Treaty Federalism in Northern Canada: Aboriginal-Government Land Claims Boards

Treaty federalism in North America encompasses not only governanceimplications of the historic treaties signed with Aboriginalpeoples, but also the modern-day treaties known as "comprehensiveland claim agreements." This article explores how treaty federalismis realized in Northern Canada through claims-mandated jointgovernment-Aboriginal boards dealing with wildlife management,land-use planning, and environmental protection. These boards,existing at the intersection of the three orders of government-national,federal/territorial, and Aboriginal—are found to be uniquegovernance institutions, with substantial independence fromgovernment. They have significantly enhanced Aboriginal peoples'influence over land, wildlife, and resource decisions, but theextent to which they bring Aboriginal culture and worldviewsto bear in decision-making remains an open question.     

The relative electoral impact of central party co-ordination and size of party membership at constituency level

Over the past decade, clear evidence has been produced showing that effective constituency campaigning in British general elections can lead to better electoral performance. This evidence has challenged the received wisdom that only national campaigning is significant and that efforts at local level are meaningless rituals. Denver et al. have focused on the role of the national parties in strengthening local campaigns in target seats; Seyd and Whiteley, by contrast, have stressed the importance of local party membership. This article attempts to assess the relative electoral impact of national party co-ordination and constituency party membership and suggests that the impact of these two factors varies by party.     

Pricing Outputs: A Case Study in Law Enforcement

This paper discusses the advantages and limitations of economic evaluation as a measurement methodology within the Australian government's outcome and output framework including preliminary benefit–cost analysis of Australian Federal Police investigations. The results suggest that the Australian Federal Police is returning over $5 to the community for every dollar invested in fraud and drug investigations. It is concluded that benefit–cost analysis is a useful tool for comparing the price of an output to the value of an outcome. The method has limitations. Not all outcomes will admit of easy assessment and the information may be difficult to collect. However, the use of surrogate measures and extrapolation of results may overcome most of these limitations.     

Distributive and Procedural Justice in Seven Nations

The paper examines the impact of distributive justice and procedural justice variables on judgments in seven countries (Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Spain, and the United States). Subjects were presented with each of two experimental vignettes: one in which the actor unsuccessfully appeals being fired from his job and one in which the actor unsuccessfully goes to an employment agency to seek a job; they were asked to rate the justness of the outcome and how fairly the actor had been treated. The vignettes manipulated deservingness and need of the actor (distributive justice factors) and impartiality and voice in the hearing (procedural justice factors). Four hypotheses were tested: first, a distributive justice hypothesis that deservingness would be more important than need in these settings; second, a procedural justice hypothesis that the importance of voice and impartiality vary depending on the nature of the encounter and the forum in which it is resolved; third, because of their recent socialist experience, Central and Eastern European respondents make greater use of need information and less use of deservingness information than Western respondents; and fourth, that distributive justice and procedural justice factors interact. The distributive justice hypothesis is supported in both vignettes. The procedural justice hypothesis receives some support. Impartiality is more important in the first vignette and voice is more important in the second vignette. The interaction hypothesis was not supported in the first vignette, but does receive some support in the second vignette. The cultural hypothesis is not supported in either vignette. The implications for distributive and procedural justice research are discussed.     

An insurer's perspective on reform

Individual health insurance markets differ from state to state, and as a result approaches to individual market reforms need to be different. In evaluating approaches, policy makers need to remember that since the decision to purchase health insurance coverage is voluntary, the potential for adverse selection exists. In addition, rather than putting the focus of individual market reforms almost exclusively on access to health insurance for a small number of persons with high-cost health conditions, more attention needs to be put on how to decrease the number of uninsured persons. This includes making the premiums paid for individual health insurance 100 percent tax deductible, similar to those of employer-based health insurance. Finally, market reforms need to treat all types of coverage issued in the individual market the same, whether they are purchased direct for the insurer or through an out-of-state association.