Informal Agents Research Articles

Multi-choice policing in Uganda

Though increasing diversification of policing away from the state to non-state formal and informal agencies is a widespread pattern, it does not capture the nuances of Uganda's situation. Participative research reveals a fragmented and overlapping pattern of policing, but one that, for historical reasons, is still heavily influenced, if not controlled, by state institutions. Through its penetration of society by its local council structure, and through a process of militarization of policing units, the state has maintained a strong influence over most of the diversification. The diversification, therefore, is more one of choice than ownership. It nevertheless yields a surprising degree of choice for Ugandans for protection and/or response to crime and disorder. Such multi-choice policing does, however, demand the construction of a law and order policy that is based on incorporating all acceptable policing groups.

Thinking ‘Small’ and the Understanding of Poverty: Maymana and Mofizul’s story

Recent thinking on poverty and poverty reduction tend to be ‘big’ in terms of ideas, units of analysis, datasets, plans and ambitions. While recognizing the benefits of such approaches, this paper argues that researchers should counterbalance and supplement big ideas through ‘thinking small’. In this context, the life history of a single household in Bangladesh, that of Maymana and Mofizul, confirms much current thinking about persistent poverty in that country: major health ‘shocks’ can impoverish families, and social exclusion, based on gender, age and disability, keeps people poor. This story also raises challenges to contemporary orthodoxies, and new insights, such as plans for poverty reduction that underestimate the role that the family and informal agents play in welfare provision and exaggerate the role of poverty reduction professionals. In conclusion, the paper points to the personal agency of Mofizul and Maymana — they may be down but they are not out.

NEW STRATEGIES OF POLICING THE POOR: BERLIN'S NEO-LIBERAL SECURITY SYSTEM

Inner-city public space has gained a central role in the process of neo-liberal urban restructuring. The profit-orientated revalorization of selected urban spaces is flanked by campaigns for cleanliness and order. Police forces focus their activities on marginalized groups, organizing themselves into “operations” or “special task forces” against homeless people, punks, (foreign) youths and drug addicts. Some of them are working because of the demands of shopkeepers in inner city areas. Private security agencies are conquering the public space as a new field of activity. They are part of a privatizing process of and within German cities. Public-private partnerships are common. We observe a strategy of increasingly commercialized exclusion of parts of the urban population. Due to growing unemployment rates, police and private security agencies are accompanied by new “colleagues” working in informal control agencies: long-term unemployed and welfare recipients. Those control agencies train their “customers” in one-year courses to expel marginalized groups. Unlike private security agencies and police, their activities are seen as inclusion strategies to integrate the long-term unemployed and to sustain so-called “deprived areas”. Mainly originating from the new social movements of the early 1970s, their former critical attitude towards the state has given way to a new model of governance. Nonprofit organizations today are part of a community-based system of control and exclusion that forces the poor to combat the poor.

Thinking 'Small' and the Understanding of Poverty: Maymana and Mofizul's Story

Much recent thinking on poverty and poverty reduction is 'big' in terms of its ideas, units of analysis, datasets, plans and ambitions. While recognising some of the benefits of such approaches this paper argues that researchers should counterbalance this through 'thinking small'. It illustrates this through the life history of a poor two person household in Bangladesh. Maymana and Mofizul's story confirms much current thinking about persistent poverty in that country. Major health 'shocks' can impoverish families; social exclusion, based on gender, age and disability, keeps people poor; and, the lack of demand for unskilled labour means that the landless have few opportunities for increasing their low incomes. This story also raises challenges to contemporary orthodoxies, and new insights. In particular that: plans for poverty reduction underestimate the role that the family and informal agents play in welfare provision and exaggerate the role of poverty reduction professionals; a more critical understanding of the role of civil society in well-being and ill-being is needed; government reform is not simply about improving public service delivery but also about more effectively regulating private and civic action; disability remains a neglected issue within much development research and action; major social protection programmes will be needed if poverty is to be reduced for many of Bangladesh's poor; and, private providers of health services actively create and maintain poverty. In conclusion it points to the personal agency of Mofizul and Maymana - they may be down but they are not out.

