Institutional Change and Legislative Vote Consensus in New Zealand

In this research note, I discuss results from a recent study assessing the impact that New Zealand's electoral and legislative system reforms had on levels of vote consensus achieved in the House of Representatives. Using a new legislative vote data set spanning from 1987 to 2007, I find evidence that the institutional changes fostered an increase in consensual legislative vote outcomes. I also provide a brief theoretical explanation of the developments and address a few issues concerning the measure of consensus used and the interpretation of the data.     

Effect of broken windows enforcement on clearance rates

Originating in the New York City Transit System, “broken windows” enforcement has become a widely implemented policing strategy. Research testing the effectiveness of focused enforcement upon minor offenses and “uncivil” behaviors, however, has been inconclusive. There has been no study which has addressed broken windows enforcement as an explanatory factor for clearance rates. Most previous research on clearance rates were completed more than two decades ago, well before the implementation of structured broken windows enforcement. Utilizing official crime data for the thirty-five largest municipal police agencies in Texas from 1990 through 2004, this research examined the relationship between broken windows enforcement and clearance rates for UCR Part I offenses. Using hierarchical multivariate linear modeling (HMLM) analysis to capitalize upon the longitudinal characteristics of the data allowed examination of the influence of broken windows enforcement across a wide spectrum of agencies over a long time period.Broken windows enforcement showed inconsistent results across the different crime types. Broken windows enforcement had a positive impact on the clearance rates for burglaries and a marginal impact on auto theft clearance rates. In the case of larceny clearance, greater levels of broken windows arrests actually had a negative relationship. For all of the offense categories, the number of sworn officers was negatively related to the clearance rates. Crime per officer measures showed negative significant effect on the clearance rates for the property offense categories.     

Local Government Policy Evolution in New Zealand: Radical Reform and the Ex Post Emergence of Consensus or Rival Advocacy Coalitions

Between 1984 and 1993 New Zealand reformers followed a top-down strategy designed to minimize the opportunity for resistors to affect the reform process and preclude the ex post emergence of a stable alignment of rival advocacy coalitions. The evolution of the local government policy debate since the implementation of radical reform in 1989 suggests that these strategic goals may be more difficult to achieve than at first thought. The quest to make local government more efficient and democratic by making it more accountable has given way to a 'minimalist-activist' controversy over the comparative institutional advantage of local authorities and the role of trust in their relations with central government that has the potential to contribute to the eclipse of the post-reform consensus and the emergence of a 'advocacy coalition structure'.     

Patriarchy in the Balkans: Temporal and cross-cultural approaches

The article deals with the history, distribution and ideology of Balkan patriarchy; the Balkan agnatic kinship system; and with the most significant patriarchal family structures. The demographic analyses are based primarily on the Serbian state census of 1863 (the first available census listing women) and the Federal Yugoslav census data for 1948, 1953, and 1961, coupled with archival and field data for the central Serbian village of Oras?ac for 1818–1975. Balkan patriarchy has much in common with similar well-documented systems in Asia and the Middle East. The Balkan situation was differentiated, however, in that this system existed both within and outside formal state structures. The patriarchal ideology shaped kinship and family patterns, as well as coresidential patterns within households. These patterns reproduced patriarchal structures, but the full reproduction of the system was constrained by economic circumstances.     

Intergovernmental Relations and the Advocacy Coalition Framework: The Operation of Federalism in Denver Water Politics

The relationship between intergovernmental relations and theformulation and implementation of public policies is not wellunderstood by scholars. Borrowing from the advocacy coalitionframework, this study contends that public policies reflectthe strategic choices of federal, state, and local actors operatingwithin policy subsystems. The success of various governmentalpolicy strategies is dependent on the autonomy of each actorand the level of policy fragmentation within the subsystem.These variables are defined, operationalized, and examined withinthe context of intergovernmental relations in Denver water politics.