CHILD SUPPORT REFORMS

The use of the Australian equivalent to the Internal Revenue Service is described and the far-reaching efforts of the Australian government to collect. Readers from other countries will recognize similar themes: noncompliance with orders, establishing orders in a majority of cases, providing an efficient means for modifying support awards, creation of two classes of enforcement—for those receiving public support and for those who are entitled to support and do not receive pensions, the use of statistics regarding compliance, and many others. This article documents the common concerns for all modern, industrialized nations in ensuring adequate support for children.     

On National Self-determination

This paper argues in favour of a conception of self-determination which involves the equal recognition of different national identities. It proceeds by, first, criticizing the dominant territorial (in contrast to national) conception of self-determination. It then addresses three main criticisms of a principle of national self-determination. These are (1) the argument from indeterminacy; (2) the argument from instability; (3) the problem of overlapping nationalities.     

Elitist theory and political tolerance in Western Europe

This paper addresses the problem of democratic elitism within the context of Western European politics. An entrenched assertion of the so-calledelitist theory of democracy is that elites are more strongly committed to democratic values such as political tolerance than are ordinary citizens. The processes through which elites become more tolerant include political socialization, resocialization, political practice, and experience. Some have even argued that elites are the primary carriers of thedemocratic creed. Our purpose here is to test several hypothese drawn from elitist theory. Relying on opinion surveys conducted in each of the twelve nations of the European Community in 1988, we focus on political tolerance. Our basic hypothesis is that political activism contributes to greater political tolerance. Special attention is given to a sample of opinion leaders as a test of the elitist theory. The analysis is conducted both at the level of the individual citizen and the level of the nation state. This is one of very few efforts to test elitist theory from a broad, cross-national perspective. Consequently, the analysis will be crucial in recasting elitist theory to comport more closely with empirical evidence.     

From simplicity to complexity: The development of theory in the study of judicial behavior

This article assesses the development of theories of judicial behavior in the United States in the past few decades. It is argued that the study of judicial behavior has been relatively balkanized, with some advances within particular theoretical contexts, but with little successful effort at integrating different approaches within a comprehensive theory. Although I develop no such comprehensive theory in this article, I do argue that the predominant frameworks for analyzing judicial behavior—attitude theory, fact pattern theory, role theory, small group theory, organization theory, and environmental theories—are not incompatible and can be at least partially integrated. In order to accomplish the desired integration, there are three desiderata:

• The most general and useful unit of theoretical analysis is the individual decision maker.
• Nonindividual level theories can and should be articulated to include propositions about the underlying microlevel processes.
• Comprehensive theory can best be developed through models that incorporate influences stemming from various levels (e.g., group, institution, environment) but that ultimately focus on the individual.

Thus, theories of judicial behavior must become more complex if they are to achieve a higher level of explanation and prediction.