MANAGING PUBLIC CONSULTATION: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND EMPIRICAL FINDINGS FROM BELGIAN CASE STUDIES

This article addresses the question of how governments can set up and manage, in an increasingly complex policy environment, processes of public consultation that lead to good outcomes. Drawing upon insights of democratic theory and literature on network and interactive governance, the article discusses the organization and outcomes of public consultation processes. The analysis of four Belgian cases shows that the absence of open process rules does not prevent good outcomes. Second, the level of managerial autonomy is positively correlated with the intensity of process design and management. Third, cases with intensive process design and management have better overall results. These findings question some normative assumptions in the literature, positing the need for open process rules regarding entrance, scope of discussion, and interaction. Intensive process design and management with rules properly accommodating the policy situation is possibly a better means of achieving good results than rule openness. These findings challenge the need for legislation stipulating in detail who needs to be consulted, about what, and how.     

The interaction between economics and politics: modelling cycles

Abstract. In this article simulation results are used to analyze the capacity of a general politico-economic model, developed by one of the authors, to generate cycles of various lengths. The model describes behaviour of individuals and organizations in the economic as well as the political sphere. The interaction between both spheres gives rise to short term (business) cycles as well as long term (Kondratieff) cycles. The analyses concentrate on the effect variations in the political sector (regarding, e.g., party identification on non-economic grounds, the sensitivity of voters, and the discount parameter for past economic results) have on the cycles found.     

The Importance of the South African Mining Industry

The address that follows was given by the South African HighCommissioner at a joint meeting of the Royal African Societyand the Royal Commonwealth Society on April 2, 1959, Sir PercivaleLiesching, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., former U. K. High Commissionerin South, Africa, took the chair.     

Tasks for the Applied Sociologist in a Court of Law

Social problems have preoccupied American sociologists, and of all social problems the one that has aroused the keenest sociological interest is crime. Much of the information we now have on crime, criminals, and the operation of the criminal justice system has come from the work of sociologists. Due not only to their careful attention to the formation and development of theoretical perspectives but also to their grounding in empirical research methodology, the role for social scientists in the analysis of crime and punishment would be a natural one.

Applied sociology is defined by Angell (1967:725) as sociology that “is not an end in itself, but (that) becomes a means to some other end.” He provides a neat breakdown into three principal subroles that may be assumed by the applied sociologist: consultant, practitioner, researcher. The sociologist-as-consultant is an outside expert, often in gathering and explaining data for his client, an agency or institution. The sociologist-as-practitioner is a person schooled in sociology but employed to work directly in the field of human services, such as warden of a prison. The researcher in a practical setting works for some prison or organization that desires knowledge for some reason of their own. Here, we will be concerned, in one way or another, with all three dimensions.     

Political socialization,political gender gaps and the intergenerational transmission of left-right ideology

While left and right are the main terms to distinguish political views in Western Europe, the family socialization of citizens has mainly been studied in terms of partisan preferences rather than identification with these ideological blocks. Therefore, this study investigates the intergenerational transmission of left-right ideological positions in two European multiparty systems. To investigate expectations regarding gendered patterns in political socialization, ideological transmission between mothers, fathers, daughters and sons are analyzed, making use of German and Swiss household data. The results underline the relevance of the family in the transmission of political ideology in multiparty systems, showing high contemporary parent–child concordance in ideological positioning in line with classic work in political socialization. Moreover, the study demonstrates how the gender-generation gap in political ideology is consequential for this process. Young women consistently place themselves on the left of men across all combinations of parental ideology, which indicates that the gender-generation gap trumps other gendered patterns in intergenerational transmission. Consequently, daughters are less likely than sons to take over their parents’ rightist positions, while parent–son transmission is equally large on the left and the right. This also means that left-leaning parents have a general advantage over right-leaning parents in having their ideological identification reproduced by their daughters. The study highlights the importance of differentiating between the transmission of left- and right-wing ideology in political socialization processes. Moreover, it demonstrates that the distinction by offspring gender is imperative when studying the intergenerational transmission of traits that display gender differences within and between parental and offspring generations. The findings point at the active role of especially female offspring in the political socialization process, as they seem to be more strongly impacted by influences outside the family that sustain generational processes of further gender realignment.