Social Return on Investment of an Innovative Employment Option for Persons with Developmental Disabilities

Common Ground Co‐operative (CGC) provides training, administrative, and job coach support to five social enterprises for which persons with developmental disabilities are the non‐share‐capital partners. This study examines the use of social return on investment (SROI) as a means of determining the value of program impacts related to quality‐of‐life changes for enterprise partners and their families. The process of conducting this SROI analysis is described and analyzed in terms of its utility in employment services for persons with developmental disabilities.     

论转型期中国政府职能制度变迁的条件初探

制度变迁是人们追求自己利益的规则选择,这种机制的发生是需要一定条件的。用马克思主义的观点来分析,就是事物的发展是一个矛盾的过程,这些矛盾就构成了事物发展的条件（动力）。文章通过对政府职能制度变迁发生的条件的系统分析,进而对处于转型期中国政府职能的制度变迁的条件作了深刻的剖析,以期对中国政府职能的转变具有借鉴意义。     

Origins of the epithet ‘government by public relations’: Revisiting Bruce Catton's War Lords of Washington, 1948

While it might make public relations professionals and faculty cringe, the term ‘government by public relations’ is a negative one, implying that governmental decision-making is guided by appearances rather than on the merits. This tag line is a relatively common American put-down of politicians and senior civil servants. This article examines the origins of the term, locating its usage in the WWII memoirs of Bruce Catton, then a government public information officer and later a renowned popular historian of the American Civil War. Catton's use of the term, his 1948 book War Lords of Washington, and his philosophy of government public information are examined in more detail to give context to the phrase ‘government by public relations.’     

政府支出对医疗服务健康公平影响的比较和启示

医疗服务公平和人民的健康是各国卫生系统向其国家居民提供医疗服务所应实现的两个重要目标。但以英美日为例的发达国家根据世界卫生统计年鉴中的医疗服务公平性排名确有明显差距,因此,高收入和高政府医疗卫生支出与医疗卫生服务公平和健康公平性并没有必然关系。本文通过比较分析美日英国的政府间医疗卫生支出责任划分的结构发现高政府医疗卫生支出比例是提高医疗服务筹资公平性的前提,中央承担社会医疗保险责任是实现医疗服务筹资公平性的保证,政府特别是中央政府出资的长期护理有助于提高国民健康水平,地方政府的参与更有助于提高一国医疗系统机构数量特别是医院的数量。     

China’s flexible overseas food strategy: food trade and agricultural investment between Southeast Asia and China in 1990–2015

Using the UN Comtrade database and multiple sources of agricultural investment data, this paper outlines the emerging patterns of food trade and agricultural investment between Southeast Asian countries and China. The paper shows that China has adopted a flexible overseas food strategy. First, China has increased food export and shifted its food trade with Southeast Asia from a dependent relationship towards a complementary relationship at the regional level in recent years. Second, China tends to adapt to the existing conditions of food production and trade in Southeast Asian countries instead of fundamentally altering them. Finally, Chinese overseas agricultural investment is less driven by domestic food demand but more oriented for profit making, and this gives it flexibility in diversifying investment. An adequate understanding of China’s flexible food strategy in bilateral and multilateral relationships holds implications for global food security.     

基于贝叶斯SDM模型的中国城镇居民收入收敛性分析

随着中国经济的高速增长,中国区域间贫富差距也日渐加大,在此背景下对中国城镇居民收入是否收敛进行检验并探究其影响原因十分必要。基于一个包括物质资本和人力资本投入的新古典增长模型,根据中国31个省市的1987—2013年数据,利用SDM模型和贝叶斯MCMC统计分析方法,研究城镇居民收入的收敛性问题,结果发现:中国城镇居民人均收入具有显著的空间差异,且在1987—2008年为发散、在2008—2013年以及1987—2013年为存在β收敛的变化趋势;物质资本对中国城镇居民收入增长的β收敛具有正向促进作用,而人力资本对其具有反向促进作用,增加物质资本投入有利于缩小地区收入差距,二者的不匹配可能是导致中国收入增长差距的原因。     

Investment model predictions of workplace ostracism on K–12 teachers’ commitment to their schools and the profession of teaching

The purpose of this study was to determine how the ostracism of K-12 teachers influences their commitment to their schools and commitment to the teaching profession. The investment model was used to situate ostracism as a predictor of teacher commitment. Participants were 200 full-time K-12 teachers who completed a survey assessing their experiences with ostracism at work and investment model variables (i.e., investments, quality of alternatives, satisfaction, and commitment). Results confirmed investment model predictions with teachers’ investments, quality of alternatives, and satisfaction predicting their commitment to their schools and profession. Results of mediation models also demonstrated that controlling for teachers’ investments and quality of alternatives, ostracism predicted commitment indirectly through its effect on satisfaction. This study revealed that teacher commitment is explained by investment model predictions, but after controlling for those predictions, is further explained by ostracism from teacher colleagues.     

SROI in the pay for success context: Are they at odds?

The Pay For Success (PFS) and Social Impact Bond (SIB) movements to date have focused heavily on shorter-term outcomes that can be monetized and show clear savings to government entities. In part, this focus derives from the need to specify contract payments based on a narrow set of well measured outcomes (e.g., avoided days in jail and foster care, decreased use of behavioral health services). Meanwhile efforts to measure the social return on investment (SROI) of interventions have sought to expand the view of relevant outcomes to include domains that lend themselves less clearly to monetization. This paper explores the intersection between these two movements with illustrations from a SIB initiative underway focused on homeless families with children in foster care. Challenges and potential for SROI in a third-party payor environment will be discussed as well as opportunities to better leverage the strengths of both types of initiative.     

Romantic Relationships and Criminal Desistance: Pathways and Processes

In dominant theories of criminal desistance, marital relationship formation is understood to be a key “turning point” away from deviant behavior. Empirical studies supporting this claim have largely focused on the positive role of marriage in men's desistance from crime, and relatively few studies have examined the role that nonmarital relationships may play in desistance. Drawing on 138 longitudinal in‐depth interviews with 22 men and women reentering society from prison, this article extends the scope of desistance research by additionally considering the significance of more fleeting and fluid relationships, and the diverse processes through which romantic relationships of all sorts are linked with criminal behaviors. We present an empirically based typology detailing six processes, grouped within three conceptual categories, through which romantic relationships had their effects. These pathways include material circumstances, social bonds and interactions, and emotional supports and stressors. We also consider gender differences in these processes. While more tenuous bonds to marginally conventional partners would seem to exert little effect, as one of the few relationships and social roles available to many former prisoners, we found that they wielded important influence, if not always in a positive direction.     

Changing symbolic and geographical boundaries between penal zones and rural communities in the Russian Federation

The article examines the processes involved in the integration of the USSR's secret places into mainstream rural society in the Russian Federation. Taking the example of one rural district in the Volga-Ural region that has been the site of a large prison complex over a period of ninety years, the article examines how economic changes and local government and penal reforms have eroded the boundary that marked off the penal region from the rural district in which it was located. Using interviews and social surveys conducted among the local population, the article examines the extent to which the opening of the penal sub-region has led to changes in the symbolic boundary between the communities in the rural raion. The article concludes that although new spaces of active government are being produced in rural Russia, these are not necessarily the basis for the emergence of new common identities among the people living in them.