Attributing Outcomes to Social Policy Interventions – ‘Gold Standard’ or ‘Fool's Gold’ in Public Policy and Management?

In recent years there has been increased interest in outcome‐based social policy‐making and management. The UK has been in the forefront of this movement but similar movements have been identified internationally. This interest in outcome‐based decision‐making has been given particular impetus through the ‘results’‐based movement in evaluation and performance management since the 1980s, which has increased in scope over time, slowly changing its emphasis from cost reduction and measuring outputs to measuring outcomes. This change has been widely welcomed by policymakers, practitioners and academics. However, there is evidence that the reality is often rather less than the rhetoric. Moreover, the ‘attribution problem’ of attributing changes in outcomes to specific social policies has remained a major issue. The conceptual solution of constructing ‘cause‐and‐effect’ models, imported from the policy evaluation field, has only recently become common for operationalising these models. This article outlines the evolution of interest in outcome‐based social policy‐making up to recent times and the growing realization of the importance of the attribution problem. It then outlines both how the ‘cause‐and‐effect’ policy modelling approach can partially tackle the attribution problem, but also its inherent limitations. Lastly, the article uses several case studies in current UK social policy‐making to demonstrate the potential importance of the reasoning embedded within cause‐and‐effect models but also the dangers in policy‐making which adopts this approach without understanding its conceptual basis or in fields where it is inappropriate, given the current state of our knowledge of social policy systems.     

有无之辩视野下的本体论范畴体系建构

在查明存在者的“库存清单”时，本体论必做的一项工作是建构范畴体系。随着认识的发展，本体论还分化出了形式本体论这一分支。它的任务之一就是利用逻辑学成果及方法反观已有的范畴体系建构，探讨建构的方法论。随着非存在研究或有无之辩向纵深推进而出现的一个新的问题是，如果像迈农主义所说的那样，非存在对象也有其特定的“有”的地位，那么在本体论范畴体系的建构中，有无必要给予它们以适当的地位呢？如果有必要，又该如何建构？一个合格的本体论范畴体系应有助于人们从整体上、更清楚明白、更简单地把握世界，同时又不能遗漏主要的存在类别，如不能遗忘非存在，还要能如实反映不同存在在实在性程度上的差别，既不能疏忽低级的存在形式，又不能把没有存在地位的东西硬扯进来。根据这些要求，文章对本体论范畴体系建构提出了一种新的尝试。     

清代棚民问题侧论

农民背井离乡,到山间开垦并种植山地,开发种种山林资源,以谋生存,被称为棚民.清代棚民,数量庞大.政府为了维持社会稳定,对棚民采取安辑的政策.棚民对山地等山林资源的开发,严重破坏了生态环境,造成了严重的后果.对社会维稳和生态维护的两难选择,包世臣的应对策略,很有意义.     

Deactivating the Buttons: Integrating Radical Exposure Tapping with a Family Therapy Framework

The purpose of this paper is to describe and illustrate with case examples a brief intervention termed Radical Exposure Tapping (RET). RET can be integrated with family therapy to address stuck points where the therapy is hindered by a family member's affective block, an intense and unchangeable emotional reactivity to a specific trigger. RET draws from the methodology of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and combines it with the tapping sequence of the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to produce an intervention that is more flexible than EMDR, provides greater rigor than using the EFT technique alone and can be effective in a single session within the context of family therapy. The paper puts this work into context by first over viewing definitions of trauma and Post‐Traumatic Stress Disorder, arguing that family members' emotional reactivity may be a symptom of PTSD even when they would not qualify for the diagnosis because they had not experienced a life threatening event.     

