Demise of the Developmental State? Implications for Social Policy Development in Hong Kong

This paper argues that Hong Kong is now at the crossroads of its journey towards social policy development. While economic development still seems to be the unwavering objective of the Hong Kong government, the demand for democracy and social development can no longer be ignored because of a strong civil society fostered by economic success. The current state of affairs provides a window of opportunity for the Hong Kong government to strengthen its legitimacy through the development of social policy and to promote social harmony through inclusivity in social welfare. The findings from the present empirical survey conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia‐Pacific Studies (HKIAPS) in 2010 demonstrate that Hong Kong people identified social harmony as the main direction for social development, closely followed by economic development, and democracy and freedom. Respondents who chose social harmony as the main goal of social development were more likely to take a step back and find common ground when fighting for their own rights or the rights of society. This paper concludes that these findings reflect the crucial importance of taking social harmony into consideration in the social policy development process.     

Development of a Level 1 Geriatric Outpatient Social Work Screen in a Veterans Primary Care Clinic

Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACT) provide primary care to veterans. We describe our experience in a PACT (average age 66, 98% men, 8 medications, 16% yearly hospitalization rate) using a nurse-administered screen to identify patients in need of intervention by a Masters-level Social Worker. Our screening results—98% Positive predictive value (included social work concerns) and 73% negative predictive value (excluded social work concerns)—suggest that the nurse accurately identified patients. Another 15% of patients were identified by the social worker. Similar screens used in interprofessional clinics could help target patients in need of further social work care.     

‘The only place worth thinking about’: personal testimony and Irish and Scottish migrants in Australasia, 1921–61

ABSTRACT

In the late nineteenth century, in most industrialized countries, the coverage of social risks in general and the risk of sickness in particular came from four basic sectors with different weighting according to country: the state, the market, the traditional family network and solidarity among workers. Historians have shown that, across time, hospital systems tended to be created in developed countries where at least one of these public or private elements was prominent. Spain provides an excellent case study of how a country in Western Europe made modest progress with respect to its hospital system between the 1880s and 1930s in a context of low coverage capacity in all four of the areas that comprise the mixed economy of welfare. Changes to the hospital map occurred above all during the 1920s and 1930s with the emergence of new actors responding to new demands: companies that created hospitals for workplace victims; friendly societies; insurance companies; and medical specialists who set up clinics to attend to an emerging middle class. Despite this, the majority of the working population lacked hospital coverage due to the state’s inability to establish a health insurance scheme in a country with a predominance of agricultural workers.     

Misplaced Mistrust: The Collaborative Construction of Doubt In 911 Emergency Calls

In this paper, we analyze how the call-taker in a taped 911 call came to doubt a caller who was reporting a genuine emergency. Using conversation analysis, we show how the caller's actions in the unfolding context of the call did not successfully support his claims to be a caller with legitimate trouble to report. We show how the participants' experience of the call as it unfolded differed from the media's depictions of the call. The call-taker's doubt was not an intrapersonal phenomenon but was constructed by both participants throughout the call. One of the major factors in this construction was the unsuccessful claims-making techniques used by the caller.     

Excitable Speech: Judith Butler, Mae West, and Sexual Innuendo

Working with Judith Butler's Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, this essay pursues a series of questions on the performativity of speech acts, using sexual innuendo as an example. As performed by the provocative American playwright and classic Hollywood film star, Mae West, sexual innuendo provides an instance of “excitable speech” that allows for the exploration of speech as a site of political resistance. The questions that frame this discussion are as follows: How are vulnerability and agency produced in speech? What are the foreclosures or censors at work in producing speech and the speaking subject? What constitutes the “force” of the performative speech act? How is the speech act repeatable? And do these conditions leave room for Butler's notion of linguistic agency, where the speech act works to undermine linguistic conventions through resignification? Finally, the essay offers queer readings of Mae West in order to demonstrate the concept of “discursive performativity,” which underpins Butler's argument.     

