Does Institutional Structure Effect Public Health Expenditures?

This paper explores supply‐side costs and institutional structure in a shared authority state public health system. It is found that in a shared governance public health system, intermediary district structure influences the movement of limited resources to serve populations and persons most in need. This early empirical test suggests that policy making and public administration concerning public health expenditures in a shared governance system are in a practical sense local, but decisions made at the intermediary level by regional district administration are an important influence on local public health expenditures.     

The Emerging Neocommunitarianism

The financial crisis which began in 2007 has been widely interpreted as a crisis of neoliberalism, akin to the crisis of Keynesianism of the 1970s. But there is little sign of a major paradigmatic alternative, either in theory or in practice. This article looks at how the crises and failures of neoliberalism are occurring at a micro‐policy level, where they are interpreted in terms of the fallibility of individual rational choice. Policy responses to this crisis, drawing on more psychologically nuanced accounts of economic behaviour, can be described as ‘neocommunitarian’, inasmuch as they echo the communitarian critique of the liberal self. Where neoliberalism rests on a vision of the individual as atomised and rational, neocommunitarianism treats individuals as governed by social norms and incentives simultaneously. And where neoliberalism subjects individuals to periodic audit organised around targets and outputs, neocommunitarianism conducts a constant audit of behavioural fluctuations in real time.     

DIXON OF DOCK GREEN GOT SHOT! POLICING IDENTITY WORK AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

Drawing on a small‐scale ethnographic study in one UK police force, the paper offers insights into how different individuals and groups legitimate particular definitions of policing performance through invoking contrasting constructions of community policing. In doing so, the paper focuses on the discursive analysis of change defined in two interrelated ways: firstly with regard to the intentions and implementation of a new discursive template; and, secondly, as ongoing situated human agency in context. Findings from the study show how ‘Dixon of Dock Green’– an archaic stereotype of the slow‐witted but endearing ‘PC Plod’ character – is used as a discursive resource to both acknowledge and resist the legitimacy of community work in the definition of ‘real policing’. Despite attempts over the last two decades to underpin policing priorities, as well as roles and cultures, with a collaborative, community focused approach, the study suggests a marginal impact on policing processes, performance and work identities.     

City of Fear: Reimagining Buenos Aires in Contemporary Argentine Cinema

Argentine cinema has experienced a rebirth since the late 1990s, despite the country’s economic crisis. Buenos Aires, long a key setting for the nation’s films, has not escaped the negative impact of the crisis, yet filmmaking in the capital has thrived. This article explores the radically different presentation of the city since the first explosion of film in Argentina after the end of the military dictatorship of 1976–1983. It takes Luis Puenzo’s controversial La historia oficial as a starting point for a reflection on the current presentation of Buenos Aires as a city plagued by fear in productions from the late 1990s to the early twenty‐first century.     

Taiwan's Overseas Opposition Movement and Grassroots Diplomacy in the United States: the case of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs

This article examines the advocacy of overseas Taiwanese, particularly those in the United States, and their influence on US foreign policy and subsequently upon democratization in Taiwan. It concentrates particularly on the work of a Taiwanese non-governmental, non-profit advocacy group in the US—the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA). This article first composes an organizational history of FAPA by investigating the questions and processes of why and how FAPA was formed at the local level in the US. Further, it analyzes how the organization mobilized its relatively modest local resources in the US through grassroots diplomacy to promote Taiwan's visibility in the US, to influence the US government on Taiwan-related issues, and to attempt to impact upon Taiwan's democratization. Through the presentation of FAPA's organizational history, this article ultimately tries to answer the question of whether a non-governmental organization such as FAPA and its grassroots diplomacy has had an impact on US foreign policy and Taiwan's democratization. Besides adding to the existing scholarly literature on the causes of Taiwan's democratization, this study on the formation and effectiveness of FAPA seeks to contribute to studies on NGOs' or non-state actors' grassroots diplomacy and lobbying efforts on governmental policies. Because FAPA functioned as an important diplomatic channel for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Taiwan's first opposition party in the post-World War II era, before it matured into a fully-developed national opposition party in the 1990s and consequently unseated the Kuomintang (KMT) in 2000, this article is also an examination of an opposition movement's informal diplomacy.     

‘Going beyond the Troika’: Power and discourse in Portuguese austerity politics

This article analyses the margin of manoeuvre of Portuguese executives after the onset of the sovereign debt crisis in 2010–2015. To obtain a full understanding of what happened behind the closed doors of international meetings, different types of data are triangulated: face‐to‐face interviews; investigations by journalists; and International Monetary Fund and European Union official documents. The findings are compared to the public discourse of Prime Ministers José Sócrates and Pedro Passos‐Coelho. It is shown that while the sovereign debt crisis and the bail‐out limited the executive's autonomy, they also made them stronger in relation to other domestic actors. The perceived need for ‘credibility’ in order to avoid a ‘negative’ reaction from the markets – later associated with the conditions of the bail‐out – concurrently gave the executives a legitimate justification to concentrate power in their hands and a strong argument to counter the opponents of their proposed reforms. Consequently, when Portuguese ministers favoured policies that were in congruence with those supported by international actors, they were able to use the crisis to advance their own agenda. Disagreement with Troika representatives implied the start of a negotiation process between the ministers and international lenders, the final outcome of which depended on the actors’ bargaining powers. These strategies, it is argued, constitute a tactic of depoliticisation in which both the material constraints and the discourse used to frame them are employed to construct imperatives around a narrow selection of policy alternatives.     

POLICING WITH A SMILE: NARRATIVES OF CONSUMERISM IN NEW LABOUR'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY

A recurrent theme in New Labour's public service reforms has been a tendency to orient services to the user as a consumer or customer of those services. However a consumerist approach – and particularly the 'customer is always right' imperative – appears problematic in relation to criminal justice. This article uses content analysis to explore the use of consumerist narratives by selected members of the UK criminal justice policy network (Prime Minister, Home Office and local government). It finds that the terms customer and consumer are used less in relation to criminal justice than they are in relation to other public services. When used, it is 'law-abiding citizens', particularly victims and witnesses, that are the priority customers of the service. Customer-orientated policing is primarily about standardizing services and encouraging more coproductive behaviours. The language of choice and personalization, which has come to characterize New Labour's approach to public service reform, has as yet had little penetration into criminal justice. However, the policy network is fragmented, with different narratives of consumerism emerging from Tony Blair (the then Prime Minister), the Home Office and local government, demonstrating the contingent ways in which policy-makers draw on historical traditions.