Constraint in European party activists' sympathy scores for interest groups

Abstract. This paper presents an analysis, country by country, of sympathy scores given by European party activists from 58 political parties in 11 countries of the European Community to more than 100 different national interest groups. In all countries but one, the left-right dimension is the predominant criterion for interpreting the sympathy scores given. In Belgium, the exception, a regional (Flemish-Walloon) cleavage line is most important. The analyses were performed with a new adapted version of the unidimensional Coombsian unfolding model. Bad fit to the unidimensional model is not remedied by postulating additional common dimensions, but by identifying and removing stimuli (interest groups) that do not conform to the unidimensional unfolding model. The nonrepresentability of these stimuli can be attributed to lack of agreement among activists about the location of these stimuli on the left-right dimension. More specifically, certain relatively popular stimuli are perceived by most respondents as close to their own location on the left-right scale, and, conversely, certain relatively unpopular stimuli are perceived by most respondents as distant from their own location.     

Effects of Reducing Judicial Sentencing Discretion

This article uses a nationwide sample of state criminal cases to show the effects of reducing judicial sentencing discretion on disparities across rural-urban, southern-northern, black-white, and poor-nonpoor defendants. Judicial sentencing discretion is defined as the ratio between (1) the range in years within which a judge is allowed to sentence, and (2) the minimum number of years the judge must give when there is no probation. The data do indicate specific differences in sentencing between states of high judicial discretion and those of low judicial discretion, and the relationship of these disparities to discrimination is discussed.     

The Cambusters: The Conservative European Union Referendum Rebellion of October 2011

The backbench rebellion that hit the Coalition government in October 2011 was one of the largest Commons revolts of the postwar era, on any issue. But it was not just its size that was noteworthy. This article outlines ten points about the origins of the vote, its timing, its composition, and the nature of the divisions it revealed. Facilitated by recent procedural innovations in the Commons, the rebellion was both evidence of a longer‐term rise in dissent amongst MPs of all parties, as well as other medium‐and short‐term factors within the Conservative party. It leaves the Prime Minister caught in an impossible triangle, attempting to satisfy his pro‐European Liberal Democrat partners in the Coalition, while keeping his Euro‐sceptic rebels happy, and yet retaining enough credibility in European capitals to negotiate successfully.     

PUBLIC SERVICE USE AND PERCEIVED PERFORMANCE: AN EMPIRICAL NOTE ON THE NATURE OF THE RELATIONSHIP

Citizen surveys often measure service use as well as perceived performance, typically in the form of quality or satisfaction ratings. But little attention has been paid to the relationship between public service use and satisfaction. How do the service ratings or satisfaction judgements of frequent users differ from those of infrequent users? Is the direction of the use‐satisfaction relationship positive or negative? Or perhaps non‐linear? And does the direction or form of the relationship differ across services? Using data from New York, we examine the relationship between use and perceived performance for five services: buses, subways, parks, public libraries, and roads. Interestingly, this relationship often appears curvilinear, with satisfaction initially rising with use, to a point after which it begins to diminish. We offer some substantive interpretations of this pattern, as well as some practical implications for the analysis and understanding of citizen surveys for policy and management purposes.     

INTERORGANIZATIONAL UTILITY OF WELFARE STIGMA IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM*

The appropriation of “welfare stigma” or stereotypes about poor people's overreliance and abuse of public aid in two core criminal justice functions is examined: felony adjudication in a court system and space allocation in a jail. Through a comparative ethnographic study in which an abductive analysis of data (20 months of fieldwork) was used, we show that criminal justice gatekeepers utilize welfare stigma to create stricter eligibility criteria for due process in criminal courts and occupancy in jails. Specifically, the number of court appearances, motions, trials, jail beds, food, showers, and medical services is considered by professionals to be the benefits that individuals seek to access and abuse. Professionals view their role as preventing (rather than granting) access to these resources. The comparative nature of our data reveals that welfare stigma has interorganizational utility by serving two different organizational goals: It streamlines convictions in courts, which pulls defendants through adjudication, and conversely, it expands early release from jails, which pulls inmates out of the custody population. In the context of diminishing social safety nets, our findings have implications for understanding how discretion is exercised in an American criminal justice system increasingly tasked with the distribution of social services to the urban poor.     

人民主权原则在越南宪法中的体现

宪法是国家的根本法,是对国家制度的原则性规范,原则性是宪法规范的特点。人民主权原则,就是在人民与国家的关系问题上,国家是人民的共同体,国家的权力来源于人民,人民是国家的最高主权者。人民主权原则在越南宪法中的体现及实践还存在一些问题,主要表现为：在思想认识和现实中,人民主权原则的体现在越南宪法中只是宣言;宪法中没有具体规定人民实现监督的权力;国会还没成为最高权力机关;立宪权还未真正属于人民。     

Greening Industry Without Enforcement? An Assessment of the World Bank's Pollution Regulation Model for Developing Countries

The best comparative and overview source now available for knowledge about pollution regulation in developing countries is the 2000 World Bank policy research report called Greening Industry . The World Bank finds that there is a new model for pollution regulation in lower- and middle-level income countries that is an alternative to "traditional" command and control regulation. The new model stresses flexible norms and nonstate pressures on regulated enterprises coming from communities and markets. This article presents an investigation into this new model. It finds that the prevalence of weak law enforcement may undermine the new model's potential to control pollution in developing countries. It also contends that social and market pressures only occur under certain circumstances often not found in lower- and middle-level income countries. Therefore, the article concludes that developing countries require smart mixes of various regulatory instruments appropriate in the given state and nonstate regulatory capacities, instead of contrasting state and nonstate regulation.     

The Effects of Satellite Technology on Newsgathering from Remote Locations

Over the course of the last decade, the equipment used by news organizations to transmit text, voice, and images from locations without fixed or operational communications links has changed radically. Whereas remote real-time transmissions once required tons of satellite uplink equipment, generators, and a stable of technicians, approximately the same can be accomplished today with a laptop sized device and handheld digital camera. This sort of technological prowess was seen most recently in the 2003 war in Iraq. We hypothesize that, as a result of these technological developments, the likelihood of newsgathering from remote locations has increased. By “remote location,” we mean any place without the standard technical infrastructure (fixed satellite uplinks or high-speed terrestrial lines). Most often, remoteness of this sort is a feature of nonurban, less developed regions of the world. This hypothesis is a critical but untested presumption underlying recent debates concerning the CNN effect, event-driven news, and other aspects of the changing nature of the relationships between news media and policy. In our analysis, we find evidence of a decrease in the effects of remoteness on levels of U.S. media coverage of distant events.     

Stochastic Models of Crime Rates

Empirical-stochastic models of index crimes are developed in ten major metropolitan areas. Detailed examples of the model building and forecasting ability of the models are illustrated. Characteristics of the resulting model forms are briefly discussed relative to their use in forecasting and resource assignment in criminal justice planning. The existence of uniform underlying causal mechanisms for given crime types are also discussed from re-occurring model forms.