Browse
Recent Submissions
Item ‘Sustainable’ Rather Than ‘Subsistence’ Food Assistance Solutions to Food Insecurity: South Australian Recipients’ Perspectives on Traditional and Social Enterprise Models(MDPI, 2018-09-21) Booth, Sue; Pollard, Christina M; Coveney, John David; Goodwin-Smith, IanSouth Australian (SA) food charity recipients’ perspectives were sought on existing services and ideas for improvement of food assistance models to address food insecurity. Seven focus groups were conducted between October and November 2017 with 54 adults. Thematically analysed data revealed five themes: (1) Emotional cost and consequences of seeking food relief; (2) Dissatisfaction with inaccessible services and inappropriate food; (3) Returning the favour—a desire for reciprocity; (4) Desiring help beyond food; and, (5) “It’s a social thing”, the desire for social interaction and connection. Findings revealed that some aspects of the SA food assistance services were disempowering for recipients. Recipients desired more empowering forms of food assistance that humanise their experience and shift the locus of control and place power back into their hands. Some traditional models, such as provision of supermarket vouchers, empower individuals by fostering autonomy and enabling food choice in socially acceptable ways. Improvement in the quality of existing food assistance models, should focus on recipient informed models which re-dress existing power relations. Services which are more strongly aligned with typical features of social enterprise models were generally favoured over traditional models. Services which are recipient-centred, strive to empower recipients and provide opportunities for active involvement, social connection and broader support were preferred. View Full-TextItem Material deprivation and capability deprivation in the midst of affluence: The case of young people in Australia(Elsevier, 2017-06-30) Redmond, Gerry; Skattebol, JenniferThis paper presents Australian young people's perspectives on deprivation that they experience in the space of food and clothing. Amartya Sen's Capability Approach is used to characterise this as absolute capability deprivation. Lack of adequate food and clothing denies young people the capability to avoid shame and severely inhibits the intrinsically important capabilities of social participation and engagement in education. We use data obtained from groupwork and in-depth interviews with 193 young people to explore young Australians' experience of severe deprivation in food and clothing. Their stories are integrated with data on severe deprivation collected in a nationally representative survey of 9–14 year olds (N = 5440). The survey data show that food and clothing deprivation is notable among young people who are marginalised in other respects, for example, young people with disability, young carers and Indigenous young people. The analysis shows that the experience of severe deprivation in the space of food and clothing is associated with feelings of shame, exclusion from participation, and low levels of engagement with education. We consider how neoliberal constructions of poverty exacerbate young people's experience of deprivation, while at the same time undermining the contemporary political agenda of maximising human capital development.Item Sustainability of telecentres in developing countries: Lessons from Union Digital Centre in Bangladesh(Elsevier, 2018-03-09) Faroqi, Mohammed Gofran; Siddiquee, Noore Alam; Ullah, ShahidThis study examines operational sustainability of a major telecentre initiative - the Union Digital Centre (UDC) in Bangladesh - from the perspective of public-private-people’s partnership (PPPP). Given the rising incidence of dropout of private entrepreneurs causing premature closure of telecentres, it is important to understand and identify key variables that affect sustainability of the scheme. In appreciation of the difficulty associated with operationalisation of the term ‘sustainability’ in this study we adopt ‘operational sustainability’ as an alternative to investigate the dynamics of sustenance. We have reviewed key literature about various dimensions of sustainability and their interrelationships in order to develop hypotheses about sustainability of the UDC and factors associated with it. Drawing on data collected from a survey of 538 private entrepreneurs and 41 interviews with government officials we show the extent to which various elements of the UDC eco-system contribute to its sustainability. The application of a structural equation model confirms that both financial and social outcomes of the UDC depend largely on inputs and contributions of various stakeholders. The paper concludes that effective engagement of private entrepreneurs is critical, as is governmental patronage, for ensuring operational sustainability of partnership-based telecentres like the UDC.Item Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew: Traveling Light, Traveling Fast(The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014) Barr, Michael DominicItem Corruption(Cengage, 2014) Graycar, AdamItem When Experts and Diplomats Agree: Negotiating Peer Review of the UN Convention Against Corruption(Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2012-10) Joutsen, Matti; Graycar, AdamThe UN Convention Against Corruption is the only truly global convention in corruption control. Separate and rather difficult negotiations were conducted on a mechanism for the implementation of the treaty. These negotiations broke ground by providing, for the first time, peer review of a United Nations treaty. This article, which is based on the authors' close observations and interviews with key participants, seeks to show how the dynamics between technical experts and diplomats led to a resolution that would not have occurred if either the technical experts or the diplomats had acted alone. KEYWORDS: corruption, peer review, United Nations, negotiation impasse, experts, diplomats.Item Book review: Quah, Jon S. T. (ed.). (2013). Different paths to curbing corruption: lessons from Denmark, Finland Hong Kong, New Zealand and Singapore. Bingley, UK: emerald group publishing.(International Public Management Network (IPMN), 2015) Graycar, AdamItem Situational Prevention of Organized Timber Theft and Related Corruption(Willan Publishers (Routledge), 2011) Graycar, Adam; Felson, MOrganized theft of timber is a large and significant worldwide enterprise. Corruption in every step of the timber harvesting and selling process involves substantial criminal cooperation, with bribes paid at every stage of the way. The authors review several situational crime prevention measures that could be brought into play. The timber theft example has general significance, offering ideas for preventing criminal enterprise from expanding and for containing public corruption of other processes.Item Research and Practice in Corruption: An Introduction(Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011-11-30) Graycar, Adam; Smith, Russell GItem Building Integrity in Public Sector Operations(Routledge, 2015-08-14) Monaghan, Olivia; Graycar, AdamItem Corruption in sport - a new field for public policy(United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2015-10-30) Masters, Adam; Graycar, AdamItem Public Policy: core business and by-products(Policy Press, 2007-11) Graycar, AdamThis paper explores the interesting