Attitudes Toward “Fracking”: Perceived and Actual Geographic Proximity

Prior surveys have sought to gauge American public opinion toward shale gas development. Research on environmental hazards has produced conflicting findings related to the role of proximity in predicting attitudes. This study analyzes how perceived and actual proximity to active shale gas development in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas predicts individual preferences for moratoria. We implement a conditionally parametric probit, which accounts for geographic variation in coefficient values. Our results suggest that attitudes toward the potential benefits and risks associated with shale gas development play a larger and more consistent role in predicting preference for moratoria than proximity or other sociodemographic factors. Our methodology allows for inferences related to the extent of geographic variation in coefficient values. Our results indicate that the role of proximity in predicting preference for moratoria differs based on whether a respondent resides in an urban or rural area or within a shale play.     

Reframing the role of Australian mayors: an update and rejoinder to Grant,Dollery and Kortt (2016)

Recent moves for local government reform in several states of Australia have focused in part on a perceived need for more effective civic leadership, and in particular the role of mayors. Proposed legislation in New South Wales and Victoria would expand the responsibilities of mayors in several areas, such as community engagement, partnerships with key stakeholders, strategic planning and providing guidance to the chief executive officer. In 2012 the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government (ACELG) published a discussion paper that canvassed these issues as well as the way in which mayors are elected. That paper elicited a strongly adverse critique by Grant, Dollery and Kortt, now published as an article in this issue of Local Government Studies. Regrettably their critique failed to offer a constructive contribution to the debate sought by ACELG, and the article contains a number of significant errors and misleading statements that demand a response.     

Rationalizing pay inequity: women engineers,pervasive patriarchy and the neoliberal chimera

This article argues that neoliberalism with its pervasive patriarchy and co-option of feminism, renders women tacitly complicit in gendered pay inequalities. We show that in New Zealand, one of the world’s most neoliberal nations, women who might precisely be best equipped to argue for equal pay – engineers – do not do so because neoliberalism makes many feel responsible for, and accepting of, their lower salaries. In interviews and focus groups, many women engineers talk of deserving less pay than men because of their ‘choices’, their ‘personality’ and their lack of ‘responsibility’. In a disempowering environment, some women show agency by disavowing gender as a reason for the pay gap. Such narratives of individualized shortcomings reduce hope of collective action that might uncover and dismantle the systemic causes of pay inequity, which are not due to a woman’s choice or personality but rather what we frame as the neoliberal chimera.     

Citizen oversight of independent police services: Bifurcated accountability,regulation creep,and lesson learning

By examining developments in England and Wales this article considers police reform in the context of the tension between operational independence and citizen oversight. The article assesses the nexus between regulation and accountability in order to shed light on how a bifurcated accountability paradigm has protected police autonomy. Particular significance is attached to the cold‐blooded police shooting of an innocent man as a critical moment in the recent history of police governance. The lesson‐learning strategy of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, created under the Police Reform Act 2002, is singled out as an important driver of police reform. Although police governance reform in England and Wales is context specific, it is held that appreciation of the regulation accountability nexus and complaints as lesson‐learning opportunities are of significance in other jurisdictions and sectors.     

Anthony King and the United States

Anthony King was a keen follower of American politics. His writings on the subject combined his respect for democratic practices with a strong concern for deliberation in governance. These concerns, familiar from his writings on the UK, caused him to worry that American politicians campaigned too much and governed too little.     

Housing prices and wealth inequality in Western Europe

Abstract

Comparative political economy (CPE) has robustly examined the political and institutional determinants of income inequality. However, the study of wealth, which is more unequally distributed than income, has been largely understudied within CPE. Using new data from the World Income Database (WID), this article examines how economic, political and institutional dynamics shape wealth-to-income ratios within Western European and OECD countries. It is found that the political and institutional determinants that affect income inequality have no short- or long-run effects on the wealth-to-income ratio. Rather, the rise in wealth-to-income ratios is driven by rising housing prices, as well as price changes in other financial assets, not home ownership or national saving rates. The article concludes by examining how the changing dynamics of housing prices and wealth inequality will increasingly shape intergenerational – and associated class-based – political conflict in Western Europe.     

Towards an Acceptable Level of Violence: Institutional Lessons From Northern Ireland

Institutional and economic development has recently returned to the forefront of economic analysis. The use of case studies (both historical and contemporary) has been important in this revival. Likewise, it has been argued recently by economic methodologists that historical context provides a kind of “laboratory” for the researcher interested in real world economic phenomena. Counterterrorism economics, in contrast with much of the rest of the literature on terrorism, has all too rarely drawn upon detailed contextual case studies. This article seeks to help remedy this problem. Archival evidence, including previously unpublished material on the DeLorean case, is an important feature of this article. The article examines how an inter-related strategy, which traded-off economic, security, and political considerations, operated during the Troubles. Economic repercussions of this strategy are discussed. An economic analysis of technical and organizational change within paramilitarism is also presented. A number of institutional lessons are discussed including: the optimal balance between carrot versus stick, centralization relative to decentralization, the economics of intelligence operations, and tit-for-tat violence. While existing economic models are arguably correct in identifying benefits from politico-economic decentralization, they downplay the element highlighted by institutional analysis.     

Yeager,M. P. and Carter,C. (Eds) (2012). Pacts and Alliances in History. Diplomatic Strategy and the Politics of Coalitions

This article disputes the assertions of the new Reagan literature. Drawing upon radio broadcasts, speeches, correspondences, and documents from his presidential library, as well as recently published diaries from his White House years, it argues that Ronald Reagan had no grand strategy in the years 1976–1984. Indeed, throughout this period, he possessed two less-than-grand strategies I label “peace through strength” and “a crusade for freedom.” Each of these contained its own respective set of goals and employed its own corresponding set of tactics. Yet there was no grand strategy for ending the Cold War.     

An Evaluation of Standardized Software for Processing GC/MS Data from Different Vendors' Instruments in a Forensic Laboratory

Forensic science laboratories perform analyses on a variety of materials using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Instruments from different vendors may be used, requiring analysts to be proficient in the use of multiple proprietary software packages for collecting and processing data. There is no standardized GC/MS software available that can acquire data from different vendors' instruments. However, there are third‐party processing software products that can import data files in different formats. The Centre of Forensic Sciences compared the data processing performance of one such product, ACD/MS Manager Suite, with three instrument vendors' software used for casework analysis. This product was tested for its compatibility with the existing software, its capability to load and present data, and to initiate searches of commercial libraries. The study shows that the MS Manager module provides a means for the forensic analyst to view, process, and report on data from different sources in one software package.