Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sophie Yates

@sophieyates.bsky.social

510 followers 280 following 100 posts

Senior Research Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU. Interested in gender, disability, disadvantage, value creation. Also posting for @PMReview.bsky.social https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=oMaTSg4AAAAJ&hl=en

scholar.google.com.au

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · 15d

Super happy to finally have this paper out w/ Lorana Bartels & Meredith Rossner - we consider drug court benefits beyond recidivism, arguing that a program should not have to demonstrate *substantially* better outcomes than prison to be preferable to incarceration www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

‘A second chance at life’: broadening views of success in drug courts

A focus on recidivism in drug court evaluation can lead to the presumption that if a program does not significantly reduce recidivism, there is no reason for it to continue. However, this view obsc...

www.tandfonline.com

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · 5d

I did the same! I even put it in my calendar and still managed to forget...

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · 5d

New bike day 💛

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Public Management Review @pmreview.bsky.social · 12d

🎉 We're pleased to announce that on 1 October, @profgeorgebert.bsky.social (City University of Hong Kong) will join Prof Stephen Osborne as Co-Editor in Chief of Public Management Review. Bert has been Deputy Editor since 2024 @tandfresearch.bsky.social files.taylorandfrancis.com/rpxm-announc...

3 5

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · 15d

‘A second chance at life’: broadening views of success in drug courts

www.tandfonline.com

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · 16d

New from Al Stark and me, in Ishani Mukherjee and @howlettm.bsky.social's Handbook of Policy Advice www.elgaronline.com/edcollchap/b...

1 1

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Francis Markham @francismarkham.bsky.social · Sep 7

Australian universities are in a governance crisis. VC pay blowouts, scandals, mission drift — these aren’t random, they’re structural.

This new working paper with @marijataflaga.bsky.social & Keith Dowding digs into why the system is broken, and how to fix it.

doi.org/10.25911/MWW...

A thread:

Neither corporate nor government: Why university governance needs to be different, and better
Marija Taflaga, Francis Markham and Keith Dowding.

Preprint, 29 August 2025. https://doi.org/10.25911/MWW4-9781

Abstract
Australian universities face a governance crisis rooted in failures of accountability. Unlike parliaments and corporate boards, university councils lack effective mechanisms for principals to discipline agents. In parliaments, voters can replace elected representatives; in corporations, shareholders can vote out directors. Both systems close the delegation–accountability loop, ensuring alignment between principals and outcomes. University councils, however, are self-perpetuating bodies dominated by external appointees, and in recent decades they are typically from corporate backgrounds. As neither producers nor consumers of universities’ core product—knowledge creation and dissemination—they have minimal intrinsic stake in academic outcomes leaving councils detached from the university’s core mission. This misalignment fosters mission drift, weakens oversight, and contributes to repeated scandals. Because councils largely appoint their own successors, they remain insulated from meaningful scrutiny, unlike boards or parliaments where underperformance is sanctioned externally. Restoring accountability requires giving academic staff and students a renewed oversight role, alongside clear safeguards for the public interest. Because academics and students are both producers and consumers of knowledge, they have a direct and enduring stake in its quality. We recommend two mechanisms to do this are:
1. Academic Senates empowered to appoint and review council members, ensuring councils reflect the university’s purpose.
2. Robust Committee Systems that embed staff and student voices in decision-making, reduce information asymmetries, and align incentives with academic purposes.

8 69 130

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · Aug 28

Not after the 50th repetition

1 1

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · Aug 28

Fecit Potentiam from Porpora's Magnificat (the Alto 1 part)

1 1

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Hold Me Closer, Giant Dancers @giantdancers.bsky.social · Aug 25

I really hate the term "sideloading". I preferred the original term, which was "installing software on a computer that you own"

Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · Aug 25

Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year

Google says it’s no different than checking IDs at the airport.

arstechnica.com

58 3.7K 8.5K

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · Aug 21

2 36 170

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · Aug 12

It's paywalled but as always I'm happy to provide copies via email

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · Aug 12

Janine O'Flynn and I teamed up for a chapter on thesis examination in Colette Einfeld and @helencsullivan.bsky.social's book How to Conduct Interpretive Research. We wrote in the 'character' of Janine, adding insights from the interpretive and qual research methods literature doi.org/10.4337/9781...

