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.     

Backing Away From Equality

Abstract

In his early work in political philosophy, Amartya Sen advanced an interesting and provocative thesis – the egalitarian thesis. This is the claim that every conception of social justice that has received support in recent times is egalitarian. This paper argues that Sen's account of capabilities and his more recent critique of transcendental justice have implications for the truth of the egalitarian thesis. It also discusses how the rejection of the egalitarian thesis bears on the larger, and more general, issue of the overall plausibility of egalitarian conceptions of social justice.     

Inmates' Social Background and Living Conditions

Central criminological theoretical approaches, such as strain theory, control theory and critical theory, have as precondition that offenders often are marginalized and belong to the lower classes in society. Particularly the prison population has been assumed to suffer from severe material and social conditions. In the case of Norway, the empirical evidence on this assumption has been scarce and a broader and systematic approach has been lacking. This paper presents findings from a survey of the standard of living among a Norwegian prison population. Conventional measurements of welfare are examined, including accumulation of welfare deficiencies and situation at release. The findings indicate that the prison population live under very poor conditions, and are confronted with major difficulties at release concerning housing, money and work. The interpretation is emphasizing the living conditions as opportunity structures where welfare deficiencies put limits to the individuals' possibility to govern their own lives. Hence, inadequate living conditions should not necessarily be considered as causes of crime, but as a narrowed opportunity structure where other choices are limited.     

The Emergence of Crime Victims as a Target Group in the Swedish Social Services Act

This article examines the political motives behind the introduction of crime victim support provisions in the Swedish Social Services Act. The findings derive from a case study of the preparatory material that prefaced the legal changes that were adopted in 2001. The result shows that the explicit purpose of the provisions was to consider measures to improve the support to crime victims. To some degree the provisions can also be explained by symbolic factors. In fact, most actors in the law-making process indicate that their motives were communicative and symbolic. Support to crime victims was presumably a complicated issue for the social democratic government. Because of the economical crisis in the early 1990s, there was no scope for reforms that implied high increased costs. Yet expanding the crime victim's rights in relation to the offender, such as toughening the penal law and promoting victim impact statements, was not in line with social democratic ideology. By enacting the provisions in the Social Services Act the government demonstrated that support to crime victims was an important area of concern. At the same time, the provisions did not involve any increased costs or strengthen the crime victim's rights in relation to the offender. In this way, the provisions became a mediator that solved a difficult political dilemma for the government.     

公益法律援助的职业理性——对话丹宁勋爵对法律援助的诟病

法律援助作为制度福利的一种,对其有着多种不同声音的评价。丹宁勋爵对法律援助的批评具有代表性。只有将具体的法律援助行为纳入公益法律进程中去才能对回应各种批评意见。文章从社会保障思潮的演变、法律职业主义理论与律师职业伦理的张力三个方面理性分析了公益法律援助的价值、根源与运作模式。     

Back for the future: a client centred analysis of social welfare and family law provision

The landscape of legal advice provision is entering a period of significant change in England and Wales. Whilst there is a great deal of uncertainty about how the future landscape of advice service provision will evolve, there are lessons to be drawn from past delivery models.

This article first looks back at the period following the Access to Justice Act 1999, setting out a range of delivery models initiated following the Act, as well as research and evaluation conducted in the millennium decade. Findings are then presented from a comprehensive qualitative study on how people experience and deal with social welfare and family problems, and on facilitators and barriers to integrated advice provision, including inter-organisational working. This is explored through the lens of a delivery model which emphasised partnership and the pooling of resources and specialisms to meet client needs: the Community Legal Advice Centre model.     

Manufactured exports and terms of trade of developing countries: Evidence from Sri Lanka

Terms of trade implications of diversification into manufactured exports in a traditional primary‐exporting country are examined in the light of the Sri Lankan experience over the past two decades. The empirical analysis focuses on trends in both commodity and income terms of trade, employing a methodology which takes care of the ‘spurious regression’ problem. The results suggest that, contrary to the ‘new’ terms of trade pessimism, export diversification has brought about significant terms of trade gains for the Sri Lankan economy. Overall, the study casts doubt on the robustness of results coming from analyses of price trends in aggregate manufactured exports and calls for systematic time‐profile analyses of the countries which have achieved significant export diversification in order to inform the policy debate.     

Centre of protective custody, 6th mile Kuching-Serian road,Kuching/Sarawak

This paper begins with a theoretical perspective on privatisation which links it with systemic tendencies towards over-accumulation in the global capitalist economy. To analyse health system dynamics, the health system is conceptualised as an articulation of component sub-systems (provision, financing, treatment accessories, support services, research and product development, education and training, etc.). These sub-systems are increasingly brought within the circuit of capital, in the process re-configuring the fine structure of the system along with its built-in incentives and disincentives which interactively modulate the system's overall operating characteristics. The rest of the paper provides an update on the evolving role of the Malaysian state as provider, as financier, as investor and as regulator of the health system.     

我国环境公益诉讼的完善构想

环境公益诉讼对于提高公众参与环境保护的积极性、震慑危害环境资源的违法行为意义重大。我国目前尚未明确确立环境公益诉讼制度,是当前环境保护的一大缺憾。环境权作为公民的一项基本权利写入宪法,将有助于提高主体的环境保护意识,使环境保护裁判获得直接的宪法保护依据,使环境权获得充分救济。