Public opinion on media presence in the courthouse

Very little attention has been devoted to the public's opinion of media coverage of court cases despite extensive research on pretrial publicity (PTP). Following a provincial judgment to restrict media access in Quebec courthouses, a preliminary unpublished study found that the public was largely in support of these restrictions. The present study sought to expand on this finding in a more widely generalizable sample. Subjects were recruited from continuing education classes and completed a questionnaire that assessed their support for restricting journalists in courthouses. Nearly 80% of the 243 participants supported media restrictions. Although participants in the four experimental conditions and one of the control groups were largely in favor of the restrictions, one control group was opposed to the restrictions. The results suggest that the public prefers that journalists have restricted access to courtroom participants, resonating research on PTP and the Supreme Court's decision on the case.     

A democratic responsiveness approach to real reform: an exploration of health care systems' resilience

Real reforms attempt to change how health care is financed and how it is rationed. Three main explanations have been offered to explain why such reforms are so difficult: institutional gridlock, path dependency, and societal preferences. The latter posits that choices made regarding the health care system in a given country reflect the broader societal set of values in that country and that as a result public resistance to real reform may more accurately reflect citizens' personal convictions, self-interest, or even active social choices. "Conscientious objectors" may do more to derail reform than previously recognized.     

Un aspect de l'insertion des militaries dans le processus de développement national en Afrique: Étude de quelques contradictions

At independence, Botswana, like many other countries in Anglophone Africa, inherited a dual legal system that was undergoing a significant shift towards convergence in the areas of criminal law and procedure. In Botswana's case, convergence was driven by a desire to minimise or, more speculatively, to gradually eliminate the gap between the normative standards of common law/general and customary courts in criminal trials. The country chose to follow a route that involved the universalisation of a penal code based on English common law, and the partial standardisation of procedure rules for customary courts. The present article considers how codified law and written procedure rules have transformed the substance and classification of legal wrongs, disputes and dispute processes, as well as the context and meaning of punishment in traditional settings.     

France faced with terrorism

Abstract

France is an interesting laboratory for studying terrorism, or antiterrorism, not because extreme violence has been committed on a large scale as in Lebanon, but because, faced with diverse terrorist actions over a short period, France has worked out and considerably modified a policy for dealing with terrorism. The subject herein is not terrorism but the official response to it, namely counterterrorist policy and actions.     

La rationalisation des politiques publiques: Un état de la question

Sommaire. Les organisations publiques doivent prendre des décisions quant aux objectifs qu'elles poursuivent et aux moyens et ressources utilisées pour at-teindre ces objectifs. Ces décisions stratégiques se situent au coeur du processus de définition des politiques publiques. Diverses approches de rationalisation des décisions, reposant principalement sur l'analyse économique, ont été proposées pour améliorer la formulation des politiques publiques. Une première partie sera consacrée à l'examen de ces approches normatives et aux critiques qui leur sont adressées. Cette partie traite donc de la rationalité«économique ». L'aspect politique des décisions publiques, qui prend la forme de compromis visant à assurer au système politique le soutien requis, est souvent considéré, surtout par les partisans de l'efficacité, comme irrationnel. Or, il existe des coǔts et avantages politiques et le jeu politique correspond à une certaine rationalité. Dans une seconde partie, nous traiterons done de la rationalité« politique ». Ayant reconnu les contributions, la valeur et les limites respectives des approches économiques et politiques, nous tenterons, dans une troisième partie, de faire ressortir les points de convergence et de démontrer que ces approches se complètent davantage qu'elles ne s'opposent. Abstract. Public organizations must make decisions concerning their objectives and the means and resources used to achieve them. These strategic decisions are the very core of the process of defining public policies. A number of proposals have been made for the improvement of public policy-making, most of them relying on economic analysis to rationalize decision-making. The first part of the study will be devoted to a review and criticism of these approaches and deals with the ‘economic’ rationale. The political aspect of public decisions, generally a compromise aimed at ensuring the necessary support for the political system, is often considered irrational, particularly by those whose primary concern is efficiency. However, political cost and advantage do exist and political gamesmanship does correspond to a certain rationale. The second part of the study deals with the ‘political’ rationale. After discussing the contributions, value and limitations of both the economic and political approaches the author attempts to identify points where the two coincide and to prove that they are complementary rather than opposite.