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · Aug 6

I studied Buddhism intensely for a decade, and nothing immediately clears my mind of all grasping to thoughts or perceptions like someone trying to tell me the rules to a board game.

5 6 70

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · Jul 31

Just had an important acceptance email after 1.75 years of data wrangling, drafting, desk rejects, major revisions and everything in between. I won't say persistence is always worth it but it's a good feeling when persistence finally gets you somewhere! 🥲

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Jeremiah Brown @jeremiahtbrown.bsky.social · Jul 28

I show that while there is only one question on the form that a person might answer differently in-person as opposed to online (and without assistance), it is a very important one, and one which is important in determining the level of support they receive from the state.

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Jeremiah Brown @jeremiahtbrown.bsky.social · Jul 28

The answer I give in the paper is that increasingly it is citizens doing the administrative work that was previously done by the state (and also us as customers that are doing the work for private enterprises as well).

1 2

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Jeremiah Brown @jeremiahtbrown.bsky.social · Jul 28

My newest paper in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law asks a simple question - how is administrative work shifting as we move towards technology-generated interactions, where there is no one around to help us through administrative processes?
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Citizens putting in the work: how administrative work is shifting in the digital welfare state

Current sorting practices in the provision of welfare, used in processes like categorising welfare recipients into cohorts for activation policies, rely on the data inputted into the system. With t...

www.tandfonline.com

2 4 5

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Francis Markham @francismarkham.bsky.social · Jul 17

This is pretty bad. The survey of income and housing is one of the ABS's most important economic data collections. And the previous wave was cancelled due to Covid, so we're stuck with very old data until 2027.

Big questions to ask about how this happened.

Survey of Income and Housing results will not be released

www.abs.gov.au

3 21 37

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Public Management Review @pmreview.bsky.social · Jul 4

Open access: Menno Hoppen, Taco Brandsen & Marlies Honingh investigate the conditions enabling vulnerable citizens’ involvement in co‐production through an ethnographic study of a self‐managed homeless shelter - which challenges traditional provider‐led approaches www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

4 8

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Power to Persuade @powertopersuade.bsky.social · Jul 3

From @sueolney.bsky.social & @sophieyates.bsky.social's new article in the Australian Economic Review - why we need to measure the hidden costs of living with disability in Australia www.powertopersuade.org.au/blog/measuri...

4 4

Reposted by Sophie Yates

AusPSA @auspsa.bsky.social · Jul 3

The abstract deadline for the APSA 2025 Conference has been extended to 11 July 2025.

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

Details: auspsa.org.au/2025-apsa-co...
#APSA2025 #PolSci #CallForPapers

APSA Conference 2025 - Australian Political Studies Association

Call for Abstracts – APSA 2025 Conference Now Open! We invite colleagues from Australia, New Zealand, as well as the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific regions, to submit abstracts and panel proposals that...

auspsa.org.au

1 1

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · Jul 2

New article from @sueolney.bsky.social and me in the Australian Economic Review - why we need to do much better on measuring disability and poverty in Australia onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Article title: "The Costs of Living With Disability in Australia: Accounting for Variable Disability-Related Deprivation in Poverty Measures"

5 8

Sophie Yates @sophieyates.bsky.social · Jun 29

Performed with a fantastic choir touring from New Zealand today - they truly left us in awe www.luminatavoices.org

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Gregg G. Van Ryzin @ggvanryzin.bsky.social · Jun 17

Happy this paper of mine is finally out: “Coproduction as a Causal Process” | Policy Studies Journal | open access onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

<em>Policy Studies Journal</em> | PSO Public Policy Journal | Wiley Online Library

That many public goods and services are coproduced jointly by government agencies (regular producers) together with clients and citizens (consumer producers) represents a fundamental insight, althoug...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

5 4

Reposted by Sophie Yates

Public Management Review @pmreview.bsky.social · Jun 23

🚨Two updates from PMR:
First, we have increased our abstract length from 100 to 150! This will help authors highlight their contributions.
Second, authors can now elect to submit an abstract in their native language.
See more detail on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/posts/bert-g...

Some exciting news and updates about Public Management Review! | Bert George

Some exciting news and updates about Public Management Review! First, an update on rankings: 🏆 We have moved from 6th to 5th place in the Public Administration category based on our 2024 Impact Fact...

www.linkedin.com

1 4 3