Same-sex cohabiting elders versus different-sex cohabiting and married elders: Effects of relationship status and sex of partner on economic and health outcomes

In this article, I use pooled data from the 2008–2010 American Community Surveys to examine outcomes for different-sex married, different-sex cohabiting, and same-sex cohabiting elders across several key economic and health indicators, as well as other demographic characteristics. The findings suggest that elders in same-sex cohabiting partnerships differ from those in different-sex marriages and different-sex cohabiting relationships in terms of both financial and health outcomes, and that women in same-sex cohabiting partnerships fare worse than men or women in other couple types. The results indicate that financial implications related to the sex of one’s partner might be more predictive of economic and health outcomes in old age, rather than solely access to legal marriage. Nonetheless, findings suggest that individuals in same-sex cohabiting partnerships might experience worse outcomes in old age as a result of cumulative effects across the life course from both the sex of their partner (in the case of female couples) as well as their lack of access to benefits associated with marriage. Accordingly, these findings demonstrate that persons in same-sex cohabiting partnerships require unique policy considerations to address health and economic concerns in old age.     

A Study of a Network Meeting: Exploring the Interplay between Inner and Outer Dialogues in Significant and Meaningful Moments

The present study is part of a series of qualitative studies focusing on dialogic practice in southern Norway. In this article, we present a qualitative study of a network meeting focusing on the interplay between the participants' inner and outer dialogues. The network meeting is between an adolescent boy, his mother and two network therapists, the same adolescent case discussed previously in this journal by Bøe et al. ( 2013 ). The aim of this study is to explore how the interplay between inner and outer dialogues contributes to significant and meaningful moments for the interlocutors. A multiperspective methodology is used that combines video recordings of a network meeting and participant interviews with text analysis. Our research found the interplay has an important role in understanding the emergence of significant and meaningful moments in therapy. A one‐sided focus on participants' utterances or inner dialogues was insufficient to explain their significance and meaning to the interlocutors. A dialogical approach provides a theoretical frame and concepts that are useful in investigations of therapeutic conversations.     

Invisible from View: Leaving and Aftercare Provision in the Republic Of Ireland

Abstract

The adequacy of provisions for young people leaving care and in aftercare in the Republic of Ireland has been the subject of recent policy attention. A landmark report, the Ryan Report (2009), into historic abuse in state institutions recommended strengthening provisions in this area. However, the legislative basis for aftercare remains relatively weak and services for young people leaving care remain ad hoc and regionally variable. This article outlines the current context of leaving and aftercare provision in the Republic of Ireland and traces some of the recent policy debates and recommendations in this area. A genealogical analysis of leaving care and aftercare provision highlights that this issue has historically only emerged as a concern in the context in which young people leaving the care system are perceived as a “threat” to social order. It is argued that the failure to adequately reform leaving and aftercare provision is reflective of wider social inequality and of a context in which young people in care are largely invisible from view.     

论现代性视域中红色资源的整合与转化

随着社会生活和人们思想观念的深刻变迁,主要形成于革命战争时期的红色资源在一定程度上面临着被边缘化的危险趋势。要扭转这一趋势,使红色资源在当代发挥其应有的社会文化功能,就必须在现代性视域中深入分析导致其边缘化的社会文化根源,并从而在此基础对其进行符合时代要求的整合与转化。与此同时,还须进一步明确红色资源的传承与弘扬主体,以发挥其重要的示范带头作用。     

尼采哲学中的虚无主义概念

虚无主义是尼采哲学的核心观念之一.学术界大多从消极的、单-的角度理解这一概念,实际上,虚无主义被尼采赋予了众多的复杂内涵：它既指旧价值本身的无价值,又指价值消解后意义的真空;它可指思想武器,又是思想目标.虚无主义是尼采观察世界的最深刻的心理背景.尼采以虚无主义作为批判武器,对欧洲传统价值 ——基督教、道德及其科学理性文明进行批判,对自己的核心观念——权力意志也进行批判.尼采哲学思想发轫于虚无主义,超越了虚无主义而最终不能摆脱虚无主义.虚无主义对尼采具有本体论的意义.     

制造集团公司物流资源整合问题研究

根据分布区域广泛、局部区域比较集中和所有权复杂等制造集团公司物流资源的特点,提出制造集团公司物流资源整合思路的概念模型,并对某水泥生产集团物流资源整合的案例进行实证分析。在推动资源整合时,可以通过物流组织的服务设计来识别需要整合的资源;分析各整合参与方的利益分配来提高整合参与方的积极性。