‘Out with the old, in with the ‘‘new’’’ : What constitutes a new …

‘What constitutes a new political party?’ The answer to this question is central to the analysis of stability, continuity and change of party organizations, inter-party politics (party systems) and the political system as a whole. Yet, political science literature does not offer a standard answer to this question. The use of different conceptualizations limits the ability of political scientist…

When the media matter for politics : Partisan moderators of the mass media’…

In this study, we investigate which factors moderate the agenda-setting influence of the mass media on the Belgian parliament during the period 1993—2000. Based on elaborate codings of the media, parliamentary questions and interpellations, party manifestos, government agreements and ministerial meetings, we employ a multi-level time-series model. The results indicate that especially party char…

Measuring party organization : The vertical dimension of the multi-level orga…

Over the past few years, attention to the role of state-wide political parties in multi-level polities has increased in recognition of their linkage function between levels of government, as these parties compete in both state-wide and regional elections across their countries. This article presents a coding scheme designed to describe the relationship between central and regional levels of sta…

The endogenous change in electoral systems : The case of SNTV

Electoral systems shape party systems by constraining voters’ choices, but the choices voters make may also compel political parties to change the electoral system. Thus, an electoral system changes endogenously if the voters’ choices it induces vary over time, and political parties are motivated by the voters’ new choices to modify the electoral system. This article applies this logic to expla…

Coalition agreement and party mandate : How coalition agreements constrain th…

In coalition government, the relationship between parties and ministers is one of double delegation: from the party to the minister and from the coalition of parties to the individual minister. On the basis of principal—agent theory, I argue that a coalition agreement is a tool used by coalition parties to reduce agency loss when delegating to ministers. In six governments in Belgium, Italy and…

Dimensionality and the number of parties in legislative elections

This article explores how the party-defined dimensionality of political competition relates to the number of parties competing in legislative elections. It demonstrates that a mathematical relationship between the number of electoral parties and the literature’s concept of dimensionality follows from the variables’ definitions; conversely, it argues that exploring the relationship between the n…

Losing Control : Policy Space to Prevent and Mitigate Financial Crises in Tra…

This article examines the extent to which measures to mitigate the current financial crisis and prevent future crises are permissible under a variety of bilateral, regional and multilateral trade and investment agreements. US trade and investment agreements, and, to a lesser extent, the World Trade Organization, leave little room to manoeuvre with capital controls, despite increasing evidence t…

Global Anti-Money Laundering Standards and Developing Economies : The Regulat…

This article discusses the confluence of international initiatives to counter money laundering and terrorist finance with migrant remittances and the growing use of mobile telephone technology for more than making a call. The experiences of Kenya and the Philippines with mobile telephone-based financial services are outlined as potential models consistent with the ‘risk-based’ approach now prom…

The Politics of Investment and Growth in Egypt : Experimenting with a New App…

‘Improve the investment climate!’ is the dominant advice for governments wishing to achieve substantial increases in productive private investment. However, national-level investment-climate approaches have been criticised for not paying adequate attention to context and feasibility. This article experiments with a new approach which focuses on sectors and on relationships between policy-makers…

Immanent and Interventionist Inland Asian Aquaculture Development and its Out…

Aquaculture is equated with the reduction of poverty by intergovernmental agencies such as the FAO, which advocate the promotion of small-scale aquaculture through project-based interventions. There is a lack of convincing empirical evidence to support the efficacy of this type of intervention, however. Meanwhile, commercial cultured freshwater fish production has increased hugely throughout As…

Access to Water in the Slums of Sub-Saharan Africa

This article reviews the changing perspectives for improving access to water in the slums of developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. While much of the literature continues to maintain an aversion to state-led urban development policies, there is now increasing emphasis on the importance of informal, small-scale providers and communitarian initiatives, following the many failures…

The Role of Need for Contraception in the Evaluation of Interventions to Impr…

A nonrandomized experiment carried out in Jharkhand, India, shows how the effects of interventions designed to improve access to family-planning methods can be erroneously regarded as trivial when contraceptive use is utilized as dependent variable, ignoring women’s need for contraception. Significant effects of the intervention were observed on met need (i.e., contraceptive use by women who ne…

Multimethod Strategy for Assessing Program Fidelity : The National Evaluation…

This study reports the results of the process evaluation component of the Process and Outcome Evaluation of the Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program. The process evaluation consisted of multiple methods to assess program fidelity: (a) observations of G.R.E.A.T. Officer Trainings (G.O.T); (b) surveys and interviews of G.R.E.A.T.-trained officers and supervisors; (c) survey…

An Experiment to Test the Feasibility and Quality of a Web-Based Questionnair…

The use of web-based surveys to gather information from teachers has become increasingly common primarily based on the premise that they can reduce costs. Yet, relatively, little is known about the quality or cost effectiveness of web-based versus mail surveys for teachers. To study the efficacy of web-based teacher surveys, the author randomly assigned a nationally representative sample of 877…

How Consistent Are Class Size Effects?

Thus far researchers have focused on computing average differences in student achievement between smaller and larger classes. In this study, the author focus on the distribution of the small class effects at the school level and compute the inconsistency of the small class effects across schools. The author use data from Project STAR to estimate small class effects for each school on mathematic…

The Effect of a College Pen Incentive on Survey Response Rate Among Recent Co…

Incentives have shown a variable effect in improving survey response rates, but the effect of a pen from an organization to which the respondent has loyalty has not been studied. Recent college graduates were randomized to receive or not receive a college logo pen accompanying an initial survey mailing. Among 119 total respondents, there were no differences in response rate to the initial maili…

Aftershocks of Chile’s Earthquake for an Ongoing, Large-Scale Experimental …

Evaluation designs for social programs are developed assuming minimal or no disruption from external shocks, such as natural disasters. This is because extremely rare shocks may not make it worthwhile to account for them in the design. Among extreme shocks is the 2010 Chile earthquake. Un Buen Comienzo (UBC), an ongoing early childhood program in Chile, was directly affected by the earthquake. …

Evaluating Health Outcomes of Criminal Justice Populations Using Record Linka…

Individuals in contact with the criminal justice system are a key population of concern to public health. Record linkage studies can be useful for studying health outcomes for this group, but the use of aliases complicates the process of linking records across databases. This study was undertaken to determine the impact of aliases on sensitivity and specificity of record linkage and how this af…

Mandatory, Preferred, or Discretionary : How the Classification of Domestic V…

Edition

Vol. 35 no. 2, April 2011.pp. 129-152

ISBN/ISSN

0193841x

Collation

-

Series Title

Evaluation Review

Call Number

-

Evaluation of Free to Grow : Head Start Partnerships to Promote Substance-Fre…

Free to Grow: Head Start Partnerships to Promote Substance-free Communities (FTG) was a national initiative in which local Head Start (HS) agencies, in partnership with other community organizations, implemented a mix of evidence-based family-strengthening and community-strengthening strategies. The evaluation of FTG used a quasi-experimental design to compare 14 communities that participated i…