Ranking of United Kingdom Law Journals: An Analysis of the Research Assessment Exercise 2001 Submissions and Results

Notwithstanding the Chancellor of the Exchequer's announcement in the 2006 Budget that, after the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise ('RAE 2008'), it is the government's firm presumption that the system for assessing research quality and allocating quality-related funding to United Kingdom universities will be mainly metrics based, RAE 2008 is vitually certain to proceed and to have considerable significance for legal research in the United Kingdom. In this rapidly developing and controversial context, this paper uses statistical analysis of the data from RAE 2001 to construct a series of metrics-based rankings which, when taken together, provide a reliable and coherent ranking of leading United Kingdom law journals.     

Routine activity and labor market segmentation An empirical test of a revised approach

This article contends that routine activity theory has virtually ignored the motivated offender construct in terms of its measurement. We extend previous research testing routine activity theory by more accurately modeling the effects of labor market segmentation and other structural sources of offender motivation on variation in crime rates. A revised routine activity model is tested using data for the 100 largest cities in the US in 1980. The findings suggest that as secondary labor markets grow, urban crime can be expected to rise.     

Comparative Biography and Leadership in Whitehall

The article discusses (1) the uses, advantages and drawbacks of the biographical approach in the study of public administration and (2) the application of theories of leadership to senior British civil servants. The argument is advanced that biographical case studies - looking at the personal qualities, careers and achievements of top mandarins - can illuminate the exercise of leadership in Whitehall and the changing role and culture of the civil service.     

PATTERNS OF RELITIGATION

Two groups of parents were tracked for 2 years following their divorce: a group of 89 who attended a mandatory divorce education class and a comparison group of 23 who did not. The two groups did not differ in any assessed demographic or family characteristics. At the follow-up assessment, the parents who attended the class had relitigated (over all issues) less than half as often than those who had not attended the class (1.61 vs. 3.74). Moreover, rate of relitigation was related to mastery of skills learned in the class. The results are discussed in terms of the needs for outcome evaluation and design of education programs for divorcing parents.