Policy feedback and public opinion: the role of employer responsibility in social policy

This study extends the literature on policy feedback and explores the extent to which public attitudes reflect learning from past government initiatives. We analyze the ways in which feedback mechanisms affecting public attitudes may differ from those earlier identified in the literature. We apply this general analytic framework to help explain variation in public attitudes toward private employer involvement in health care, explore possible causal pathways, and offer some preliminary empirical tests of these hypotheses. There are different levels of public support for the notion of employer obligation involving medical care, long-term care, and the treatment of substance abuse. Our evidence suggests that lessons about the performance of institutions in each of these policy domains represent the most important effect of existing policy on public attitudes. Furthermore, these differences correspond to what one would expect based on our model of policy feedback and cannot be explained by other plausible sources of policy legitimacy.     

To execute or not to execute? Examining public support for capital punishment of sex offenders

In the 1990s, states enacted a plethora of new “get tough” laws targeting sex crime. These included extending the death penalty—a punishment typically reserved for murderers—to convicted sex offenders. Little attention, however, has been given to explaining why these tougher responses emerged and, in particular, whether the public supported extending the use of the death penalty to sex offenders. The goal of this paper was to examine whether public perceptions about executing sex offenders accorded with the punitive shift in policy and, more broadly, to contribute to scholarship on the death penalty. To this end, this paper examined data from a 1991 national public opinion poll, conducted just prior to the punitive shift in sex crime policies. The study found that views about executing sex offenders depended heavily on whether the victim was a child, that support for executing sex offenders was substantially lower than for executing murderers, and that few social and demographic divides differentially predicted support for executing sex offenders versus murderers. Implications of the study are discussed.     

Policy processes and police reform: Examining similarities and differences between Scotland and the Netherlands

During 2013 the national governments of both the Netherlands and Scotland have introduced radical reforms which have replaced largely autonomous regional police forces with a national police service. Despite these structural similarities, however, there are important differences in the underlying processes which have shaped these reforms and the broader narratives about policing which have informed public and policy discourses.The purpose of this paper is to understand the underlying dynamics of these police reforms. Following an overview of concepts drawn from the public policy literature regarding policy change, the paper describes in detail the structural changes to policing that have occurred in both countries. These structural changes relate not just to the spatial re-organization of policing but also to the structure of police governance and accountability. The focus then shifts to disentangling key aspects of the decision-making processes which led to the reforms drawing on Kingdon's analysis of policy change and policy formation. The paper concludes with a broader discussion of the similarities and differences in police reform in the two countries, highlighting important issues regarding the significance of political context, debates around localism and policing, and narratives regarding a normative vision of the police role.     

公共政策、医疗行为与责任配置——关于医疗损害责任制度绩效的观察和评论

从法政策学的角度对侵权责任的制度绩效进行观察和验证,是后侵权责任立法时期中国民法学的重要学术使命之一。本文以医疗损害责任为分析对象,竭力展示公共政策与责任配置之间的微妙关系。研究表明,现阶段公共卫生政策的实质是通过加强管制约束来提高医疗服务的质与量。在此背景下,医疗损害责任的功能定位只能是激励而非补偿;且由于医疗服务自身的特性,相关责任配置的隐性激励作用更加突出。我国现行医疗损害责任在归责原则、责任形态和损失分摊方面分别存在激励不足、不当管制和风险无关的缺陷,极有可能导致制度失灵、立法目的落空,亟需加以改进。     

Predictors of Death Sentencing for Minority,Equal, and Majority Female Juries in Capital Murder Trials

The relatively small body of prior research investigating whether the sex composition of juries impacts sentencing decisions has produced equivocal results. Exploring this topic further, the current study used a large sample of capital cases from North Carolina (n = 675) to examine (a) whether jury sex composition predicted jury capital punishment sentencing decisions; and (b) whether there were different models of sentencing for male-majority, equal male-female, and female-majority juries. When we controlled for a number of legal and extralegal factors, our findings indicated that jury sex composition was independently related to sentencing outcomes. Specifically, equal male-female juries were significantly more likely and female-majority juries were significantly less likely to choose the death penalty versus a sentence of life in prison. In addition, different models (predictors) of sentencing were revealed for each of the jury sex compositions. Implications for future research and policy are discussed.     