Squatting as a transition problem in South Africa

This paper applies principles of transition to land tenure and squatting in South Africa. Political transition in South Africa reassigned political property rights, which produced contestable, and rent‐seeking incentives for squatting as a means to privatize land and redistribute wealth. Government failure to establish and protect private property rights in a squatter camp resulted in common‐pool problems that resisted private and public resolution with consequent rent dissipation and social loss. In response to this retreat from duty, informal agents emerged to claim their own share of the prize. Without enforceable rules of capture, the growth of squatter camps in South Africa will continue.JEL classification: D7, H8, K1, K4, R1, R4.

Public–private partnerships for urban land development in Mexico: a victory for hope versus expectation?

Over the past decade, public–private partnerships have become increasingly prominent on the international urban policy agenda. Yet few studies have attempted to measure the performance of partnerships, especially for urban land development and particularly where they bring an informal or customary agent into the formal segment of the market. This paper assesses the record of partnerships in Mexico involving ejido land according to whether they increased the supply of land for housing, improved access to land for low-income households, raised the overall efficiency of the land market and lead to more productive public–private relations. Looking at four partnerships in detail the study found a number of fundamental problems which severely undermined operation and future potential. The paper concludes with some suggestions for how the legislation, administration and financing of partnerships might be improved in future so that ejido land can be delivered legally onto the land market and to the benefit of ejido and low-income groups.

Study of Environmental Factors Associated with Primary Health Care

The objective was to explore the health implications of the environment as observed in poor urban communities and their formal and informal health agents. Data were gathered through photographs, observational guides, and semistructured interviews. A contrast was observed between the housing interior cleanliness. There was an absence of urban environmental components that encourage leisure-time activities and/or cohesion in the community. No mention was made of the necessity for recreational environments. None of the group of informants was aware of how housing components other than those provided by the public services influence people's health. The people of the communities demonstrated some understanding of the environment/health relationship but focused on the global problems of barrios. Similar results were found among the informal health agents. The formal health team managed problems at the urban level, not at the individual-housing level, although they do present some more specific details.

Informal financial markets under liberalization in four African countries

This paper presents survey evidence from four countries on how informal financial agents serve market niches that banks cannot readily reach. Their methodologies are effective in keeping down transaction costs and default risk relative to banks, although informal agents exercise monopoly power in dualistic markets. Liberalization of repressive financial policies has had little effect on formal financial deepening, while informal finance has continued to grow. The paper concludes that informal financial institutions are an important vehicle for mobilizing household savings and financing small businesses, and it recommends that informal finance be better integrated into financial development strategies.

Help-Seeking for Behavior Problems by Parents of Preschool Children: A Community Study

To identify barriers to seeking help for preschool behavior problems and understand the pattern of service utilization. Altogether, 320 preschool children from eight preschool centers were studied using a two-stage design. After the initial screening, a more detailed assessment was carried out in the second stage involving semistructured interviews with parents and children. Parents also completed a service utilization questionnaire during the first stage and General Health Questionnaire, Family Assessment Device, and life events questions during the second stage. Only 19% of those with preschool behavior disorder crossed all the filters in reaching for help. The most common perceived barriers to help-seeking were that problems would get better by themselves or that parents should be strong enough to handle them. The major blocks to help-seeking were at two levels, in parents recognizing the presence of a problem and in overcoming the perceived barriers by the parents. Parents sought help from the informal agencies more often than from the formal. Help was sought significantly less often by those who had parental separation, low income, or multiple adversities, all of which were known to be significantly associated with behavior disorder. These findings indicate the need to educate and influence the parents' attitude to help-seeking, target those at risk to develop behavior disorder, and develop better consultation-liaison service with the informal agencies.

