bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Theory & Methods: Model Selection For A Family Of Discrete Failure Time Distributions
Authors: Klar Bernhard
Published: March 2003

In recent years, a large number of new discrete distributions have appeared in the literature. However, flexible discrete models which, at the same time, allow for easy statistical inference, are still an exception. This paper makes a detailed analysis of a family of discrete failure time distributions which meets both requirements. It examines the maximum likelihood estimation of the unknown parameters and presents a goodness‐of‐fit test for this model. The test is used for the selection of an appropriate model for datasets of frequencies of the duration of atmospheric circulation patterns.
Applications: Posterior Distributions for the Gini Coefficient Using Grouped Data
Authors: Chotikapanich Duangkamon , Griffiths William E.
Published: March 2003

When available data comprise a number of sampled households in each of a number of income classes, the likelihood function is obtained from a multinomial distribution with the income class population proportions as the unknown parameters. Two methods for going from this likelihood function to a posterior distribution on the Gini coefficient are investigated. In the first method, two alternative assumptions about the underlying income distribution are considered, namely a lognormal distribution and the Singh–Maddala (1976) income distribution. In these cases the likelihood function is reparameterized and the Gini coefficient is a nonlinear function of the income distribution parameters. The Metropolis algorithm is used to find the corresponding posterior distributions of the Gini coefficient from a sample of Bangkok households. The second method does not require an assumption about the nature of the income distribution, but uses (a) triangular prior distributions, and (b) beta prior distributions, on the location of mean income within each income class. By sampling from these distributions, and the Dirichlet posterior distribution of the income class proportions, alternative posterior distributions of the Gini coefficient are calculated.
Theory & Methods: An Empirical Bayes Inference for the von Mises Distribution
Authors: Rodrigues Josemar , Galvão Leite José , Milan Luis A.
Published: March 2003

This paper develops an empirical Bayesian analysis for the von Mises distribution, which is the most useful distribution for statistical inference of angular data. A two‐stage informative prior is proposed, in which the hyperparameter is obtained from the data in one of the stages. This empirical or approximate Bayes inference is justified on the basis of maximum entropy, and it eliminates the modified Bessel functions. An example with real data and a realistic prior distribution for the regression coefficients is considered via a Metropolis‐within‐Gibbs algorithm.
Theory & Methods: Special Invited Paper: Dimension Reduction and Visualization in Discriminant Analysis (with discussion)
Authors: Cook R. Dennis , Yin Xiangrong
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses visualization methods for discriminant analysis. It does not address numerical methods for classification per se, but rather focuses on graphical methods that can be viewed as pre‐processors, aiding the analyst's understanding of the data and the choice of a final classifier. The methods are adaptations of recent results in dimension reduction for regression, including sliced inverse regression and sliced average variance estimation. A permutation test is suggested as a means of determining dimension, and examples are given throughout the discussion.
Theory & Methods: Adaptive Estimation Using Weighted Least Squares
Authors: O'Gorman Thomas W.
Published: March 2003

This paper proposes an adaptive estimator that is more precise than the ordinary least squares estimator if the distribution of random errors is skewed or has long tails. The adaptive estimates are computed using a weighted least squares approach with weights based on the lengths of the tails of the distribution of residuals. Smaller weights are assigned to those observations that have residuals in the tails of long‐tailed distributions and larger weights are assigned to observations having residuals in the tails of short‐tailed distributions. Monte Carlo methods are used to compare the performance of the proposed estimator and the performance of the ordinary least squares estimator. The estimates that were studied in this simulation include the difference between the means of two populations, the mean of a symmetric distribution, and the slope of a regression line. The adaptive estimators are shown to have lower mean squared errors than those for the ordinary least squares estimators for short‐tailed, long‐tailed, and skewed distributions, provided the sample size is at least 20. The ordinary least squares estimator has slightly lower mean squared error for normally distributed errors. The adaptive estimator is recommended for general use for studies having sample sizes of at least 20 observations unless the random errors are known to be normally distributed.
Theory & Methods: The Slippage Problem for the Circular Normal Distribution
Authors: SenGupta Ashis , Laha Arnab Kumar
Published: March 2003

