Citizen participation: conflicting interests in state and national agency policy making

This study examines citizen participation in agency policy making across levels of governance in the United States, to address the following questions: Do citizens pursuing economic policy goals participate and wield influence in agency policy making differently than do citizens pursuing noneconomic policy goals? Does citizen participation in state policy making differ from that in national policy making? Analysis of policy making and participation in one policy sector, public forest management, suggests that citizens favoring economic (timber) goals participate more, and perceive greater influence, in state agency decisions, while those favoring noneconomic (environmental preservation) goals participate more, and perceive greater influence, in national agency decisions. These differences result from several factors, including legal constraints, agency composition, use outcomes, geographic location of stakeholders, and job mobility.     

Gender,work, and childcare in Kazakhstan,Mongolia, and Russia

The current study seeks to understand the nature of gender relations within a post‐Soviet welfare model in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia. On the basis of the analysis of key labour market indicators, parental leave, and childcare policies, it finds that the welfare models in the three countries are hybrid, and neither authoritarianism in Kazakhstan and Russia nor democracy in Mongolia lead to substantive gender equality outcomes. Persistent gender inequality in these countries is underpinned by the neo‐liberal approach to welfare provision, conservative social norms, and limited agency of civil society to influence the policy agenda. Nonetheless, these states have distributed to the population with an emphasis on working mothers, and this policy choice has been driven by economic, demographic, and political considerations, which ultimately serve to support, rather than transform, the patriarchal power structure in these societies.     

Closing pathways: refugee-background students and tertiary education

Abstract

Recent changes to policies and funding for tertiary education are exacerbating an already difficult situation for refugees aiming to earn university degrees. No one intended to create the barriers that the refugee-background community faces; government agencies continue attempts to improve educational outcomes for those who arrive as refugees. The root causes of this situation are the complexity of the refugee situation and a lack of holistic knowledge about this diverse group of New Zealand residents among policy makers and educators. In addition, the complexity of interactions among policy changes and refugee situations has prevented any single agency from predicting outcomes of its policies for refugee-background students. In this paper, I discuss how new policies interact with a range of existing barriers faced by refugees pursuing degrees and how, without urgent attention, this will constrict or close pathways into and through university study. I further suggest that the strongest foundation for an effective program to provide equitable access to university education is including refugee-background students among those groups who receive equity consideration.     

The role of litigation in human research accountability

This essay examines and analyzes the recent and dramatic series of personal injury lawsuits instituted against those individuals and institutions that conduct and monitor human research. It discusses the social engineering functions of tort litigation, outlines the legal elements and viability of lawsuits against those who conduct and monitor human research, and evaluates and predicts what role tort litigation will play in fulfilling the goals of accountability in the context of human research and human research regulation. In general, tort law engenders two forms of accountability: retrospective and prospective. Retrospective accountability is backward looking, focusing on harms that have already occurred, their culprits, and the reimbursement of individuals for their injuries. Prospective accountability is forward looking in that it encourages actors and institutions to fulfill responsibilities toward individuals in order that harm does not occur, or at least that the risk of harm is decreased. This article argues that research litigation is not, and will probably never become, an effective means of ensuring retrospective accountability in regard to research injuries and ethical violations. Paradoxically though, the current wave of research litigation may serve an important and even key role in encouraging and ensuring prospective accountability.     

Examining the influence of the European Convention on Human Rights in Northern Ireland courts

This article examines the influence of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) on the legal culture of litigants and judges in Northern Ireland. The results show that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of judicial review cases based upon the ECHR in the years immediately following implementation of the treaty through the Human Rights Act. However, while there has been an increase in the number of ECHR claims by litigants, judges in Northern Ireland have thus far been reluctant to issue declarations of incompatibility pursuant to the Human Rights Act. Furthermore, a multivariate analysis of the likelihood of Northern Irish judges to rule against the government shows that, controlling for other factors, judges are not more willing to rule against the government when the ECHR is invoked. Overall, it appears that the early influence of the ECHR on Northern Irish law has been greatest in the willingness of litigants to bring judicial review cases based upon the treaty—a development that may portend larger changes in UK jurisprudence in the future.     