Breaking gridlock: the determinants of health policy change in Congress

Prior to the 2010 health care reforms, scholars often commented that health policy making in Congress was mired in political gridlock, that reforms were far more likely to fail than to succeed, and that the path forward was unclear. In light of recent events, new narratives are being advanced. In formulating these assessments, scholars of health politics tend to analyze individual major reform proposals to determine why they succeeded or failed and what lessons could be drawn for the future. Taking a different approach, we examine all health policies proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives between 1973 and 2002. We analyze these bills' fates and the effectiveness of their sponsors in guiding these proposals through Congress. Setting these proposed policies against a baseline of policy advancements in other areas, we demonstrate that health policy making has indeed been far more gridlocked than policy making in most other areas. We then isolate some of the causes of this gridlock, as well as some of the conditions that have helped to bring about health policy change.     

The Accuracy of Public Beliefs about Crime Further Evidence

Criminologists largely agree that public beliefs about crime are inaccurate, and some seem willing to abandon crime reduction as a policy goal in favor of strategies which directly affect public perceptions of crime. Yet direct tests of the accuracy of public beliefs about crime are rare. In a sample survey of Tucson adults, respondents were asked to estimate the percentage of Tucson juveniles who had committed each of fifteen offenses (i.e., the categorical rates of the offenses) and the offender sex ratio for each offense. Responses were compared with self-reported data from students in three Tucson high schools. Among the fifteen offenses there is remarkable agreement between the perceived categorical rates, sex ratios, and the self-reported figures. Taken in conjunction with earlier studies, these findings suggest that strategies designed to reduce the social consequences of crime by altering public beliefs about crime are unlikely to succeed unless they are accompanied by true reductions in the crime rate.     

Mortuuspolitics: politicization of the dead,capitalism, and inequality

Capitalism has led to the appropriation of oppressed groups, their experiences and narratives. We believe this includes narratives and given value of the dead where there remains a continuation of inequalities of life unto death and being dead. Specifically, we suggest that the discrepancy of the value of the dead is the result of the links between power, politics, and hegemonic discourse embedded in neoliberalism that propagate and reify unequal power edifices that value some groups over others, in life and death, what we refer to as mortuuspolitics. The State, entrenched within the capitalistic neoliberal definition of value, also decides on the value or non-value of the dead.     

Making the movies real: The death penalty & local TV news

Media organizations, particularly the broadcast media, have become extremely important actors on the public stage over the last three decades. As a result, what the media chose to cover and how they chose to cover it is an important question. That is magnified when the media turn their attention to a public policy issue like the death penalty that already possesses profound social significance. In no other area of public policy can the state impose its will so completely and finally on an individual citizen. Therefore, the public should understand the issues that surround capital punishment. That understanding is virtually always communicated through media organizations because very few of us have first-hand knowledge of the death penalty. In this paper, I explore how television broadcast organizations cover the imposition of the death penalty. How did they carry it out? What themes did they convey? What did the public learn?     

Public Support for Preventive/Corrective Remedies Against Miscarriages of Justice in Capital Cases

The present study examines public beliefs of Florida citizens about the prevalence of miscarriages of justice in their state and their level of support for various proposed remedies. The study also examines various correlates of punishment beliefs and death penalty opinions. Using a self-administered survey of venire persons called to jury duty, this study found that the public believes that the prevalence of miscarriages of justice in capital cases is quite high. The public is supportive of nearly all of the proposed remedies measured and they are willing to pay more taxes to support the implementation of such proposals. At the same time, respondents report feeling that the officials responsible for such miscarriages of justice should be severely punished. Importantly, the results show powerful evidence of broad societal consensus on each of these issues. Legal and criminal justice policy implications of these findings are offered.     

