Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Over the last decade, federal administrative and legislative initiatives have supported the adoption of graduated sanctions in state juvenile justice systems. Despite widespread adoption, there have been a limited number of policy evaluations of graduated sanctions. To guide evaluation efforts, it is important to understand how policy is expected to work and how well policy implementation corresponds to theoretical expectations.

This paper will briefly describe a theoretical framework of graduated sanctions which emphasizes a community-based, comprehensive continuum of services and sanctions for juveniles as an important policy component expected to induce behavioral change. Effective federal policy is dependent upon faithful implementation within local communities.

Using a case study of North Carolina juvenile justice legislation, I will examine the extent of implementation of graduated sanctions in North Carolina counties and compare implementation to service needs. Local county-based Juvenile Crime Prevention Councils (JCPCs) engage in annual assessments of service needs and service provision for juveniles. Using JCPC administrative data from 100 counties, I will describe the extent of local implementation of graduated sanctions. In addition, I will present data illustrating the need for services based upon the use of a validated needs assessment instrument given to all juveniles. Finally, I will examine the relationship between service needs and service provision in North Carolina counties.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The present study is concerned primarily with the process and politics of liberalization or restructuring in one post-communist state: the Russian Federation. While most East European welfare states have undergone progressive liberalization, Russia has followed a distinctive trajectory: (see Table 1)
· an initial period of radical liberalization (1991-1993);
· an extended period of political deadlock and backpedaling through the remainder of the decade (1994-1999);
· a condensed period of liberalization ‘breakthrough’ (2000-2003)
Drawing on comparative welfare state literature, the present study explains this pattern primarily as a consequence of domestic political constellations, particularly the shifting relationship between Russia’s superpresidency and legislative and state institutions. It argues that constituencies defensive of the old welfare state have played a highly-constrained but still significant role in the welfare politics of Russia’s delegative democracy. And it shows that the pattern of shifts and partial liberalization has produced a ‘hybrid’ welfare system with large elements of informality, that conforms to neither state nor market models of social provision.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Tremendous attention has been given to the use of alternative service delivery mechanisms by which local governments contract with private for-profit or nonprofit firms to deliver services. What has gone virtually unnoticed is that many of these arrangements experienced “vertical integration of production” where the service is taken in-house by the providing government.

Building on three typologies of service characteristics that are prominent in the literature, we examine whether vertical integration is systemically associated with certain types of goods and test whether the likelihood of vertical integration increases when mismatches occur between the service types and the modes of service delivery. Vertical integration can also be a response to market conditions, capacities for production and administration within government, or political, preferences of public decision makers. We view the vertical integration of services as more than the reverse of contracting out; it is the product of three distinct transaction problems relating to the characteristics of goods, production agents, and markets.

Empirical analysis of patterns of service production from 1997-2002 reveals that vertical integration of production is relatively more likely than additional contracting with private providers and almost as many services were brought in-house as contracted out in that period. The multivariate analysis reports finds services offered though joint production arrangements are most likely to be taken in house. The types of goods provide an incomplete explanation for local service delivery decisions; a more complete model highlights the role of jurisdiction level factors.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Past studies widely accept the conclusion that adult sons usually provide monetary transfers to their elderly parents while adult daughters tend to dedicate their time as caregivers. However, discussions on why adult sons and daughters' adoption of different transfer patterns is an indication of household individuals responding to structural barriers are still limited. This paper integrates micro and macro research frameworks and argues that gender-biased labor force structure expands its influence from the societal level into the individual households thereby affects adult children's provision of support to their elderly parents. Because gendered wage market results in women's financial disadvantages relative to men and thus reduce their ability to provide monetary transfer to their parents, to make up for their low levels of financial transfer, women would use time transfers as a substitute. On the other hand, since men have a higher opportunity cost to forgo their paid jobs, they would choose to stay in the labor force and use monetary resource to replace for their care-giving labor. This study concludes that late-middle-aged women bear greater elderly care burden than their male counterparts do. To lessen women's multiple burden, men should also re-evaluate their own social roles and become more involved with their families.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper applies White’s relational and constructivist economic sociology in explaining the rise and decline of UK defined benefit pension fund provision and associated changes in investment policy, over the past sixty years. It proposes an account of economic agency in which the agent (the pension fund manager or ‘PFM’) uses ambiguity to mediate between two principals with conflicting interests (shareholders and members). Three points of change deriving from the introduction of performance measures are associated with changing financial valuation frameworks and changing networks of professional advisors. This changing professional landscape enables and constrains the PFM’s ability to mediate between shareholders and members and is associated with the rise and decline of defined benefit pension provision.