Intimate constellations/constellations of intimacy: an exchange on navigating in collisions

How to imagine alternative forms of attachments and intimacies beside the centrifugal force of compulsory coupledom? This is one of the central questions in this creative exchange between an artist (Fleckner) and art historian (Danbolt), using wood cuts and words respectively in an examination of imaginaries of relation and belonging. With an interest in the power of esthetic figurations in shaping desire and politics, the article’s cross-medium exchange considers the importance–and difficulty–of reconfiguring established plots and institutions of intimacy. While the prints take their starting point in a critical reconfiguration of the visual tradition of mapping relationality in the form of couple-oriented family trees, the textual responses move between the genres of the essayistic, theoretical, and diaristic in an attempt to consider alternative modes of valuing and acknowledging relations. Refusing to let go of the desire for a revolution in the structures of intimacy in times where alternatives to hetero- and homonormative arrangements of desire seem increasingly sparse, the text flaunts an unabashed belief in the world-making power of the esthetic and its ability to produce utopian performatives that gives sense to ways of feeling and relating differently.     

Redesigning the Hollow State: A Study of Florida Child Welfare Service Reform through the Lens of Principal-Agent Theory

While principal-agency theory has greatly facilitated our understanding of governance and management in the hollow state, close examinations of how system designs affect agency problems has been rare. The purpose of this study is to explicitly investigate the effects of different contract configurations on agent shirking, which is a common problem in third-party service delivery arrangements. Florida's recent statewide privatization and reconfiguration of its child welfare service delivery system are analyzed for this purpose. Data were collected through intensive document reviews and interviews with the public managers and the contract agents who were involved in the reform. Major structural components of the redesigned system (such as overall contract configuration, procurement policies, oversight mechanism, payment methods, and vendor governance structures) are examined and compared with those of the old system. The results of the analysis suggest that the Florida reform installed several structural devices intending to curb agent shirking that plagued the old system. The most significant changes involve a transition of the contracting scheme from a fragmented quasimarket based on dyadic contracting to an integrated service network based on a managed care model, a shift of the focus of the contract oversight from compliance and process to service outcomes, and a transfer of programmatic and financial risks and uncertainties from the government to vendors. Further, the findings of the study reveal some unintended consequences of the reform. For example, the reconfigured system that empowers communities also promotes local parochialism that hinders the government's statewide policymaking ability. The reform that consolidates contracts into the hands of a few large vendors under a standardized contract management system unites the vendors around their common interests to confront their government principal.     

Reshaping Employment Relations in the UK Voluntary Sector: an Exploratory Study into the Impact of Best Value

This paper provides exploratory insights into the impact of the UK government's Best Value policy on employment policies in voluntary organisations. Best Value is one of a number of institutional pressures on HR policies within the sector: many of which have positive implications for the conduct of HR and delivering care. However, the data also reveal tensions in this institutional environment with regard to meeting demands of twenty-four hour care and family-friendly policies for the workforce. Moreover, continuation of aspects of the New Public Management agenda within Best Value means that pressure on pay and conditions in the sector persist, raising concerns regarding worker morale and quality of care.     

Between Prescription and Practices in Seoul Metropolitan City: Institutional Constraints and Relational Contracting

Public choice theories suggest contracting out as a cure-all for various weaknesses of government bureaucracy and its absence of competition. The transaction cost economics theory challenges these theories, arguing that competitive contracting is appropriate only for hard services like human waste collection while relational contracting is for soft services such as welfare facility management. After examining contracting practices of 25 district governments of Seoul Metropolitan Government, however, this study found that informal institutional constraints led district governments to adopt relational contracting for human waste collection and to adopt competitive contracting for welfare facility management.     

Comparing Welfare Service Delivery Among Public,Nonprofit and For-Profit Work Agencies

Since passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996, there has been a proliferation of contracting for welfare services, specifically around Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and related benefits and services such as child care. The services most commonly contracted include those around the work or employment function, such as training, education, job placement, and support services to promote job entry or retention.

