Representation and participation in child care proceedings: what about the voice of the parents?

In Ireland, the Constitution guarantees very strong rights to parents and the family, and there has been a long and unfortunate history of failures to adequately protect children at risk. As a result, there has been much discussion in recent years about the need to improve legal mechanisms designed to protect the rights of children. By comparison, little attention has been given to establishing whether the theoretically strong rights of parents translate into strongly protected rights in practice. This paper presents new empirical evidence on the manner in which child care proceedings in Ireland balance the rights and interests of children and parents, including the rates at which orders are granted, the frequency of and conditions in which legal representation is provided, and the extent to which parents are able to actively participate in proceedings. A number of systemic issues are identified that restrict the capacity of the system to emphasise parental rights and hear the voice of parents to the extent that would be expected when looking at the legal provisions in isolation.     

The lobbyist with ‘balls of iron and a spine of steel’: why Ireland needs lobbying reform

• In common with most other nations, Ireland currently has no statutory regulation of lobbying activities. Equally, and also in common with many countries, lobbying regulation is becoming a more prominent subject of political debate. This paper considers the pervasive context of political corruption and scandal highlighted by one lobbyist now in jail, analyses various suggestions for lobbying regulation which have been proposed, and concludes with a potential reform agenda. The opportunity exists for Ireland to take a lead in producing a comprehensive and meaningful regulatory regime—genuine and principled reform, rather than a muddled compromise.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The offensive posture of NATO's missile defence system

A compelling case can be made to develop a NATO's missile defence system in response to the advancement of missile technology and the danger of nuclear weapons. However, this development also undermines Russia's retaliatory capacity, and consequently heightens the offensive potential of nuclear weapons. This article explores the offence/defence posture of NATO's missile defence plans in terms of both capabilities and strategy. It is argued that NATO is incrementally increasing the strength and reach of its missile defence components, while rejecting any international treaty to regulate and limit their future expansion. This corresponds with a strategy of achieving invulnerability through counterforce and utilising NATO as an ‘insurance policy’ against Russia, to be activated when conflicts arise. We conclude that NATO has the capacity to distinguish between an offensive and defensive posture by discriminating between potential targets, but it has displayed no intention to do so.     

What Accounts for Party System Stability? Comparing the Dimensions of Party Competition in Postcommunist Europe

Why do party systems stabilise quickly in some new democracies while others remain in extended flux? As a core variable of comparative politics, party system stability has led scholars to generate various theoretical explanations, but consensus is still lacking. Given its widely divergent party systems, postcommunist Europe presents an important opportunity to revisit stability's determinants. Applying hypotheses derived from theories about competition in multidimensional policy spaces, I find that they better explain variation in a 14-case sample than contending hypotheses about the electoral system, economic performance, constitutional design, political culture, or previous democratic experience.     

Why Fair Procedures Always Make a Difference

Section 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 (as inserted by the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015) requires judges to refuse relief in judicial review of administrative decisions if it is ‘highly likely’ that the conduct complained of did not make a significant difference to the outcome of the decision. The strongest justification for this ‘Makes No Difference’ principle is provided by a ‘narrow instrumental view’ of fair procedures, according to which their value lies only in their producing the correct outcome. This conception of procedural fairness, however, is impoverished and flawed as a matter of political morality. Fair procedures reflect a conception of citizens as participants in their own governance and play an important communicative role in democratic legal orders. Inasmuch as it leaves no room for these aspects of the value of fair procedures, the Makes No Difference principle embodied in section 31(2A) is pro tanto unjust.     

Northern Ireland Dimensions to the First Decade of the United Kingdom Supreme Court

This article focuses on the relationship between the United Kingdom Supreme Court and Northern Ireland over the course of a constitutionally significant period of time, namely the first decade of the Court's existence. It does this by exploring what difference the Court has made to the law of Northern Ireland, what significance the cases from Northern Ireland have had for the law in other parts of the United Kingdom, and what part has been played in the Court's work by the sole Justice from Northern Ireland, Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, and by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, John Larkin QC. It concludes that the Court has established itself as an indispensable component of the legal system of Northern Ireland.     

Unravelling Osman

The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Osman v United Kingdom , decided in October 1998, has proved very controversial. Its implications for the UK law of negligence appear to be immense. Not the least of the complexities associated with the decision is the widespread perception that the reasoning of the Court is extremely difficult to understand, indeed, that it is at times contradictory. This article subjects the Osman judgment to close analysis. It explains the Court's approach to Article 6(1) by reference to the way in which the Strasbourg court has over many years developed its case law on this provision. The article includes an overview of the way in which, so far, the decision has been deployed in UK law. The author suggests that, whatever about the actual result of the case, the reasoning of the European Court in Osman is deeply flawed, and that the UK judiciary should be mindful of this fact when considering its deployment in domestic law.     

Public Affairs: A field's maturation from 2000+ to 2030

This paper explores the development of the field of public affairs (PA) through the observations, research and experiences of two of its most cited scholars, deputy editors, and longtime contributors to the Journal of Public Affairs. We examine how PA and its practitioners have moved non‐linearly from 2000+ PA, to Public Affairs 2.0, toward a still evolving model of practice. Three areas of practice are explored in depth, including (a) how the function is managed, (b) its communication activity, and (c) how it supports organizations in interacting and engaging with stakeholders and issues. Finally, four alternative futures are laid out as possible paths along which the function may evolve as it moves forward to its next decade's end in 2030.     

Big Five Personality Traits and Responses to Persuasive Appeals: Results from Voter Turnout Experiments

We examine whether Big Five personality traits are associated with heterogeneous responses to commonly used Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) appeals in both a survey and a field experiment. The results suggest that Big Five personality traits affect how people respond to the costs and benefits of voting highlighted in GOTV appeals. Our evidence also suggests that one trait—Openness—is associated with broad persuasibility, while others shape responses to particular types of messages. In some cases the conditioning effects of Big Five traits are substantial. For example, in the one-voter households (HHs) included in our field experiment, we find that a mailer that raised the specter of social sanctions increased the likelihood of voting by a statistically greater amount among those scoring high on Openness. The findings constitute an important step forward in understanding how core personality traits shape responses to various aspects of the act of voting.     

Do Perceptions of Ballot Secrecy Influence Turnout? Results from a Field Experiment

Although the secret ballot has been secured as a legal matter in the United States, formal secrecy protections are not equivalent to convincing citizens that they may vote privately and without fear of reprisal. We present survey evidence that those who have not previously voted are particularly likely to voice doubts about the secrecy of the voting process. We then report results from a field experiment where we mailed information about protections of ballot secrecy to registered voters prior to the 2010 general election. Consistent with our survey data, we find that these letters increased turnout for registered citizens without records of previous turnout, but they did not appear to influence the behavior of citizens who had previously voted. The increase in turnout of more than three percentage points (20%) for those without previous records of voting is notably larger than the effect of a standard get‐out‐the‐vote mailing for this group. Overall, these results suggest that although the secret ballot is a long‐standing institution in the United States, beliefs about this institution may not match the legal reality.