Where Tigers Once Leaped

<正>I can count the number of times I’ve had my breath taken away on the fingers of one hand. China takes credit for two of those instances. The first was my introduction to the noxious cloud of gray that hangs over Beijing. The second was standing atop a rock looking up and down the reaches     

The Coalition Programme: A New Vision for Britain or Politics as Usual?

The Coalition programme includes restructuring public provision through reforms and cuts which will take public spending in the Britain below that in the US. This article explores whether the Coalition agenda is best understood as a new approach to Britain's deep‐seated economic short‐comings or simply as the normal politics of gaining and retaining power. It analyses the current government's programme, identifies the common features across the range of policies and discusses how they are likely to develop as they encounter set‐backs.     

Risk and Financial Armageddon in Ireland: The Politics of the Galway Tent

This article examines Ireland's financial crisis. Thus far explanation has focused on individual or collective administrative failure: the office(r) of financial regulation singularly failed to scrutinise the banks sufficiently: it was a matter of poor risk management. While this article would agree that the (mis)management of risk was important to how the crisis unfolded, I argue that an explanation of why the crisis emerged demands an altogether different focus. Put simply, after financial regulatory reform, a reconfiguration of risk in politics took place as the locus of decision‐making about financial risk shifted from the realm of the political/legal (Cabinet/Central Bank/Department of Finance) to the economic/legal (retail banks, shareholders/consumers). It was a critical development, one that mirrored events taking place in the UK, upon which Ireland drew experience, for now assessments about risk undertaken by the banks demanded that intervention could be justified only on an ascertainable risk, not a theoretical uncertainty (or spurious fear). The evidentiary bar for intervention was therefore raised, removing the precautionary instinct implicit in the prudential governance of Central Banks.     

Aggressive Patrol: A Search for Side-effects

Recent interest in the possible deterrent effects of aggressive or proactive policing raises the issue of such strategies' consequences for individual liberties and police-community relations. This study examines the latter—specifically, the effects of four neighborhood-level measures of an aggressive patrol style on citizens' evaluations of police and citizens' propensities to report crimes. The results suggest that, for most citizens, aggressive patrol has almost no effect on either evaluations or reporting behavior. Surprisingly, one form of proactive patrol, the neighborhood rate of suspicion stops, seems to have a positive effect on the evaluations of police made by young black men.     

AUTO THEFT Offender and Offense Characteristics

Few empirical studies describe auto thieves. The most influential and frequently cited research is that by Wittenberg and Blusterier who characterize auto theft as a “favored-group” delinquency. The findings of the present study challenge this conclusion. Although the majority of those arrested for auto theft are white. blacks are disproportionately represented; most thieves come from lower-class neighborhoods: and the distribution of juvenile thieves by fathers’ occupational status does not appear to differ from that of other delinquents. Five types of out theft are suggested; the offender and offense characteristics are empirically examined.     

CORRELATES OF PRISON DRUG USE An Evaluation of Two Conceptual Models

This study, essentially an extension of the recent work of Akers et al., represents an attempt to evaluate the utility of two theoretical paradigms in accounting for illicit drug use in a prison setting. Based on self-report data obtained from a sample of 273 adult felons who were confined in a medium security penitentiary, the analysis presented demonstrates that virtually all of those inmates who reported drug use within the prison had also used drugs prior to their confident. Thus, contrary to the implications of the “deprivation model,” but fully consistent with those of the “importation model” this particular pattern of prison behavior is clearly not a direct function of the conditions of confinement. Instead, while the structure of the prison may well influence the probability that those who have used drugs prod to con/unmet will continue to do so while in prison, drug use appears to be an example of a type of behavior within the prison which is best predicted by preprison socialization and experience.     

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND THE INFORMATION POLITY

Within the debates in Britain about changes in contemporary public administration insufficient attention has been focused to date upon the significance of new information and communication technologies. In particular, the operational importance of computer networks to government organizations, and of the information flows supported by them, have hitherto been given scant attention. A primary focus for understanding the current transformation processes in both services and organization occurring in public administration should be upon the role and significance of these new information flows. Informational capabilities are increasing throughout government organization and have considerable implications for the reforging of that set of organizations which comprise British public administration and for the relationships between and within them, as well as for the quality of publicly provided services. The shifts occurring in contemporary public administration can be usefully analysed and understood by reference to the new concept of the 'information polity'.