagement. They surveyed 388 supervisors and managers in a public-sector organization in the United States. The findings support PSM as an antecedent along with perceived job influence and perceived procurement red tape to employee work engagement.     

朝鲜核危机的现状及展望

朝核危机问题作为重大的国际危机事件,其影响与破坏力已经危及到地区甚至全球的和平发展环境。目前来看,美朝双方都寻求能在朝核危机上取得一些突破,但美朝之间在一些问题的认识上还存在差距,美国会力争以利比亚的模式来解决朝核问题,而朝鲜方面即使不寻求印巴模式结束这场核之争,也将会通过这一边缘政策寻求利益最大化。因此,尽管朝核去功能化已经出现曙光,但朝核问题的解决还会有很长的路要走,而且不会一路平坦。     

刑法的宪法化原则研究

基于国家的理性治理思想和刑罚权的特别规制需要,刑法的宪法化原则的形成和发展成为历史发展的必然。在西方法治国家中,作为厉行刑事法治所遵循的一个重要准则,刑法的宪法化原则在近现代已经得到广泛的应用。全面、准确地界定它的基本含义,系统、科学地确定它的基本内容,是在刑事法治实践中应用它的重要前提。只有实现刑法的系统宪法化和法治化、宪法的司法化,它才能真正地在刑事法治实践中得到贯彻。     

多指标正交试验优选炮苍耳子中酚酸类成分的提取工艺

目的 优选苍耳子中酚酸类成分的最佳提取工艺。方法 以苍耳子浸膏得率、5种酚酸类成分及总酚酸的含量为指标,通过正交试验设计,优选出苍耳子中酚酸类成分的最佳水提取工艺。结果 所优选出的最佳提取工艺为10倍量水,浸泡30 min,提取3次,每次90 min。其中提取次数对提取工艺的影响,差异具有统计学意义（P＜0.05）。结论 所选用的提取工艺稳定、简便、可靠,为进一步提取苍耳子中酚酸类成分提供实验参考。     

Remediation of Social Withdrawal in Young Children:

The last 15 years have witnessed a marked increase in the development of intervention techniques designed to promote isolate children's friendships and to increase their peer group interactions. However, there has been a paucity of research directed towards defining social competence and its underlying skill components. With the practitioner in mine, the present report presents a recent intervention strategy for remediating social withdrawal, followed by our current development of a skill deficit model designed to expand our knowledge case of causal contributors. PEERS, a broad-based intervention program, involves all of the child's social agents, thus assuring him/her of entry into the peer group in an atmosphere of social support. Our more comprehensive view of social withdrawal examines deficits in four skill areas: the child's social, language, and motoric competences, and the parents' child-rearing ability. Additional research is needed to pinpoint the precise relationship between these skill components and social withdrawal. With the further contributions of researchers in the field, we foresee the development of a more refined set of intervention procedures which the practitioner may use selectively to meet the individual needs of each child.     

One Small Step at a Time: Implementing Continuous Quality Improvement in Child and Youth Mental Health Services

Continuous quality improvement (CQI) is increasingly being adopted by health care, including child and youth mental health services. As part of the commitment to ongoing quality improvement, child and youth mental health teams in the Fraser region in British Columbia undertook CQI projects over a one year period (2007–2008). The projects covered a range of domains and service features and staff gained experience in developing projects. Patience, management support and ongoing dialogue were key elements in the implementation of CQI. Three projects are highlighted to illustrate how teams developed their own unique projects and the outcomes.