The slippage problem occurs when an unspecified observation in a given random sample is from a distribution other than that for all the remaining observations. This paper studies the problem in terms of the ‘slip’ in the mean direction of a circular normal distribution. The slippage problem is first treated as a multiple decision problem with a prior which is invariant under the permutations of the hypotheses. The probabilities of accepting the various hypotheses for the Bayes rule with respect to this prior are explicitly obtained. The likelihood ratio tests for this slippage problem, for the cases when the mean directions are both known and unknown, are shown to be easily computable. The tests are illustrated through two well‐known datasets. The performances of a range of tests are compared using extensive simulation.
Theory & Methods: Two‐Stage Welsh’s Trimmed Mean for the Simultaneous Equations Model
Authors: Chen Lin‐An , Liang Kuo‐Yuan , Liu Chwen‐Chi
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses the large sample theory of the two‐stage Welsh’s trimmed mean for the limited information simultaneous equations model. Besides having asymptotic normality, this trimmed mean, as the two‐stage least squares estimator, is a generalized least squares estimator. It also acts as a robust Aitken estimator for the simultaneous equations model. Examples illustrate real data analysis and large sample inferences based on this trimmed mean.
Theory & Methods: A parametric empirical Bayes approach to the analysis of capture‐recapture experiments
Authors: Huggins Richard M.
Published: March 2003

Empirical Bayes methods and a bootstrap bias adjustment procedure are used to estimate the size of a closed population when the individual capture probabilities are independently and identically distributed with a Beta distribution. The method is examined in simulations and applied to several well‐known datasets. The simulations show the estimator performs as well as several other proposed parametric and non‐parametric estimators.
Theory & Methods: Effect on probabilities and quantiles of adding a quantity with small variance
Authors: Willink R.
Published: March 2003

This paper gives simple approximations for the distribution function and quantiles of the sum X + Y when X is a continuous variable and Y is an independent variable with variance small compared to that of X. The approximations are based around the distribution function or quantiles of X and require only the first two or three moments of Y to be known. Example evaluations with X having a normal, Student’s t or chi‐squared distribution suggest that the approximations are good in unbounded tail regions when the ratio of variances is less than 0.2.
Applications: Imputation of MĀori Descent for Electoral Calculations in New Zealand
Authors: Westbrooke Ian , Jones Lisa
Published: March 2003

The New Zealand Government Statistician decided that, for electoral purposes, Statistics New Zealand should impute Māori–descent status for individuals not responding Yes or No to theMāori–descent question in the 1996 Census of Population and Dwellings. Imputation provides a sounder basis for calculating electoral populations than the approach used in 1994, when all who had not answered clearly Yes or No in the 1991 Census were effectively allocated to non–Māori descent. For the purposes of imputation, the key variables related to the Māori–descent variable were identified using a statistical technique called CHAID (Chisquared Automatic Interaction Detector). Subgroups were created by cross–classification across five variables—island, iwi, Māori ethnic group, Māori–descent composition of the rest of the household, and age group. Within each subgroup, the proportion who responded Yes or No for Māori descent was used to allocate the remainder to Yes or No. The imputation increased the proportion allocated to Māori descent from 16.0% to 17.4% of the total population. However, the proportion of the population imputed to Māori descent was smaller than the proportion who specified Māori descent originally.
Theory & Methods: Data Sharpening for Hazard Rate Estimation
Authors: Claeskens Gerda , Hall Peter
Published: March 2003

Data sharpening is a general tool for enhancing the performance of statistical estimators, by altering the data before substituting them into conventional methods. In one of the simplest forms of data sharpening, available for curve estimation, an explicit empirical transformation is used to alter the data. The attraction of this approach is diminished, however, if the formula has to be altered for each different application. For example, one could expect the formula for use in hazard rate estimation to differ from that for straight density estimation, since a hazard rate is a ratio–type functional of a density. This paper shows that, in fact, identical data transformations can be used in each case, regardless of whether the data involve censoring. This dramatically simplifies the application of data sharpening to problems involving hazard rate estimation, and makes data sharpening attractive.
Theory & Methods: Pseudo–Modelling of Outliers for Estimation of Regression And Time Series Models
Authors: Taplin Ross H.
Published: March 2003

This paper documents situations where the variance inflation model for outliers has undesirable properties. The model is commonly used to accommodate outliers in a Bayesian analysis of regression and time series models. The alternative approach provided here does not suffer from these undesirable properties but gives inferences similar to those of the variance inflation model when this is appropriate. It can be used with regression, time series, and regression with correlated errors in a unified way, and adheres to the scientific principle that inference should be based on the data after obvious outliers have been discarded. Only one parameter is required for outliers; it is interpretable as the a priori willingness to remove observations from the analysis.
Theory & Methods: Comparison of Four New General Classes of Search Designs
Authors: Ghosh Subir , Burns Colleen
Published: March 2003

