Foreign Influences and Shifting Horizons: The Ongoing Evolution of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

This article details how prior to the establishment of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AGIM), Meghrebis—that is, Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians and others--made up a significant percentage of the foreign fighters in the al Qaeda-led insurgency in Iraq, thus helping to build the trust networks between al Qaeda central and the Maghreb-based groups, culminating in the the 2007 formal affiliation of the Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC) with al Qaeda. Since then, an emboldened AQIM has evolved significantly, both strategically and operationally.     

Police Performance As Symbolic Politics? Public Recognition and the Value of Awards

Abstract

What constitutes “good” performance in a law enforcement agency, who decides, and how does public recognition of that performance change how an agency performs? This study uses a quasi-experimental design and propensity-score matching model to assess the impact of a law enforcement agency’s status as a finalist for the annual Cisco/International Chiefs of Police Association (IACP) Community Policing Award on performance in future years, as measured by crime clearance rates. It is found that after comparing the treated group (finalist agencies) with the untreated group (non-finalist nearest-neighbor agencies), there is no meaningful difference in crime clearance rates. This unexpected finding establishes that the public recognition of finalist status by the Department of Justice, which promotes finalist agencies as exemplars of best practices in community policing, does not impact the subsequent performance of those agencies. Additionally, the results of the model suggest that the impact of symbolic politics and social construction on the award finalist selection process and the choice by DOJ to promote the practices of those agencies should be explored. Questions are also raised as to the utility of crime clearance rates as a performance measure, and future avenues for research in each area are proposed.     

Elected or Selected? The Continuing Constitutional Conundrum of House of Lords Reform

The 1911 Parliament Act decreed that Lords reform was ‘an urgent question which brooks no delay’, yet the subsequent 112 years have witnessed only sporadic and inchoate reforms. The issue has invariably suffered both from interparty disagreement between the Conservatives and Labour and, more importantly, intraparty disagreements owing to the divergent views and irreconcilable disagreements among Labour MPs over ‘what is to be done?’, and recognition that any reform which enhanced the legitimacy of the second chamber would threaten the pre-eminence of the House of Commons and a Labour government therein. A similar fate is likely to befall the Labour Party's latest proposal for replacing the current House of Lords with an elected second chamber. Meanwhile, the Conservative peer, Lord Norton, is seeking to place the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) on a statutory basis and impose stricter criteria on prime ministerial nominations for peerages. Yet, this would still leave any Prime Minister with considerable powers of patronage in appointing members of the second chamber. This article therefore suggests that a Prime Minister should only be permitted to nominate 20 per cent of the membership, with the rest appointed via HOLAC itself, thereby depoliticising the process as far as practicably possible, and imbuing it with greater public trust.     

Richenza Tropitzsch: Das Qualzuchtverbot

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Intellection and Indiscipline

A discipline will usually become the object of study and its relationship to other disciplines a moment of concern when its borders are precarious and its definition in dispute. Law, 'the oldest social science', is arguably both prior to discipline — it emerges initially and most forcefully as a practice — and without discipline, its object being potentially all human behaviour. If law is necessarily between and among disciplines, both prone to moonlighting and everywhere homeless, it will also always be in some mode of scholarly crisis. Certain conclusions follow. Law is paradoxically dependent upon other disciplines for its access to the domains that it regulates. The greater its epistemic dependency, however, the slighter its political acknowledgment of that subordination. Which allows a positive thesis: the epistemic drift of law can carry the discipline to a frank acknowledgment of the value of indiscipline both to novelty and intellection.     

Editorial

This fourth issue provides both a follow on from the debatesstarted in our first three editions and a specific theme, thepolicing of public disorder. Alongside terrorism, neighbourhoodpolicing and the use of force, we judged as we were planningthe first editions of this new journal that we should tacklefour of the big issues in policing. Unsurprisingly, given thatthey are such big issues, there are some common themes thatrun across all of them. The most substantial of these is accountabilityand oversight, which are covered in several of the articlesin this edition. In each of the previous editorials I have drawn on my own professionalcareer to provide comment and this editorial will be no exception.In the last quarter of century I have, in roles ranging froma