EXPERTISE AND POLICY‐MAKING: LEGAL PROFESSIONALS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Professional influence in policy‐making is generally believed to rest on professionals successfully laying claim to access to expertise – knowledge, understanding or experience – not available to others, above all politicians. On the basis of a 2005 survey of nearly 800 lawyers serving in local authorities in England and Wales, this article explores the relationship between specialization and political influence. Lawyers who shape policy use conventional routes for political influence, establish contacts with political officeholders, tend to identify less with the profession at large and are less likely to see themselves as specialists in any field of law. This means that the relationship between expertise and political power is complex and that the notion that professionals use their expertise to shape policy should be treated with some caution.     

Formal Theory and the Institutions of Governance

Understanding governance in the world's democracies requires study of the political institutions — the chief executives, the bureaucracies, and the legislatures — most involved in national policymaking. There are many approaches to the study of these institutions. This article examines the potential of an approach which is relatively unfamiliar to most students of governance: the development of formal mathematical theories of political institutions. The costs and benefits of this approach are discussed, various types of formal theories are surveyed, and a variety of possible applications to some central problems of governance are described.     

Suffrage in San Juan: The Test of Women's Rights in Argentina

The 1927 reform of the Constitution of San Juan province, Argentina, contained a variety of innovative reforms that set a precedent for later national events. Of these, one of the most unusual was the provision for female participation in provincial elections. The authorisation of this right, which preceded the national suffrage law by twenty years, came about as a consequence of local and national circumstances. The fundamental conditions for suffrage had taken root in Argentina prior to 1927, but for suffrage to become a reality, a government had to be in place that could take advantage of an influx of new voters.     

The Eu's Response to 9/11: A Case Study of Institutional Roles and Policy Processes with Special Reference to Issues of Accountability and Human Rights

ABSTRACT

The challenges of 9/11 required a wide ranging response across all three of the broad divisions of EU policymaking competence: the economic and monetary union, common foreign and security policy and internal security. These policy divisions make up the ‘three pillars’ of the EU's political architecture. This article reviews general issues of accountability and human rights protection in the EU's policymaking and implementation process, the evolution of the EU's response to terrorism, and the general response to 9/11. It then considers, in detail, the implications of the various response measures adopted under each ‘pillar’. The article demonstrates the emphasis that the Member States have placed on security measures and the wider concerns that their content and speed of adoption left little scope for other views to be heard. The article lays stress upon the fact that the effectiveness of the response measures are crucially dependent on the variable implementation capacity of the Member States. The article concludes by noting how the 2004 EU Constitution [Article I-42] requires Member States to ‘…?act jointly in a spirit of solidarity if a Member State is a victim of a terrorist attack….’     

CHANGING CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS Implications for Criminology Theory

This article examines both traditional and contemporary conceptualizations of professional criminals as viewed by criminologists. Traditionally, criminologists have viewed professional criminals as being involved in full-time, nonviolent. highly skilled specialties. Contemporary conceptualizations stress professional criminals as being no specialized, less skilled, and involved in violent behavior. These conceptual changes reflect an emphasis upon observations rather than theoretical development among criminologists examining professional crime. As long as an observational emphasis persists, theories concerning professional criminals will not progress either rapidly or in an orderly fashion. Changing conceptualizations of professional criminals can be viewed as an example of insufficient theoretical development existing within the discipline.     

Peculiar Institutions: Slavery,Sectionalism, and Minority Obstruction in the Antebellum Senate

This article examines obstruction in the U.S. Senate, focusing on political conflict in the antebellum period. I consider different theories that predict when obstruction should occur and conduct individual‐level analysis of the use of and support for dilatory tactics. The analysis investigates how the costs of obstruction, the probability that obstruction succeeds, the policy preferences of the senator, and the salience of legislation relate to decisions to obstruct. I find that both sectional and partisan factors influence obstruction, with the former being especially important for legislation related to slavery. In particular, Southern senators' concerns about being in the minority led them to obstruct to protect their interests in slavery.     

THE MYTH OF SOCIAL CLASS AND CRIME REVISITED: AN EXAMINATION OF CLASS AND ADULT CRIMINALITY*

Although recent empirical research questions the conclusion that crime is highest in the lower class, this empirical literature is plagued by limited measures of social class or of crime and by a failure to study systematically the effect of social class on crime in the adult general population. The present work was undertaken in an attempt to rectify many of the inadequacies of the class‐crime research. Self‐report data were collected from a general population of adult residents in a large, midwestern city and were analyzed to assess the effects of a wide range of class measures on crime measures. The overall results produced from a sample of 555 adults demonstrated that regardless of how class or crime were measured, social class exerted little direct influence on adult criminality in the general population. Consistent with research findings from nonself‐report studies, social class was related to criminal involvement for nonwhites.     

Measuring the Financial Position of Municipalities: Numbers Do Not Speak for Themselves

There are several challenges facing someone who wants to know if a city's revenue structure is fair and reasonable. There are few generally accepted standards to use as benchmarks of financial condition, and there is no generally accepted methodology to assess relative financial position. This article reviews literature on financial position and condition, and then develops a methodological approach that creates a cohort of similar cities for benchmarking financial position, and then forming a basis for assessing financial condition. Based on a study of the financial position of a medium-sized city, the article offers lessons for practitioners and scholars.