The Role of Litigation in Human Research Accountability

This essay examines and analyzes the recent and dramatic series of personal injury lawsuits instituted against those individuals and institutions that conduct and monitor human research. It discusses the social engineering functions of tort litigation, outlines the legal elements and viability of lawsuits against those who conduct and monitor human research, and evaluates and predicts what role tort litigation will play in fulfilling the goals of accountability in the context of human research and human research regulation. In general, tort law engenders two forms of accountability: retrospective and prospective. Retrospective accountability is backward looking, focusing on harms that have already occurred, their culprits, and the reimbursement of individuals for their injuries. Prospective accountability is forward looking in that it encourages actors and institutions to fulfill responsibilities toward individuals in order that harm does not occur, or at least that the risk of harm is decreased. This article argues that research litigation is not, and will probably never become, an effective means of ensuring retrospective accountability in regard to research injuries and ethical violations. Paradoxically though, the current wave of research litigation may serve an important and even key role in encouraging and ensuring prospective accountability.     

Subverting Social Policy on the Front Line: Agencies of Resistance in the Delivery of Services

An understanding of policy implementation issues in many of the core fields of social policy requires attention to the mode of service delivery that is characteristic of those fields: face‐to‐face interaction between frontline service staff and service users. A focus on implementation as interaction between these groups reveals the significance of ‘agency’ to the analysis of why and how certain social policy outcomes occur – and in particular why outcomes may sometimes be different from those anticipated by formal policy objectives. This article considers how the agency of workers and users shapes the processes of mediation, negotiation and adaptation that occur in different service delivery contexts, and identifies ways in which resistance to intended policy outcomes, and to the practices expected to deliver them, is formed and expressed. Drawing on a wide range of empirical research material, the article shows how agencies of resistance produce outcomes that are uncertain, fragile and contested, and whose effect can be the subversion of formal policy intentions.     

Cost-Sharing in Civil Justice

As an economic factor affecting access to justice, the cost of justice naturally constitutes an element of judicial reform. It is the overall deconstruction of the cost of civil justice, rather than partial observation and analysis confined to litigation costs, that can legitimize the sharing of court and litigation costs and clarify the demarcation between public and private costs. This first-order rule of cost-sharing is intended to establish a balance between the state’s investment of public resources in the judicial system and the costs borne by the litigant. The second-order rule of cost-sharing centers on the distribution of litigation costs among litigants. This requires not only the setting up of the goal of just and equitable sharing of litigation costs, but also the overall consideration of the adjustment function of the cost mechanism in litigation and pursuit of the general improvement of the justice system. The third-order cost-sharing rule should focus on giving full play to the legal services market and social organizations in sharing the cost of litigation. Its success will depend on the development of professional ethics and on legal regulation.     

Why Do Some Democratic Countries Join More Intergovernmental Organizations Than Others?*

Objective. This study investigates whether variations in democratic institutions influence foreign policy outcomes. Specifically, it examines whether democracies differ systematically in their inclination to join international organizations. Methods. The study performs negative binomial estimation analysis of the relationship between IGO membership and variations in democratic structure. Results. It finds that a more competitive party system and multiple legislative chambers, especially for wealthy and stable Western democracies, contribute to more IGO memberships. Conclusions. From our findings we infer that consensus democracies adopt a kinder, gentler foreign policy that includes more willingness to participate in multilateral, cooperative international institutions, relying on negotiation and compromise to reach mutually acceptable arrangements for dealing with common problems. This assertion fits with a fundamental Kantian thesis: that the more representative and accountable a society's political institutions are, the more peaceful that society is likely to be.     

Litigant participation and success in water rights cases in the Western States

Over the years, many decisions concerning the rights to water resources have been addressed in state legislatures and federal courts; however, the majority of decisions concerning the conflicting demands over water have been addressed in state courts. This study examines the body of water rights cases heard in state supreme courts of the eleven Western states and focus on litigant participation and success. The data set includes all the water rights cases decided between 1972 and 2008 in the eleven western state high courts (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming). The study explores the propensity of different types of litigants to initiate water rights cases at the state supreme court level, and also examines litigation patterns to determine which litigants are the targets of these appeals. Galanter's (1974) party capability theory is used to help explain patterns of litigant success.     