Differences in female and male involvement in lethal violence in Russia

Relatively little is known of the distributions of homicide event characteristics in non-Western nations in which women relative to men are involved. This article utilizes unique homicide narratives drawn from Russian court and police records to compare homicide victim, offender, and event characteristics by sex of victim and separately by sex of offender. Results from logistic regression show that homicides in which a female was the victim or offender were more likely to occur between intimates and to occur in the home, whereas homicides involving males were more likely to occur in a public place, to be alcohol-related, to involve a firearm, and to involve a victim and offender who did not know each other well. These results not only present an important first glimpse at women as homicide victims and offenders in Russia specifically, but also provide a point of comparison with findings from similar analyses undertaken in the West, and present further initial observations upon which to construct a cohesive theory about female involvement in serious violent events.     

地方政府创新中政策企业家知识创造的一个分析模型——以K市公益基金招投标改革为例

政策企业家在推动政府创新中,有无知识创造活动?若有,过程是怎样的?这是政府创新研究中的基本问题之一。论文以知识生产理论为视角,以K市公益基金招投标改革为例,对这一问题进行了研究。主要发现是:政策企业家将其新想法转化为创新方案的认知活动中,运用了其专门知识,创新方案设计活动是新想法、组织外部知识与内部知识的结合;知识创造本质是命题性知识与能力之知间相互作用而转换;知识创造方式包括原理化、操作化、合法化、边界化等;生产过程最后产出了因果知识、工具知识、流程知识、目标知识、预测知识、协调知识等。基于创造方式,论文将政策企业家的知识创造模型命名为ROLD。这一研究的意义在于:尝试从知识创造视角去揭示政府创新微观活动的“黑箱”。     

The Opportunistic President: How US Presidents Determine Their Legislative Programs

The president is the most influential policy actor in US politics, and his legislative program greatly influences Congress's agenda. Yet little research has focused on what factors affect the president's choices when constructing his agenda. We develop a theory that determines when a president will include an issue in his program. We hypothesize that presidents structure their agendas around the congressional calendar for consideration of expiring laws and salient issues. Using data over 28 years and across 12 policy areas, we find presidents build their programs around these policymaking opportunities. We assert that presidential agendas are less driven by individual priorities than previous accounts have concluded.     

论美国言论自由判例中的公共论坛原理——从2009年萨姆案谈起

公共论坛是指在传统上供人们聚集在一起以表达思想和交流观点的公共场所。美国联邦最高法院在言论自由司法判例中形成了公共论坛原理,该原理的本质意义在于明确公民在什么程度上有权为了表达的目的使用政府地产,而政府规制公民在公共地产上发表言论的权力限度又在哪里。这一原理近年来得到了进一步发展,2009年萨姆案赋予了公共论坛原理新的内容。公共论坛原理对于中国法治建设具有启发和借鉴意义。     

Public opinion and the politics of obesity in America

Health policy experts have recently sounded the warning about the severe health and economic consequences of America's growing rates of obesity. Despite this fact, obesity has only begun to enter America's political consciousness and we have little information about what average Americans think of obesity or whether they support obesity-related policies. Using unique survey data collected by the authors, this essay examines public attitudes toward obesity and obesity policy. We find that, contrary to the views of health experts, most Americans are not seriously concerned with obesity, express relatively low support for obesity-targeted policies, and still view obesity as resulting from individual failure rather than environmental or genetic sources. Given the absence of elite discourse on this problem, we also find that typical determinants of policy preferences, such as ideology or partisanship, are not good predictors of attitudes on obesity policy. Rather, with a low-valence issue such as obesity, the public utilizes other attitudinal frameworks such as their opinions on smoking policy and the environmental culpability for obesity. The implications of these findings for obesity policy and research on health-related public opinion are discussed.     

