Services of General Interest in EC Law: Matching Values to Regulatory Technique in the Public and Privatised Sectors

All the European Union Member States have long traditions of state activity in providing key services (such as the utilities, health and education) to their citizens and underpinning both such direct provision and provision of services by non‐state actors with certain administrative or legal guarantees. In European Community doctrines they are referred to as ‘services of general interest’ within which is a narrower class of ‘services of general economic interest’. The diverse national public service traditions have been challenged both by the requirements of the single market and by other pressures such as fiscal crisis and broader public sector reform. This article examines the means by which services to which special principles should be applied can be identified and focuses on the range of sometimes contradictory values denoted by the term ‘services of general interest’, examining the range of regime types (based on hierarchical, competition‐based and community forms) by which those values might be pursued. The concluding section suggests that the matching of values to techniques should not be made according to the importance of the values to be pursued, but rather by reference to which techniques are likely to be effective given the configuration of interests and capacities and existing culture within the target domain.     

Incentives and the Natural Duties of Justice

In this paper I explore a possible response to G.A. Cohen's critique of the Rawlsian defence of inequality-generating incentives. Much of the debate on this topic has neglected the importance Rawls places on the principles that apply to individuals. I explore two possible strategies. First, to argue that self-seeking high-fliers fail to fulfil the natural duty to uphold justice; secondly, to argue that such individuals fail to fulfil the natural duty of mutual respect. These two strategies allow Rawlsians to argue that justice as fairness does require an ethos that is violated by the market behaviour of self-seeking high-fliers.     

Good Inflation, Bad Inflation: The Housing Boom, Economic Growth and the Disaggregation of Inflationary Preferences in the UK and Ireland

This article presents a comparative analysis of the determinants, sustenance and broader macroeconomic consequences of the ultimately unsustainable housing boom in Ireland and the UK in recent years. It examines, in particular, the role played by ostensibly depoliticised monetary policy in both contexts in the development of a house price bubble that has served to fuel consumer-led growth. It assesses the viability, sustainability and reproducibility of the private debt-financed consumer boom that house price inflation has generated. In the process it draws attention to the increasingly differentiated character of both government inflationary preferences and counter-inflationary performance—with the shift to official measures of inflation that exclude mortgage interest repayments and, in the UK at least, to the covert re-politicisation of monetary policy. It concludes by suggesting that governments may well not have time-inconsistent inflationary preferences so much as sectorally specific inflationary preferences. This might be summarised in terms of the aphorism: 'retail price inflation bad, house price inflation good'.     

“It is not my intention to be a killjoy…”: Objecting to a Licence Application—The Complainers

This paper explores the constructed nature of legal complaints through the adoption of a socio-linguistic model with an emphasis upon pragmatics and elements of conversation analysis. When making a legal complaint, we posit that there is a conflict between effective communication and the uptake of politeness strategies. Furthermore, how complaints are ??worked up?? in situ is a product of the arena in which such complaints are made. Through a textual analysis of the methods of complaining adopted by those who make representations to the licensing authority, for the purposes of objecting to a licence application, we show the tension between making oneself clear and being polite, and how complaints in different settings take different forms. We conclude by exploring the implications of our findings for legal processes??is it reasonable, for instance, to talk of ??consistency?? in testimony if each complaint is worked up in situ??and for pragmatic theory more generally, i.e the applicability of Brown and Levinson??s politeness model for legal processes.     

Industrialisation as a structural determinant of inflation performance in IMF stabilisation programmes in less developed countries

This article considers the impact of IMF stabilisation programmes on inflation performance in LDCs. It is argued that the success of a programme in effecting a change in the inflationary process will be influenced by the structural characteristics of the economy and in particular by the stage of industrialisation reached. The empirical analysis is based on a sample of LDCs which undertook adjustment programmes supported by Fund resources during the 1970s, and the results obtained are consistent with the hypothesis of an association between economic structure and inflation performance.     

A cross‐section analysis of food insecurity in developing countries: Its magnitude and sources

Short‐term instability in food supplies continues to be a severe problem for many developing countries. From the viewpoint of an individual country, this problem arises primarily from fluctuations in domestic food production and in foreign exchange availability. The present paper aims to establish the magnitude and seriousness of the problem in a sample of 50 food deficit countries. It also aims to broaden the scope of discussion of the food security problem by taking into account the possibility that food insecurity may manifest itself in a country in a variety of ways which depend in part on the manner in which the domestic authorities respond to periodic shortfalls in food supplies.     

The Politics of Local Government Reform in Northern Ireland

A major review of public administration in Northern Ireland has resulted in proposals for radical reforms in health, education and local government services. Although originating from the devolved government of 1999, intermittent suspensions resulted in Direct Rule Ministers taking over responsibility for the review. This article traces the influence of a sizeable body of research evidence on the outcomes of the review, specifically controversial reforms to local government, and the significant influence attached to macro political factors in reaching key public policy decisions. It also highlights the asymmetry in power relations between Stormont and local government and how devolution has simply compounded regional centralism in Northern Ireland.