Newspaper Representation of the Debates in the 2007 Jamaican General Election Campaign

This article deconstructs the newspaper representations of three debates held in 2007 during the Jamaican General Election campaign. The theory of social representation is used in this article to explain political behaviour and outcomes. Representations are the images, words, symbols or phrases that are generated from people's dialogic interaction that signify meanings. Content analysis of relevant articles covering the electoral campaign in the main print media in Jamaica forms the empirical basis for study. The majority of representations of the three main debates were negative, revealing that political manifestos were largely ignored and policy funding was not addressed. Significant issues such as crime, education, health, garrison politics, corruption and unemployment were inadequately addressed, and the wider global context of these matters was ignored. The consensus was that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) won two of the three debates, notably the leadership debate in which the Leader of the Opposition, Bruce Golding MP, performed more effectively than the then current Prime Minister, Portia Simpson‐Miller of the People's National Party (PNP). Social representation theory is used to assess the types of political meanings generated by media coverage during the General Election. It is suggested that the perceived success of the JLP candidates in the main debates was an important contribution to the party's overall electoral victory.     

RETHINKING THE “NORM” OF OFFENDER GENERALITY: INVESTIGATING SPECIALIZATION IN THE SHORT‐TERM

The life‐course approach to criminal career research has devoted a good deal of attention to the generality or specialization of offending behavior. Typically, extant research demonstrates versatility on the part of offenders, yet such findings could be attributable, at least in part, to time and measurement aggregation bias. This work uses a temporally disaggregated and individualized measure of diversity in offending to determine whether the previous findings of generality hold up to shifts in methodology. Using data from a sample of serious felons, results indicated that the magnitude of specialization is greater than in prior studies. Regression results indicated that certain demographic and local life‐circumstance variables are related to the extent of diversity. Theoretical and methodological implications are identified and discussed.     

Derogating from International Human Rights Obligations in the ‘War Against Terrorism'? — A British–Australian Perspective

ABSTRACT

This article examines the United Kingdom's Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Legislation Amendment (Terrorism) Act 2002 (Cth) from an international human rights law perspective. It argues that both pieces of legislation raise serious concerns in relation to international legal obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Both international treaties allow for ‘derogation’ from certain provisions in times of ‘public emergency’. While the United Kingdom has officially derogated from some of its treaty obligations, Australia has yet to submit a similar notification. This article argues, however, that the United Kingdom's derogation is unlawful. Likewise, current circumstances in Australia would not permit lawful derogation from the ICCPR.     

Intellectual Obsolescence and Intellectual Makeovers: Reflections on the Tools of Government after Two Decades

This article reflects on the mixture of ideology, technological change, and interests that have made government instrumentalities central to the analysis of public policy over the two decades since the publication of the author’s Tools of Government in 1983, and distinguishes three main strains of analysis of policy instruments: analytic approaches that count forms of institutions as tools, analytic approaches that focus on the politics of tool selection, and generic approaches that aim to be institution‐ and technology‐free. The article argues first that the three main strains differ over the questions they ask rather than comprising different ways of answering the same question (though it distinguishes competing forms of generic approach); second, that beneath surface obsolescence, the generic policy tools analysis has not become fundamentally outdated over two decades; and third, that changes in technology makes technology‐free analysis all the more necessary as a tool of comparison.