A factor screening experiment identifies a few important factors from a large list of factors that potentially influence the response. If a list consists of m factors each at three levels, a design is a subset of all possible 3m runs. This paper considers the problem of finding designs with small numbers of runs, using the search linear model introduced in Srivastava (1975). The paper presents four new general classes of these ‘search designs’, each with 2m−1 runs, which permit, at most, two important factors out of m factors to be searched for and identified. The paper compares the designs for 4 ≤ m ≤ 10, using arithmetic and geometric means of the determinants, traces and maximum characteristic roots of particular matrices. Two of the designs are found to be superior in all six criteria studied. The four designs are identical for m= 3 and this design is an optimal design in the class of all search designs under the six criteria. The four designs are also identical for m= 4 under some row and column permutations.
Applications: A Note on the Sensitivities of Self–reporting and Screen Detection of Primary Breast Tumours
Authors: Tallis G.M. , Leppard P. , O'Neill T.J.
Published: March 2003

Screening programs for breast cancer are widely used to reduce the impact of breast cancer in populations. For example, the South Australian Breast X–ray Service, BreastScreen SA, established in 1989, is a participant in the National Program of Early Detection of Breast Cancer. BreastScreen SA has collected information on both screening–detected and interval or self–reported cases, which enables the estimation of various important attributes of the screening mechanism. In this paper, a tailored model is fitted to the BreastScreen SA data. The probabilities that the screening detects a tumour of a given size and that an individual reports a tumour by a specified size in the absence of screening are estimated. Estimates of the distribution of sizes detected in the absence of screening, and at the first two screenings, are also given.
Applications: The Design And Analysis of a Mixture Experiment on Glass Durability
Authors: Martin R.J. , Platts L.M. , Seddon A.B. , Stillman E.C.
Published: March 2003

This paper discusses the statistical design and analysis of a non–standard constrained mixture experiment on glass durability (the components sum to 1, and there are non–trivial lower or upper bounds on components or combinations of them). It notes some of the difficulties which arose during the study, and shows how the aims and methods of the experiment changed during its execution.
Theory & Methods: A New Characterization and Estimation of the Zero–bias Bandwidth
Authors: Sain Stephan R.
Published: March 2003

It is well established that bandwidths exist that can yield an unbiased non–parametric kernel density estimate at points in particular regions (e.g. convex regions) of the underlying density. These zero–bias bandwidths have superior theoretical properties, including a 1/n convergence rate of the mean squared error. However, the explicit functional form of the zero–bias bandwidth has remained elusive. It is difficult to estimate these bandwidths and virtually impossible to achieve the higher–order rate in practice. This paper addresses these issues by taking a fundamentally different approach to the asymptotics of the kernel density estimator to derive a functional approximation to the zero–bias bandwidth. It develops a simple approximation algorithm that focuses on estimating these zero–bias bandwidths in the tails of densities where the convexity conditions favourable to the existence of the zerobias bandwidths are more natural. The estimated bandwidths yield density estimates with mean squared error that is O(n–4/5), the same rate as the mean squared error of density estimates with other choices of local bandwidths. Simulation studies and an illustrative example with air pollution data show that these estimated zero–bias bandwidths outperform other global and local bandwidth estimators in estimating points in the tails of densities.
Theory & Methods: Bias in Multinomial Models
Authors: Nyangoma Stephen O.
Published: March 2003

This paper investigates bias in parameter estimates and residual diagnostics for parametric multinomial models by considering the effect of deleting a cell. In particular, it describes the average changes in the standardized residuals and maximum likelihood estimates resulting from conditioning on the given cells. These changes suggest how individual cell observations affect biases. Emphasis is placed on the role of individual cell observations in determining bias and on how bias affects standard diagnostic methods. Examples from genetics and log–linear models are considered. Numerical results show that conditioning on an influential cell results in substantial changes in biases.
Theory & Methods: Exact Bounds for the Bias of Trimmed Means
Authors: Danielak Katarzyna , Rychlik Tomasz
Published: March 2003

Trimmed means remove outliers but affect the estimation efficiency in uncontaminated samples. This paper provides and analyses sharp upper and lower bounds on the bias in the non–parametric estimation of population means by various trimmed means in different scale units. It also presents sharp evaluations of expected trimmed means by the expectations of properly truncated parent distributions.
Woolgrowers, Brokers and the Debate over the Sale of the Australian Wool Clip, 1920–1925
Authors: Keneley M. J.
Published: March 2003

Prior to the First World War, the selling of the Australian wool clip rested firmly in the hands of the large woolbroking firms. An agreement between the British and Australian governments during the war saw many of the wool‐selling functions of broking firms taken over by the Central Wool Committee. At the conclusion of hostilities, brokers moved to regain their role in the market. However, market conditions had changed. On an international level, traditional trading relationships had broken down, leaving commodity markets unstable and prices unpredictable. On a local level, woolgrowers had benefited from the wartime orderly marketing scheme and the high price guaranteed by the British government for their wool clip. As a result, they had begun to demand a greater role in the selling arrangements of their clip. This paper investigates the debates over the sale of the wool clip in the 1920s and how woolbrokers and growers eventually arrived at an understanding as to the manner in which the market should operate.
Women's Time Allocation to Child Care: Determinants and Consequences
Authors: Miller Paul , Mulvey Charles
Published: March 2003

