Connecting and Strengthening Young Aboriginal Men: A Family Wellbeing Pilot Study

A significant proportion of young people in Australia are currently not being engaged in school and other social systems. This article presents the results of a mixed-methods study of a pilot Family Wellbeing intervention designed to enhance the social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) of young Aboriginal men and improve engagement in education, employment, and other social participation. A questionnaire incorporating the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale and respondent self-assessment SEWB questions was administered to program participants pre and post intervention (N = 30) and qualitative data were collected from program organisers (N = 6). The results suggest that the Family Wellbeing intervention has the capacity to make a marked contribution to the SEWB of young Aboriginal men; participants experienced strong improvement in capacity to manage relationships, engagement in education and employment, and mental and physical health. The factors that enabled the program to be adapted to the target group and setting are documented.     

Stemming retail leakage with a sense of community: Leveraging the links between communal ties and shopping decisions

Retail business development is a broad goal for both private business interests as well as local policymakers, yet the goal of retail opportunities for local residents themselves is often seen as secondary. This paper considers the argument that retail opportunities and sense of community are in fact linked in important ways, links that reinforce the social fabric of a community and/or neighborhood. The paper first briefly reviews the inherent linkages between retail shopping and local development patterns, and then considers the sense of community in the context of Garfield County in western Colorado. Based on the key questions derived from this background, we formally test the inter-relationship between local retail spending and sense of community from detailed survey data, then more broadly consider the factors that critically shape a locality's “sense of community.” These findings shape several important policy implications.     

Social (Dis)Approval and Collective Action Participation: Re‐evaluating the Positive Linearity Thesis

Survey‐based studies on collective action generally assume that social approval of participation in collective action has a positive and linear effect on actual participation. However, this assumption has not yet been subjected to a genuine empirical evaluation. This article investigates the positive linearity thesis, using survey data on participation and non‐participation in a street demonstration in The Hague in 2011. Statistical analyses provide evidence in support of a curvilinear relation between social approval and participation—an increased rate of participation in case of both approval and disapproval by peers. We discuss two processes underlying the observed relation: one pertaining to rebelliousness and the other regarding political awareness. The article generally illustrates the need for further empirical research on social influence and participation in collective action.     

Funding Civil Society? Bilateral Government Support for Development NGOs

Research on the determinants of foreign aid tends to focus on the relationship between donor country priorities and recipient state characteristics, but donors also make decisions about which organizations and programs within countries will receive assistance. Although NGOs increasingly have been recipients of foreign aid, few data are available to investigate which organizations within a given country receive that funding. Donors may prioritize structural characteristics of NGOs or their local ties—or they may seek a combination that blends concern about efficiency and accountability with an interest in developing national civil society. We use original data from Cambodia to explore whether aid is likely to go to managerial organizations (professionalized NGOs and NGOs that utilize modern management tools) or to organizations that are embedded in the domestic context. We argue that managerialism provides legitimacy for NGOs by signaling capacity and accountability to donors, increasing the likelihood of government funding. We argue that local embeddedness also confers legitimacy by aligning community ties and networks to rights-based development, increasing the likelihood of government funding. We find general support for the managerialism argument, but donor agencies do not prioritize direct funding for “indigenous” NGOs—not even among those with high levels of managerialism.