Activism,Mobilisation and Political Engagement: Comparative Historical Perspectives

This editorial introduction discusses and explains the broader research context underpinning the essays, namely the Leverhulme Trust-funded Research Network, “The Comparative History of Political Engagement in Western and African Societies”. It provides a brief overview of the intellectual background to the network's agenda, and, in particular, argues that comparative sociological approaches to the study of political engagement have left it inadequately historicized. The introduction then discusses the general theme of “Activism, mobilization and Political Engagement”, which all contributors to the international conference were asked to consider. It argues that these essays, when taken together, offer new comparative historical perspectives for investigations into the history of political engagement, providing highly suggestive points of departures for future research.     

Perspective for operational research

The paper discusses the present state of Operational Research in industry and commerce. It reviews historical development of the subject stemming initially from the studies of the production process and leading to its deployment of problems in finance, purchasing and marketing. The paper discusses the relevance of mathematical modelling in these areas and suggests that the time is coming when further research in mathematical programming will no longer be productive. Areas for further development of the subject are suggested, including accounting measures, finance and investment, human problems, effectiveness of organizational structure, organizational objectives and measures of objective achievement.     

Structural mapping applied to single value policies

The paper is a development of the use of multi dimensional scaling techniques for multiple criteria decision. It takes the special case of policies to each of which a single value can be applied and assigns indifferences between all pairs of these policies based on a series of probability laws. It is shown that the mapping performs well not only in throwing to opposite ends the high and low value policies but also shows that the position of policy points along the principal axis of the map is related to the single values.     

‘From awareness to practice’: children,domestic violence and child welfare

This paper traces the development of social care practice in relation to child witnesses of domestic violence. It suggests that this development has been dominated by subsuming the needs of these children into a child protection process. The paper outlines how this has led to significant (but often unclear) legal and policy initiatives which have failed, as yet, to be translated into practice. The paper argues that there are a number of important reasons why child witnesses of domestic violence should not always be assumed to need the response of a child protection system and that a future practice, legal and policy response should be based on a wider understanding of their needs. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Futures literature and futures forecasting—A critical review

This paper presents a personal view of futures forecasting. Beginning with an overall view of the literature in the field with particular attention to the more significant contributions, methodology is then considered. Various general techniques of very long term forecasting are reviewed, followed by consideration of the particular fields of economic, social, technological, energy and politics. The social factor is seen to be all-pervading. A synthesis of futures forecasts is then attempted with particular reference to the British case. Finally, the significance of such forecasting approaches for the OR scientist is considered.     

Indifference mapping for multiple criteria decisions

Indifference mapping uses multi dimensional scaling techniques to allocate multi criteria policies to points in a space based on an input which consists of those pairs of policies which are equally attractive. The paper takes sets of policies for each of which a single value has been pre-assigned and maps them in two dimensions by applying a probability law to the assessment of indifferent pairs. The paper shows that the maps can be used both to deduce the original value of each policy and can also deduce the probability law which was applied.     

'Everyone Started Shouting': Making Connections between the Process of Family Group Conferences and Family Therapy Practice

This article presents findings from a qualitative study of familygroup conferences (FGCs) in Wales, UK. The study examined theprocess of seventeen FGCs involving twenty-five young people,using semi-structured interviews, analysis of documents andcollection of data on welfare outcomes. Young people were re-interviewedafter six months. The article focuses on the data concerningreported communications between family members during the familymeetings. These data are discussed in relation to similaritiesand differences between FGCs and family therapy sessions. Theauthors conclude that each method of intervention presents potentiallessons and challenges to the other. FGC co-ordinators mightwish to reflect on how to manage and prepare family membersfor the potential for expressions of emotion and disclosuresof confidential information that might arise in a family meeting.Family therapy has a long history of successfully working withsuch processes. Additionally, family therapists may wish toreflect on the successful management of intra-familiar conflictand disclosure by many families acting without a therapist orother professional present in a FGC.     

Multidimension scaling for multiobjective policies

This paper develops and expands the use of multidimension scaling techniques (MDSCAL) as applied in the two separate fields of psychological testing and archaeology to the problem of multiple criteria decision making. Other work by the author published elsewhere shows that it is feasible to use MDSCAL for drawing maps of separate policies using very weak input information from which deductions as to most preferred and least preferred policies may be drawn. An application of this method is made, to show its use and a comparison made with the utility approach. The final, and main, part of the paper examines the robustness of the method for both deterministic and probabilistic input criteria. In this examination it is seen that the mapping method performs very well in picking up extremes of preference even under severe tests of robustness.