The time women allocate to child care varies appreciably according to personal and labour market characteristics. Of particular note is the finding that better educated women spend more time in most forms of child care activities than their less well educated counterparts. This link between educational attainment and time devoted to child care is advanced as a possible justification for subsidising the education of women to a greater extent than the subsidy to men's education. It is also suggested that the stereotypes that appear to govern the household allocation of time will be difficult to break down, so that any changes in such time allocations will be slow and uncertain.
The Mafiya and the New Russia
Authors: Galeotti Mark
Published: March 2003

The rise of the Russian mafiya, a distinctive form of organised crime, reflects more than just the temporary dislocations and uncertainties of the country's transition from a Soviet state to a free market democracy. Rooted in Russian tradition and Soviet practice, it is also a formidable obstacle to this evolution. This has serious implications for the new Russian polity: weakening central authority, diluting the state's monopoly of coercion, discrediting the market economy and ultimately usurping and distorting the very functions of the state. Any solution will have to come not from tougher policing (which itself would threaten a return to authoritarianism) but from a wider political and cultural response.
Coercive Powers and the Australian National Crime Authority: A Practitioner's Defence
Authors: Broome John
Published: March 2003

This paper considers the rationale for the use of coercive powers, such as investigative hearings and requirements to produce information, in the context of investigating serious criminal behaviour. It examines the extent to which such powers are used both in criminal and civil contexts and explores the principles which should be applied in deciding when such powers should be used. It argues that a balance must be struck between the degree of intrusiveness of such powers and the seriousness of the matters under investigation. It will suggest that in a liberal democratic framework such powers should only be used to investigate serious criminal behaviour or other conduct which has a serious impact on society. It is inconsistent with a liberal democratic tradition for such powers to be used without supervision by the courts. Finally, it will be argued that public debate about the use of such powers needs to be more informed. There needs to be greater understanding of the nature of these powers, and how they are used, and the checks and balances which should apply if the community is to make a considered decision on when such powers are appropriate.
Liberal Democracy and the Politics of Criminal Justice in Australia
Authors: Parkin Andrew
Published: March 2003

Liberal democratic states like Australia manage criminal justice issues in ways which reflect an inbuilt tension between liberal and democratic values. Liberal democracies are responsive both to liberal claims and to democratic claims. As a result, policy debates and strategies can oscillate between (on the one hand) liberal sensitivity to individual rights and opposition to enhanced state capacity and (on the other hand) democratically legitimised community norms and collective values. Four crime‐related policy debates — about the creation and operation of the National Crime Authority, about strategies for combating drug‐related crime, about gun control legislation and about identity systems to counter money laundering, tax evasion and public benefit fraud — illustrate the characteristic liberal democratic mode of politics in operation. The spectrum of policy responses to crime issues within liberal democratic political systems corresponds to an analogous spectrum within criminology which encompasses individualistic and structuralist conceptions of the nature and causes of crime.
Working‐Class Identities in Europe, 1850s–1930s
Authors: Geary Dick
Published: March 2003

This paper notes that the emergence of class‐based politics preceded the advent of factory manufacture and that artisans or skilled workers continued to dominate the labour movement before 1914. It recognises that industrialisation alone does not explain the emergence of socialist politics and that working‐class responses to the process have often been fragmented rather than characterised by solidarity. It first explains this in terms of the uneven nature of industrial growth between nations and within nations, and between and within industrial sectors. Hierarchies of pay and other employer strategies to divide the labour force made it even more unlikely that collective action and belief could result simply from common economic problems. Even where a repressive state, intransigent employers, as well as residential and cultural factors, did produce a large socialist movement, as in the German case, that movement did not monopolise working‐class identity, which was fractured by issues of skill, gender, generation, religious confession and ethnicity. However, this does not mean that gender, generation, religious and ethnic identities necessarily obliterated the issue and awareness of class. Indeed these multiple identities often enjoyed a simultaneous existence.
Environmental Movements and the Emergence of Civil Society in Greece
Authors: Close David H.
Published: March 2003

The generally acknowledged weakness of civil society in Greece has obstructed the solution of many urgent environmental problems. Since the 1970s these weaknesses have begun to be overcome by various environmental movements. Community protests have checked many state‐backed construction projects and have been helped by increasingly self‐assertive forces consisting of elected local authorities, private radio stations, courts of law, and voluntary environmental associations. The last have been staffed by the growing class of professionals, especially in schools and universities. These bodies have also shown growing readiness to cooperate in positive environmental initiatives. In response, governments have shown greater sensitivity to public opinion on environmental issues, and increasing readiness to consult outside bodies.
Australia’s Battle against the Common Agricultural Policy: The Fraser Government’s Trade Diplomacy and the European Community
Authors: Benvenuti Andrea
Published: March 2003

