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.     

May Mediators Draft Settlement Agreements?

This article surveys the current law in various states as well as the Model Rules of Professional Conduct regarding whether a mediator‐lawyer may draft a settlement agreement at the conclusion of a mediation. It includes a look at the traditional boundaries between a lawyer and a mediator and concludes with a recommendation on how California should approach whether a mediator‐lawyer should be allowed to draft a settlement agreement for parties at the conclusion of a mediation.     

社会性别视角中的两性平等

社会性别相对于生理性别而产生的,是近年来国际上分析男女平等的重要概念。从社会性别的视角来看,影响两生平等的因素,主要有理论、经济、政治和文化等方面。实现两性平等对于弘扬先进文化,建设和谐社会具有十分重要的意义。     

Competing Risks, Persistence, and Desistance in Analyzing Recidivism

A statistical procedure is developed to analyze recidivism in samples whichare subject to the presence of desisters and to multiple modes ofreconviction. This allows for a more accurate study of individuals'transition and hazard in the type and timing of offenses following aspecific type of conviction. The use of a nonparametric approach forinvestigating failure in the presence of other acting causes is shown;initial estimators of the probabilities of reconviction for different typesof offenses are obtained, and the method can be used both to display thedata and to choose an appropriate parametric family for the survivaltimes. An exponential mixture model for competing risks is presented insuch a way that it allows us to adjust for concomitant variables and toassess their effects on the probabilities both of reconviction forpredetermined types of offenses and desistance and of the hazards ofreconviction; a method for assessing calibration of predicted survivalprobabilities is suggested. A 21-year follow-up of persons convicted ofindecent assault on a female in 1973 illustrates the methods; we find ahigh probability of sexual reconviction for individuals with previoussexual convictions and evidence of diversity and a raised hazard ofreconviction for young chronic offenders.     

Harnessing Market Competition in PPP Procurement: The Importance of Periodically Taking a Strategic View

Public‐Private Partnerships (PPP) procurement is routinely portrayed as offering greater scope for harnessing competitive market forces to secure Value for Money (VfM) than traditional procurement approaches ( OECD 2008 ). The aim of this article is (a) to demonstrate the importance of periodically taking a more systematic and strategic view when assessing VfM in PPP procurement ( OGC 2003 ), and (b) to develop an analytical framework for such an analysis. Road infrastructure procurement in South East Queensland is used as a case study to test the usefulness of the proposed framework, and to show how a narrow focus on individual contracts increases the risk of overlooking overdependence on one supplier ( OGC 2003 ). Discussion focuses on the need to combine detailed analysis of individual contracts with longitudinal analyses of market competitiveness when assessing best VfM.     

The Rudd Government's Employment Services Agenda: Is it Post‐NPM and Why is that Important?

Perhaps the most potent symbol of the Howard government's faith in New Public Management (NPM) was the Job Network. Interrogating the Rudd government's replacement package, this article assesses whether the recent restructuring of employment services constitutes a post‐NPM environment. It is argued that there are major post‐NPM elements, seen most clearly in: the softening of jobseeker sanctions; greater deliberation on policy direction and results; a more inclusive employment super‐ministry and reliance on other ‘horizontal’ governance reforms; and enhanced government resources for multiple‐disadvantage clients. However, categorising these changes as post‐NPM is problematic because the steering mechanism remains the market‐based contract, a central NPM characteristic. Theoretical difficulties in applying paradigmatic concepts to services provide additional barriers to conclusive assessments, though the Rudd government's employment services regime provides a basis for taking stock in the post‐NPM debate.     

Regional Corporate Spawning and the Role of Homegrown Companies

This paper presents the results and policy implications of a study that examined the spawning of founders who had previously been employed at large corporations. We found that spawning of founders is positively associated with the parent companies' productivity, innovativeness, and headquarter location. Furthermore, we found that the spin‐off per employee rate is higher in smaller establishments. We also found that the local entrepreneurial culture is significant in explaining local spawning of founders. Finally, we present new empirical evidence on the crucial role of successful homegrown companies in regional cluster development. More specifically, we found that the existence of successful homegrown companies is significantly correlated with the level of the regional entrepreneurial activity. This finding is consistent with the finding of many cluster development case studies. Thus, we argue that successful homegrown companies have a unique role in cluster development. This role can seldom be replaced by nonhomegrown companies. This is related to the notion that prior to the development of an entrepreneurial cluster, some intangible precondition should be realized such as the appearance of local role models and a shift toward a more entrepreneurial culture. In a more general perspective, these results support the notion that knowledge‐based regional development is a complex process that requires a long‐term and continuously adjusting supporting policy rather than being based mainly on attracting established companies' R&D centers to the region.     

Where Registered Sex Offenders Live: Community Characteristics and Proximity to Possible Victims

Recent developments in sanctions for sex offenders emphasize use of sex offender registries and residential restrictions in efforts to raise public awareness and keep offenders away from possible victims. One consequence of such efforts is to relegate registered sex offenders to socially disorganized communities. The present study draws on census tract level data from one urban county and assesses whether offenders are likely to be found in socially disorganized communities and in communities with high concentrations of potential victims. Findings show that registered sex offenders are more likely to reside in socially disorganized and disadvantaged communities, but not in locations with large pools of most types of possible victims (e.g., women living alone, children). Residential location is explained in terms of economic factors, not desire to live near possible victims. Implications for current policies and practices are discussed.     

经济增长、社会发展与男孩偏好:基于治理的视角

本文基于1990、2000年全国人口普查数据和1995、2005年全国1%人口抽样调查数据,采用了多层线性模型(HLM)方法,对经济增长、社会发展和男孩偏好之间的关系进行了分析。发现较高的经济增长水平和社会发展程度有助于出生人口性别比治理绩效的实现,但受到男孩偏好强弱程度的影响。论文结尾分析了研究结论对于出生人口性别比治理的政策启示,并指出了局限性和未来改进方向。     

Level Two Negotiations: Helping the Other Side Meet Its “Behind‐the‐Table” Challenges

A long analytic tradition has explored the challenge of productively synchronizing “internal” with “external” negotiations, with a special focus on how each side can best manage internal opposition to agreements negotiated “at the table.” Implicit in much of this work has been the view that each side's leadership is best positioned to manage its own internal conflicts, often by pressing for deal terms that will overcome internal objections and by effectively “selling” the agreement to key constituencies. Far less frequently have analysts considered how each side can help the other side with its “behind‐the‐table” barriers to successful agreement. Following Robert Putnam's two‐level games schema, I characterize such “behind‐the‐table” or “Level Two” barriers more broadly, offer several innovative examples of how each side can help the other overcome them, and develop more general advice on doing so most effectively. As a fuller illustration of a Level Two negotiator helping the other side with its formidable behind‐the‐table challenges, I pay special attention to the end‐of‐Cold‐War negotiations over German reunification in which former American Secretary of State James Baker played a key role.