Birds of a feather? UNDP and ActionAid implementation of Sustainable Human Development

By the 1990s, innovative ideas such as Sustainable Human Development (SHD) and People-Centred Development (PCD) had begun to shift the development discourse beyond economistic perspectives and the ideological (market versus state) debates of earlier days. This article describes how, despite their promise and the genuine efforts of international development agencies such as UNDP and ActionAid to put SHD/PCD ideas into practice, the conceptual deficiencies of the SHD/PCD paradigm, and internal organisational interests within the two agencies, have gradually displaced the agenda's core components.     

Sketching and validating the location-based services (LBS) regulatory framework in Australia

Location-based services (LBS) are defined as those applications that combine the location of a mobile device associated with a given entity (individual or object) together with contextual information to offer a value-added service. LBS solutions are being deployed globally, and in some markets like Australia, without appropriate regulatory provisions in place. Recent debates in Australia have addressed the need to bridge the gap between technological developments and legal/regulatory provisions. This requires an assessment of the regulatory environment within a given social context such as Australia. The core components of such an investigation include: (a) composing a conceptual framework for analysing regulation of technologies such as LBS, one that is sensitive to public policy themes and challenges, and (b) applying this conceptual framework to the Australian setting in order to sketch and define the components of the present framework, and identify areas for improvement through a process of validation. This paper addresses these aims, demonstrating how the current regulatory framework in Australia is bound by legislation with respect to privacy, telecommunications, surveillance, and national security (that is, anti-terrorism), in addition to a set of industry guidelines for location-service providers (LSPs). The existing Australian framework, however, is lacking in its coverage and treatment of LBS and location data, and does not adequately address the themes and challenges in the defined conceptual framework.     

Statistical sampling in a legislative framework for peer review of medicare services

This article discusses problems addressed in developing an efficient way of identifying levels of inappropriate professional practice in delivery of Medicare services, using statistical sampling within a legislative peer-review scheme. An efficient alternative to the current sampling methodology is proposed.     

Comparing persons found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder for sexual offences versus nonsexual violent offences

Using data from the National Trajectory Project, we compared 50 individuals found Not Criminally Responsible on account of Mental Disorder (NCRMD) for sexual offences with 50 age- and gender-matched individuals found NCRMD for nonsexually violent offences. We also described the concurrent offenses, the symptoms at the time of the offense and the characteristics of the victims of offenders found NCRMD for sexual offences. Persons found NCRMD for sexual offences were less likely to be employed and were significantly younger at time of first psychiatric contact, but did not differ in other sociodemographic characteristics, other aspects of their psychiatric histories or in criminal history. Despite no differences in recidivism and no differences in behaviours between Review Board hearings when adjusting for unequal time at risk, persons found NCRMD for sexual offences had longer tenures under a Review Board mandate than persons found NCRMD for nonsexually violent offences. Given the many similarities between the two groups, this finding suggests that Review Boards may be unnecessarily conservative in how they manage sexual offenders.     

Forensic psychiatric inpatients and aggression: An exploration of incidence,prevalence, severity,and interventions by gender

BackgroundPrevious investigations suggest that women judged to be not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCR-MD) differ markedly from their male counterparts in important ways, underscoring the necessity of subsequent study.ObjectiveThe goal of the present study was to inform our understanding of the presenting profile of female forensic psychiatric patients and contrast their risk of inpatient aggression with their male counterparts.MethodThe population of patients assessed and/or treated at a secure Canadian forensic psychiatric hospital were available for study. In total, 527 patients had complete data and were part of intensive retrospective file reviews; inpatient aggression was evaluated using the Overt Aggression Scale.ResultsWomen were no less likely than men to have a violent index offence and to perpetrate inpatient aggression. Examining the range of aggressive behaviours and severity levels did little to increase the relevance of gender to inpatient risk.DiscussionFemale forensic patients represent a highly selected subgroup of women with exceptional clinical and behavioural challenges and associated treatment needs.     

Between punishment and discipline: comparing strategies to control unauthorized immigration in the United States

Immigration scholars have noted the rise of a distinctive discourse concerning immigrants in the United States. The ‘immigrant threat’ discourse is said to portray immigrants as an existential threat to the country and contributes to highly restrictive enforcement policies. Through a close examination of national political debates concerning comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) (2005–2007), the paper shows that most politicians involved in this debate (from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans) agreed with the basic assumptions of this general discourse. But the paper also identifies important variants on the ‘threat’ discourse and associated strategies. Hardline conservatives stressed that the essential ‘illegalness’ of immigrants posed a threat to the country. Protecting the nation state from this threat required policies to totally banish all undocumented immigrants from the country, irrespective of their ‘good’ conduct or exceptional circumstances. Moderate and liberal reform advocates agreed with the idea that undocumented immigrants posed a threat to the country. However, they believed that banishment alone could not address the threat. Instead they advocated a strategy of risk management whereby the population would be differentiated according to levels of risk (high to low priority) and policies of inclusion and exclusion would be adjusted accordingly. This would allow the government to incorporate low risk/priority immigrants while freeing government resources to target the ‘truly threatening’ groups (i.e., criminals, delinquents, homeless, repeat unauthorized entries, etc.). Thus, while both sides conceded that undocumented immigrants were a threat to the country, they developed important variants on the discourse and contrasting policy solutions to exert control over the population.     

The urbanisation of justice movements? Possibilities and constraints for the city as a space of contentious struggle

Have urban areas become strategic sites for the formation of justice movements? A justice movement is conceptualised as geographically extensive mobilisations that achieve a degree of territorial fixity at different spatial scales. It is proposed that a number of factors can encourage organisations implicated in this movement to make the urban arena a key front in their struggle to achieve justice. These factors include the intensification of urban inequalities, increased political opportunities resulting from the devolution of state capacities to sub‐national levels of government and new actors interested in pursuing innovative strategies and tactics. This hypothesis is tested through a comparison of movements in three different cities: Los Angeles, USA; Rotterdam, Holland; and Toulouse, France. The findings show that, despite the fact that new actors have begun to mobilise in these three cities around justice issues, they have experienced different degrees of territorialisation. The divergent outcomes are explained by the particular state–civil society power relations found in each of the cities. Thus, the paper concludes that, though the factors in our hypothesis may encourage actors to initiate urban justice movements, the degree of their territorialisation ultimately depends on local state–civil society power relations.     

Why social partnership matters: Irish policies for work – life balance

Since 1987 the Republic of Ireland has experimented with new forms of policy consultation and formulation that have been credited with turning the country into the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy of the 1990s. One of the most important of these new forms is a series of social partnership agreements that have become increasingly broad in scope over the past decade and a half. This article illustrates how the process of social partnership pact-making is able to assist in steering a new policy direction, and investigates what makes these social partnership agreements able to be reproduced over time, by focusing on the development of policies for reconciling family and working life in Ireland. This is an important and pressing issue for many post-industrial economies, and, without claiming too much for the partnership process since problems of reconciling family and working life are far from ‘solved’ in Ireland, social partnership has helped turn this from being a marginal to a key issue in Irish politics.