THE DOG THAT DIDN'T BARK: HOW PUBLIC MANAGERS HANDLE ENVIRONMENTAL SHOCKS

Do negative budgetary shocks reduce performance in public organizations? If so, by how much and in terms of which criteria? Are public managers able to make internal management choices to limit or eliminate the effects of such shocks? These questions are investigated in a set of hundreds of organizations over an 8‐year period. For the most part, budgetary shocks of 10 per cent or more have only limited or no negative impacts on performance in the short term. The most salient policy objective and production for more disadvantaged clientele are especially insulated from shocks. Decisions about internal resource allocation and personnel management can be shown to protect core production while sacrificing more peripheral activities and capital investment. Questions that remain to be investigated include whether short‐term protection comes at the expense of some longer‐term losses, and—ironically—whether effective management under such circumstances weakens over time the political case for adequate budgets.     

‘Too Much,too Indigestible,too Fast’? The Decades of Struggle for Abortion Law Reform in Northern Ireland

In July 2019, the UK Parliament voted by an overwhelming majority for fundamental reform of Northern Ireland's archaic abortion laws. Regulations implementing the reform came into effect on 25 March 2020. Drawing on extensive archival resources and a small number of interviews, we locate this extraordinary political moment in a broader historical context. We explore the factors that blocked the possibility of reform in either Westminster or Stormont for over five decades and consider what it was that had changed in 2019 to render it possible. While the measure passed in Westminster represents a radical rupture with the past, we suggest that it was anything other than sudden, rather representing the culmination of decades of sustained campaigning. We conclude by briefly discussing what this change is likely to mean for the future.     

Framed? Judicialization and the Risk of Negative Episodic Media Coverage

Activists on the left and right have increasingly turned to the courts to make policy, raising questions about the potential risks of judicialization. One possibility is that litigation is more prone to negative episodic media coverage than alternative modes of policymaking. Using across‐ and within‐policy area comparisons of stories about the Federal Black Lung Program, collective asbestos litigation strategies, and individual asbestos tort suits, we find that coverage becomes steadily more episodic and critical as it focuses on policy regimes that feature increasing amounts of adversarial legalism. Moreover, even the broadest coverage of asbestos litigation fails to explain why victims of asbestos turned to the courts, how powerful interests constrained their policy options, or how judges urged Congress to act. This limited and relatively critical anecdotal reporting implies that litigation may engender less favorable media coverage than its alternatives and that activists should weigh this risk when deciding to litigate.     

A COMPARISON OF TWO PROSECUTION POLICIES IN CASES OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE: MANDATORY CASE FILING VERSUS FOLLOWING THE VICTIM'S LEAD*

Research Summary This study capitalized on differences in domestic violence prosecution policies between two boroughs of New York City. In Brooklyn, arrest cases generally are filed, but in the Bronx, cases typically are not filed when the victim does not want to proceed. We sampled 272 intimate partner cases declined by the Bronx prosecutor and 211 similar cases filed by the Brooklyn prosecutor. The Brooklyn policy is more costly, and most cases ultimately were dismissed. After 6 months, rearrest rates did not differ significantly between the two boroughs, although victims offered qualified support for the universal filing policy. Policy Implications Prosecutors face conflicting pressures when victims do not support prosecution. Victim empowerment and resource conservation favor declining such cases, but sending a message of zero tolerance favors filing. Our results support an intermediate policy of filing most cases but dropping them sooner to give victims a voice while avoiding heavy investments in cases headed for dismissal.     

The "Compliance" Trap: The Moral Message in Responsive Regulatory Enforcement

Simple deterrence will often fail to produce compliance commitment because it does not directly address business perceptions of the morality of regulated behavior. Responsive regulation, by contrast, seeks to build moral commitment to compliance with the law. This article shows that a regulator can overcome the deterrence trap to improve compliance commitment with the skillful use of responsive regulatory techniques that "leverage" the deterrence impact of its enforcement strategies with moral judgments. But this leads it into the "compliance trap." The compliance trap occurs where there is a lack of political support for the moral seriousness of the law it must enforce, such as is the case with cartel enforcement in Australia. In these circumstances, business offenders are likely to interpret the moral leveraging of responsive regulation as unfair or stigmatizing, and business perceptions of regulator unfairness are likely to have a negative influence on long-term compliance with the law. Moreover, big businesses that perceive regulatory enforcement as illegitimate are also likely to actively lobby for the political emasculation of the regulator. In these circumstances, most regulators are likely to avoid conflict by taking the easy option of enforcing the law "softly," and therefore ineffectively.