phenomenon of unintended consequences in policy making: that benefits may accrue in one domain of policy making as the result of actions in another with very different interests and priorities. For example, a key randomised controlled trial of a nurse home visiting programme for young mothers identified significant long term crime reduction benefits among their children. Policy makers, in Australia and elsewhere, are currently not well equipped to recognise or capitalise on these by-products of policy making, and the author offers some suggestions for improving matters.Item Corruption and public value(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2016-06-07) Graycar, AdamItem The Loss of Governance Capacity through Corruption(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2011-06-27) Graycar, Adam; Villa, DCorruption manifests itself in many ways and at different levels. Corrupt behavior causes outrage to victims and those who value civil society, it impedes good government and administrative practice. The policy challenge in reducing corruption is to identify the component parts of corrupt behavior and the risk–reward profiles of offenders. This exploratory article begins this process by reporting data from 100 successfully prosecuted cases from New York City. The article analyzes data on varying degrees of corruption in service provision in New York City. The loss to the city is much more a loss of governance capacity than it is a monetary loss.Item Homicide through a Different Lens(Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD), 2011-04-05) Morris, P K; Graycar, AdamHomicide rates vary across modern societies, yet most scholarly works on homicide are based on studies in developed countries, although, in less developed countries, homicide rates are higher. Homicide is multidimensional and its related social causes and prevalence differ across cultures. In low-homicide countries, most homicides occur as a result of either criminal activity or personal relationship difficulties. This paper highlights that, in one developing country—Jamaica—a different pattern is more common. High homicide rates are connected with partisan politics and neighbourhood social organization. The argument is that neighbourhood social and political factors drive high homicide rates in urban Jamaica.Item Implementation: Making hard work of something simple(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012-09) Graycar, Adam; McCann, BernadetteEarly in 2012 the Rural Property Addressing Project in South Australia announced that it had substantially met its outcomes, and that the whole of the project was soon to be completed. In 2003, one of the recommendations to cabinet from the South Australian Premier's Bushfire Summit was to endorse the development of a standard property addressing system for rural properties across the state. This was formally endorsed by cabinet, and was a direct response to the fact that essential services such as ambulance, medical and social care were hindered in providing services to the residents of Eyre Peninsula during and after the bushfires. Overall, this was not a controversial decision, nor was it a huge implementation challenge, yet it took nine years to come into effect. This is a classic case of the tyranny of small decisions. This article outlines some of the implementation challenges faced by this apparently simple project, and provides some thoughts for implementation challenges of the future. The take-away message is that if something so comparatively simple was made so complex, how can we adapt our public services to the cross-cutting challenges of the future?Item Corruption and control: a corruption reduction approach(Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2012) Graycar, Adam; Sidebottom, APurpose – Corruption is a significant financial crime which is estimated by the World Economic Forum to cost about 5 per cent of global GDP or $2.6 trillion dollars. Explanations of corruption, like explanations of crime, tend to focus on the individuals who commit corruption and the wider conditions which give rise to corrupt behaviour. Approaches designed to reduce corruption usually propose stiffer sanctions, institutional reforms and the passing of new laws. The purpose of this paper is to outline a complementary perspective with which to consider corruption. Design/methodology/approach – Grounded in situational crime prevention and related criminological theory, the paper argues that opportunities in the immediate environment play a causal role in generating corruption. It proposes that corruption can be minimised by removing or reducing opportunities which are conducive to corrupt behaviour. In total, five cases are chosen as illustrative examples of how situational crime prevention might usefully be applied to corruption, focussing on the Type, Activities, Sectors and Places (TASP) that comprise corruption events. Findings – A framework is developed for the empirical study of corruption in local settings. Originality/value – The paper explores how situational crime prevention can usefully inform the analysis and prevention of corruption.Item Hotspots of corruption: Applying a problem-oriented approach to preventing corruption in the public sector(2013-11-18) Porter, L E; Graycar, AdamSome places have no crime and some have a lot, and thus we study hotspots. Corruption is structured differently to crime, but hotspots still are notable. The difference is that hotspots are not places but clusters of activity. This article analyses corruption cases from New York City to explore a way of identifying such clusters. Seventy-two cases were coded according to features that represent the elements of the crime triangle: offender and motivation, target and opportunity, and place and ability. Multidimensional scaling revealed three groups of cases, exhibiting different patterns of corrupt activity. Group one involved politicians involved in high value financial corruption. Group two primarily involved supervisors who created opportunities involving procurement and contracts. Group three involved inspectors, particularly in the infrastructure sector, who were involved with low value bribes to violate regulations. Each is discussed in relation to situational crime prevention principles to develop possible strategies for prevention.Item Awareness of Corruption in the Community and Public Service: a Victorian Study(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2014-06-23) Graycar, AdamCorruption hurts the public and undermines government. This study of perceptions of corruption in Victoria shows that the community believes corruption is on the increase, yet this view is not shared by public servants. In general corruption is not on the radar of senior Victorian public servants. There are more perceptions of corruption in line agencies than in central agencies. Behaviours most commonly suspected and observed were hiring family and friends, conflict of interest, abuse of discretion and abuse of information. One- third of public servants surveyed thought there were opportunities for bribery, yet only 4% had suspected bribery and less than one per cent had personally observed it. Almost half do not believe they would be protected from victimisation should they report corruption. The data reported here poses challenges in thinking about corruption when devising integrity standards in the public service.