The Rise of Citizen Groups? The Mobilization and Representation of Danish Interest Groups, 1975–2010

Over the last several decades, a number of societal changes can be expected to have led to the increased mobilization of interest groups representing citizen interests. For this mobilization to be effective, citizen groups need to win access to relevant political arenas. This article investigates the development of the Danish interest group system and the representation of interest groups in political arenas. While replicating findings of increasing citizen mobilization from other countries is expected, it is argued here that the development of groups’ political representation as a consequence of this mobilization depends on the dynamics of resource exchange in different political arenas. This argument is tested on a unique dataset of Danish interest groups in 1975 and 2010 which includes data on group populations and group access to the administration and the media. The analysis demonstrates that citizen groups must overcome not only the challenge of organizing, but also persistent logics guiding the inclusion of, interest groups in different political arenas. Citizen groups have been more successful in increasing their representation in the media than in the administrative arena.     

Agenda responsiveness in the European Council: public priorities,policy problems and political attention

The existence of political responsiveness in multi-level systems like the EU remains an open question despite significant recent research on the topic. This article studies whether the European Council responds to the shifting policy priorities of European citizens. More specifically, it explores the synchronic and diachronic associations between what people consider to be the most important problems and the political attention devoted to these issues from 2003 to 2014. The economic crisis after 2008 appears to have made the ranking of public concerns and the European Council agenda more alike. However, a detailed examination of the shifts in prioritisation of single issues over time reveals little evidence for dynamic issue responsiveness. Recently the European Council has paid more attention to the issues that the public considered the most pressing problems but the convergence could possibly be driven by the intensity of the underlying policy problems.     

Experiential Learning and Presidential Management of the U.S. Federal Bureaucracy: Logic and Evidence from Agency Leadership Appointments

Presidents become increasingly effective at managing the bureaucracy because of the information and expertise that they acquire from on‐the‐job experience. In their appointment choices, this theory predicts that presidents become better at reducing information asymmetries incurred from the bureaucracy (Agent Selection Learning), improve the vertical balance of leadership agent traits between top supervisory positions and subordinates directly beneath them (Agent Monitoring Learning), and place a greater relative premium on loyalty in response to horizontal policy conflict between the White House and the Senate (Common Agency Learning). This logic obtains empirical support from the analysis of bureaucratic agent traits for Senate‐confirmed presidential appointees serving in leadership positions covering 39 U.S. federal government agencies from 1977 to 2009. Presidents’ appointment strategies reflect their increasing effectiveness at managing the bureaucracy, thus complementing their increasing reliance on administrative mechanisms to achieve policy objectives as their tenure in office rises.     

Military Socialization: A Motivating Factor for Seeking Treatment in a Veterans’ Treatment Court

The veterans’ treatment court movement is just beyond the nascent period, and given the rapid proliferation of these courts in recent years it is imperative that the scientific community understand their operational procedures and assess whether they are meeting a unique need beyond those addressed by other problem-solving courts. This paper provides an in-depth examination of veteran culture and how it helps to distinguish veterans’ treatment courts from other courts that focus on similar populations (e.g., drug, DWI, and mental health courts). Using in-depth semi-structured interviews and focus group data collected from veteran participants, veteran mentors, and court team members in Pennsylvania, we employ content analysis to explore the veteran culture as a motivator for participants to enroll in a veterans’ treatment court and engage with others throughout participation in treatment. The results of this exploratory study suggest that a shared culture serves to motivate justice-involved veterans to seek out the veterans’ treatment court over other treatment options and remain engaged in this problem-solving court, while inspiring a sense of obligation to do well in treatment for them and their fellow veterans. The shared experiences of military service and across-the-board support for fellow service members suggest that the veterans’ treatment court creates a unique environment for pursuing treatment.     

Hawaiian Sovereignty

The movement for national sovereignty among persons of Hawaiianancestry has burgeoned during the last several decades, withsome seeking secession of the State of Hawai'i from the AmericanUnion. The movement's roots are multiple, among which figuresprominently the overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani in 1893 withthe connivance of the armed forces of the United States, forwhich the U. S. Congress recently apologized. Some indigenousHawaiians dismiss the annexation of Hawai'i and its subsequentstatehood as having occurred without their independent choice.The Hawaiian sovereignty movement may be roughly divided intothree categories: "Hawaiian Nation Separatists" supporting anindependent Hawai'i nation; "Nation-within-a-Nation" advocatesdesiring a status comparable to that of American Indians; andthose Hawaiians supporting the status quo but with redress inmany forms. Steps are underway to hold constitutional conventionof all Hawaiians to propose a native Hawaiian government. Whetherthe U.S. Congress can respond to the thrust of the movementwithin the constraints of the American federal system remainsproblematical.     

Reviews

Daniel S. Fogel (ed.), Firm Behaviour in Emerging Market Economies: Cases from the Private and Public Sectors in Central and Eastern Europe. Aldershot: Avebury, 1996, ix + 193 pp., £35.00.

Oldrich D#akedek et al., The Break‐up of Czechoslovakia: an In‐depth Economic Analysis. Aldershot: Avebury, 1996, xi + 208 pp., £32.50.

OECD, OECD Economic Surveys: The Czech Republic. Paris: OECD, 1996, viii + 121 pp.

OECD, OECD Economic Surveys: The Slovak Republic. Paris: OECD, 1996, viii + 159 pp.

Jan Winiecki (ed.), Five Years after June: the Polish Transformation, 1989–1994. London: The Centre for Research into Communist Economies, 1996, vi + 138 pp., £9.95.

Boris Rumer (ed.), Central Asia in Transition: Dilemmas of Political and Economic Development. London: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xx + 286 pp.

