Objective: This report describes the reliability and validity of the Evidence-Based Practice Process Assessment Scale (EBPPAS)— Short Version, validated with three disciplines (Social Work, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFTs), and Psychologists), that assesses practitioners’ perceived familiarity with, attitudes about, and implementation of the evidence-based practice (EBP) process.…
The influence of culture on adolescent prosocial behavior is a neglected aspect in existing studies. Objectives: This study evaluates the psychometric properties of the Cultural Influence on Helping Scale (CIHS) among Chinese adolescents. CIHS is an instrument that assesses Chinese cultural influence on helping other people. Method: The CIHS was administered to 5,812 high school students in Hon…
Objectives: This study evaluates the utility of a new measure—the h-index—that may provide a more valid approach to evaluating journal quality in the social work profession. Method: H-index values are compared with Thomson ISI 5-year impact factors and expert opinion. Results: As hypothesized, the h-index correlates highly with ISI 5-year impact factors; but exhibits closer agreement with exper…
The Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition government has announced its intention to hold a referendum on the possible introduction of the Alternative Vote (AV) for future elections to the House of Commons. This paper uses survey data from the 2010 British Election Study to simulate what the effects on the seat distribution in the House of Commons would have been if AV had operated in May 2010…
Britain's first ever live, televised, party leaders’ debate took place on 15 April 2010, during one of the most intriguing and closely fought general election campaigns in living memory. Arguably the most important single development in the media's treatment of politics since the arrival of television during the 1959 campaign, the leaders’ debate and its aftermath provide a unique window on the…
In France, more than other mature democracies, the election rules undergo reform. Our concern is how these reforms influence mass electoral behaviour, namely voter turnout. We gather an extended national data set on the abstention rate, across the republics of France, and subject it to an interrupted time-series analysis. Two sets of hypotheses are explored: structural and tactical. The structu…
The media and public responses to the expenses scandal of 2009 demonstrated the enduring importance of standards of conduct in British public life. This article addresses some basic questions concerning citizens' attitudes towards political wrongdoing, including how much notice people actually take of politicians' misbehaviour, how much importance citizens attach to politicians' integrity and h…
This study, drawing on interviews with 13 male and 15 female members of the Australian parliament, has two aims. The first is to contribute to knowledge about the nature of the Australian parliament, an institution which has seldom been subjected to gender analysis. This is particularly pertinent given the significant increase in women's representative status over the past decade. The second of…
In the early years of the twenty-first century, things look bleak for the political journalists of large newspapers—squeezed by the demands of celebrity culture, bullied by politicians and their aides, untrusted by the public and, now, displaced by a horde of amateur bloggers—or do they? This study is based upon an in-depth, comparative analysis of the quality of debate, on economic issues, in …
Work on the representational focus of Finnish parliamentarians has been largely conspicuous by its absence and the notion of ‘constituency service’ is neither familiar to Finns, nor does it translate into Finnish. Based on interviews with MPs and their personal assistants, data from the Finnish leg of the Comparative Candidate Survey and official statistical material, this article makes a first…
Much time is spent asking questions during parliamentary debates. To what extent are they answered? This paper investigates this question by examining budget debates in post-1945 France, Sweden, and the UK as well as in the European Parliament from 1996 to 2001. The purpose is to introduce an empirical approach to a theoretical discussion of whether globalisation weakens deliberative democracy …
Parliamentary approval can be of crucial importance to ensure the democratic legitimacy of military operations as it can establish public consent to the executive's use of force. But involving parliament in decisions to deploy military forces may have negative repercussions on the efficiency of operations, e.g. by slowing down decision-making. As the military activity of democracies has been on…
A commitment to equality was firmly established as a key principle when the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales were founded a decade ago. In the intervening years both have become international beacons of progress in establishing higher levels of representation for women in politics. But at the 2007 elections there was a decline in the number of women elected to both legisl…
Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part II includes a number of scenes representing the Kent rebellion of 1450, led by Jack Cade. In these, we argue, Shakespeare explores the ways in which claims to legitimate rule are often secured through performances of word, deed and gesture. We examine some of the concerns about drama expressed by political theorists alongside some of the techniques of political dram…
The Labour MP Ellen Wilkinson is remembered for numerous achievements, chief of which is her leadership of the Jarrow Crusade in October 1936. Wilkinson was the only woman to march in the 280-mile protest against unemployment, and her compatriots were said to have looked upon her as one of them. But Wilkinson remained in many ways an outsider, both in politics and in industrial relations. Wilki…
This article suggests that political fictions can play a significant role for citizens in permitting them to imagine how key processes work within polities. Using the concept of ‘vernacular theory', it explores how politicians’ behaviour, the operation of British political institutions and the country's external relations are theorised across a range of films and television programmes in the th…
Since Plato the arts have worried those concerned with the maintenance and stability of the polis. More recently politicians and commentators have expressed fears that the manner in which formal politics is depicted in fiction has been a contributory factor in the breakdown of trust in British political culture. By comparison the USA is pointed to as offering a far more positive tradition of cu…
This article addresses the significance of television fiction in the public communication process on the basis of a comparative analysis of the television dramas A Very British Coup and The Amazing Mrs Pritchard. The narratives converge in their depiction of unconventional characters becoming Prime Ministers after achieving major electoral victories. Furthermore, both texts locate their charact…
The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard was the first British television series production that featured a woman Prime Minister, backed by an all-women party and elected by the large majority of voters. This article investigates whether the series was an attempt to provide a feminist portrayal of women politicians. It addresses three main issues: whether and how the series inscribes gender frames to place e…
This article examines fictional representations of journalists and journalism from Guy Thorne's Edwardian bestseller When it Was Dark (1903) through to novels of the interwar years. It examines how literature about journalism and journalists addresses contemporary issues such as the march of technology; the relationship between politics and the press at a time when the franchise was extending; …