Beyond continuity? Italian social assistance policies between institutional opportunities and agency

Madama I. Beyond continuity? Italian social assistance policies between institutional opportunities and agency The article addresses recent developments of social assistance policies in Italy with two interpretative aims. The first regards the approval of the long‐awaited framework law in 2000 and deals with the factors that made a path‐shifting national reform possible in a policy sector which had evolved through successive accretions and gradual revisions. The second regards the effectiveness of the reform, providing an assessment of the (scant) achievements subsequent to its adoption. The reform process was investigated through a model that combines factors of historical neo‐institutionalist derivation and agency dynamics, the latter of which is intended to overcome the structuralist bias of purely neo‐institutionalist explanations. The article draws two conclusions. The first concerns the resilience of Italy's backwardness in this policy field. The second, a theoretical consideration, is that if institutions function as constraint generators as well as opportunity generators for actors, agency dynamics are crucial in order to fully understand the timing and specific contents of institutional change.     

The poor “sociological imagination” of the rich: Explaining attitudinal divergence towards welfare,inequality, and redistribution

Quantitative research has tended to explain attitudinal divergence towards welfare and redistribution through self‐interested rationalities. However, such an approach risks abstracting individuals from the structural determinants of resource allocation and biographical experience. With that in mind, this article draws on a qualitative study of 50 individuals experiencing relative deprivation and affluence in the United Kingdom and New Zealand to examine how lived experiences of inequality affect attitude formation towards welfare and redistribution. Scenario‐driven vignettes were used to stimulate an applied discussion of abstract principles pertaining to welfare and inequality. Use of this methodological device proffered novel insight into the phenomenological effects of material position on public attitudes and policy preferences in a comparative context. The findings suggest that affluent individuals are less likely to acknowledge systemic features shaping socioeconomic life. As a result, they exhibit a poor sociological imagination that is deployed in distinct and patterned ways to make sense of, and at times justify, economic restructuring. By contrast, those living in relative deprivation are more likely to advance accounts of intergroup relations and social location that emphasize the structuration of (dis‐)advantage. Based on the findings, policy and political implications are considered for welfare and redistribution amidst rising structural inequality.     

Strategic uncertainty,coordination failure and emergence: A game theory study on agency‐structure interactions

In the social sciences there is a long standing debate over the primacy of structure or agency in shaping human behavior. Structurationists like Giddens think of individuals' agency and collective features as two sides of the same coin while emergentists including Archer and Elder‐Vass claim that structurationists are blurring an important ontological distinction——they argue for effective social analysis, we should think of structures and individuals as different things because emergence happens when the properties of the collective are not reducible to the properties of the parts that constitute them. This paper contributes to the agency‐structure debate by showing how production and reproduction of emergent properties of social groups sharing same normative commitments (norm circles) can be empirically studied using two behavioral game theory experiments, adding a previously neglected insight that strategic uncertainty can lead to coordination failures of individual behaviors within norm circles, manifested as unintended outcomes of interdependent actions that are difficult to predict. Here the synchronic relation between the unpredictable collective outcomes of each game round and agential reactions of the participants to them defines emergence——the previous outcomes are diachronic inputs but they appear in the new outcome only through their effects on the individual decisions.     

A reverse form of welfarism: some reflections on Australian housing policy

In this paper I argue that we have been amiss in diagnosing the role played by government, which has exacerbated the housing problems afflicting low‐income households in Australia. However, I argue further we have placed too much faith in the capacity of managerial interventions to ameliorate what are far more deep‐rooted and systemic challenges. It is suggested that researchers need to adopt a more critical account of the conduct of contemporary government policy making, one that casts aside a view of the State as a benevolent agency whose primary objective is to ameliorate the conditions of the disadvantaged. Instead, the State should be understood as an agency that sustains the conditions necessary for the finance industry, developers and real estate agents, along with well‐off householders and landlords, to reap profits. The political economy of Australian housing, in its current incarnation, performs a form of reverse welfarism that exacerbates social inequality.     