Developmental Social Care: Experimental Community Mental Handicap Teams in Nottinghamshire

SUMMARY Social care is an important field of practice in which policy proposals and prescriptions need to be tested systematically against field experience. The article reports on research evaluation of a 'field experiment' in the use of multi-disciplinary teams to develop as well as to deliver services. Although based in the care of people with learning disabilities, the work outlined and the conclusions drawn have a far wider relevance. They relate to such key issues as: the long-standing debate about specialist and generic modes of working; the advocacy of teams based in small neighbourhood patches and the assertion that such teams are the best way of working with informal networks and non-statutory agencies; the official enthusiasm for 'mobilizing resources' and casting social services in an enabling role; and the advocacy of a demarcation between 'purchaser' and provider roles. Above all, the article addresses the issue of how sufficient, varied, and responsive services may be generated in order to make a reality of community care. The importance of social care can hardly be overestimated. It involves very large client groups (elderly, physically disabled, and mentally ill people as well as people with learning disabilities); constitutes one of the major tasks of the personal social services; and it is an arena in which hopes and aspirations have consistently been disappointed (Walker, 1982; Webb and Wistow, 1986; Martin, 1987). Yet the post Seebohm decades have not resolved the question of how best to set about it or what, quintessentially, should be the role of social workers within it (Webb and Wistow, 1987; Pinker, 1990). These shortcomings lie behind the proposals and policies outlined by the Audit Commission (1986), Sir Roy Griffiths (1988) and the govern ment in its White Paper, Caring for People (1989). But these pro nouncements should not be taken as the fount of all wisdom. Ideas developed and tested in the field should also command attention and in this paper we highlight one, highly pertinent, innovation in social care.

Continuing care of Old People—A Medical Viewpoint

ABSTRACTProvision for old people who are in need of continuing care requires close co-operation between informal carers and different agencies and disciplines providing health and social care. In the United Kingdom, the present system of care has evolved from earlier patterns of care centred on the asylums and the poor law with its workhouse institutions. It lacks cohesion. Despite the designation of old people as a priority group, resources are still inadequate to provide a good quality of care. Organisational differences between health and social services can lead to inefficient use of existing resources. More specialised medical, psychiatric and social services for old people enhance the possibilities for co-operation even though they may appear to lead to greater fragmentation. The history of the development of these services in the UK, including the recent expansion of private sector care, is reviewed, with special attention from the medical perspective to the phenomenon of ‘bed blocking’. The recently published Griffiths Report on community care is briefly considered, and some principles for future developments are laid down.

Informal Agencies of Socialization and the Integration of Immigrant Youth into Society: An Example from Israel

This article explains why informal voluntaristic agencies of socialization are considered the most adequate for facilitating the absorption of immigrants into society. The major argument is that the structural characteristics of informal agencies, such as moratorium, symmetry, expressiveness, voluntarism and multiplexity, have made them a setting for reciprocal encounters between veterans and newcomers. Such encounters generate a sense of dignity among immigrants and increase their capacity to struggle for economic and political absorption on their own terms.

Using Teachers as Change Agents in the Control of Tropical Diseases—An Extra-Curricular Approach

For years the teaching of health education has always been a problem in the Nigerian schools either due to the absence of the subject on the curriculum or inadequate professional preparation of teachers to handle it. This study introduces an extracurricular approach using four endemic diseases as an example in the teaching of health education in five secondary schools. The findings revealed that: 1) teachers can be successfully used as informal agents in the school environment if exposed to appropriate health education techniques, and 2) endemic diseases can be controlled through the provision of learning experiences in the school environment where feasible.

Informal Agencies of Socialization and the Integration of Immigrant Youth into Society: An Example from Israel

Informal Agencies of Socialization and the Integration of Immigrant Youth into Society: An Example from Israel

Counselling the young unemployed: the experience of ‘Just the Job’

Abstract Some issues involved in counselling the young unemployed are explored on the basis of the experience of ‘Just the Job’, an experimental project which operated in South-West England between 1977 and 1980. The counselling support which the project aimed to provide is examined in terms of counsellor recruitment and selection; of contact between counsellors and other formal and informal agencies in the job-search process; of the aims and expectations of the counsellors; and of their identification of problems and proposals for change. A client-based evaluation of the counselling is also reported.

