When Democracies Go to War: Public Debate and the French Decision on War in 1999 and 2003

On what grounds do democratic states wage war? Public opinion is often considered as being of crucial importance in the decision to go to war. This article analyses two debates over war in France. It finds that democracies debate war within a limited range of arguments from which classical reasons for war such as the geostrategic one are absent. However, within the limited range of arguments, public support for decisions to go to war seems to depend significantly on the convergence of all public opinion actors over the interpretation of the crisis situation. The high politics nature of crisis situations gives the political leadership strong leverage in the shaping of thick discourses. The control function of public opinion is then diminished and a de facto prerogative of the government established even though justifications remain restricted to a limited number of arguments. Thick discourses of justification seem to be framed predominantly by arguments of just war.     

Psychological Abuse of Chinese Wives

The present studies aimed to facilitate understanding of psychological wife abuse in Chinese families by extending the generality of the Index of Spouse Abuse (ISA) to Chinese. Study 1 examined the factorial validity of the original ISA using Chinese college students. Results of the confirmatory factor analysis rejected the 2-factor structure of the original ISA. Based on results of exploratory factor analysis, an alternative 19-item Chinese ISA was devised, which showed satisfactory internal consistency and correlated with the original ISA and the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS). Study 2 aimed to determine the concurrent and construct validity of the Chinese ISA. Results showed that the scale could adequately differentiate between victims of wife abuse from those women who had no abuse experiences. It also correlated with the CTS, marital dissatisfaction, and negative mental health measures of general psychological symptoms, depression, and anxiety. The clinical cutting scores of the Chinese ISA were also determined to predict psychological and physical wife abuse in Chinese families.     

Brand Leaders: Clinton, Blair and the Limitations of the Permanent Campaign

The 'permanent campaign' is said to have reached its apogee in the incumbent communications strategies of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. However, their assiduous courting of public opinion from within office has been used to explain both the high approval ratings of these leaders and their unpopularity for long periods of their incumbency. This apparent paradox suggests that the permanent campaign model is too blunt an instrument to usefully describe or evaluate incumbent communications. Its assumption of continuity between election campaigning and office-holding fails to explain how the strategic terrain changes once a challenger takes office. The concepts of branding and relationship marketing can be used to highlight the difference between gaining support in the one-off transaction of an election and retaining voter loyalty in a post-'purchase' setting. The success of Blair and Clinton in establishing a relationship with voters from within office can be assessed using six attributes of successful brands: simplicity; uniqueness; reassurance; aspiration; values; and credibility. As incumbents, facing challenges in shifting strategic and institutional environments, Blair and Clinton developed messages that were simple and appealed to voter aspirations. Voters remained sceptical about the extent to which these leaders embodied values and delivered on their promises.     

Public Rewards and Innovation Policy: Lessons from the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

There has been renewed interest in recent years in using prizes and rewards to promote innovation. History has played a central role in public debates in the UK about the merits of such interventions, with the Longitude Prize 2014 being self‐consciously modelled on its eighteenth century precursor. Similarly, historical case studies have been used extensively in the scholarly literature in this area. However, it is striking that there has been little engagement with parliament's role generally in rewarding inventors in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and how this formed part of a broader system of rewards. The article explores how this system operated and demonstrates that it formed an established part of the legal landscape for many decades. It considers the extent to which a more complete understanding of the historical use of prizes and rewards during the key period of Britain's industrialisation might inform current debates.     

Environmental Liabilities of Property Owners: Examples of Common Risks and Strategies to Anticipate and Avoid Them

Property owners are subject to potential environmental liability from a number of sources including strict statutory liability for remediation of contamination on their properties as well as liability for conditions within their buildings. These latent environmental risks are often exposed in the context of a transaction, redevelopment, or change of use. Commonly used due diligence protocols can avoid or mitigate many risks but owners need to be aware of the limitations and pitfalls of due diligence. In many circumstances, environmental insurance should also be considered as part of the overall environmental risk management strategy.     

Internal Control and Accountability in Non-profit Human Service Organisations

The welfare state regime operative in Australia is highly dependent on the non-profit human services sector. The sector, as an organisational field, has had a series of characteristics applied to it, which assume its superiority over government in many aspects of service delivery. Nevertheless, knowledge about the internal functioning of non-profits is poor. This article presents an initial exploration into one aspect of internal functioning, internal monitoring and control, suggesting that internal mechanisms for control are weak. As welfare state regimes in Europe and North America are restructured, different models of service financing and delivery are being imported into Australia. This article begins to sketch the organisational conditions onto which developing models are being applied, providing an initial base for informed commentary and evaluation.     

Trends in Australian and Canadian Public Service Perceptions from an Employee Survey Perspective

A comparative analysis of results from the 2011 Institute of Public Administration Australia and Institute of Public Administration of Canada surveys of public service leaders is mapped against related public sector employee survey tools results. Alignment of past results with current leader perceptions shows remarkable consistency across the jurisdictions over time. This overarching coherence points to two broad hypotheses: either senior public service leaders possess a common set of preoccupations in the modern global context, or a more critical perspective would question the shortcomings of the instruments given that remarkable change has occurred that one would expect should have driven result variance. Regardless of the conclusion brought to this preliminary analysis, ongoing identification and mapping of senior leader perceptions through such tools is celebrated as an important contribution to ongoing public service organizational health.