Functional anonymisation: Personal data and the data environment

Anonymisation of personal data has a long history stemming from the expansion of the types of data products routinely provided by National Statistical Institutes. Variants on anonymisation have received serious criticism reinforced by much-publicised apparent failures. We argue that both the operators of such schemes and their critics have become confused by being overly focused on the properties of the data itself. We claim that, far from being able to determine whether data is anonymous (and therefore non-personal) by looking at the data alone, any anonymisation technique worthy of the name must take account of not only the data but also its environment.This paper proposes an alternative formulation called functional anonymisation that focuses on the relationship between the data and the environment within which the data exists (the data environment). We provide a formulation for describing the relationship between the data and its environment that links the legal notion of personal data with the statistical notion of disclosure control. Anonymisation, properly conceived and effectively conducted, can be a critical part of the toolkit of the privacy-respecting data controller and the wider remit of providing accurate and usable data.     

Seclusion: the association with diagnosis,gender, length of stay and HoNOS-secure in low and medium secure inpatient mental health service

The use of seclusion is controversial. Using routinely collected data from low and medium secure service provider in the United Kingdom (n = 347) this study compared secluded and non-secluded Asperger’s syndrome, paranoid schizophrenia, organic personality disorder and emotionally unstable personality disorder patients. Analysis revealed that secluded patients were younger but did not differ on length of stay. Scores on the HoNOS-secure improved from entry to discharge on all diagnostic categories, indicating sensitivity to change. However, secluded patients with paranoid schizophrenia did not improve on the secure scale or personal and emotional well-being sub-scale factors, indicating HoNOS-secure should be used with caution in discharge decisions. Findings indicate that HoNOS-secure do not capture the factors linked to the use of seclusion in organic personality disorder and Asperger’s syndrome. HoNOS secure results outline differing needs and progress in the four diagnostic groups. Seclusion did not affect recovery as measured by HoNOS-secure clinical scale, providing evidence opposing the view that seclusion plays a major contribution to delaying recovery.     

Jeremy Bentham and Equity: The Court of Chancery,Lord Eldon,and the Dispatch Court Plan

In 1929 Sir William Holdsworth argued that Jeremy Bentham wrote ‘the best criticism’ of Lord Mansfield’s attempts to ‘fuse’ law and equity that has ever been made. As the present article will show, Bentham was in fact in favour of a form of ‘fusion’ that consisted of the abolition of the procedural distinction between law and equity, the incorporation of the subject-matters ordinarily handled by equity courts into his Civil Code, and the inclusion of formal mechanisms to provide relief and to amend the law in his ideal constitution. In the immediate term, Bentham devised a series of ‘equity dispatch courts’ that would employ a summary method of procedure in order to clear the large backlog of Lord Eldon’s court of chancery. While he claimed that this project would be experimental and temporary, he often portrayed it as an avenue through which to instigate radical reform, and to eliminate entirely the need for separate systems of law and equity. However, it will be concluded that, with the exception of Henry Bickersteth, Bentham’s writings on equity gained little influence in the decades preceding the Supreme Court of Judicature Acts (1873–75), and achieved only a small circulation.     

Spontaneous acute subdural hematoma complicating arachnoid cyst

The overwhelming majority of cases of acute subdural hematoma in the forensic setting occur as a result of head trauma. We report a case of sudden unexpected death in a middle-aged woman with a history of arachnoid cyst who had sudden spontaneous onset of severe headache that was rapidly followed by collapse and death. A postmortem multiple-slice computed tomographic scan showed a large acute subdural hematoma associated with hemorrhage into an arachnoid cyst. Subdural hemorrhage is an uncommon but well-described complication of an arachnoid cyst.     

Immigrants and undesirables: “terrorism” and the “terrorist” in 1930s France

This article investigates French understandings of the terms “terrorism” and “terrorist” in the period of the late Third Republic when a series of assassinations, murders and bombings suggested that France was dangerously exposed to the threat of terror. The article deconstructs contemporary understandings of the phenomenon, showing that, if a variety of actions were labelled “terrorist”, the term was deployed in particular in relation to matters of foreignness. It was believed that immigrants, refugees and foreign secret agents imported terrorist violence to France. French citizens did not – could not even – perpetrate terrorism. Parallels may be drawn between discussions of citizenship in the wake of twenty-first century acts of terrorism and manifestations of such violence during the 1930s when notions of terrorism, Frenchness and foreignness were intimately connected.     

