Business–Regulatory Relations: Learning to Play Regulatory Games in European Utility Markets

Although regulation is on the rise in the European Union, the liberalization of the telecommunication and energy markets has not created a uniform European Regulatory model. The principle focus of this article is to examine the interaction and regulatory learning between national regulatory authorities and business in the U.K. and German utility markets to assess the degree of convergence and demonstrate how the regulatory relationship has evolved beyond that envisaged in the initial delegation of powers to the regulator. The article shows that independent regulatory authorities have moved from distant and often confrontational relationships with business to strategic working relationships driven by exchanges of information and reputation building and that regulatory learning and trust have evolved at distinct speeds in sectors and countries depending on the number of regulatory authorities in a market place, the degree to which there are concurrent powers between authorities, their discretion in the consultation process, and the length of time that regulatory authorities had existed. Consequently, significant variance is continuously seen in the business—regulator relationships in comparing the young legalist German regulatory authorities with the established independent and discretion-based regulators in the U.K.     

The Capricorn Contract

The following address was given by Colonel Stirling, Presidentof the Capricorn Africa Society at a joint meeting of the RoyalAfrican Society and the Royal Empire Society on March 7, 1957.Mr. Alan Moorehead was in the chair.     

EXPLAINING AND PREVENTING CRIME: THE GLOBALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 1999 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS*

During the 1990s, there has been an enormous increase in influence in criminology of the risk factor prevention paradigm. This aims to identify the key risk factors for offending (in longitudinal studies) and implement prevention methods designed to counteract them (in experiments). In addition, protective factors are identified and enhanced. This paradigm has fostered linkages between explanation and prevention, between fundamental and applied research, and between scholars, practitioners, and policy makers. It has encouraged the globalization of knowledge, cross‐national comparative studies, and the application of similar strategies for research and action in several different countries. The main challenges for the paradigm are to determine which risk factors are causes, to establish what are protective factors, to identify the active ingredients of multiple component interventions, to evaluate the effectiveness of area‐based intervention programs, and to assess the monetary costs and benefits of interventions. The paradigm can be improved using longitudinal and experimental studies, which aim to retain its advantages while overcoming its problems. Ideally, an international network of researchers should collaborate in investigating and explaining results in different countries.     

OFFENDING TRAJECTORIES IN A NEW ZEALAND BIRTH COHORT*

In this paper, we develop a latent class modeling method to examine variation in offending trajectories. This model is applied to test the predictions of the trajectory theories developed by Moffitt and Patterson that offending history data can be classified into early onset/life‐course‐persistent offending and late onset/adolescent‐limited offending trajectories, with these trajectory groups being related to different etiological factors. The approach was applied to data gathered over the course of a longitudinal study of more than 900 New Zealand children studied from birth until the age of 18. The analysis identified four trajectory groups, with these trajectory groups corresponding to nonoffenders, moderate risk offenders, adolescent onset offenders, and chronic offenders. The adolescent onset and chronic offender groups were similar to the trajectory groupings predicted by the Moffitt/Patterson theories. Examination of social, family, childhood, and peer factors associated with these offending trajectories suggested the presence of a series of common etiological factors relating to family functioning and early adjustment that discriminated between the trajectory groups. However, evidence of trajectory‐specific etiology also existed, in which the formation of deviant peer affiliations for young people from moderate risk backgrounds led to the rapid onset of offending in adolescence.     

Right‐wing populist party supporters: Dissatisfied but not direct democrats

Right‐wing populist parties tend to combine criticism of how liberal democracy functions with calls for greater direct democracy. But do their voters share that support for direct democracy? In this article, survey data is used to examine, first, whether right‐wing populist candidates in Australia, Canada and New Zealand were more supportive of direct democracy than candidates of other parties. Second, the views of right‐wing populist voters about the functioning of democracy and direct democracy are investigated. While right‐wing populist candidates turned out to be far more likely to support direct democracy, right‐wing populist supporters did not mirror the candidates. Although these were among the most dissatisfied with how democracy worked, they did not necessarily favour referendums more than other voters. The findings have implications both for how we conceive of the relationship between populism and direct democracy and the remedies proposed for redressing populist discontent.     

Do terrorist attacks feed populist Eurosceptics? Evidence from two comparative quasi-experiments

Over recent years, Europe has experienced a series of Islamic terrorist attacks. In this article, conflicting theoretical expectations are derived on whether such attacks increase populist Euroscepticism in the form of anti-immigration, anti-refugee and anti-European Union sentiment. Empirically, plausible exogenous variation in the exposure to the 2016 Berlin attack is exploited in two nationally representative surveys covering multiple European countries. No evidence is found for a populist response to the terrorist attack in any of the surveyed countries. On the contrary, people in Germany became more positive towards the EU in the wake of the Berlin attack. Moreover, little evidence is found that ideology shaped the response to the attack. The findings suggest that terrorist attacks are not met by an immediate public populist response.     

Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth: Evidence from Spanish Regions

The degree of fiscal decentralization in Spain is similar to main federal countries and greater than unitary ones. The demand of public sector decentralization is based on a supposed efficiency gains that is far from being obvious. Using a data set for the Spanish regions, we reject the null hypothesis of a significant relationship between growth in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and expenditure distribution among fiscal administrations. Nonetheless, we find empirical support for a relationship between revenue decentralization, far less advanced than the expenditure one, and growth. In both cases we do reject the null hypothesis of a nonlinear linkage between fiscal decentralization and growth in per capita GDP.     

The Strange Career of British Democracy: John Milton to Gordon Brown

Political debate in modern Britain has been structured by four narratives or traditions, called here ‘Whig imperialist’, ‘Tory nationalist’, ‘democratic collectivist’ and ‘democratic republican’. The Whig imperialist tradition goes back to Edmund Burke; it is a tradition of responsive evolution, flexible statecraft, genial optimism and abhorrence of dogmatic absolutes. It prevailed for most of the nineteenth century, for most of the interwar period and for most of the 1950s and early‐1960s. Its Tory nationalist counterpart is tense, rebarbative and often shrill. At its core lies a primal fear of the dissolution of authority and a collapse of the social order. Its most notable exponents include Lord Salisbury, Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher. The democratic collectivist tradition stresses ineluctable progress towards a just and rational society, to be achieved by a strong, essentially technocratic central state, with the power and will to replace the wasteful, unjust chaos of the market place by planned co‐ordination. Formative influences on it were the great Fabian socialists, George Bernard Shaw and Sidney and Beatrice Webb; it achieved its apotheosis under the Attlee Government of 1945‐51. The democratic republican tradition is much more inchoate: its exponents have been the awkward squad of British democracy. The most glittering stars in the democratic republican firmament were probably John Milton, John Stuart Mill and R.H. Tawney. It stresses active self‐government and republican self respect, embodied in a vigorous civil society and strong local authorities. During the ninety‐odd years since Britain belatedly acquired a more‐or‐less democratic suffrage, the first three traditions have all been tested, almost to destruction. But though the fourth has had great influence on social movements of all kinds, governments at the centre have done little more than toy with it, usually for brief periods. The great question now is whether Britain is about to experience a democratic republican moment.