THE LOGISTICS OF MINISTERIAL RESHUFFLES

Ministerial reshuffles are complex exercises requiring careful handling. A frequent occurrence in British government, their significance is usually seen in political terms. Prime Ministers attach great importance to maximizing the political advantages to be gained from them. This factor is the chief determinant of their logistics, the principal characteristics of which are secrecy in advance and the speed with which ministerial changes are executed. These features - as much as the frequency of ministerial changes per se - may disrupt the policy process and have serious implications for minister-civil servant power relations. Such problems could be alleviated by giving ministers advance notice of changes of post. The institution of a process of ministerial handovers would strengthen the position of incoming ministers by making them less dependent on their officials, upon whom they rely heavily for initial briefing at present.     

Vote Blue,Go Green? Cameron's Conservatives and the Environment

How genuine is the Conservative party's rediscovery of the environment? Would a Conservative government led by David Cameron implement a wide‐ranging and progressive environmental policy? This article explores why Cameron has embraced the environment so enthusiastically when Conservative governments have had a poor record of environmental protection and the Conservative party has traditionally shown little interest in the issue. It assesses the impact of Cameron's strategy both on his own party and on the wider world of environmental politics and it evaluates the continuing commitment of the Conservatives to the issue by assessing what kind of policies a future Conservative government might implement. Although Cameron remains committed to the issue and he has already had a positive impact on Labour government policy, he has not yet convinced his party or its supporters, so a future Conservative government would probably represent continuity rather than significant change in environmental policy.     

The Winter of Discontent Thirty Years On

Thirty years on, and in the context of our own crisis, it is perhaps useful to take stock of the last Winter of Discontent. The industrial strife that beset the Callaghan government in the winter of 1978/79 was seen at the time as a key factor in Labour's defeat in the general election of 1979; but its legacy is considerable and its significance enduring. These four themed essays come from a public seminar at the British Academy to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Winter of Discontent. Colin Hay argues that the Winter of Discontent was, in key respects, a manufactured crisis lived, experienced and responded to through a very particular construction of the events that is difficult to reconcile with the evidence itself. Reponses by Lords Baker, Lea and Lipsey follow and the section concludes with a transcribed and edited version of the lively discussion which ensued.     

How (not) to operationalise subnational political opportunity structures: A critique of Kestilä and Söderlund's study of regional elections

Based on an aggregate analysis of the French regional elections of 2004, Kestilä and Söderlund, in their 2007 article, 'Subnational Political Opportunity Structures and the Success of the Radical Right: Evidence from the March 2004 Regional Elections in France', examine the impact of subnational political opportunity structures on the success of the radical right and argue that such an approach can control for a wider range of factors and provide more reliable results than cross-national analyses. The present article disputes this claim on theoretical, conceptual and methodological grounds and demonstrates that their empirical findings are spurious.     

THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF‐CONTROL: EXAMINING SELF‐CONTROL THEORY'S STABILITY THESIS*

Research on self‐control theory consistently supports its central prediction that low self‐control significantly affects crime. The theory includes other predictions, however, that have received far less scrutiny. Among these is the argument that self‐control is developed early in childhood and that individual differences emerging then persist over time. The purpose of this study is to provide a rigorous test of the stability thesis. First, we examine the extent of stability and change in self‐control for a national sample of U.S. children age 7 to age 15. Second, we consider whether parenting continues to affect self‐control during adolescence—a period after the point at which self‐control differences should be fixed. The analysis revealed strong absolute and relative stability of self‐control for more than 80 percent of the sample, and this stability emerged in large part as early as age 7. Contradicting the theory was a smaller portion of respondents (roughly 16 percent) who experienced substantial absolute and relative changes in self‐control even after the age of 10. Moreover, parental socialization continued to affect self‐control during adolescence, even after accounting for both prior self‐control and exposure to parental socialization.     

SELF‐CONTROL THEORY AND THE CONCEPT OF OPPORTUNITY: THE CASE FOR A MORE SYSTEMATIC UNION*

The purpose of this study is to advance the idea that low self‐control—one of the strongest known predictors of crime—likely has effects that are conditional on the supply of criminal opportunities. Some scholars initially interpreted the theory to make this exact prediction, but Gottfredson and Hirschi (2003) have rejected this interpretation. They have insisted that the simplistic nature of most crimes ensures that opportunities are limitless and that variation in opportunity simply reflects variation in self‐control. We trace the history of this uncertain position of opportunity in self‐control theory and argue that it should play a significant role in the theory, even if Gottfredson and Hirschi did not originally envision this. Next, we draw on routine activities theory and applications of it to individual offending to offer a theoretical statement of how opportunity should be incorporated into self‐control theory. Last, using data from a national sample of juveniles, we test the arguments that have been made. The analysis suggests that the effects of low self‐control on delinquency partially depend on the availability of criminal opportunities, as indicated by the time juveniles spend with their friends or away from the supervision of their parents.     

ASSESSING POLICY DIVERGENCE: HOW TO INVESTIGATE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN A LAW AND A CORRESPONDING REGULATION

Policy designs are selected to achieve specific policy outcomes. The policy process, however, contains multiple junctures when a policy's design may diverge from its original intents. Despite this fact, few theoretically valid and methodologically reliable approaches exist to assess policy divergence as it occurs during the policy process. This article presents a method for assessing policy divergence during implementation with a comparative analysis of a legislative law and corresponding regulation. The case analysed is US organic food policy in the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act and 2002 National Organic Program regulation. The article draws theoretical leverage from Mazmanian and Sabatier's implementation framework and methodological leverage from the institutional analysis and development framework. The analysis indicates that the designs of both policies are fairly robust with relatively minor divergence. The conclusion discusses the gains and challenges in developing a comparative approach to studying policy designs and assessing policy divergence.