Comprehensive audits for use in evaluating scientific research

Calls for new arrangements to deal with problems involving the integrity of results reported from scientific research have generally taken the form of investigations into data quality and the research methods utilized. Alternatives to proposed government regulation of scientific research have included suggestions for using accounting type audits of the kind used for attesting to the representations of management in corporate financial reports. Here a different type of audit is suggested for the advantages it offers in dealing with the situations in science—which are much less structured and not restricted to situations like those to which financial accounting audits are directed. A broadening from “accounting”; to “accountability”; is thereby achieved. Experimentation with the use of such audits is suggested which can simultaneously help to improve scientific processes and accommodate the interests of the public in responding to the results of scientific research. A beginning is also suggested in the form of “GAO type”; (U.S. General Accounting Office) audits of research activities undertaken (or to be undertaken) at laboratories such as Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia as they are being redirected from military to civilian type research. It is also suggested that GAO type audits be extended from audits of management activities to examination and evaluation of the validity and significance of the research that has been, or is to be, undertaken.     

Presidential rhetoric,agency turnover,and the importance of salience to bureaucratic leadership

What explains the quit rates of federal agencies? Can presidential rhetoric affect quit rates of federal agencies, particularly those that implement salient policies? Although much research examines other ways presidents may affect the federal bureaucracy, absent is a systematic examination of presidential leadership of agency quit rates, despite the importance of personnel turnover to effective bureaucratic implementation. I argue that presidential rhetoric on the size of government can affect agency turnover. This impact is only likely for agencies that implement salient policies, because salience encourages bureaucratic responsiveness to elected officials. The findings reveal that presidents who speak more favorably about government reduce aggregate turnover in the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Education from 1980 through 2005. I conclude with some observations about what these findings mean for presidential control of the bureaucracy.     

The Citizenship of Excluded Groups: Challenging the Consumerist Agenda

The language of consumerism suggests that through involvement in consumer processes, consumers can influence policy formation and service provision. This paper examines, as illustrative cases in Australia, how two groups of consumers, people with a mental illness and older people, engage with these consumer processes. It finds they critically evaluate the opportunity offered by consumer processes for inclusion in policy and programmes. Both people with a mental illness and interviewed older people indicated how they acted as "agents involved in interpreting their needs", despite finding that in consumer processes their needs were predefined. Rather than allowing themselves to be constructed as passive objects, they positioned themselves as active citizens, having agency not as individual consumers but through drawing on networks. The responses of both groups go some distance toward dismantling power differences between professionals and "consumers", suggesting that social policy and programmes for both people with mental illness and older people can and sometimes do develop in a context of greater inclusivity.     

Pathways to gender equality: A configurational analysis of childcare instruments and outcomes in 21 European countries

The ability to produce desired outcomes represents an important basis of the legitimacy of social policies. Nonetheless, policy outcomes have not systematically figured in the analysis of childcare regimes despite growing political interest in issues such as female employment, gender wage gap, and men's involvement in childcare. In this article, we use fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to investigate the relationship between the configuration of policy instruments, attitudes toward childcare and outcomes in 21 European countries. Our results show that there is only one mix of policy instruments consistently linked with positive gender equality outcomes and this route has the quality of the universal caregiver model. It also demonstrates that both a combination of policy instruments and favorable attitudinal factors are necessary to produce desirable outcomes in the gender division of paid work and unpaid childcare.     

“撤点并校”、家庭背景与入学机会

本研究旨在探究在“撤点并校”的政策调整下,家庭背景是如何影响子女的教育获得机会的。本文利用“中国家庭追踪调查”（CFPS）2010年到2012年追踪个案的数据,通过对农村学生小学至初中毕业升学历程的回溯,建立基于Cox比例风险模型的“辍学模型”和基于Logistic模型和线性概率模型的“升学模型”,发现家庭背景始终是影响子女教育机会的重要因素。在“撤点并校”刚开始执行的年份,农村学生在义务教育阶段的辍学风险反而有所降低,家庭背景在“撤点并校”后对于子女的入学几率起到更为重要的作用。本文认为,这一政策使得农村家庭在教育上“主动投入”,而这种家庭层面对于政策的回应使政策的影响效果被削弱或者推迟,从宏观上观察到的家庭背景在教育层面上的再生产机制是每个家庭在制度驱动下做出选择的结果。     

A Support Group for Spouses of Nursing Home Residents

This article describes a closed group for spouses of nursing home residents, in which group composition was carefully considered through a process of staff referral and pre-group interviews of potential members identified as persons who might be especially helped through group participation. The group provided opportunities for needed support and sharing and also empowered its members to influence agency policy.