The Regulatory Gift: Politics,regulation and governance

This article introduces the “regulatory gift” as a conceptual framework for understanding a particular form of government‐led deregulation that is presented as central to the public interest. Contra to theories of regulatory capture, government corruption, “insider” personal interest, or profit‐seeking theories of regulation, the regulatory gift describes reform that is overtly designed by government to reduce or reorient regulators’ functions to the advantage of the regulated and in line with market objectives on a potentially macro (rather than industry‐specific) scale. As a conceptual framework, the regulatory gift is intended to be applicable across regulated sectors of democratic states and in this article the empirical sections evidence the practice of regulatory gifting in contemporary United Kingdom (UK) politics. Specifically, this article analyses the 2011 UK Public Bodies Act, affecting some 900 regulatory public bodies and its correlative legislation, the 2014 Regulator's Code, the 2015 Deregulation Act, and the 2016 Enterprise Bill. The article concludes that while in some cases the regulatory gift may be aligned with the public interest – delivering on cost reduction, enhancing efficiency, and stimulating innovation – this will not always be the case. As the case study of the regulatory body, the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, demonstrates, despite the explicit claims made by legislators, the regulatory gift has the potential to significantly undermine the public interest.     

The Crime Preventers Scheme: A Community Policing Initiative for Regime Security in Uganda

ABSTRACT

For decades, Uganda has received substantial support from development partners to implement Security Sector Reforms (SSR). Using the crime preventers’ scheme that has been implemented by Uganda Police as an element of community policing, I argue that SSR achievements in the country seem unclear and limited. Based on an ethnographic study I illustrate that the widespread crime preventers’ scheme has had contrasting effects on the Ugandan security architecture. The scheme seems to have reduced the police-citizens social distance and augmented police presence while simultaneously cased operational excesses and is routinely used in regime security strategies. To provide a better conceptualization I ask and answer a number of questions; how and why has the crime preventers’ scheme been initiated? How is the scheme related to community policing as we know it? What is the political role of the crime preventers? What motivates people to become active members of the crime preventers’ scheme? How does the scheme empirically operate?     

Ordering Stakeholder Relationships and Citizen Participation: Evidence from the Community Development Block Grant Program

Local administrative professionals typically are accountable to multiple stakeholders, including other governmental units, special interests in the business and nonprofit sectors, and citizens. How are these accountability relationships ordered? What is the position of citizens in that hierarchy, particularly the influence of citizen participation? Focusing on patterns of hearing participation and citizen impact on budgeting decisions for the Community Development Block Grant program, this statistical analysis employs ordered probit regression. The authors find that communities in which grant administrators feel most accountable to citizens for grant performance have higher degrees of citizen participation in hearings and higher levels of perceived citizen impact on budgetary processes. This relationship holds even in the presence of simultaneity between bureaucratic accountability to citizens and citizen participation. The findings point to the importance of instilling a public service ethic among government employees that places a high value on engaging as well as listening to citizens.     

Traumatic Events and Maternal Education as Predictors of Verbal Ability for Preschool Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

Despite research on the effects of intimate partner violence (IPV) on children, little is known about its impact on cognitive development. In this study, 87 preschool-aged children and their mothers exposed to IPV within the last two years participated in interviews to ascertain verbal ability, history of violence, and exposure to trauma. When compared to a national sample of 1,700 same-age children not evaluated for exposure to traumatic events, children exposed to IPV scored significantly lower on verbal ability, as assessed with standardized measures. In order to understand variation in verbal ability, multiple regression models were tested. Both prior exposure to traumatic events and the level of mother’s education were significant predictors of verbal ability. However, level of education mediated the relationship between traumatic events and the child’s verbal ability.     

Developing Conceptualisations of Europeanisation: A Study of Financial Services

In its most explicit form Europeanisation is conceptualised as the process of downloading European Union (EU) directives, regulations and institutional structures to the domestic level. However, this conceptualisation of Europeanisation has been extended in the literature in terms of up-loading to the EU shared beliefs, informal and formal rules, discourse, identities and vertical and horizontal policy transfer. This article undertakes a study of banking, investment and insurance directives to analyse the impact of Europeanisation on the UK financial services sector.     

Women's Political Participation in China: in whose interests elections?

This article takes up the issue of women's political participation in village committees in China. Of interest is the decline in and continuing low level of women's political participation in village governance structures in the reform period, and particularly following the widespread introduction of competitive village elections since 1988. The dominant explanation given for women's numerical under-representation in village committees, and in politics more generally, focuses on women's lack of self-confidence, which inhibits them from standing as candidates, and on the enduring drag of ‘feudal’ attitudes, which construct women as inferior to men, and therefore not capable of leadership. These two factors combined have in turn a material effect, as son-preference advantages boys in access to basic schooling, who thus, particularly in poorer rural areas, end up with higher levels of education, and greater opportunities in waged employment. The common solution adopted by the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF), China's largest women's organisation, lies in a two-pronged attack: first in the ideological realm, targeting men and women's sexist attitudes and concomitantly promoting a discourse of equality, and second, in the material realm by raising women's skills. It is argued here that this dominant text on women's under-representation in village committees masks a more complex conjuncture of variables that shape women's position in local politics. Social practices, economic structures, institutional norms and procedures, and political culture all prey on, revitalise and reproduce gendered notions of the appropriate place of women and men in political life.