Conservation Management of EU Priority Habitats after Collapse of Traditional Pastoralism: Navigating Socioecological Transitions in Mountain Rangeland

Agricultural abandonment is a major driver of change in rural landscapes. Assumed to provide beneficial results to the environment and the conservation of biota, rural abandonment triggers landscape and biotic homogenization and loss of valuable species and habitats. This article focuses on the ecological effects and conservation challenges of shifts in extensive grazing regimes on marginal pastureland of Mediterranean mountains. We conceptualize a navigated socioecological transition toward conservation‐oriented management after the collapse of historical land systems. The article provides examples from the LIFE+ project “Higro,” developed in mountainous protected areas in Portugal, of how management for conservation could sustain disturbance‐dependent habitats. We argue that actively and regularly managing large habitat areas should be envisaged as a short‐term approach to limit the immediate effects of rural abandonment. A gradual integration of conservation targets with other activities in changing rural economies is necessary to foster long‐term conservation of species and habitats, building on the link between conservation‐oriented habitat management and ecosystem services in rural landscapes. Conservation goals should run alongside recovery of social systems and innovation applied to traditional sources of income. This parallel development would contribute to building up social‐ecological resilience by maintaining a diversity of social and ecological capital in rural areas.     

A statistical model for orientation mechanism

A variance components model with response variable depending on both fixed effects of explanatory variables and random components is specified to model longitudinal circular data, in order to study the directional behaviour of small animals, as insects, crustaceans, amphipods, etc. Unknown parameter estimators are obtained using a simulated maximum likelihood approach. Issues concerning log-likelihood variability and the related problems in the optimization algorithm are also addressed. The procedure is applied to the analysis of directional choices under full natural conditions ofTalitrus saltator from Castiglione della Pescaia (Italy) beaches.     

Not Threats,but Resources: An Investigation of How Leaders React to Employee Constructive Voice

This research aims to investigate whether or not leaders, one of the main recipients of employee voice, develop good relationships with those who speak up. Drawing on resource theory and social exchange theory, we contend that constructive voice provides both information and affect resources to the leader, which in turn promote a resource-based exchange relationship with the leader (i.e., leader–member exchange; LMX). We further propose that leaders with an originality cognitive style are more likely to capture the resource value of constructive voice, while leaders who closely follow rules might not view constructive voice in a positive way, thus affecting their LMX relationships with the focal employee. Through a two-wave field survey among 199 leader–follower dyads (Study 1) and a vignette-based experiment among 221 leaders (Study 2), we found that leaders, especially leaders who advocated high originality, developed high-quality LMX relationships with those who engaged in constructive voice due to their perceptions of affect but not information resource.     

Long-Term RCT outcomes for adolescent alcohol and cannabis use within a predominantly Hispanic sample

Because adolescents are unlikely to seek, receive, or complete treatment for alcohol and/or cannabis misuse, it is important to enhance the lasting impact of clinical contacts when they do occur. Adolescents (N = 506; 72.5% Hispanic) were randomized to motivational interviewing (MI) versus alcohol and cannabis education (ACE). Latent growth models estimated change over time. Significant reductions in alcohol use were observed, with slightly greater reductions by 12-month follow-up for MI. Both interventions significantly reduced cannabis use, with no treatment group differences. When outcomes were examined comparing Hispanic to non-Hispanic participants, there were no significant differences in intervention efficacy by group. MI's inherently client-centered and culturally adaptive approach may contribute to its equitable degree of behavior change for youth across race/ethnic backgrounds.     

Legal financial obligations in the United States: A review of recent research

In the United States, legal financial obligations (LFOs) include many types of monetary sanctions. For example, fines are tied to specific offenses and imposed at conviction and fees charge people for the “use” of courts, prisons, and other public services. With the rise of mass incarceration, millions of people across the U.S. owe billions of dollars in LFOs. Yet despite the widespread use of monetary sanctions, it was not until the last decade that research began to uncover the vast system of LFOs embedded throughout U.S. laws and understand their far-reaching socioeconomic consequences. This paper reviews recent research on LFOs across three areas: (1) the political development of LFOs, (2) their implementation and enforcement, and (3) the consequences of LFOs on people, broader social networks, and the functioning of public institutions. We conclude with recommendations for future research that explores the hidden processes connecting these three areas and accounts for the fractured nature of the U.S. government.