Political Parties and Minority Governance in Hybrid Political Orders: Reflections from Lebanon’s Palestinian Settlements and Kosovo’s Serbian Enclaves

This article analyses how minority populations govern and are governed in South Lebanon’s informal Palestinian settlements and the Serbian enclave in North Kosovo. Drawing on literature about hybrid political orders, it is argued that in both settings political parties play a linchpin role in local governance. Based on this finding, three key functions of political parties in the governance of minority populations in hybrid political orders are identified: representation, provision and brokerage. Understanding the interdependencies and trade-offs between these different roles contributes to remedying the analytical blind spot regarding the nature, positions and roles of political parties in hybrid political orders.     

He who pays the piper calls the tune: Credit rating agencies and multilateral development banks

Multilateral development banks (MDBs) have proved to be one of the most popular and enduring forms of international organization ever created, in large part because of their unique financial model. MDBs raise most of the resources needed for operations from international capital markets rather than government budgets, which greatly increases their financial capacity and attractiveness to member governments. However, this model has a trade-off: MDBs must pay close attention to the perceptions of bond investors, who have little interest in development goals. This paper explores the influence of credit rating agencies (CRAs) on MDB operations, based on an analysis of the methodologies used by CRAs to evaluate MDBs and interviews with MDB financial staff and CRA analysts. The study demonstrates that the methodology used by Standard and Poor’s seriously undervalues the financial strength of MDBs, limiting their ability to pursue their development mandate. These findings suggest that MDB dependence on capital market financing may weaken the ability of major shareholder governments to fully control MDB activities.     

Policies for Decent Labour Standards in Britain

Decent labour standards are a prerequisite for perceived justice and social cohesion. Insofar as they have been achieved in Britain in the past, it has been the result of collective bargaining between employers and trade unions. This has all but vanished in the private sector and, it is argued, there is no chance of its being revived. Upholding labour standards now lies in the provision of statutory individual employment rights. Experience with minimum wages provides some guidance on how these might be developed through social partnership arrangements. Once achieved, such rights amount to little without effective enforcement. Increasingly important for this is the use of the law and consumer campaigns to expose poor employment practices and complex supply chains so that offending employers can be held to account. If Britain is to avoid falling into a competitive ‘race to the bottom’ with Brexit, it must institute a robust means of implementing and enforcing decent labour standards.     

Evaluating Collaboration: The Solution to One Problem Often Causes Another

Collaboration has become the predominant approach to solving complex public problems. This choice, however, often is not driven by demonstrated effectiveness. Collaboration is instead chosen in the hope that a networked arrangement will be more effective than individual organizations working on the issue alone. Questions regarding collaborative effectiveness persist and constitute a significant challenge facing both public management practitioners and public administration scholars. In light of the case study in this issue of Public Administration Review by Maurits Waardenburg and colleagues, this article reviews the current thinking on the measurement of collaborative performance and discusses steps that professionals can take to evaluate the effectiveness of their collaborative endeavors.     

An enterprising municipality? Municipalisation,corporatisation and the political economy of Birmingham City Council in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries

English local authorities not only have a high level of path dependency but also are capable of significant path-breaking innovations. Conventional ‘great man’ and punctuated equilibrium explanations of path-switching undervalue material factors. Theoretical sampling is used to develop and illuminate the way in which material conditions impact two significant changes in the institutional path of Birmingham City Council – the late nineteenth-century municipalisation of private providers (gas and water) and the early twenty-first century corporatisation of public services (back-office functions, building control, educational support, and museums and art galleries). Data are drawn from secondary sources including Council documents and contemporary accounts. Centrifugal pressure in the early twenty-first century result in arm’s length companies offering greater financial resilience. This contrasts with late nineteenth-century centripetal pressure to minimise the patchwork of private providers and trade for a wider public benefit.