The Public–Private Distinction: Insights for Public Administration from the State Action Doctrine

Public administration scholars continue to grapple with how and why public organizations differ from private organizations. The judiciary deals with similar questions in ruling on constitutional claims that apply exclusively to state actors. The authors consider similarities and differences between scholarly and judicial approaches, adding to the body of research attempting to capture the complexities of the public–private distinction. The application in this article includes the coding of seminal court decisions and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to find combinations of causal conditions that lead to state action rulings. The specifics revealed through QCA provide valuable lessons for extending public norms and preserving constitutional protections when outsourcing public services.     

The Centralisation of Parliamentary Policy Statements in Western European Parliaments

Parliamentarians and their party groups can employ many different instruments to communicate policy statements to their electorate (debates in plenary, presentations of committee reports, oral questions, written questions, and interpellations). Therefore, the design of these instruments should be analysed in one common framework. This paper seeks to provide a first step towards this goal by mapping and explaining the centralisation of parliamentary policy statements in all western European countries with a parliamentary system. It is argued that, on a theoretical level, there are two different causes for a stronger or weaker centralisation of the instruments of parliamentary policy statements: the electoral connection and efficiency. Empirically, it is shown that there are striking differences in centralisation both within and between countries which are worth exploring further. Moreover, the results of the statistical models suggest that the electoral connection is the driving factor behind the centralisation of the instruments of parliamentary policy statements.     

Urgent issues and prospects at the intersection of culture,memory, and witness interviews: Exploring the challenges for research and practice

The pursuit of justice increasingly relies on productive interactions between witnesses and investigators from diverse cultural backgrounds during investigative interviews. To date, the role of cultural context has largely been ignored by researchers in the field of investigative interviewing, despite repeated requests from practitioners and policymakers for evidence-based guidance for the conduct of interviews with people from different cultures. Through examining cultural differences in human memory and communication and considering specific contextual challenges for investigative interviewing through the lens of culture, this review and associated commentaries highlight the scope for considering culture and human diversity in research on, and the practice of, investigative interviewing with victims, witnesses, and other sources. Across 11 commentaries, contributors highlight the importance of considering the role of culture in different investigative interviewing practices (e.g., rapport building, questioning techniques) and contexts (e.g., gender-based violence, asylum seeking, child abuse), address common areas of cultural mismatch between interviewer–interviewee expectations, and identify critical future routes for research. We call for an increased focus in the investigative interviewing literature on the nature and needs of our global community and encourage constructive and collaborative discussion between researchers and practitioners from around the world to better identify specific challenges and work together towards evidence-based solutions.     

The Gendered and Racialised Division in the Korean Labour Market: The Case of Migrant Workers in the Catering Sector

Based on the empirical analysis of migrant women employed in the catering sector, this paper examines the gendered and racialised division in the Korean labour market. Given limited labour protection and the flexibilisation of the migrant workforce in the labour market, South Korea has been able to reduce possible economic and social costs and, at the same time, enjoy the benefits of the significant economic contribution of migrant workers. By looking at gender relations and racial discrimination in the catering sector, and inconsistent government policies, this paper underlines that migrant women are marginalised in the labour market owing to their ‘multiple vulnerability’ as women, migrants and undocumented workers.