The Fiscal Organization of Metropolitan Areas: The Allegheny County Case Reconsidered

Is consolidation of local governments within metropolitan areasdesirable? The "traditional reform approach" advocates greaterconsolidation to promote efficiency and equity. However, recentstudies by the U.S. Advisory Commission on IntergovernmentalRelations (ACIR), relying on a "public choice approach," arguethat formally fragmented systems can produce self-determination,citizen choice, competition, fiscal equivalence, accountability,and representation. This study reassesses the evidence presentedin the ACIR study on Allegheny County. While concurring thattraditional reform efforts are poorly conceptualized, the findingsshow that fiscal disparities among Allegheny County municipalitiespersist and have significantly increased over the past decade.These findings, taken together with those from citizen surveys,challenge the conceptual foundations and policy implicationsof both approaches. F or more than half a century, scholars     

A. Reviews: general

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STATE, POWER, AND POLITICS IN THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST. By ROGER OWEN. London, Routledge, 1992. xiv, 302 pp. £40.00 (hb), £12.99 (pb).

L'ÉCHEC DE L'ISLAM POLITIQUE. By OLIVIER ROY. Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1992. 247pp.

MOSCOW AND THE MIDDLE EAST. By ROBERT O. FREEDMAN. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991. xii, 426 pp. $59.50 (hb), $16.95 (pb).

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PALESTINE REBORN. By WALID KHALIDI. London, I.B. Tauris, 1992. xxi, 234pp. £35.00(hb), £14.95 (pb).

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Preventive detention and execution

In a series of cases decided over the past decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that laws providing for both preventive detention and preventive execution do not violate Constitutional guarantees. Preventive detention and preventive execution share a common method and goal: Determine which individuals pose a threat to society and then remove those persons from society (i.e., incarcerate them) or-if they have also been convicted of first degree murder-execute them. In each of these cases, the Court has been presented with behavioral science data indicating that most predictions of dangerousness-anywhere from 51% to 95%-prove to be wrong. This article describes the relevant data and the Court's response to those data, then considers why the Court has responded as it has, what the Court's response may mean with regard to the future role of behavioral science data in Constitutional litigation regarding the rights of those accused or convicted of crimes, and what, if anything, behavioral scientists might do to enhance the utility and influence of empirical data in such litigation.     

Citizenship and Civic Engagement: Attitudes and Behaviour in Britain

Analysis of patterns of participation revealed three dimensions of civic activism in modern Britain: individualistic activism; contact activism; and collective activism. Three alternative theories of participation were examined to account for these dimensions: general incentives; social capital; and civic voluntarism. None proved sufficient in itself to account for civic activism in modern Britain: each provided only part of the explanation.     

Breaking up Is Hard to Do: The Dissolution of Judicial Supervision of Public Services

Public services in many states have been placed under federal court supervision. In our 1991 PAR article, we examined the implications of the federal judicial decisions in supervising the Kansas City Metropolitan School District for the "new triumviate" governing public services—public officials, legislators, and judges. In this article, we examine judicial decisions affecting the same school district a decade later to reveal the impact of judicial supervision on the school district and to discern the implications for policy termination. We find that, once begun, judicially mandated federal court supervision of public institutions is not readily terminated, even pursuant to the wishes of the United States Supreme Court.