The aim of this article is to offer a different interpretation of Fraser Government’s diplomacy towards the European Community. In particular, it will be argued that, although Fraser’s European policy was unsuccessful, this was not principally his fault since no matter what sort of approach he adopted, no major result could have been obtained from Brussels. Second, this article will argue that Fraser clearly understood the EC’s internal political dynamics and acted accordingly. If he failed to achieve results, it was not because he lacked an understanding of the complexity of the EC’s constitutional realities, but because these realities were too complex for anyone to overcome. Thirdly, it will be argued that Fraser did not attribute a disproportionate importance to agriculture, since this was far and away the most important issue for Australia.
Australian Governments and Automotive Manufacturing, 1919‐1939
Authors: Conlon R.M. , Perkins John
Published: March 2003

In recent years the progressive lowering of tariff barriers in Australia has produced a predictable backlash from those who are directly affected. The reaction, however, extends to academics and others who have no pecuniary interest in the outcome, and who have argued that the tariff represented a policy consciously designed to promote the economic development and defence capacity of this country. On the basis of experience in the motor vehicle industry, we argue that these factors had very little to do with interwar tariff policy. Rather, it was the outcome of an interplay between the Commonwealth government’s need for revenue, the activities of “the lobby” in seeking rents, and the practices of the Customs bureaucracy.
Policy Reform and the Politics of Housing in the British Conservative Party 1924‐1929
Authors: Macintyre Clement
Published: March 2003

This paper examines an important period in the development of the modern British Conservative Party. The changing patterns of electoral support in the first decade after the first world war required the Conservatives to recast their policies to appeal to the new electorate. Many historians of this period see the development of policy at this time as signalling a shift in the Party that constituted a form of ‘new Conservatism’. This paper looks at on the substance of the welfare policy reforms and, concentrating on housing policy, argues that there is little evidence of fundamental reform. It is argued that far from constituting a reformist agenda, the Conservative welfare policies of the time in fact reflect a simple and pragmatic reading of the fluid and unpredictable political circumstances of the time.
The Seed of Freedom: Regional Security and the Colombo Plan
Authors: Oakman Daniel
Published: March 2003

Established in 1950, the Colombo Plan was a comprehensive program of foreign aid provided to South East Asian nations. In this article I argue that the Colombo Plan had a much broader political and cultural agenda, and cannot be understood from a humanitarian perspective alone. By exploring some of the cultural, ideological and political underpinnings of the scheme I illustrate that, as part of a comprehensive foreign policy, it is best understood as being motivated by international security priorities and the need to ally domestic cultural concerns. Although the Colombo Plan was inherently defensive, it also proved to be something of a progressive force which prepared the ground for a much closer relationship with (and within) the Southeast Asian region.
‘European Identity’: An Emerging Concept
Authors: Lowenthal David
Published: March 2003

The idea of European identity has grown in significance and specificity over two millennia. Earlier, the advance was largely generated by opposition to outsiders, in terms of culture and religion. Those who thought in European terms were long a tiny minority of rulers, clerics, financiers, men of learning and the arts. Only in the late eighteenth century did bourgeois participation broaden consciousness of European community, linked in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to social and political progress. In the past half century European identity has gained official sanction as a diplomatic and legislative set of entities. Efforts to underpin existing and to spur new mutuality at the folk‐level lag, owing to a host of persisting problems — linguistic diversity, disparities of resources, unforgotten grievances, doubts about the scope of territorial expansion, and a felt imbalance between administrative goals and popular allegiances.
Trade Unions in an Elitist Society: The Singapore Story
Authors: Barr Michael D.
Published: March 2003

In the Singapore model of industrial relations, the trade unions are said to be in a “special relationship” with the government. On the surface this special relationship looks suspiciously like the government exercises straightforward top‐down corporatist control. This paper argues that despite being basically correct, such an understanding is overly simplistic because it ignores modest, but nevertheless real elements of inclusion. The paper focuses on the experience of the trade unions in the first half of the 1980s to argue this case, and to consider both the strengths and weaknesses of the Singapore system of corporatist trade unionism.
Nazis and Workers before 1933
Authors: Geary Dick
Published: March 2003

