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.     

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.     

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.     

Coming to Terms with Separatist Insurgencies

Although insurgencies may begin their rebellions with expressed desires for outcomes unacceptable to opposing governments, the desired insurgent outcomes sometimes undergo modification, creating conditions that can make governments more amenable to external mediation. In certain separatist conflicts, the likelihood of external mediation increases when the political redefinition of the state insisted upon by the insurgents undergoes a revision, from secession to self‐determination, understood as a variant of autonomy. In the same vein, although it may not happen concurrently, insurgent movements become more amenable to external mediation if and when opposing governments revise the preferred conflict outcome from a military defeat of the insurgents to a containment of the movement. These two developments can serve as objective referents helping external parties to identify a ripe moment in the conflict and initiate mediation. But the implementation of an agreement ending separatist conflict may not occur if the government fails to submit the proposed territorial bounds of autonomy to prior review by constituents. Potential spoilers among government constituents should be identified and recruited to participate in the negotiations so that the likelihood of agreement rejection is reduced. In some states, however, the legal mechanisms and political opportunities for constituents to act as spoilers do not exist.     

Horizontalföderalismus und Schweizer Demokratie

Der Beitrag analysiert den zunehmenden Horizontalföderalismus im politischen Mehrebenensystem der Schweiz und fragt nach den Gefahren und Chancen für die Weiterentwicklung der Schweizer Demokratie. Die Evaluierung erfolgt auf der Basis der komplexen Demokratietheorie von Fritz Scharpf, ergänzt um die konstitutiven Perspektiven einer reflexiven Demokratietheorie. Insgesamt wird deutlich, dass der Horizontalföderalismus vor allem aus einer liberalen Position innerhalb einer Output‐ orientierten Demokratietheorie als problematisch angesehen werden muss, da die kantonale Exekutive gegenüber der Legislative gestärkt wird. Der Aufsatz betont aber die Chancen für die schweizerische Demokratie, da der Horizontalföderalismus grosse Ähnlichkeiten mit den Entscheidungsfindungsprozessen auf internationaler Ebene besitzt. Er liefert damit der Schweiz ein Übungsfeld, um ihr traditionell sehr introvertiertes Verständnis von demokratischer Selbstbestimmung zu überwinden und anzuerkennen, dass in einer interdependenten und mobilen Welt die “Einbeziehung des (externen) Anderen” ein Bestandteil einer legitimen demokratischen Ordnung darstellt.     

Analyser les réformes institutionnelles sur le terrain: l'exemple de la réforme de l'armée suisse «Armée XXI»

L'étude des réformes de l'administration et des institutions publiques suisses a considérablement délaissé la problématique des conséquences des changements sur le terrain et surtout n'a pas analysé le vécu des acteurs administratifs de base. Notre étude vise, au niveau analytique, à rendre compte du vécu des réformes à l'échelon des «petits fonctionnaires»; sur un plan méthodologique, une enquête de nature ethnographique est introduite pour étudier ce questionnement. Notre enquête sur la réforme de l'armée suisse «Armée XXI» sert d'illustration. Si notre démarche permet de parvenir à des résultats intéressants sur les conséquences et le vécu de cette réforme, elle comporte également des enjeux empiriques spécifiques articulés autour de la question centrale de la relation du chercheur à son terrain. Au final, une microsociologie ethnographique du vécu des réformes par les acteurs de base nous semble susceptible de contribuer à un enrichissement de la recherche sur les transformations récentes des institutions publiques en Suisse.     

Marketing good works: new trends in how interest groups recruit supporters

Charities or interest groups need to attract supporters, who offer both financial support and participation, to achieve their overall goal of influencing public affairs. They can use political marketing to help them attract and retain such supporters. Existing literature indicates they use marketing techniques such as direct mail to communicate to potential new supporters, but new research has discovered that the influence of political marketing is much more comprehensive. The most effective groups are now using political marketing to design the package they offer to supporters. They go through a four‐stage process. First, they conduct market intelligence to understand what supporters want from the organisation and second, they design their product accordingly. Third, they communicate this to potential supporters and then finally deliver campaign progress and they communicate this to existing supporters. They use marketing concepts: they adopt a market orientation and build an organisation designed to take account of its users' needs and wants. Although such charities are often associated with non‐business behaviour, the most successful groups are adopting the concepts and techniques of comprehensive political marketing as the means to increase their influence on government and public affairs. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications