Coalition Networks Research Articles

Effect of community coalition structure and preparation on the subsequent implementation of cancer control activities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify factors within a three-phase community coalition development model that influence short-term success in cancer control coalitions based on the cumulative number of educational and screening activities conducted by the coalitions. This study was a nonrandomized community intervention trial involving four autonomous, independently funded multistate projects aimed at using coalitions to increase cancer screening and early detection. The study was conducted in medically underserved, rural counties of Appalachia. Sixty-three coalitions involved 1725 members representing 71 counties within 10 states. Intervention. A network of local and regional community cancer control coalitions throughout rural Appalachia delivered culturally sensitive cancer control messages to women, with the long-term goal of increasing the early detection of breast cancer County-level coalitions were the unit of analysis for this study. Multiple linear regression was used to determine if three classes of variables corresponding to the developmental history of coalitions--formation, preparation for implementation, and implementation--were associated with the number of educational and screening activities conducted by the coalitions. The presence of a paid coordinator and formal organizational structure were both strongly associated with the number of activities conducted, accounting for 71% of the variability in coalition activities. Other variables positively associated with number of activities were the preparation of written community assessments and the modification of implementation plans. The same factors (structure, written plans) were associated with activities in coalitions without paid organizers (r2 = .57), as was the number of meetings. However, such coalitions produced an average of only 2.2 activities vs. 21.7 activities in coalitions with paid coordinators. The ALIC study would seem to indicate that community-based coalitions with paid coordinators and formal structures are capable of generating significantly higher levels of activity than those without either a paid coordinator or formal structure.

WOLF'S MODEL: Government Failure and Public Sector Reform in Advanced Industrial Democracies

ABSTRACTMany developed nations have embarked on public sector reform programs based on the New Public Management (NPM) paradigm. This article seeks to evaluate the efficacy of NPM reform strategies as a means of dealing with the problem of “government failure” in public sector hierarchies by examining these strategies through the analytical prism provided by Wolf's theory of nonmarket failure. Drawing on the New Zealand experience, we explore the potential for NPM reform initiatives to mitigate the problems of nonmarket supply. Moreover, we examine how “autonomous policy leadership” and “advocacy coalition networks” can overcome the various obstacles to the successful implementation of reform strategies delineated by Wolf under his “conditions of nonmarket demand”. The article then focusses on the efficacy of NPM in removing, or at least reducing, the various forms of government failure identified in Wolf's taxonomic catalogue of nonmarket failure. We conclude by assessing some of the likely tradeoffs involved in the application of NPM reform programs.

Translation and articulation in the organization of coalitions: the Great Whale River case

This article presents a new method of analysis that enables us to study the strengths and weaknesses of the associations created during the organization of coalitions. Based on a case study, this model shows that organizing a coalition consists of making different agendas compatible by establishing a series of translations between them. As illustrated in this article, these translation activities are enacted through narrative forms in which actors (individual or collective) construct points of articulation between their different objectives. It is therefore the narrative embedding of a series of actions that ultimately structure social and physical reality and constitute what we call a coalition. To illustrate this new approach to organizational communication, the analytical model presented is applied to analyze the associations involved in the organization of coalitions during an environmental controversy, the Great Whale River project. In this article, I present a new method of analysis that enables us to study the strengths and weaknesses of the associations created during the organization of coalitions. Using the Great Whale River controversy as an illustration, I present a theoretical framework that gives us the tools for analyzing coalitions in such a way that their stability, the sources of instability, and means of protecting them can be specified. According to the approach proposed, it is not sufficient to assess the relative stability of a coalition based upon the common ground of parties to a coalition, nor would such an analysis reveal specific sources of instability for a coalition or what could be done to defend against them. We lack a method of analysis that enables us to show how different actors can organize a coalition by articulating their different projects with each other. As we will see, the mechanism of this articulation is based on the narrative construction of one or several translations that assure a certain stability in a network of coalitions. This article introduces critically the current research in organizational

Autonomous Policy Leadership: Steering a Policy Process in the Direction of a Policy Quest

This article attempts to make a contribution to the literature which reflects a growing interest in the conditions underlying radical policy reform. It advances a concept of autonomous policy leaders who can be distinguished from vote‐buying politicians by their passionate commitment to "make a difference" by advancing a particular policy quest, with particular reference being made to the way such leadership was exercised by Roger Douglas, New Zealand Minister of Finance from 1984 to 1989. Although such leaders resemble the "policy entrepreneurs" described in "garbage can" models, their goals are more ambitious and the window of opportunity they are waiting for (with its characteristic mix of crisis, mandate, honeymoon and weakened opposition) much greater. They are also dependent on, and emerge from with, an advocacy coalition network which provides them with the backing and resources to redirect public policy. This redirection may produce a backlash from groups concerned that these policy elites may steer the policy process too far in a particular direction.

The Pioneer Fund

Many citations used in The Bell Curve to provide a pseudoscientific veneer for Herrnstein and Murray's academic version of The Turner Diaries for the “cognitive elite” came from advocates of eugenics, whose “research” has been supported by the Pioneer Fund. A Nazi endowment specializing in production of justifications for eugenics since 1937, the Pioneer Fund is embedded in a network of right-wing foundations, think tanks, religious fundamentalists, and global anti-Communist coalitions. This article combines Domhoff's model (1978) of how the ruling class makes public policy, Knapp and Spector's (1991) model of how and why capitalists build racism, and Oliver Cox's (1948) analysis of how and why capitalists build fascism to show that the U.S. ruling class is laying the political, ideological, economic, and paramilitary groundwork for fascism. Liberal reaction to The Bell Curve and the threat of fascism has mainly taken the form of appeasement. History suggests it is time for a different response.

Innovation policy in contemporary Queensland

This paper is about the how rather than the what of innovation policy in a contemporary setting. Most published research to date is concerned with the what: and the how of administrative reality appears to have been ignored by researchers. Political will (how public servants manage their commitment) to innovation policy creates a dilemma for scientists in politics. This dilemma is compounded by the bounded rationality of their training and cognitive processes, and their capacity to handle the administrative reality of innovation policy management. The significance of science-technology talk, and cognitive and occupational differentiation for appropriate management of innovation policy's “three-legged stool”—industry, government, and academia—is considered in relation to a learning rather than an administering bureaucracy. To illustrate this line of reasoning, a participant-observer approach using qualitative data from diary notes is used. Data reveal the patterning of a complex policy process. The importance in this process of carefully-constructed coalition networks and administrative reality is recognized. The most illuminating findings are that, for innovation policy, implementation is evolution through getting bits and pieces of the theme out at different places, at different times, with different people. Development of innovation policy requires multi-skilled professionals who possess varying experiential backgrounds. They have political nous, and are flexible and adaptable. They also understand that the patterning of process is beyond the reach of deliberate intervention by top-down views. In addition, mechanisms employed in attention directing, situation defining and evoking are significant for developing innovation policy.

The brutal elimination of a rival among captive male chimpanzees

The relationships among three adult male chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes) were observed over a period of 6 years. The males were members of a large, mixed colony of chimpanzees at Arnhem Zoo (Netherlands). In spite of several power takeovers and coalition changes among the males, aggression was restrained during most of the period. This article analyzes a dramatic exception, which occurred after months of instability in the coalition network. At night, the alpha male was attacked and fatally injured in the sleeping quarters. The incident is discussed against the background of the complex balance of power among the males, especially the discrepancy between coalitions serving hierarchical status and coalitions serving sexual competition. Quantitative data support most of the hypotheses.