POSTMODERN THOUGHT AND CRIMINOLOGICAL DISCONTENT: NEW METAPHORS FOR UNDERSTANDING VIOLENCE*

Although postmodern theory has virtually exploded throughout the social sciences, thus far it has only begun to touch criminology. This piece identifies some of the principal themes associated with postmodern thought, reasons for the current interest in it, and its potential relevance for criminology. There are many postmodernisms, but special attention is paid here to the popular models borrowed from literary and linguistic analysis. Violence is used as a concrete example to explore these issues. The postmodern critique is a challenge not only to the philosophical underpinnings of traditional and empirical criminology, but also to the basic premises of both mainstream and progressive social policy responses to criminal violence.     

THE CHANGING ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LOCAL AUTHORITY CHIEF OFFICERS

This article argues that recent political change in Britain has brought about a crisis of adjustment for local government chief officers in their relationship with the elected members. Key aspects of this political change are the break-up of the post-war political consensus and the passing of the earlier period of growth. As the ideological distance between the two main parties has widened and the end of growth has intensified conflicts, the professional stance of neutrality towards partisan politics has become more difficult to sustain. So for chief officers the crisis of adjustment has taken the form of a search for new ways of work with the politicians as the earlier, relatively harmonious relationship has passed into history.
Against this background of increased politicization, the impact of current changes on the three aspects of the chief officer role is examined: as professional adviser, as departmental manager and as a 'bureaucratic politician'. Finally, some of the changes that have been proposed to ease this crisis for chief officers are discussed.     

CHANGING AGENDAS AND POLICY COMMUNITIES: AGRICULTURAL ISSUES IN THE 1930s AND THE 1980s

Pluralists have argued that the political agenda is relatively open. If a group or party apply enough pressure then new issues should have access to the political arena. However, the theories of policy communities and the third dimension of power suggest that issues can be kept off the political agenda. Agriculture seems to provide an example where for forty years new issues did not emerge. Yet in the 1930s and 1980s pressures to change the agricultural agenda have existed. This raises the problem of how, if the agenda is controlled, new issues are debated. Traditionally, agenda change has been explained through the activities of pressure groups but this paper argues that this view is inadequate where a policy community exists. Therefore it suggests that agendas change when structural factors change perceptions and the dominant beliefs of the policy-makers no longer match reality.     

It's the government's fault! A cross-section study of economic voting in Denmark, 1990/93

Abstract. The relationship between voters' support for the government and thirteen items tapping their evaluation of the economic situation is analyzed. One data set is collected under Conservative rule and another under Social Democratic rule. The answers are first aggregated into three factors. Two are egotropic: the economic situation of the family, and its unemployment situation. One is sociotropic: worry about the economic development in the country. The impact of the first is strongly significant, and greater than found in comparable studies. The impact of the second is mostly significant, while the impact of the third is the least reliable. We have thus found a clear case of pocketbook voting.     

Welfare expansion revisited: policy routines and their mediation by party, class and crisis, 1957–1982

Abstract. Post-war welfare effort (i.e., welfare spending as a share of national income) in advanced capitalist political democracies is proposed to result from policy routines emphasized in the traditional academic literatures complemented and mediated by class-linked factors stressed in the 'new political economy' literature. Both sets of factors are integrated into a single conception of state policy-making. In this, self-interested elite and administrative state personnel respond to their environments by means of relatively discretionary and relatively automatic policy routines, respectively. Left and non-Left governments mediate these routines and do so differently in different long-term institutional (strong-union versus weak-union) and macroeconomic (expansionary versus crisis) contexts. Welfare expansion is found to be amply explained by the proposed processes, differentiated by context. Left parties and militants are found to matter primarily in contexts marked by 'Left corporatism'(or strong unions) and/or by relatively 'expansionary economic climates'. Ironically, Left-party governments in Left corporatist contexts are found to be particularly sensitive to inflation where transfer spending is concerned. Where unions are strong, policy making is generally less incremental and more flexible. After 1973, policy sensitivity to real economic growth or decline looms large, and working-class-linked politics are muted where unions are weak, most especially where they are decentralized.     

Paraíso terrenal, mujeres bellas, gente cordial: Gender Performances and Narratives of Modernity in La Sierra

La Sierra (Martínez and Dalton, 2005), a portrait of a paramilitary-run community on Medellín's eastern edge, is both anthropological study and self-conscious creator of narratives. The documentary is both globally and locally inserted, and straddles both generic and public/private boundaries. The article discusses the film's self-conscious examination of gender performances, describing the way it plays out the conflicting demands of masculinity on the male body. It argues that the responses of feminine desire and identity to the various masculine models may subvert dominant codes through (re) citation and failed interpellation. Central to the article's argument is the notion that through female desire, the film performs Colombian undecidability surrounding masculine violence.