This paper examines the mass of recent research, which suggests that the Nazis were much more successful in winning “working‐class” votes than had been previously imagined. Though the research has undeniably shown a great deal of such support, some of the claims made on its basis (e.g. about the cross‐sectional and relatively random distribution of Nazi support amongst workers) are not sustainable. In fact working‐class Nazis were much more likely to be found amongst some communities than others (e.g. in rural areas and small provincial towns); and the fact that some Social Democrats did desert to the radical right in the early 1930s is not sufficient to claim that explanations framed in terms of “class milieux” no longer function.
The Dove Flies East: Whitehall, Warsaw and the 1950 World Peace Congress
Authors: Deery Phillip
Published: March 2003

In 1950 the Cold War turned hot in Korea, the threat of atomic annihilation hovered menacingly and the spectre of another world war haunted Europe. The establishment of the World Peace Council that year was one response to these fears. In November 1950 the Council decided to hold a World Peace Congress in Sheffield. The British Labour government sabotaged this Congress and forced it to shift to Warsaw. This article analyses this event which, to date, has received no scholarly attention. It argues that the attitudes and actions of the protagonists were a microcosm of the Cold War in that each side, East and West, saw the Congress as an opportunity to achieve moral authority, political leverage and strategic advantage over the other. The article also highlights the role of the state in controlling major political events during the Cold War.
Models of Political Accountability and Concepts of Australian Government
Authors: Simms Marian
Published: March 2003

Models of political accountability are drawn from views about the nature of government. Too often, however, these views are flawed and/or not made explicit. In particular, the traditional model of government accountability ‐ which will be outlined below ‐ misunderstands the British ‘parent’ system of responsible government. One immediate task for those interested in accountability is to map the basic features of the Australian system (best understood as ‘executive federalism’) in order to provide foundations for new accountability models. As well as delaying the map drawing task, the dominance of the traditional account has also ‘crowded out’ other concepts of accountability. The ‘efficiency’ and ‘democracy’ approaches will be discussed below as basically complementary addition to the current Australian debate over accountability. It is thus argued here that a more eclectic approach drawing from diverse but longstanding strands in the public administration tradition can not only enrich the debate but also help to throw light on new public policy developments such as contracting out.
Disentangling Concepts of Ministerial Responsibility
Authors: Weller Patrick
Published: March 2003

Debates on ministerial responsibility have too often gone around in circles. The application of the principle is related to the incidence of resignations; analysis considers the reasons given for resignation or, rather more often, the reasons given for not resigning. The usual conclusions are that ministers resign occasionally when their personal involvement is unquestioned and when the prime minister determines that the political costs are less to let the minister go. But the ideas remain at a broad level because they relate to all the ministerial activities. This article seeks to disentangle these concepts, developing the ideas in Thompson and Tillotsen’s article in this symposium, to see if a different set of concepts can better define this old notion.
Oh Ye of Little Faith! A Response to Davis and Wanna
Authors: Armstrong Anona , Rumpf Peter
Published: March 2003

In response to falls in public sector employment and the closure of public management programs in universities, Davis and Wanna (1997) raised the significant question: ‘Does the teaching of public administration have a future?’ A study of the changes in roles, functions and competencies and education needs of ‘new’ public sector managers suggests that universities have a distinctive role in meeting their need for management education.
Malaysia Incorporated: Ethics on Trial
Authors: Aziz Tunku Abdul
Published: March 2003

It is logical to begin by considering briefly the influence of Malaysia’s post‐1957 social, economic and political factors in the evolution and development of the close and intimate relationships between government and business that have become the hallmark of the Malaysian economic equation. In 1957 when Malaya 1 achieved independence from Britain, it inherited a form of government based on the Westminster model which, with a few local adaptations, remains very much in place. Of equal significance is the inheritance of an economy based on the traditional British colonial mercantile interests centred on the export of rubber and tin. The nation boasted the most efficient plantation economy in the world, so efficient, in fact, that Malayan foreign exchange earnings helped Britain enormously to repay much of its war debt to the USA. It was not for nothing that Malaya was known as Britain’s Dollar Arsenal. Economic prosperity, by the standards of Asia, was not new to the country. It was, however, commodity‐based and opportunities for corruption were nothing like those that presented themselves in the 1970s.
Public Sector Corporate Governance Disclosures: An Examination of Annual Reporting Practices in Queensland
Authors: Ryan Christine , Ng Chew
Published: March 2003

In the public sector, corporate governance is an expression that is yet to be explicitly defined. This paper examines the existing public sector literature in order to derive a set of broad principles of corporate governance in the public sector. These principles are then applied through a content analysis of corporate governance disclosures in a group of government‐owned corporations, state government departments, local governments and statutory bodies. The results indicate the set of principles derived is generally applicable to various forms of public entities. However, due to a lack of an established public sector corporate governance framework, the disclosure of corporate governance is piecemeal. Government‐owned corporations achieved better disclosure practices in most principles than other public sector bodies. The paper aims to stimulate debate on public sector corporate governance and provides a basis for a more extensive survey on corporate governance disclosures.
Too Many or Too Few? The Increase in Federal Ministerial Advisers 1972–1999
Authors: Maley Maria
Published: March 2003

