Measuring the impact of public perceptions on child welfare workers

The Public Perceptions of Child Welfare Scale measures how the social environment influences child welfare workers, including their job satisfaction and intent to leave. Psychometric studies have validated the scale for private child welfare workers, but there are no validation studies with public agency staff. This study fills that gap, showing stigma and respect are important constructs that also predict worker intent to leave. This research found an additional construct, blame, which was not present in private worker validation studies. The scale provides an important tool for the field as we continue to build evidence for effective recruitment and retention.     

A Note on the Electoral Rules for the Welsh Assembly

A recent article in this journal highlights,using simulated data, potential paradoxes inherent in thesystem of election to the Welsh assembly. This paper examinesthe data for the assembly elections held in 1999 to illustratethe occurrence of yet another paradoxical outcome, theelection of the first ever First Minister due to a fall insupport for his own party.     

Voting,Collective Action,and Liberalisation in Latin America: The Rise and Fall of the Hillinger Paradox

Chile's economic and political evolution after the 1982–83 financial crisis has been offered as a model for the rest of Latin America. This paper interprets the 1973 military coup, and national recovery during the 1980s and 1990s, in terms of the presence and absence, respectively, of the Hillinger (1971) paradox. The paradox arises when democratic voting on platforms consisting of several issues leads to majority support for a platform, itself consisting of issues, none of which is supported by the majority. In the early 1970s, a particular expression of the Hillinger paradox led Chile to the verge of a bloody civil war, and to a prolonged military dictatorship. In the mid 1980s, an important policy question, that of differentiated industrial protection versus free trade, was solved by a stable compromise in favour of the latter. This avoided the Hillinger paradox and eventually made electoral politics possible again.     

Proportional Representation in the Welsh Assembly

The proposed rule for electing members to the Welsh Assembly gives each voter two votes, to cast at the Parliamentary constituency level, and at the bigger European constituency level. Half of the members are to be elected for the Assembly by a form of proportional representation, where party support is calculated by aggregating the two votes. The voters will be allowed to cast the second vote for a different party than the one for which they voted at the parliamentary level. This additional degree of freedom can frustrate the objective of obtaining better correspondence between party support and the number ofseats.     

Mainstreaming gender in the police: the Maharashtra experience

This study reviewed the history of sex segregation in the police forces of Maharashtra state, India, and policy interventions since 1994 to reverse the trends; it also describes the process of improving gender equity in the policy department as part of a gender aim to control violence against women. Police jobs are allocated based on gender. Passage of the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act was not implemented fully within police departments. In fact, the Police Force actively worked to keep itself outside the purview of the Act. Supervisors maintained the attitude that women were unsuitable for police work. Women were suspected of lacking in career commitments and were limited to only a small number within the force. These attitudes restricted women's entry, deployment, and promotions. The Government of Maharashtra has been pressured by district level women's groups to secure women's rights and to change the social environment that supports violence against women. The efforts uncovered violence unreported due to social pressure. It was thought that women's greater presence in policy departments would encourage women to report domestic crimes. The policemen disliked the interference of women. Since women were recruited for specific duties, the result was low self-esteem, frustration due to lack of promotions, sexual harassment, ostracism, and reduced job expectations. In 1993, officers received gender-sensitizing training. The training at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex focused on rules, practices, access to resources, and formal and informal inclusions and exclusions.