Inter-Governmental Policy Implementation: State Inducements to Encourage Implementation at the Local Level

This article investigates how State departments can best equip Local government to implement State environmental protection legislation effectively. Research on joint implementation by the then New South Wales Environment Protection Authority and NSW Local government authorities is reviewed to explore inducements and constraints on intergovernmental policy implementation, including the multi-jurisdictional nature of policy.     

Dilemmas and consequences of prior criminal record: a criminological perspective from England and Wales

This article considers the contemporary architecture of criminal record usage in England and Wales. We focus upon impact on ‘employment status’, partly because work is often now seen as key to good health and other self-esteem indicators in the modern world. First, we examine in the context of England and Wales, (a) the development of the contemporary criminal record system and extent of availability of prior record information in terms of employment (and other licensing purposes) and (b) the factors that helped shape the current architecture. Second, this article outlines what is known from the British criminological literature on employment and conviction records and what more is needed in terms of criminological research. Finally, we consider how convictions become ‘spent’ – in particular the English approach to ‘expungement’/sealing of the criminal record according to the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders legislation.     

Revolution in the city: On the resources of urban guerrillas

Authors who address the topic of rural guerrilla warfare argue that the ability to engage in political violence is predicated upon support from the local population and the capabilities of guerrilla organizations. We examine the applicability of these arguments for modern urban guerrilla warfare. We find that the Provisional Irish Republican Army draws on individual, organizational and environmental resources, and that the impact of these resources on the IRA has changed over time. Of these resources, the most important appear to be a combination of individual and organizational resources. Organizing into a cell structure in 1977 made the IRA dependent on only the passive support of the Northern Irish Nationalist population, and a high level of political awareness among IRA guerrillas guarantees that the IRA maintains this passive support.     

Assessing policy stability in Iraq: a fuzzy approach to?modeling preferences

The first Council of Representatives elected under the new Iraqi Constitution was unable to pass legislation required to achieve the political benchmarks set by the government. We argue that the exercise of a qualified veto by the three-member Presidency Council essentially required near unanimity among the nine parties of the governing coalition. Given the policy positions of these parties, unanimity was not possible. Our analysis makes use of a fuzzy veto players model. The placement of the government parties along a single dimension based on fuzzy preference measures derived from party text data reveals no common area of agreement.     

Radical Reformism and the Marxist Critique

The mainstream environmental movement has tended to accept the continuation of capitalism and the growth economy. A de-materialization is hoped to follow from limits on the use of natural resources. Eco-Marxists have opposed this strategy, claiming environmental problems are intrinsic to capitalism. More recently a tendency which I will call “radical reformism” has been gaining strength. Radical reformists argue that a growth economy is not compatible with environmental limits. They look to regulate capitalism to prevent growth. The overall intention is for a peaceful transition within a broadly capitalist economy. The eco-Marxist critique of mainstream environmentalism can also be applied to radical reformism. While radical reformists may have some answers to this critique, these answers bring further problems.