Tariff liberalization and product standards: Regulatory chill and race to the bottom?

Does tariff liberalization cause regulatory chill by putting downward pressure on health, safety, and environmental standards? Or does it cause a race to the top as governments seek to use standards as nontariff barriers to trade? There remains remarkably little empirical evidence to answer these long-debated questions. We seek to address this lack by analyzing annual country-by-industry data on notifications of changes in sanitary and phytosanitary standards by world trade organization members. Our results suggest that the impact of increased trade pressure depends on whether domestic producers are likely to gain or lose from a change in standards. Regulatory chill is the dominant response in most countries, but countries in which producers can adapt to standards relatively cheaply appear to race to the top. Consequently, tariff liberalization encourages divergence in standards across countries.     

‘She’s White and She’s Hot,So She Can’t Be Guilty’: Female Criminality,Penal Spectatorship,and White Protectionism

Despite mainstream criminology’s burgeoning interest in issues of race, class, and gender, very little scholarship has examined whiteness and its attendant privileges in understanding public discourse on criminal offenders. This paper examines the role of penal spectatorship as a discursive mechanism by which white, female offenders are protected in public spaces by virtue of their racial and gender identity. Using a content analysis of comments posted on the mug shot images of white women on a popular ‘mug shot website,’ we find that these women are viewed as victims of circumstance deserving of empathy and redemption rather than as criminals. We offer ‘white protectionism’ as a means by which whites extend privilege and protection to other whites who transverse the boundaries of whiteness through criminality to guard against ‘deviant’ or ‘criminal’ designations. These findings add to our understandings of penal spectatorship as yet another tool of white supremacy operating in the Post-Civil Rights era of mass incarceration.     

Attacks without Consequence? Candidates,Parties, Groups,and the Changing Face of Negative Advertising

Prior work finds that voters punish candidates for sponsoring attack ads. What remains unknown is the extent to which a negative ad is more effective if it is sponsored by a party or an independent group instead. We conducted three experiments in which we randomly assigned participants to view a negative ad that was identical except for its sponsor. We find that candidates can benefit from having a party or group “do their dirty work,” but particularly if a group does, and that the most likely explanation for why this is the case is that many voters simply do not connect candidates to the ads sponsored by parties and groups. We also find that in some circumstances, a group‐sponsored attack ad produces less polarization than one sponsored by a party. We conclude by discussing the implications our research has for current debates about the proper role of independent groups in electoral politics.     

Measuring Innovation – Applying the Literature-Based Innovation Output Indicator to Public Services

Governments have been encouraging public service organizations to innovate. However, little is known about the extent of innovation in public service organizations. A private sector approach to the measurement of innovation - the literature-based innovation output indicator (LBIOI) - is applied to public service organizations to address this significant information gap. The method is described and then explored in one public service sector, English housing associations. A sample of 257 innovations is constructed and then subject to analysis. This initial testing of the LBIOI indicates that the approach can be applied across public services to create longitudinal data sets, which will enhance the communication of good practice and the use of evidence in public policy, management and research. This methodology is demonstrated to offer initial insights to public service innovation and would allow relationships to be explored notably innovation and performance, a relationship central to government's promotion of innovation.     

Ministerial responsibility and the Scottish Qualifications Agency

The Scottish Qualifications Agency (SQA) is charged with the task of overseeing school–based qualifications in Scotland. However, for the 2000 exam diet the SQA failed to produce either timely or accurate exam results. The events surrounding this failure, accompanied by the responsible minister's explanation of his own actions and inactions, brought to the fore issues of responsibility and accountability. The unresolved nature of accountability and responsibility within government, particularly in relation to non–departmental public bodies (NDPBs), became apparent as the inquiries into the SQA took evidence. Utilizing the SQA as a powerful example, this article explores the problematic structures of accountability and responsibility that exist between NDPBs and ministers.     

Non-violent Erotica: A Case Study in an Issue Network within the Australian Federal Parliament

The federal government's attempt to replace the X classification for videotapes with a Non-violent Erotica (NVE) classification category was rejected through the intervention of an issue network within the federal parliament. By assessing this process, we can see how individuals can form issue networks and successfully alter a policy proposal.