CHASING SHADOWS? PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT OF POLICY ADVICE IN NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

Performance measurement is an integral part of the New Zealand model of public management, as it is for many other modern systems of governmental administration. This article examines data on performance indicators for the policy advice function in five government departments, for the years 1992 to 2005, to determine which types of indicators are used, and to gauge the extent to which they offer meaningful information about the quality of policy advice. As part of its managerialist drive in the early 1990s, the government developed conceptual material designed to improve policy advice and management in departments. In general, our findings indicate that these initiatives did not lead over time to the further development of genuinely meaningful measures of the quality of policy advice, and that the indicators that have been used meet narrow managerial rather than broader political needs.     

LONGITUDINAL PREDICTORS OF SERIOUS SUBSTANCE USE AND DELINQUENCY*

The present study tests the validity of a common-cause model in explaining both serious substance use and serious delinquent behavior among youths. Longitudinal data on 441 male and 441 female adolescents are analyzed. Youths originally tested at Time 1 when they were 12, 15, or 18 years old were retested three years later when they were 15, 18, or 21 years old. The results provide modest support for a common-cause model. While a number of predictor variables drawn from control theory and differential association theory are related to both behaviors, those drawn from the literature on psychological correlates of adolescent deviance tend to be more strongly related to subsequent serious substance use than to serious delinquency. The findings suggest that there is a degree of etiological independence in serious adolescent substance use and serious forms of delinquency. The implications of these results for theory development and policy implementation are discussed.     

TIME AGGREGATION AND TIME LAG IN MACRO-LEVEL DETERRENCE RESEARCH*

Recent arguments in research on individual-level deterrence suggest that the effect of perceived sanction risk on illegal behavior might occur over a shorter time period than the yearly lags typically incorporated in panel studies. This study raises the same issue for macro-level deterrence research by suggesting that panel studies using yearly data might have failed to capture the deterrent effect. The analysis uses ARIMA models with data aggregated monthly, quarterly, and semiannually to estimate the reciprocal effects between arrests and crimes for robbery, burglary, larceny, and auto theft in Oklahoma City from 1967 through 1989. No effect of crimes on arrests is found, but significant effects of arrests on crimes appear for three of the four offenses in the shorter temporal aggregations. The results suggest a need to reconsider conclusions based on panel studies that have used time aggregations and time lags that might be too long to uncover deterrent effects.     

A Moral Appeal for Taxpayer Compliance: The Case for a Mass Media Campaign*

This paper examines the ability of the mass media to enhance compliance with the law by the use of moral appeals. Drawing on the moral development literature and the literature of mass communication effects, we set forth a model for designing mass media campaigns directed at improving compliance with the law. Tax compliance is the issue we analyze. While we determine that no appeal, however well-crafted, is expected to reform all tax offenders, and that some approaches are likely to produce less rather than more compliance, we identify hallmarks of a potentially successful appeal.     

After Bagehot: Rethinking the Constitution

'Rethinking the constitution' surveys the political and cultural impact of Bagehot's 1867 strategy for the survival of an elitist state in a democracy. Also looks at the recent erosion of the conditions for Bagehot, and asks what the next major reinterpretation of the constitution will be. Assesses Gordon Brown's desire to make the constitution democratic while at the same time bolstering national identity and pursuing free market policies.     

EVALUATING THE COOK COUNTY SENTENCING GUIDELINES

This article examines the empirical basis for current criminal sentencing guidelines being used in Cook County, Illinois. Unlike in many other sentencing reforms, guidelines have generally been developed out of an empirical analysis of past sentencing decisions through the identification of variables most predictive of sentence. However, when the statistical analysis is inadequate or faulty, the resultant sentencing guidelines must be questioned. Presented is a reanalysis of the original data used to develop Cook County's sentencing guidelines. Generally, the current sentencing guidelines used in Cook County are not found to be predictive of sentence. Implications of this finding are discussed.     

Rights, Legal Reasoning and Rational Discourse

Abstract
The first part of this article contains an analysis of the concept of a right, which implies a rational structure of reasoning about rights, elaborated in the second part. In the third part both the concept of a right and reasoning about rights are connected with the theory of rational discourse. The author's thesis is that there exists an internal relation between the theory of rights and the theory of legal reasoning.