The Postwar Premiership League

The article reports the results from the latest survey of academic experts polled on the performance of post‐1945 prime ministers. Academic specialists in British politics and history rate Clement Attlee as the best postwar prime minister, with Margaret Thatcher in second place just ahead of Tony Blair in third place. Gordon Brown's stint in Number 10 was the third‐worst since the Second World War, according to the respondents to the survey that rated his premiership as less successful than that of John Major. The article compares public and academic opinion and rankings of prime ministers and their performance, noting significant discrepancies in contemporary and retrospective evaluations. Academic respondents to the survey also provided detailed ratings and evaluations of the performance and policy impact of the four prime ministers since 1979: Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.     

SELF‐CONTROL AND VICTIMIZATION: A META‐ANALYSIS

A consequential development in victimization theory and research was the idea that individuals with low self‐control self‐select into the various risky behaviors that may ultimately result in their victimization. To establish the empirical status of the self‐control–victimization link, we subjected this body of work to a meta‐analysis. Our multilevel analyses of 311 effect size estimates drawn from 66 studies (42 independent data sets) indicate that self‐control is a modest yet consistent predictor of victimization. The results also show that the effect of self‐control is significantly stronger when predicting noncontact forms of victimization (e.g., online victimization) and is significantly reduced in studies that control directly for the risky behaviors that are assumed to mediate the self‐control–victimization link. We also note that the studies assessing self‐control and victimization are not representative of victimization research as a whole, with intimate partner violence (IPV), violence against women, and child abuse being severely underrepresented. We conclude that future research should continue to examine the causal processes linking self‐control to victimization, how self‐control shapes victims’ coping responses to their experience, and whether self‐control matters in contexts where individuals may have limited autonomy over the behavioral routines that put them at risk for victimization.     

WHAT IS GOVERNANCE IN THE ‘PUBLIC INTEREST’? THE CASE OF THE 1995 PROPERTY FORUM IN POST‐CONFLICT NICARAGUA

‘Public interest' (synonymous here with ‘common good’ and ‘public good’) is a central concept in public administration. In an important, basic sense, we evaluate the effectiveness of governments in terms of whether their policies are detrimental to, or benefit, public interest. However there are problems operationalizing public interest: it seems a concept that is simultaneously indispensable yet vague. While difficulties operationalizing public interest are widely understood, a further problem is insufficiently acknowledged. This is that many features underpinning public interest (a tradition of citizenship, stable government, a rule of law, basic infrastructures) are taken for granted in established democracies. However, in other contexts we cannot assume these. Examining what public interest means in developing countries can be useful to identify these taken for granted assumptions, and to re‐examine this ubiquitous and enduring concept. We do this through a case study of land rights reform in post conflict Nicaragua.     

A NEW EPOCH OF INDIVIDUALIZATION? PROBLEMS WITH THE ‘PERSONALIZATION’ OF PUBLIC SECTOR SERVICES

The paper discusses the role of the concept of ‘personalization’ in New Labour policy on the reform of public sector services. The analysis points to the contradictory ways in which the concept has been used in both policy statements, in the work of various authors, and in the think tank Demos, which has been closely associated with the diffusion of the concept. The correlative uncertainties with respect to implementation are discussed and related to the use of ‘epochal’ forms of argument in the justification of this latest instalment of public sector reform in the United Kingdom.     

住宅搜查的程序正义：美国最高法院伦道夫案述评

以伦道夫案为契机,美国最高法院宣示了其在犯罪嫌疑人权利保护方面的最新立场,自由主义大法官完成了"第三人同意无证搜查住宅"法律体系的建构,认为如果犯罪嫌疑人当场拒绝警方进入其私人住宅,即使合法的第三人同意无证搜查,警方的侦查行为对于犯罪嫌疑人来说仍然是无效的、不合理的。但保守主义大法官提出了强有力的反对意见,认为犯罪嫌疑人与他人分享住宅的事实意味着该特定空间内的所有权益均可由任意一方处分,第三人同意警方搜查有罪证据是犯罪嫌疑人必须承担的风险。其刑事诉讼法律思想的合理内核可兹中国修改刑事诉讼法借鉴。我国刑事诉讼法应当规定,只要对住宅享有共同权利的第三人同意警方搜查犯罪嫌疑人的住宅,警方所获得的证据就能够对犯罪嫌疑人产生证据效力。     

DEVELOPING AND UNDERSTANDING CULTURAL CHANGE IN HM CUSTOMS AND EXCISE: THERE IS MORE TO DANCING THAN KNOWING THE NEXT STEPS

Increasingly, what was formerly known as public administration is turning itself into management, while management itself is fast becoming synonymous with the management of change. These two directions meet in government calls to change the culture of the civil service, and are to be found most clearly in the Financial Management Initiative (1982), and its successor, the Next Steps (1988). While each stresses a different aspect, the core policy idea which runs through them is one of improving performance by delegating power and responsibility down the hierarchy closer to the point of delivery. In this way the bureaucratic giants which comprise the various central government departments are transformed into more adroit organizations, to the extent that it becomes appropriate to talk of giants learning to dance (Kanter 1989). This article, through a discussion of 'experiments in change' conducted in one of the largest central government giants, HM Customs and Excise, argues that teaching giants to learn to dance is easier said than done. The main focus of the article is on what giants may need to learn in order that they can become more attuned to change and it concludes with the proposition that change in central government cannot be understood or be properly managed without an appreciation of the changing context of change itself.     

Universal Applicability of Probation Risk-Assessment Instruments

A probation risk-assessment instrument developed by the State of Wisconsin is receiving wide use throughout the nation and has been recognized by the National Institute of Corrections as part of a "model system." However, this has been done without extensive validation on populations other than Wisconsin probationers and parolees. The validity of the instrument for a population of City of New York probationers is assessed in this study. It was found that many of the variables contained in the instrument did not predict risk for the sample. On this basis. the validation of risk instruments before they are fully adopted is recommended. In addition, based on an analysis of split halves of our sample, the general weakness of statistically derived models is noted.