The President as Institution Builder: The Reagan Case

Every president bestows upon his successors a "legacy" that will have an impact on both policy issues and institutional operations. Although attention is commonly focused on the president's role as a policymaker, he serves as an institution builder, as well, leaving a legacy that is manifested in long-term developments, in technical details of managing the job, and in patterns of interaction with other actors in the political environment. Reagan's institutional legacy has been the subject of intense debate and is addressed here in relation to five vantage points as they were employed during his eight years in office: personnel, structure, standard operating procedures, modes of exercising influence, and norms. These dimensions are examined in relation to the presidency, the bureaucracy, Congress, and the judiciary.
Reagan's departures in the selection and management of executive and judicial branch personnel were the most distinctive features of his legacy. Important changes were also made in the regulatory review and budgetary processes. Politicization and centralization, two long-term developments in the presidential office, gained renewed vigor, and Reagan elaborated a judicial strategy for achieving policy goals while refining the administrative strategy pioneered earlier by Nixon. Serious damage may well have been done to the norms of public service and justice under the rule of law. The framework introduced here promises to help scholars deal more systematically with the institutional impacts of both past and future presidents.     

GEEKING UP AND THROWING DOWN: HEROIN STREET LIFE IN DETROIT

This paper reports the results of a field study of 15 street-level heroin dealers in Detroit, Michigan. The techniques used by these heroin dealers are different from those described in most previous literature. The Detroit dealers do not conform to the traditional "hustling" model. They operate within a bureaucracy, do not generally sell heroin to fund their own habit, are relatively young, and largely lack an approval ideology for their activities.     

Regional Differences in the Collateral Consequences of a Felony Conviction

The present study sought to determine if there are statistically significant regional differences in the number of restricted rights for a felony conviction. Significant differences were found, with the East South Central region restricting two to three times more rights than other regions. Nonsignificant rank-order correlations were found between the number of restricted rights and regional crime/prisoner rates per 100,000 population. A significant rank-order correlation was found, however, for the mean number of restricted rights and the percent voting for the 1988 Republican presidential candidate.     

Changing the Conversation: Can the Phone Hacking Scandal Lead to a New Covenant on Media Responsibilities?

This article examines the implications of the 2011 phone hacking scandal for press freedom in the United Kingdom. Specifically, it argues that the language of rights has too long dominated public discourse, which has led to discussion of media responsibilities being evaded. The article argues that there is now an opportunity for a radical restructuring of the relationship between the press, the public, and the political system that restores the media to their rightful role as a watchdog on government and steward of the people. It points to the need for independent regulation of the press and a statutory right of reply as means through which the relationship between media and citizen can be recast on the grounds of obligation and responsibility but argues that it is only when we move away from a framework grounded in rights to one grounded in responsibilities that meaningful change can flourish.     

CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING WITH JUVENILE OFFENDERS

This study was designed to test whether or not juvenile subjects who were on probation and were under a court order to pay fines would show an increased rate of work when positive contingencies of reinforcement were used in the form of contingency contracts.