COLLECTIVE SECURITY AND FATAL FIREARM ACCIDENTS*

This paper offers an explanation for rates of fatal firearm accidents in terms of confidence in collectively provided justice and security. It describes the collective security model and presents an analysis of time-series data from Detroit which supports it: accidental gunshot deaths varied positively with violent crime and civil disturbances and negatively with the allocation of resources to the police. Finally, it discusses some implications for research design and social policy.     

PLANNING AND CONTROLLING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE IN THE UK, PART I: THE TREASURY'S PUBLIC EXPEIWITURE SURVEY

The Treasury's annual survey of public expenditure is the central element in planning and controlling public expenditure. While its purpose remains similar to that in the 1970s, the principles governing its preparation, the methodology employed and the conduct of negotiations between the Treasury and the departments have changed with successive attempts to control both the total and programme allocations more effectively. This article examines and explains the process of preparing the survey, through the main stages from the decisions about the size of total public spending in the context of the government's macroeconomic strategy to the announcement in the Autumn Statement of the planned totals and allocations for the next three years and finally to the publication in February of the departmental Public Expenditure Chapters. Part I1 [Summer issue] analyses the effects and effectiveness of the survey processes, and discusses whose interests have been best served.     

THE EDUCATION OF THE TREASURY: THE MEDIUMTERM FINANCIAL STRATEGY 1980–84

The first Thatcher government introduced an innovatory macro-economic plan – the medium-term financial strategy (MTFs) – in March 1980. It was the most notable example of how the Government sought to change the direction of post-war policy. This article traces the origins and formulation of the strategy, noting that it was Treasury-imposed, and monetarist in orientation. During its implementation however it was substantially modified. The phrase 'pragmatism and continuity' best describes this process. Aspects of macro-economic policy are introduced to develop this theme. There is clear evidence that the Treasury was 'educated' by the problems encountered: the objectives of the MTFS were not uniquely achievable simply because they were deliberately limited in scope. Nevertheless, the strategy has survived as a policy framework and freed from its monetarist dogma remains a useful means of co-ordinating objectives.     

Regulation and Human Rights in Socio-Legal Scholarship

This article sets the scene for a special issue of Law & Policy that brings together the themes of rights and regulation. The articles explore a number of settings where rapid changes in political commitments and economic systems, often stimulated by international developments, place pressures on rights regimes. The articles deploy a variety of methods to draw out differences in both focus and approach in the understanding of rights, when compared with regulation. This introductory article provides a more detailed analysis of these differences in approach, and is suggestive of ways in which they may complement each other. We argue that the articles collectively demonstrate the added valued in juxtaposing rights with regulation. They are suggestive not only of a richer understanding of the impact on rights of broad changes in regulatory frameworks, but more particularly argue for the importance of understanding how processes of institutionalization can underpin or undermine rights regimes, and that regulatory measures may form a key aspect of such institutionalization.