The purpose of this article is to examine differences in the quality of service provision among public, nonprofit, and for-profit auspices in the delivery of work-based welfare reform services. The findings show that there are some differences in welfare programs across the three sectors. The significance of this issue relates to the critical question of whether social needs can be best met through competitive outsourcing.     

Contracting Out Local Government Services to Private Agents: An Analysis of Contract Design and Service Delivery Performance in Ghana

Contracting out is generally justified on the principle that as governments contract out part of their responsibilities in service provision to private agents, they harness the power of market competition which leads to efficiency in service provision. In working with private contractors, local governments (LGs) face problems related to agent opportunism, while agents also face risks such as dereliction of payment responsibility by LGs for services delivered. The literature shows that these problems are addressed through a web of contractual arrangements. Using agency theory, this study investigates the relationship between contract design and quality of services delivery in three Ghanaian cities (Accra, Kumasi and Tema). The study found a surprising negative correlation between contract document and agents' performance. The paper concludes that effectiveness of contracting out documents depends on contract management capacity of government administrators. In its absence, LGs that contract out are exposed to risks. The paper uses the findings to reflect on the inherent deficiencies in agency theory and Africanist literature on patronage.     

Can Vendors Buy Influence? The Relationship Between Campaign Contributions and Government Contracts

Over the past 30 years, research on government contracting has identified three major influences that help explain variation in contracting decisions—managerial, organizational, and political. This study looks to advance the political influence literature by introducing a factor that has received limited attention—vendor influence. This study specifically focuses on contract transactions at the U.S. federal government to determine if vendors influence the contract award. Traditionally, political influence is studied at the macro or meso levels. This study shifts the unit of analysis to the micro level which requires a change in measurement of political influence. The study uses vendor campaign contributions to capture political influence on this new level of focus.     

Criminal law and mentally ill offenders in comparative perspective

Abstract

In this stick we compare legal arrangements dealing with mentally disordered offenders in the criminal law systems ct Belgium, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. To describe relevant diffesenoes and similarities in the arrangemeats, we used a checklist containing antral aspects of adjudication, assessment and treatment of mentally ill offenders. These aspects concern: (1) the legal classifications of mental illnesses that can lead to exclusion of criminal responsibility: (2) the acceptance of diminished capacity as a partial excuse; (3) the possibilities for imposing security measures of compulsory treatment instead of or next to criminal punishment; (4) the conditions for their imposition in terms of seriousness of crimes committed and dangerousness of offenders; (5) the available hospitals or special clinics for executing security measures; (6) the role and task of forensic mental health professionals in assessing the offender's state of mind and in advising compulsory treatment; (7) the rules for duration, prolongation and termination of the measures. The findings of this comparative analysis are evaluated in light of legal protection for mentally disordered offenders.     

MP Transparency,Communication Links and Social Media: A Comparative Assessment of 184 Parliamentary Websites

Parliamentary websites (PWs) can potentially enhance the quality of government by providing information and communication links that stimulate political awareness, deliberation and participation. This article focuses on two particular uses of PWs that can facilitate communication between constituents and their Members of Parliament: provision of MP contact and background information; and links to social media. Through a seminal empirical examination of all 184 functioning lower house and unicameral PWs around the world, this study found that although PWs in wealthy democracies generally provide more MP information, the majority of PWs are deficient in providing basic MP information to citizens and utilizing linkages to social media. By contrast, some non-democratic states and newly democratized countries, especially those with compulsory voting, display a relatively high level of MP transparency and social media connectivity.     

进退维谷中的行政强制催告制度——对《行政强制法》第35条的解读

《行政强制法》第35条规定的催告制度由于立法的不完善,形成了催告行为的作出时间应在行政决定履行期限届满之前或者之后两种不同的解读观点,这两种不同的解读都存在着理论与实践的问题。通过类型化分析催告行为的法律属性,探寻立法背景,进行体系性解释,只有将催告行为的作出时间解读为在行政决定履行期限届满之后,才能更好地完善行政强制执行程序。