This paper examines recently published figures that show the increase in ministerial staff between 1972 and 1996 (Dunn 1997). A careful examination of the table in Dunn's book reveals it gives a misleading impression of the number of ministerial staff; the number of advisory staff to ministers; and the growth in advisory resources over the Hawke–Keating period. By re‐analysing the figures the paper reveals the reality of the growth in advisory staff to ministers in 1972–1999. It provides an account of the number of staff providing policy and political advice to ministers in ministerial offices, rather than total staff numbers. It reveals advisory resources to ministers have grown significantly since the introduction of ministerial advisers in 1972. However, the growth in adviser numbers over the Hawke–Keating period was more modest than is suggested by Dunn's table. The paper provides the base data needed for a discussion of the increase in ministerial staff and whether there are too few or too many federal ministerial advisers.
Public Sector Labour Relations in Western Australia – An Overview
Authors: Bailey Janis , Horstman Bob , Berger Kristin , Fells Ray
Published: March 2003

The election of a LiberalNational Coalition government in 1993 heralded a period of significant and sustained change in Western Australian public sector labour relations. As legislator, the Coalition government embarked upon a program to decentralise and deregulate the Western Australian industrial relations system; as an employer, the government has had to respond to the economic imperatives which have faced most employers in recent years. The result has been a period of major change in the public sector – employment levels have declined as services have been privatised or contracted out; the proportion of non‐permanent and part‐time employees has risen significantly. Individual workplace agreements have been introduced; individualised performance‐related management and reward systems have increased; and the scope for union involvement has diminished, as has the level and density of union membership. The experience of the public sector therefore reflects many of the workplace changes that are also found in the private sector. It also brings the government's industrial relations policies into sharper focus.
Improving Governments' Response to Local Communities — is Place Management an Answer?
Authors: Walsh Peter
Published: March 2003

The notion of place management is emerging in public sector discourse as a potential solution to improve governments' responses to issues confronting local communities, particularly those experiencing high levels of economic and social disadvantage. Despite the increased currency of the term, there is a degree of confusion surrounding what it actually means. And it is not always clear what is meant by the notion of ‘place’. This article attempts to clarify a working definition of ‘place management’ and to explore the policy and administrative implications for governments in adopting a place management approach.
Rediscovering Implementation: Public Sector Contracting and Human Services
Authors: Chalmers Jim , Davis Glyn
Published: March 2003

There is vast literature on how to implement public policies, with endless case studies emphasising a few key lessons. The drive to contracting in the public sector raises familiar threats to coherent program implementation, and adds those of control and incentives. Contracting fragments program responsibility among multiple contractors, and separates policy agencies from service delivery contractors. It raises questions about political control and accountability, and the prospect of gaps between intention and outcome. This paper ‘rediscovers implementation’ by reviewing the practical difficulties of constructing public‐private relationships which can deliver quality human services. After considering broad arguments about the efficacy of contracting, the paper turns to the provision of human services by examining the contracting out of welfare services and the Job Network. Our argument is modest: that public sector contracting fails if the challenges of implementation are not addressed explicitly, since service delivery through the private sector can falter for exactly the same reasons as traditional public bureaucracies.
The Greening of the Grey: National Competition Policy and the Environment
Authors: Hollander Robyn , Curran Giorel
Published: March 2003

Concern for environmental degradation is now widespread, and has penetrated key policy institutions such as the National Competition Council (NCC) ‐ the body overseeing National Competition Policy. While the NCC's primary focus is on promoting competition, it acknowledges the importance of environmental considerations. Such a body thus represents the contemporary Ecological Modernsiation approach to environmental policy‐making. Ecological Modernisation posits that there can be a reconciliation and synthesis between economic and ecological goals. This paper investigates this claim by exploring the relationship between competition and the environment in the three areas of electricity, regulatory review and rural water.
Consultation and Contest: The Danger of Mixing Modes
Authors: Kane John , Bishop Patrick
Published: March 2003

This paper argues that public consultative procedures undertaken by governments or their public services sometimes go awry because of certain confusions as to the nature and purposes of consultation. One of the most important of these is a tendency to view consultation as an exercise in policy determination by the public rather than as public input into the representative democratic process whose ultimate use is to be defined by the elected decision‐makers. The result of this confusion is a tendency to misunderstand or overestimate what public consultations can achieve, and a failure to make a distinction between occasions when such consultations are useful and occasions when they must give way to explicit political contest. Three levels of activity — the technical, the transactional and the political — are analytically distinguished along with the modes of action‐response appropriate to each — in order to explain and clarify the nature of good consultative practice.
A Load of Old Garbage: Applying Garbage–Can Theory to Contemporary Housing Policy
Authors: Tiernan Anne , Burke Terry
Published: March 2003