Rosemarie Forsythe, The Politics of Oil in The Caucasus and Central Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, 67 pp., £13.99.

Wei Ding et al., Bosnia and Herzegovina: Toward Economic Recovery. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 1996, xxxi + 68 pp., £8.95.

Dmitri Steinberg, The Soviet Economy 1970–1990. A Statistical Analysis. San Francisco: International Trade Press, 1990, x + 350 pp., $115.00.

Abram Chayes & Antonia Handler Chayes (eds), Preventing Conflict in the Post‐Communist World. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1996, vii + 605 pp.

Trevor Findlay (ed.), Challenges for the New Peacekeepers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, xii + 170 pp., £25.00 h/b, £12.95 p/b.

Ike Jeanes, Forecast and Solution: Grappling with the Nuclear, a Trilogy for Everyone. Blacksburg, VA: Pocahontas Press, 1996, xiv + 770 pp., £25.00.

David R. Marples, Belarus: From Soviet Rule to Nuclear Catastrophe. London: Macmillan, 1996, xxi + 179 pp., £14.99.

Jeffrey D. McCausland, Conventional Arms Control and European Security: Conventional Arms Control Agreements and Their Role in the Emerging European Security Architecture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, 76 pp., £13.99.

Christopher Williams, Vladimir Chuprov & Vladimir Staroverov (eds), Russian Society in Transition. Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1996, xi + 315 pp., £39.50.

James O. Finckenauer, Russian Youth. Law, Deviance and the Pursuit of Freedom. London: Transaction, 1995, xvii + 237 pp., $34.95.

Rosalind Marsh (ed. & trans.), Women in Russia and Ukraine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xvii + 350 pp., £55.00 h/b, £19.95 p/b.

Jeff Chinn & Robert Kaiser, Russians as the New Minority: Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Soviet Successor States. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996, xii + 308 pp., £48.50 h/b, £13.50 p/b.

Ladislav Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation. National Identity and the Post‐communist Transformation of Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, x + 226 pp., £50.00 h/b, £16.96 p/b.

Francine Friedman, The Bosnian Muslims. Denial of a Nation. Colorado: Westview Press, 1996, xv + 288 pp., £14.95.

Yuri Feofanov & Donald D. Barry, Politics and Justice in Russia: Major Trials of the Post‐Stalin Era. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xiii + 346 pp., $62.95 h/b, $21.95 p/b.

Kathryn Hendley, Trying to Make Law Matter. Legal Reform and Labour Law in the Soviet Union. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996, viii + 265 pp., $39.50 h/b.

Mark Lupher, Power Restructuring in China and Russia. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996, xv+ 335 pp., £34.50 h/b, £13.50 p/b.

Gary D. Rawnsley, Radio Diplomacy and Propaganda: the BBC and VOA in International Politics, 1956–64. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, x + 224 pp., £35.00.

Hugh Ragsdale, The Russian Tragedy: the Burden of History. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xix + 306 pp., $61.95 h/b, $21.95 p/b.

Adele Lindenmeyr, Poverty is Not a Vice: Charity, Society, and the State in Imperial Russia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, xiv + 335 pp., $49.50.

Derek Watson, Molotov and Soviet Government. Sovnarkom, 1931–1941. Basingstoke: Macmillan/New York: St Martin's Press, 1996, xxiii + 274 pp., £45.00.

Lars T. Lih, Oleg V. Naumov & Oleg V. Khlevniuk (eds), Stalin's Letters to Molotov, 1925–1936. London: Yale, 1995, xviii + 276 pp., £16.95.

Sekrety Gitlera na stole u Stalina: razvedka i kontrrazvedka o podgotovke germanskoi agressii protiv SSSR, mart‐iyun’ 1941 g. Dokumenty iz Tsentral'nogo arkhiva FSB. Moscow: Mosgorarkhiv, 1995, 254 pp.     

Admissions appeals in 1999: the impact of the 1998 regulations and R,v. Birmingham city council ex parte M 1998

School admission appeal committees hearing appeals in 1999 will have to grapple with two main changes. Firstly, they will have to identify which of the three tests available applies to the appeal before them. The Education Act 1996 (Infant Class Sizes) Modification Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1948) have replaced the ‘standard’ prejudice test with a ‘new’ and much narrower prejudice test for certain admission appeals. The third test applies to appeals relating to the admission of a pupil who has been permanently excluded from a school on two or more occasions. Secondly, the recent decision of the High Court in R. v. Birmingham City Council x parte M 1998 requires an appeal committee to give specific grounds for their decision in the letter informing parents of the committee's decision. This goes beyond the broad grounds hitherto considered adequate and has implications for both the appeal hearing and for the form of letter used by local authorities.     

The Right to Privacy Is Political: Power, the Boundary Between Public and Private, and Sexual Harassment

This paper concerns the relationship between power and the ability to defend the night of privacy. The discourse of public and private spheres has shifted historically, engendering arbitrary and changing legal and cultural definitions of the boundary between public and private. Historic specifications of this boundary have become untenable as increasing numbers of women entered the paid labor force. Recent formulations define the boundary of privacy as an area within each individual's life. However, greater social power increases the ability to protect personal privacy because it offers the ability to define and protect the "private" from scrutiny.
After outlining the history of the shifting public/private boundary, this argument is applied to sexual harassment. Explicitly sexual types of harassment are related to the public/private boundary in two ways. First, they challenge the boundary itself, representing the occurrence of "private" conduct in the "public" sphere of work and education. Second, sexual harassment reveals the importance of social power in defining and defending one's privacy. Sexual harassment represents the extreme on a continuum of communication patterns between status unequals, and an invasion of the sexual privacy of the target.