Beyond crime seriousness: Fitting the punishment to the crime

This paper presents an exposition of how the factorial survey approach may enhance empirical assessments of the complex judgment principles involved in public views of just punishments for convicted offenders. Ratings of the appropriateness of sentences given across 50 typical crimes obtained from a household sample (N=774) of the Boston SMSA and several special-interest samples in 1982 are examined in three alternative ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression equations. These analyses show there is not a one-to-one direct relationship between public perceptions of the seriousness of criminal acts and desired sanctions. Crime seriousness is modified by the characteristics of the offenders and victims and by the consequences of the crimes. Preferred punishments also vary in severity by demographic, experiential, and attitudinal characteristics of the persons who make the judgments.     

The Anti-Poll Tax Movement: a Pressure Movement?

The anti-poll tax campaign has been the subject of scant empirical or theoretical analysis. One explanation lies in the difficulty of locating the campaign within existing theories of pressure groups or social movements. This article argues for the creation of a distinct model of protest, based upon the concept of a pressure movement, to explain a campaign that was single-issue, decentralised, non-hierarchical and variable according to location. Distinctions between pressure groups and social movements have become increasingly arbitrary with the rise of groups lacking formalised membership. Pressure movements are thus likely to form key contestatory actors in future years.     

The Triumph of the Non‐Idealist Intellectuals? An Investigation of Fiji's 1999 Election Results

This paper examines the results of Fiji's 1999 elections. It looks at the reasons for the overwhelming victory of the Fiji Labour Party and the extent of voting across Fiji's racial divide. The paper argues that there was, in fact, very small indigenous Fijian support for the FLP. The victory of the Fiji Labour Party instead owed its origins to (i) the collapse in the vote for the major rival Indo-Fijian party, the National Federation Party, (ii) the rise of the newly-formed Christian Democratic Alliance and the associated fall in the vote for the former Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka's SVT and (iii) the introduction of the preferential voting system. The paper concludes with a critical examination of the new voting system, arguing that proportional representation might be better suited for Fiji's specific political situation.     

Paradoxes of electoral authoritarianism: the 2015 Ethiopian elections as hegemonic performance

The 2015 elections in Ethiopia had a predictable outcome, showing an entrenched system of one-party dominance that self-referentially enacts the political order created by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) since 1991. EPRDF spokespersons continued to defend the party’s hegemony as inevitable, grounded in a logic of technocratic authority and with reference to ‘stability’ and ‘development’. This paper describes the electoral process not in the light of democracy theory but of hegemonic governance theory. Elections seem to have lost relevance in Ethiopia as a means of political expression and are only important as a performance of hegemonic governance and as ‘global impression management’ – showing state skills in securing a smooth electoral process as a major organisational feat in itself. Contradictions that the political process creates between the Ethiopian party-state and domestic constituencies, and between the attitudes/policies of certain donor countries, are downplayed or avoided, but problematic in the long run.     

Supreme Court Justices’ Economic Behaviour: A Multilevel Model Analysis

Supreme Court justices are overlooked, but important, national policy‐making players who render final and consequential decisions in cases on economic conflicts. The research question asks what forces explain the decisional behaviour of Supreme Court justices in economic rights cases between a private and a public party. Theoretically, the decisional behaviour of an individual justice is a function of his or her notion as to what makes ‘good’ law, pursued in a cultural‐collegial setting that is oriented by majoritarian requirements, while constrained by the legal nature of the case being considered. Empirically, all economic decisions made by Norwegian Supreme Court justices in five‐justice panels from 1963 to 2012 are analyzed. Our multilevel model demonstrates that individual, collegial and case‐level forces all contribute to explain the justices’ votes. These results suggest that case‐related dynamics, such as who the plaintiff is or the amount of disagreement between justices, matter, but also that ideology – via appointment mechanisms – matters when a nation's high court justices decide economic cases. Understanding the foundational assumptions and the institutional procedures is vital when transporting judicial behaviour models across polities.