Caught in the Act: The Smoking Gun View of Ministerial Responsibility

While any discussion of ministerial responsibility must in part focus on ministerial resignations, finding out when ministers resign is only the tip of the iceberg. A full assessment of ministerial responsibility would look at the relations between ministers and their senior bureaucrats, as discussed in Bill Blick’s article. It would look at the impact of managerialism on ministerial accountability, especially in the light of privatisation and contracting out. It would assess the impact of other mechanisms of accountability, including the senate. The subject of this article must always be put into a broader context. This article concentrates on ministerial resignations drawing on evidence from Britain, Canada, the federal government in Australia and the government of New South Wales. When do ministers resign?     

Experiments With the Pivot Process for Providing Public Goods

Interest in demand revealing mechanisms for providing public goods has both waned and then renewed over the past two decades. The possibility of using such mechanisms in different venues than originally anticipated sparked the research reported here. The specific motivation for this paper is to conduct a series of simple direct tests of one version of the class of mechanisms. Failure of demand revelation was much more expensive than we had expected, even when compared to previous research with related mechanisms. The reason for this remains an open question.     

Criminal Deterrence: Evidence from an Individual-Level Analysis of 24/7 Sobriety

Decisionmakers continue to search for new ways to deter criminal behavior that do not rely on increasing the severity of punishment. This paper evaluates South Dakota's 24/7 Sobriety Program—a novel, large-scale intervention requiring those arrested for or convicted of an alcohol-related offense to abstain from alcohol and submit to alcohol tests multiple times daily. Those testing positive or missing a test receive a swift,certain, and moderate sanction; typically, a night or two in jail. To estimate the causal effect of the 24/7 program on the probability of rearrest or probation revocation for those arrested for a second or third driving under the influence (DUI) offense, we instrument an individual's 24/7 participation with program availability in the county of arrest. We estimate that the individual-level probability of rearrest or probation revocation is 13.7 percentage points (49 percent; p = 0.002) lower for 24/7 participants than non-participants 12 months after their DUI arrest. We detect substantive decreases at 24 and 36 months, but the precision of those estimates depends on model specification. These findings provide empricial support for applying “swift-certain-fair” sanctions to deter noncompliance in community supervision settings. This paper also provides policymakers with evidence for a new approach to reduce criminal activity among those whose alcohol use leads them to repeatedly threaten public health and safety.     

Is the Torrens System German?

Recently support has grown for the view that the Torrens system of lands titles registration, which has now spread to numerous jurisdictions throughout the world, was actually not Torrens's work at all, but a copy of a German system passed off by him as his own production. This article reviews the evidence, much of which is here discussed for the first time, and concludes that that view is incorrect. Torrens is entitled to the credit for conceiving the principles of the system; for drafting the bill to give effect to them (with the help of a circle of critical reviewers); and for convincing the public and politicians to support it.     

Production goes global,compliance stays local: Private regulation in the global electronics industry

Poor working conditions in global supply chains have led to private initiatives that seek to regulate labor practices in developing countries. But how effective are these regulatory programs? We investigate the effects of transnational private regulation by studying Hewlett‐Packard's (HP) supplier responsibility program. Using analysis of factory audits, interviews with buyer and supplier management, and field research at production facilities across seven countries, we find that national context – not repeated audits, capability building, or supply chain power – is the key predictor of workplace compliance. Quantitative analysis shows that factories in China are markedly less compliant than those in countries with stronger civil society and regulatory institutions. Comparative field research then illustrates how these local institutions complement transnational private regulation. Although these findings imply limits to private regulation in institutionally poor settings, they also highlight opportunities for productive linkages between transnational actors and local state and society.     

Churches,mosques, and condoms: understanding successful HIV and AIDS interventions by faith-based organisations

There are an estimated 33 million people living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) worldwide. While national education campaigns have been successful in providing a broad platform of awareness of HIV and AIDS, within some countries faith-based organisations (FBOs) have assumed an important role in educating and supporting local communities to reduce HIV transmission. This article conceptualises the successful characteristics of a Christian organisation in West Papua and a Muslim organisation in Thailand. The ability of both these FBOs to engage successfully with their communities on issues of sexual practice provides important lessons for other FBOs seeking to reduce HIV transmission.