Counselling the young unemployed: The experience of ‘just the job’

Abstract Some issues involved in counselling the young unemployed are explored on the basis of the experience of ‘Just the Job’, an experimental project which operated in South-West England between 1977 and 1980. The counselling support which the project aimed to provide is examined in terms of counsellor recruitment and selection; of contact between counsellors and other formal and informal agencies in the job-search process; of the aims and expectations of the counsellors; and of their identification of problems and proposals for change. A client-based evaluation of the counselling is also reported.

The application of Kellyʼs Repertory Grid Technique to investigate disabled peopleʼs perceptions of their professional workers

Blaxter, (1976), has shown that there is an amount of confusion and misunderstanding of British medical and social services among disabled people. This study attempts to explore the perceptions of just two young disabled women to ascertain their individual views of what is seemingly a very complex array of services. No attempt has been made to generalise the findings, although future work, using group data, may be completed at a later date. The main objective of the study was to find out if Kelly's Repertory Grid Technique could be applied to this particular problem. The technique was used alongside indepth interviews. In general, the grid analysis did concur with the content analysis of the indepth interviews, particularly if the subject used her own elicited constructs. Both informal and formal agents of help were investigated, but due to lack of space, only the analyses of the three formal agents are permitted. In both case studies, the subjects' perceptions of each formal agent varied according to her attitude towards that agent and the experiences she had in dealing with him. This was verified by comparing the relationship between constructs and elements (agents) with the discriptions given during the indepth interviews. By using McQuitty's, (1960), elementary linkage analysis, two main clusters of agents were obtained. Inclusion within either cluster was largely dependant upon whether the subject considered the agent to be an authoritarian, or peer-like figure. A number of possible applications of the reportory grid technique, for future research, are also discussed.

The goals of citizenship training : A Hungarian perspective

Political socialization, the process by which individuals, particularly children, learn to internalize their society’s values, is an important part of the system-maintenance activities of all societies. It is accomplished through a variety of structures, both formal and informal, and in all political systems the main objective is to use these structures in the most efficient manner in order to reach the desired goals. In Communist systems, the informal or primary agencies of political socialization are the family, the church, and peer groups, while the secondary or formal agencies are the Party, youth organizations, the schools, the trade unions, the military, and the hobby groups.’ This article concentrates on the purposes, goals, methods, and successes of the current Hungarian Communist government in instilling desired values in the children through one of these agencies, namely the schools. Although some efforts are made to incorporate Communist values before children reach the school age of six, and certainly political education continues after the student graduates from the Hungarian high school at age eighteen, the

Invisible Government and Democracy in the United States Today

M t j 'EANING OF Realistic study of social affairs today makes it increasingly evident that government, as the general system of authoritative social control, has two basically important, natural aspects: (a) the more concentrated, official, part; and (b) the more diffused, unofficial, and part. In the United States, the former is made up of the publicly chosen and established officials and agencies. The invisible part of the government, far less obvious but no less real, is made up of those more private, organized pressure groups that are continually working for the public assistance of their interests. Chart .r illustrates the more common distribution of functions in the invisible government in this country. Connected with each of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches in the different governmental areas, national, state and local, are the hordes of private and informal agents, bosses, advisers, fixers, attorneys, spies, and accomplices, that make up the special agents of the invisible government,-the functional interest pressure groups. The Democratic Evolution of Invisible Government. As social evolution increases its speed today, we are becoming more keenly aware of these parts of the government. They are powerfully affecting the course of affairs, and they are not under adequate and orderly control. The phase of social control in which they always center is in the struggle of the less privileged members of the community for larger rights of social membership, against the conditions of general ignorance and the usual alarmed resistance of the more privileged and comfortably fixed groups. Throughout the world, and especially in the West, the gradual extension of the right to vote for general public officers by increasingly larger groups of the population has been the common indicator of the growing national union and democratic relationships. Consider, for example, the advances of the suffrage in England: (i) the granting of Magna Charta, 1215 (admitting the greater barons definitely to the visible government); (2) The Bill of Rights, i689 (marking the rise of the lesser nobles and commercial gentry); (3) The Great Reform Bill, 1832 (the rise to power, in the Industrial Revolution, of business enterprise, with transition from aristocratic to more plutocratic leadership); (4) granting of national suffrage to the city