When are experiments corrupt?

ABSTRACT

Between 2010 and 2011, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) funded a large-scale experiment on Kenyan schools. The policy experiment tested the effects of cutting teachers’ salaries and hiring them on short-term contracts, but the intervention failed after sustained opposition from teacher unions and parent associations. This article critically revisits the narrative of how this experiment was designed, implemented and interpreted, finding evidence that the experiment violated empirical logic. It examines whether the theory of neopatrimonialism can explain the ways in which vested interests may have undermined the empirical logic of the experiment. By doing so, the analysis tests the explanatory utility of neopatrimonialism, and casts light on the conditions under which policy experiments in Africa may be anti-empirical.     

Gay rights activism: collection action frames,networks, and protesting among gays,lesbians, and bisexuals

While sexual minorities have produced large and efficacious social movements in many countries, there are few systematic studies on why gays and lesbians join these movements. To address this void, this study created a unique sample of activist and non-activist listservs to identify some factors that inspired greater involvement in protests for gay and lesbian equality (n?=?285). Through the use of binary logistic regression, this study highlights the importance of several contextual, framing, and demographic variables on the protesting actions of sexual minorities. In particular, the act of protesting for gay and lesbian rights was predicted by involvement in voluntary groups, the concealment of sexual orientations, a concern over institutionalized heterosexism, and the internalizing several sorts of activist identities. Finally, racial background, but not gender, age, or economic factors, was associated with attendance at gay and lesbian rights demonstrations.     

‘A second wife is not really a wife’: polygyny,gender relations and economic realities in Tajikistan

While polygyny in Tajikistan existed before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has been a phenomenon of growing importance since Independence, it is still forbidden by law. To understand this renewal, I do not look at polygyny as a sign of religiousness, but as a form of patriarchal bargain in which women (who often experienced former matrimonial disjuncture) may have a greater power of decision in the spousal relations. I will explore women's points of view, from which polygyny is a strategy to accessing the symbolic and material resources they lack. I then explore the conditions to which becoming a second wife is possible: women's own resources, be they material, symbolic, familial, appear as of crucial importance in this accession to the status of being married anew.     

Sex,Statistics, Peacekeepers and Power: UN Data on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and the Quest for Legal Reform

The UN Secretariat provides annual statistics on allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse made against peacekeeping personnel, with reduced numbers of allegations leading to claims of success for the UN's ‘zero tolerance’ policy. This article explores the use of data as ‘technologies’ of global governance, to examine the function that these annual statistics serve for the UN and the impact that they have on calls for legal reform. Thus far, the statistics have attracted little academic appraisal. Yet, they have been used to establish the UN's authority to resolve the ‘problem’ of sexual exploitation and abuse, diminishing the space for critique of UN policy and undermining the quest for improved legal arrangements.     

Legal responses to child sexual abuse cases in the Children’s Court of Victoria: study findings on a case-management approach

Child sexual abuse cases present Children’s Courts with distinctive challenges. The highly conflictual nature of child sexual abuse cases means they do not lend themselves to the usual adversarial court processes that characterise the conduct of Magistrate Court matters in Australia. With this in mind, the Children’s Court in Victoria established for 12 months in 2013 a pilot specialised judicial list (known as the ‘D’ List) which offered an intensive Magistrate-led case management approach to child sexual abuse cases in the Family (child protection) Division of the Court. The operation of the List was evaluated to assess the suitability and effectiveness of this approach, and to investigate the challenges associated with managing and deciding this class of cases. The findings confirmed that the List provided better management of cases and reduced delay. Given this, the Court is continuing the judicially proactive intensive case management approach and dedicated list for child sexual abuse matters and extending it to regional courts; believing it to be a more effective approach to managing and deciding this complex class of cases.     

Identifying deviant sexual interest in a sex offender sample using dual-target rapid serial visual presentation task

To investigate the dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (dtRSVP) task as a measure of deviant sexual interest (i.e. a sexual interest in children), we administered a dtRSVP with gender- and age-specific pictorial stimuli to child sex offenders (n = 69), other sex offenders (n = 43), non-sex offenders (n = 14), and community controls (n = 88). We hypothesized that (1) stimuli belonging to the preferred gender and age group presented as targets (both T1 and the subsequent T2) in the serial sequence would be more accurately detected than non-preferred stimuli and that (2) this increased detection would reduce the detection of targets later in the serial sequence (T2) due to an attentional blink. Our findings supported hypothesis 1 and partly supported hypothesis 2. Although we found group differences, individual indices based on detection rates did not allow for individual-level diagnostic categorization of participants.     

从性别角度谈和谐社会建设

党的十六届四中全会明确提出要建立社会主义和谐社会;男女平等是衡量社会文明进步的重要尺度,公平正义是和谐社会的核心理念;推进性别平等,是构建和谐社会的内在要求。只有全面提高妇女素质,才能为男女两性的和谐发展奠定能力基础。     

刑事领域涉性评价“泛道德化”倾向批哭——以当下中国大陆为视阈

“泛道德化”之不可取早已成为社会共识,然而,在当下中国大陆的刑事领域中,涉性的立法、执法、司法活动以及学术研究,都存在着严重的“泛道德化”倾向,这种倾向与科学、理性的精神背道而驰,亟待矫正。涉性评价的“泛道德化”倾向之祛除,将依赖于公民的性权利得到正视、强调及落实。     

袭警的对策研究——以非暴力案件的处置为视角

从大量的数据研究和对一线民警的实际调查来看,公安机关在处置非暴力违法犯罪过程中,容易发生袭警的是盗窃、吸贩毒、抢夺等案件。有效处置非暴力违法犯罪嫌疑人,需制定全国统一的、有法律强制力的装备配置、执法语言和执法动作方面的具体规范;加强警察执法枫关法律的普法教育;切实保障各项警务技能训练;研制和配备强有力的非杀伤性警械,并进行严格训练。     

中国内地与香港针对妇女和儿童性暴力的理论及实务研究

本文对中国内地和香港的性暴力有关情况进行了回顾研究。通过讨论社会对性暴力的认知说明了法律与社会支持机制及文化观念对受害者的报告和求助行为的影响,总结和评估了现有的干预及服务现状,进而对华人社会今后预防和制止性暴力提出了对策建议:(1)推进法制改革;(2)制定与完善反性暴力政策;(3)发展专业化和专门化的服务;(4)培训专业人员;(5)加强研究。