On either side of a moat? Elite and mass attitudes towards right and wrong

This article develops a cognitive institutionalist account of mass and elite evaluations of political ethics, which is tested on a new dataset from the United Kingdom. The analysis explores the extent of contemporary disagreement among British political elites and those they represent by comparing responses to questions asked in a representative survey of the public with similar questions asked of incumbent MPs and parliamentary candidates. There are systematic differences between members of the public, candidates and MPs at both aggregate and individual levels – differences which can be accounted for with reference to the framing effects of Parliament as an institution. Candidates for parliamentary office display significantly more tolerance of ethically dubious behaviour than other members of the public. Within the elite category, elected MPs exhibit more permissive ethical standards than those candidates who are unsuccessful.     

The New Aerospace Diplomacy: Reconstructing Post-Cold War US-Russian Economic Relations

Post-Cold War U.S.-Russian diplomacy reveals the increased importance of new diplomatic actors and processes, whilst underscoring the continued key role of state-state negotiation in reconstructing the bilateral relationship between the United States and post-Soviet Russia. The Clinton administration and Yeltsin government negotiated measures to promote political stability, democratization, and conversion to a neoliberal market economy in Russia, a centrepiece of which was the integration of Russia’s globally competitive aerospace sector into the global production chain. Establishing the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, a top-level binational economic and technology policy committee, and signing a bilateral trade liberalization treaty on commercial satellite launch services paved the way for public-public and public-private bilateral space cooperation, and for major private joint ventures between US and Russian aerospace firms.     

Crossing the Organizational Void: The Limits of Agency Theory in the Analysis of Regulatory Control

This article critically examines the key assumptions of the positive theory of political control. The authors argue that the key assumptions of the theory are flawed and that these flaws seriously limit the importance of much research in the field of regulatory studies. The authors develop a set of new assumptions which would reorient the regulatory studies and force researchers to give greater attention to the role of the bureaucracy in political-bureaucratic relations.     

EXTENDING SOCIAL DISORGANIZATION THEORY: MODELING THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN COHESION,DISORDER, AND FEAR*

In this study, we build on recent social disorganization research, estimating models of the relationships between disorder, burglary, cohesion, and fear of crime using a sample of neighborhoods from three waves of the British Crime Survey. The results indicate that disorder has an indirect effect on burglary through fear and neighborhood cohesion. Although cohesion reduces disorder, nonrecursive models show that disorder also reduces cohesion. Part of the effect of disorder on cohesion is mediated by fear. Similar results are obtained in nonrecursive burglary models. Together, the results suggest a feedback loop in which decreases in neighborhood cohesion increase crime and disorder, increasing fear, in turn, further decreasing cohesion.     

Restructuring Justice in Russia: A New Era of Challenges

This paper reviews the criminal justice system in Russia from historical and contemporary perspectives. The realities of greater liberalization and the dissolution of the Central Soviet Government will have a significant impact of the future criminal justice program. Based on a criminal justice delegation including meetings with Soviet criminal justice participants, it is argued that the Soviet will likely lean toward incorporating a more continental crime reduction ideology instead of a Western-style Common Law that emphasizes legal process rather than crime reduction.     

HYBRIDS AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITIES: COMPARING UK REFORMS IN HEALTHCARE,BROADCASTING AND POSTAL SERVICES

Many countries use state‐owned, for‐profit, and third sector organizations to provide public services, generating ‘hybrid’ organizational forms. This article examines how the hybridization of organizations in the public sector is influenced by interaction between regulatory change and professional communities. It presents qualitative data on three areas of the UK public sector that have undergone marketization: healthcare, broadcasting, and postal services. Implementation of market‐based reform in public sector organizations is shaped by sector‐specific differences in professional communities, as these groups interact with reform processes. Sectoral differences in communities include their power to influence reform, their persistence despite reform, and their alignment with the direction of change or innovation. Equally, the dynamics of professional communities can be affected by reform. Policymakers need to take account of the ways that implementation of hybrid forms interacts with professional communities, including risk of disrupting existing relationships based on communities that contribute to learning.