This article reviews the applicability of Kingdon’s garbage–can model of agenda setting and alternative specification for understanding the complexities of policy–making in the housing policy context. Garbage–can theories reject conventional ‘policy cycle’ models which envisage policy development processes as rational and underpinned by the logic of problem solving. They posit a loose relationship between problems and the policy solutions offered by national governments. Using an Australian housing policy case study, this article demonstrates the usefulness of Kingdon’s garbage–can theory. A modified framework is used to explain how the policy agenda has become narrowed to focus on safety–net assistance for the most disadvantaged, while housing problems have continued to worsen.
Do Doctors Undertreat Pain?
Authors: Ruddick William
Published: March 2003

Routinely, physicians discount patients' pain reports and provide too little analgesia too late. Critics call them callous, sadistic, and Puritanical, but the causes of these clinical practices are different — namely, a psychological need to distance themselves from the pain they encounter and inflict, and more subtly, a peculiar concept of pain acquired in medical training.

Physicians learn to think of pain as a symptom to observe and explore in diagnosing and monitoring disease — not as a complaint to relieve quickly or fully. Moreover, pain‐relief is regarded as subordinate to, and competing with efforts to cure or maintain the life of a patient. This training, I suggest, gives physicians a new, clinical concept of pain at odds with their prior, lay concept of pain whose manifestations standardly call for sympathetic efforts at relief.

The conceptual nature of this difference is obscured by thinking of pain as a solely private sensation, rather than as a sensation with public and social aspects (a la Wittgenstein). Although suppressed in certain clinical circumstances, these standard public and social aspects are shown in the very tests used in clinical pain research.

This clinical pain concept is rooted in Medicine conceived as preeminently curative and life‐prolonging. Physicians are, however, themselves undermining this professional self‐definition (by treating AIDS and Alzheimer's patients; by no longer pressing their patients to ‘fight to the end’; by collaborating with non‐medical healers). Accordingly, pain‐relief may gain greater therapeutic status, and, so too, the ordinary concept of pain that medical training has suppressed.
Attitudes towards Abortion in the Danish Population
Authors: Norup Michael
Published: March 2003

This article reports the results of a survey, by mailed questionnaire, of the attitudes among a sample of the Danish population towards abortion for social and genetic reasons. Of 1080 questionnaires sent to a random sample of persons between 18 and 45 years, 731 (68%) were completed and returned.

A great majority of the respondents were liberal towards early abortion both for social reasons and in case of minor disease. In contrast, there was controversy about late abortions for social reasons and in the case of Down syndrome. Further there was strong reluctance to accept late abortion in case of minor disease.

An analysis of the response patterns showed that most of the respondents had gradualist views on abortion, i.e. they would allow all early abortions, but only abortions for some reasons later in pregnancy. It was also found that the number who would find an early abortion acceptable in general was much higher than the number who would accept it in their own case. These findings suggest that a great part of the resistance towards abortion does not rest on a concern for the rights and interests for the fetus. Instead it may be explained on a view according to which fetal life is ascribed intrinsic moral value.
Compulsory Sterilisation in Sweden
Authors: Tännsjö Torbjörn
Published: March 2003

In the Fall of 1997 the leading Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, created a media hype over the Swedish policy of compulsory sterilisation that had been in operation between 1935 and 1975. In the discussion that followed the moral condemnation of our medical past was unanimous. However, the reasons for rejecting what had gone on were varied and mutually inconsistent. Three strands of criticism were common: the argument from autonomy, the argument from caution, and the argument from biological scepticism. In the paper it is argued that what point of departure you choose in your criticism of the past should be of consequence also for your ideas about present and future medical practice. In particular, if you rely on the argument from autonomy, you should be prepared to accept a liberal (present and future) use of reproductive techniques.
Third Trimester Abortion for Fetal Abnormality
Authors: Gevers Sjef
Published: March 2003

Developments in medical technology have increased the possibility of diagnosing severe structural abnormalities in the fetus If these occur, a woman may request termination of her pregnancy. This raises serious ethical and legal questions, in particular if the anomalies are discovered in the third trimester when the fetus is considered viable. Should doctors be allowed to act upon a request for abortion in such a situation, and, if so, which safeguards should be in place? These questions are discussed with special reference to the Netherlands where a commission established by the government recently published a report on this matter.