The Rule of Law in Fragile States: Dictatorship,Collapse, and the Politics of Religion in Post-Colonial Somalia

The fate of the rule of law in fragile states rests in religious politics. Three defining periods of Somali politics illustrate this argument. First is the authoritarian regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in Somalia (1969–1991). This dictatorship used religion to rule by law. The regime executed religious leaders for disagreeing with the government's interpretation of Islam. Second is the rise of Islamic courts in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital city (1991–2007). The Islamic courts apprehended criminals, expelled warlords, and provided spaces for Somalis to resolve disputes peacefully. Third is the breakaway of Somaliland (1991–present). Somaliland has advanced Islamic legal principles to build peace and constitutional law. Taken together, these three periods demonstrate how religious politics transform law and society.     

THE VICTIM–OFFENDER OVERLAP IN CONTEXT: EXAMINING THE ROLE OF NEIGHBORHOOD STREET CULTURE*

Although numerous studies have found a strong relationship between offending and victimization risk, the etiology of this relationship is not well understood. Largely absent from this research is an explicit focus on neighborhood processes. However, theoretical work found in the subculture of violence literature implies that neighborhood street culture may help to account for the etiology of this phenomenon. Specifically, we should expect the magnitude of the victim–offender overlap to vary closely with neighborhood‐based violent conduct norms. This research uses waves 1 and 2 of the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS) to test the empirical validity of these notions. Our results show that the victim–offender overlap is not generalizeable across neighborhood contexts; in fact, it is especially strong in neighborhoods where the street culture predominates, whereas it is significantly weaker in areas where this culture is less prominent. These results indicate that neighborhood‐level cultural processes help to explain the victim–offender overlap, and they may cause this phenomenon to be context specific.     

The Media in Northern Ireland: A Stormont Correspondent's View

During the troubles, the role of a Northern Ireland correspondent evolved from ambulance chaser to peace process ‘Kremlinologist’, keeping an eye on the subtle shifts within the political negotiations. Now the interest of the international media has waned and reporters have to generate fresh stories relevant to the local audience, against the backdrop of an adverse economic climate. Some stories may be Northern Ireland specific, dealing with the legacy of the troubles. Others involve economic and social issues common to other areas of the UK or Ireland. Knowledge of the conflict remains a prerequisite for covering Stormont politics, dissident republican attacks, or loyalist violence. However journalists should be mindful of the concerns of a younger generation who increasingly regard the paramilitary ceasefires and peace deals as history.     

The Politics of the Strategic Defence and Security Review: Centralisation and Cuts

This article examines the politics of the October 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR), focussing on the points of difference between the main political parties (and within the Cameron coalition government) and the political dynamics of the review process. In examining how the government's core mission to reduce the country's ‘historic deficit’ impacted on the review process and outcomes, we are also able to highlight the practical results of a political philosophy that is currently being implemented across Whitehall. We argue that defence is a path‐finding policy area for a new kind of post‐industrial bureaucratic environment typified by a ‘thin‐client’ and ‘smart customer’ function that interacts with industry.     

Debt Issued Through Others: Conduits,Joint Powers Authorities,and Borrowing Costs in California Local Governments

The issuance of debt is a complicated and time‐consuming task requiring governments to pay substantial fixed transaction costs. Conduit financings, where one entity issues debt on behalf of a government, including bond pools, where multiple governments issue debt together, are methods that offer the potential to reduce the burdens of participating governments, ideally lowering their costs. But conduit hosts have costs of their own to cover and may not be able to offer a cost advantage to their participants. In this paper we examine debt issued under the Marks Roos Act of 1985, a law created to facilitate pooling but actually used for conduit financing. We seek to determine how issuers fare using this mechanism rather than issuing by themselves. We examine issuance costs and borrowing costs (true interest cost) and find both to be significantly lower for those governments that issued by themselves.     

QUEER(Y)ING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Queer theory, understood here as a set of political/politicized practices and positions which resist normative knowledge and identities, has emerged as a theoretical perspective having important emancipatory and explanatory power in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Queer theory resists definition ipso facto, residing as it does within a postructuralist paradigm. It has not hitherto featured within the discipline of public administration and we argue the case for its utilisation in this field by first explicating the theory. Here we develop a way of using queer theory to analyse data, notably through the identification of the ‘moments’ of a queer theory analysis: identification of the norms that govern identity, analysis of what is allowable within those norms, and exploration of what is unspeakable. We demonstrate its use via an empirically‐based case study. The lessons from this exercise are then applied to some of our earlier work which we re‐read through a queer theory lens. This shows the great explanatory power offered by the theory, in that it can develop insights that previously have been inaccessible. We conclude with recommendations for its broader application and wider use within public administration.     

DETERRENCE OR BRUTALIZATION? AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF OKLAHOMA'S RETURN TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT*

On September 10, 1990 Charles Troy Coleman was put to death by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Coleman's execution was the first in the state in more than 25 years, generating significant media coverage and providing a unique opportunity to assess the impact of the state's return to executing capital offenders. Interrupted time-series analyses are performed with weekly data from the UCR Supplemental Homicide Reports for the state for the period January 1989 through December 1991. Analyses are performed for the total level of criminal homicides and homicides disaggregated into two types of murder–felony murder and stranger homicides–testing hypotheses that predict opposing impacts for each type of homicide. As predicted, no evidence of a deterrent or a brutalization effect is found for criminal homicides in general. Similarly, the predicted deterrent effect of the execution on the level of felony murders is not observed. Evidence of the predicted brutalization effect on the level of stranger homicides is observed, however. Supplementary analyses on further offense disaggregations continue to support these initial findings and permit a more coherent interpretation of the results.