PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTOR MANAGERS OVER 20 YEARS: A TEST OF THE ‘CONVERGENCE THESIS’

This paper sets out to test the ‘convergence thesis’ in respect of managers in the public and private sectors in Britain. New Public Management (NPM) initiatives have had the objective of making managerial behaviour in public sector organizations more similar to that in the private sector. Based on unique national surveys undertaken in 1980, 1990 and 2000, using quite large random samples of fellows and members of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), comparisons are made to investigate whether ‘convergence’ between public and private sector managers has actually occurred. The patterns are found to be complex and, although there are some signs of convergence, the two sectors continue to exhibit similarities, persistent differences and parallel movements evident in managerial attitudes, behaviour and experiences.     

PARENTAL ATTACHMENTS AND DELINQUENCY*

Using the 1972 National Survey of Youth, we analyze attachment to mother and father along several dimensions (i.e., intimacy of communication, affectional identification, supervision, and family activities). We test two hypotheses: (1) as long as a child is strongly attached to one parent, strong ties to the other parent play an insignificant role in reducing delinquency further and (2) single-parent homes are not associated with delinquency as long as the child is strongly attached to the custodial parent. Generally, we find that children who are strongly attached to both parents have a lower probability of self-reported delinquency than children who are strongly attached to only one parent. Further, children living in single-parent homes who are strongly attached to the custodial parent generally have a greater probability of committing delinquent acts than children living in intact homes who are strongly attached to both parents.     

Rules of Power and the Power of Rules

Abstract
The paper describes at length and then discusses critically Frederick Schauer's analysis of rules in his recent book Playing By the RuZes . For most of the book Schauer discusses rules in general, and only at the end talks about legal rules in particular. The chief message of Schauer's analysis is that rules permit, and even constitute, a particular kind of decision-making, one that quite deliberately insulates the decision-taker from considerations of what would be in the circumstances the best justified decision to take. Rules are thus for Schauer devices for the allocation of decision-making power: The effect of A delegating to B the power to decide by a set of rules devised by A is that A retains much control over B 's decision-making. Schauer canvasses the claims of what he calls "presumptive positivism" to be a theory of law which embodies such a view of legal rules. In his criticism, the author compares Schauer's view with Joseph Raz's notion of legal rules as exclusionary reasons. The author then compares "presumptive positivism" with some other recent versions of positivism and the idea of rules as devices for the allocation of power with theories of law in the Critical Legal Studies movement.     

THE CENTRALIZATION AND FRAGMENTATION OF SOUTH AFRICA'S DOMINANT PARTY SYSTEM

South Africa's first democratic election of 1994 provided thebasis for the African National Congress (ANC) to replace theformerly ruling National Party (NP) as the country's dominantparty. The new dominance was initially established by the ANC'smajority position within the postelection coalition Governmentof National Unity. Since the election, however, the ANC's dominancehas begun to be extended by a centralization of control exercisedthrough the machinery of state, notably through four processes:the rewriting of the transitional interim constitution and thepromulgation of a new constitution which, inter alia, abolishesthe necessity for coalition government after the next election;the attempted containment of autonomy of the ANC's structureswhich have been established at the level of the new provinces;the exercise of party discipline within parliament and somecurtailment of the government's accountability to parliament;and, fourthly, the imposition of administrative and financialdiscipline upon the provinces. These processes have taken placewithin a context of a fragmentation and fissure of Oppositionparty forces, which in the immediate future will only furtherenhance the ANC's dominance, despite some indication that thatparty is itself faced by a declining level of popular support.     

A socio-legal quest: from jurisprudence to sociology of law and back again

How should socio-legal studies view jurisprudence, the legal theory of jurists? Jurisprudence's task is to promote law as a socially valuable idea taking various forms in different times and places. As a value-oriented and context-focused enterprise, it should draw on the social sciences to make its inquiries relevant in a changing socio-legal world. Correspondingly, socio-legal research needs theory to link its empirical inquiries to an overall sense of what can be hoped for from law as a social phenomenon. In different ways, jurisprudence and socio-legal inquiry should help to theorize the nature of legal practice and legal experience. They are necessarily distinct enterprises with contrasting orientations, but they can aid each other in important ways.