Death as a Penalty and the Fantasy of Instant Death

In this essay I take up the question of how death can be a penalty, given that each of us will eventually die. I argue that capital punishment in the United States rests on contradictory demands for painless death delivered humanely through pharmaceuticals and yet denies the accused the possibility of natural death. The death penalty must be at once humane and punishing. Analyzing what we mean by ‘botched’ executions, along with the language of the Supreme Court in upholding lethal injection as a humane application of the death penalty, I argue that the fantasy of instant death is at the heart of the tension between death as painless and death as penalty. In the end, I turn to Derrida’s Death Penalty Seminar Volume One, particularly his discussion of Kant’s defence of the capital punishment, and the pivotal role of time in his discussion. Finally, I suggest that the fantasies of instantaneous death and our technological mastery of it result in the fantasy of the ‘good’ punishing death.     

Public perception of sex offender social policies and the impact on sex offenders

This study examines the public perception of sex offender policies and the perceived impact of sex offender policies on the sex offenders themselves. Specifically, this study explores how the community feels about the effectiveness of policies such as registration and community notification (Megan's Law), and housing restrictions in reducing sexual recidivism. Data are collected from 115 participants from a nationwide online community message board. Results suggest that although most individuals support Megan's Law, they do not feel the policy reduces recidivism. Furthermore, the majority of the participants also do not believe that housing restriction statutes are effective in reducing sexual recidivism. When questioned about the policy impact on sex offenders, the majority of respondents agree that as a consequence of Megan's Law, sex offenders are afraid for their safety; however, they do not believe that residence restrictions hinder sex offenders' employment opportunities. Findings from this study are discussed as they pertain to public policy and sex offender reintegration.     

Desordre Public International under the New York Convention: Wither Truly International Public Policy

Much confusion has revolved around the nature of the publicpolicy defense under Article V(2)(b) of United Nations Conventionon the Recognition and Enforcement of Arbitral Awards (the NewYork Convention) to the point that the French term for publicpolicy, ordre public, ought to be changed to désordrepublic to reflect the general disorder in the discourse on thisparticular subject. This article takes an in-depth look at thepublic policy defense and challenges the notion that enforcementStates are obliged to consider supranational public policy whendeciding whether to recognize or enforce an international arbitralaward, except in only a few cases where certain regional obligationsare involved. Even then, this is not the type of truly internationalpublic policy that is advocated by numerous commentators. Nonetheless,States are free to rely on truly international public policywhen deciding on enforcement. Despite the perceived benefitsto relying on truly international public policy, there are significantreasons to refrain from pushing for such reliance. While relianceon truly international public policy may help mitigate someof the adverse side effects associated with globalization, itis important to ask what is the price we are willing to payto counter these side effects. The price should not be the emasculationof the New York Convention itself.     

Harriton, Waller And Australian negligence law: is there a place for wrongful life?

Following the decision by the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Harriton and Waller, the controversial action for wrongful life has been thrown back into the public spotlight. This article examines the legal and public policy dilemmas arising from a wrongful life claim in light of the Court of Appeal's reasons for its decision in the jointly heard cases of Harriton (by her tutor) v Stephens; Waller (by his tutor) v James; Waller (by his tutor) v Hoolahan (2004) 59 NSWLR 694 and analyses whether there is a sound doctrinal basis for recognising the claim within the Australian tort system. It will be argued that each of the legal elements comprising the claim fall squarely within the traditional tort framework and that public policy considerations favouring recognition of the claim outweigh those raised against it.     

Residential Relegation of Registered Sex Offenders

This study builds on existing research (Hughes and Kadleck 2008; Mustaine et al. 2006a; Tewksbury and Mustaine 2006) that shows registered sex offenders are more likely to live in undesirable and socially disorganized communities. We extend such analyses to a geographically and demographically different community and employ more sophisticated measures of social disorganization concepts to assess the validity of the claim that registered sex offenders are relegated to socially disorganized communities. Data from Orange County, Florida, including measures of violent crime and the social disorganization concepts of concentrated disadvantage, residential instability and immigrant concentration are used to examine the distribution of residential locations for registered sex offenders. Results show that higher concentrations of sex offenders are found in communities with more concentrated economic disadvantage, more residential instability and higher rates of robbery and child sexual abuse. Implications of these findings for public policy are discussed.