Tuvalu and You: The Monarch,the United Kingdom and the Realms

The government plans to amend the royal succession rules by making primogeniture gender blind and ending marriage to a Roman Catholic spouse as a disqualification for succession. Achieving these goals means that the UK is dependent on the agreement of the fifteen Commonwealth countries—the ‘realms’—that also have the Queen as head of state. The article questions whether these proposals go far enough when leaving intact other religious discriminatory rules hostile to Catholics and all others who cannot be in communion with the Church of England. It is maintained that a political disinclination to address and, as necessary, challenge the real as opposed to the formal position of the Church of England vitiates the government's approach. Moreover, it is asked whether the policy process itself should not become more open and democratic both within the UK and between the realms.     

A RACE TO THE BOTTOM? EXPLORING VARIATIONS IN EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS IN THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR

This paper presents findings of a study examining state‐voluntary sector inter‐organizational relationships, and the capacity of third‐sector organizations to exercise autonomy over employment matters in this relationship. The aim is to provide insights into an under‐researched area of the inter‐organizational literature, especially in relation to its employment implications. In doing so, it reveals how, as with broader studies of inter‐organizational relations, state‐voluntary sector relations are not homogenous and therefore lead to differing implications for employment. In particular, three Types of voluntary organization emerge, employing, with varying degrees of success, various strategies to protect the terms and conditions of their employees in the face of cost‐cutting pressures from funding bodies. As industrialized countries increasingly turn to the third sector for the provision of social services, it argues that even for the strongest of these organizations, there are long‐term risks for staff morale and therefore quality of care provided by the sector if organizations fail to manage these external pressures from funders.     

DECENTRALIZING HEALTH SERVICES IN THE UK: A NEW CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Decentralization is a central plank of current government health policy. However, it is possible to discern both centralist and decentralist movements in the UK. This paper examines existing frameworks of decentralization in relation to identifying whether policy is decentralist or not and identifies a number of problems that limit their value. Key problems relate to the way decentralization is conceptualized and defined. Existing frameworks are also highly contextualized and are therefore of limited value when applied in different contexts. The paper then presents a new framework which, it is argued, provides a more useful way of examining centralization and decentralization by providing a way of categorizing policies and actions and avoids the problems of being contextually constrained. The paper ends with a discussion of how the framework can be applied in a health context and shows how this framework helps avoid the problems found in previous discussions of decentralization.     

EMBRYONIC ASSOCIATIONALISM: NEW LABOUR AND URBAN GOVERNANCE

This article considers the role of ideas in New Labour’s approach to the governance of urban regeneration and characterizes this approach as ‘embryonic associationalism’. This approach contrasts with the economic rationalism of previous Conservative governments and leads to a more determined effort to empower local community groups within the policy process. We analyse the effects of this shift in approach in practice through a comparative case study of changing patterns of governance in different areas of the English city of Sheffield over a ten‐year period. We conclude that while other factors are important in shaping the nature of community empowerment, New Labour’s approach has promoted a political environment in which it is increasingly difficult for local state actors to ignore the voice of local communities. However, while we refer to this as ‘New Labour’s approach’, we are clear that this relates to a tradition of ideas that is far from new in Labour thought.     

DO NEIGHBORHOODS GENERATE FEAR OF CRIME? AN EMPIRICAL TEST USING THE BRITISH CRIME SURVEY*

For a long time, criminologists have contended that neighborhoods are important determinants of how individuals perceive their risk of criminal victimization. Yet, despite the theoretical importance and policy relevance of these claims, the empirical evidence base is surprisingly thin and inconsistent. Drawing on data from a national probability sample of individuals, linked to independent measures of neighborhood demographic characteristics, visual signs of physical disorder, and reported crime, we test four hypotheses about the mechanisms through which neighborhoods influence fear of crime. Our large sample size, analytical approach, and the independence of our empirical measures enable us to overcome some of the limitations that have hampered much previous research into this question. We find that neighborhood structural characteristics, visual signs of disorder, and recorded crime all have direct and independent effects on individual‐level fear of crime. Additionally, we demonstrate that individual differences in fear of crime are strongly moderated by neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics; between‐group differences in expressed fear of crime are both exacerbated and ameliorated by the characteristics of the areas in which people live.