Liberal Justifications for Local Government in Britain: The Triumph of Expediency over Ethics

It is shown in this article how theories justifying local government in Britain are largely based on the expedience of providing administrative efficiency or stable democracy for the central state rather than ethical grounds that justify local government as an independent entity in its own right. The article critically reviews the development of theories justifying local government within Britain and argues that it is possible on the basis of Mill's arguments within On Liberty to establish a strong ethical justification for local government. It is shown how Mill did not develop this line of thought but established substantive arguments concerning the value of local government for securing a stable liberal democracy and how successive mainstream theorists have modified but not substantially departed from this approach.     

Opinion Taking within Friendship Networks

Communication within friendship networks can provide gains in efficiency that help individuals enrich their understanding of politics. Through two panel survey experiments, we demonstrate that the dissemination of an individual's opinion about the hazards posed by public policies can have both durable and significant effects on the policy judgments of friends. These effects are conditioned by both the content of the communication and the recipient's level of political awareness. Opinions emphasizing potential risks carry more weight than those that attempt to alleviate concerns about potential risks. Moreover, opinion transmission is more effective for subjects who are less politically aware when policy issues are salient; but when the political issue is more esoteric, friends who are more politically aware evidence greater opinion change.     

Electoral turnout and income redistribution by the state: A cross-national analysis of the developed democracies

Abstract.  This article explores the sources of variation in state redistribution across 13 developed democracies over the period 1979–2000, drawing upon data from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the Luxembourg Income Study and the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. The discussion begins with the median voter hypothesis, which predicts that the extent of state redistribution in a country will be positively related to the degree of pre-government inequality. In seeking to extend the median voter approach, the article takes into account two additional variables: the level of electoral turnout and the degree to which turnout is skewed by income. The analysis confirms that pre-government inequality is indeed positively related to state redistribution. However, the predictive power of the median voter approach is significantly improved when account is taken of the level of electoral turnout and the extent to which the turnout rate reflects an income skew – variables that are themselves related. The link between turnout and redistribution is especially strong for social transfers as opposed to taxes, and for the lower and middle, as opposed to the upper, part of the income spectrum.     

More Flies with Honey: Positive Economic Linkage in German Ostpolitik from Bismarck to Kohl

The existing literature on economic sanctions has rarely addressed the key question of comparing the effectiveness of positive and negative sanctions. It is the contention of this study that positive sanctions can potentially be more effective, even in cases where contentious "high politics" issues are being negotiated, relations between the states concerned are tense and militarized, and the state being targeted with sanctions has substantial military power. This assertion will be tested in a set of case studies drawn from German-Polish and German-Russian/Soviet relations from the nineteenth century to the present. It will be shown that positive sanctions can be used effectively, both as "specific" sanctions to influence a target state on one particular issue, and as "general" sanctions, which aim to change the state's behavior as a whole in a more slow and subtle process.     

Shifting priorities at the Health Protection Branch: challenges to the regulatory process

Abstract: The Health Protection Branch (hpb ) of Health Canada has recently undergone considerable policy and organizational renewal, with numerous and broad‐ranging implications for the evaluation of drug product safety and efficacy. From a public‐health perspective, however, the criteria used to develop organizational and policy change at the hpb have provided a sub‐optimal basis for reform, due primarily to the many forms of market failure to which the regulation of pharmaceuticals is subject. For example, thepartnership andefficiency criteria that guided policy renewal have led to the transfer of important responsibilities to partners, with the potential for either a conflict of interest or inadequate information, for which the legal basis is not always clear. The resulting realignment of the hpb's roles and responsibilities may be characterized as leading to a shift from a comprehensive approach to public‐health protection to one based on strategic risk management, with responsibilities dispersed among government, industry, academia and consumers. The rebalancing of goals in the redesign of the regulatory process suggests a change in the role of the state in the context of public‐health protection and highlights issues of concern to the public interest that may not be fully recognized as deregulation occurs in other sectors of the economy. Sommaire: La Direction générale de la protection de la santé (dgps ) de Santé Canada vient de subir un vaste remaniement de politiques et d'organisation qui entraîne de nombreuses et profondes répercussions sur l'évaluation de la sûreté et de l'efficacité des produits pharmaceutiques. Cependant, du point de vue de la santé publique, les critères auxquels on a fait appel pour modifier les politiques et l'organisation de la dgps n'ont permis qu'une base de réforme sous‐optimale, à cause surtout des nom‐breux genres de défaillance du marché qui affligent la réglementation des produits pharmaceutiques. Par exemple, les critières depurtenariat etd'efficacité qui ont guidé le remaniement des politiques ont amené le transfert d'importantes responsabilites à des partenaires moyennant le risque de. conflit d'intérêts ou d'informations inadéqaates, sans pour autant assurer une base juridique Claire. On pourrait donc dire que cette réorientation des rôles et responsabilités de la dgps fait que l'on passe d'une approche globale en matière de protection de la santéà une gestion stratégique du risque, la responsabilité en étant dispersée parmi le gouvernement, l'industrie, les milieux universitaires et les consommateurs. Le rééquilibrage des objectifs dans le remaniement du processus de réglementation suggère une évolution du rôle de l'État en ce qui concerne la protection de la santé publique; il met aussi en relief des questions d'intérêt public qui n'ont peut‐être pas été reconnues alors que la déréglementation prend lieu dans d'autres secteurs économiques.     

Some models of academic corruption

The paper notes that while much work has been done in the past on corruption in government and business, relatively little attention has been devoted to corruption in academic institutions. The principal forms of academic corruption are plagiarism and various forms of cheating, research fraud and financial fraud. Two simple mathematical models are proposed for exploring the motivations for (1) plagiarism, which is essentially a solitary crime, and (2) bribery. The responsiveness of the demand for the first of these, and the demand for and supply of the second to changes in underlying parameters are explored.