Globalisation,workers and the northern league

This article seeks to explain why the Northern League's main basis of support now comes primarily from Northern workers and artisans. To explain the nature of the League's support, we hypothesise that a fear of globalisation has led workers in the north to vote for the party that has put the greatest emphasis on the protection of local identities. We analyse survey data to document the affect globalisation has on the voting patterns of Northern workers. From our data, we construct a regression model to identify the issues and socioeconomic factors that predict support for the Northern League. In addition to the regression model, we also present cross‐tabulated data revealing that Northern League supporters tend to be extremely provincial, yet they are convinced that global forces are threatening their quality of life.     

Racial prejudice, perceived injustice, and the Black-White gap in punitive attitudes

Conflict theory and previous research suggest that the Black-White difference in support for harsh criminal punishments may be linked to anti-Black prejudice among Whites and perceived injustice among Blacks. Using survey data from the 2001 Race, Crime and Public Opinion Study, this article examines the sources of the racial gap in levels of punitiveness. Two main explanations are tested: perceived racial bias in the criminal justice system and racial prejudice. The results indicate that, together, racial prejudice and perceived racial bias explain the Black-White gap in punitive attitudes.     

Effects of face-to-face restorative justice on victims of crime in four randomized,controlled trials

The growing use of restorative justice provides a major opportunity for experimental criminology and evidence-based policy. Face-to-face meetings led by police officers between crime victims and their offenders are predicted to reduce the harm to victims caused by the crime. This prediction is derived not only from the social movement for restorative justice, but also from the microsociology of interaction rituals (Collins, 2004). Four randomized, controlled trials of this hypothesis in London and Canberra, with point estimates disaggregated by gender, tested the prediction with measures of both successful interaction ritual (apologies received and their perceived sincerity) and the hypothesized benefits of the ritual (on forgiveness of, and reduced desire for violent revenge against, offenders, and victim self-blame for the crime). The meta-analyses of the eight point estimates suggest success (as victims define it) of restorative justice as an interaction ritual, and as a policy for reducing harm to victims.     

Autonomy and audit--striking the balance

The Data Protection Act 1998 purports to implement European legislation which aims to protect the privacy of individuals. There were such concerns about the implications of the Act for certain research and audit that it became necessary to enact further legislation to enable such essential activities to continue. Although this empowers the Secretary of State for Health to approve proposals for these purposes, there should still be a requirement that the use of identifiable personal information without consent must be justified on compelling public interest grounds. It is this that can confound those seeking to rely on such justification. There can either be too cavalier an approach to the issue, and/or there is little sense of what considerations should come into play. This paper attempts to highlight some of the difficulties that are theoretically raised by some audit activities and set out the legal framework within which they must operate. However, the key focus is on how ethical considerations might inform the public interest argument.     

The Role of Party Activists in the Evolution of the Abortion Issue

This article examines the role of party activists in the partisan evolution of the abortion issue. Previous research indicates that party elites—specifically members of Congress—and partisans in the mass public have become more differentiated in their abortion attitudes during the last several decades with Democrats becoming more pro-choice and Republicans becoming increasingly pro-life. The missing piece of the picture is the behavior of party activists. Accordingly, this research examines the changes in the abortion attitudes of two groups of party activists during the last three decades: campaign activists and national convention delegates. From 1972 to 1980 there were no significant differences in the abortion attitudes of Republican and Democratic campaign activists, and the mean positions of the two parties' national convention delegates did not differ greatly. However, since 1984 there has been a growing differentiation in the abortion positions of both groups of party activists. Now Democratic activists are consistently pro-choice while Republican activists are equally pro-life. This evidence indicates that the differentiation on the abortion issue that has only recently emerged among partisans in the mass public was predated by an earlier and much more dramatic polarization that had already developed among party activists and elites, thus supporting a model of issue evolution introduced by Carmines and Stimson in their study of racial issues. We also find that citizens' abortion attitudes have become increasingly correlated with party voting not just in presidential elections but also in House, Senate, and gubernatorial contests during this period as well as being more closely related to political ideology. All of this evidence points to the growing extent to which abortion has become a partisan issue in American politics and the key role that party activists have played in this process.     

Environmental Federalism Revisited: Second‐Order Devolution in Air Quality Regulation

In this paper we examine states' use of local clean air agencies and provide a preliminary assessment of what causes states to devolve air quality policy authority to the local level. Data from a unique comparative state survey shows that states vary widely in the number of local clean air agencies they employ and the amount of authority these agencies have to set standards, monitor air quality, and enforce regulations. Multivariate analyses suggest that second‐order devolution is partly driven by a general propensity to decentralize policy authority, but that policy‐specific factors relating to the problem and interest group environment affect devolution as well. These findings indicate that local agencies play an important role in U.S. air quality regulation, and that the dynamics of state devolution to local agencies deserve further study.     

Challenges and lessons learnt from a sanitation project in rural Bolivia

The University of Arizona chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA has faced multiple challenges involving community participation in rural development, in the Andean community of Marquirivi, Bolivia, both in rural design and in community participation. Despite successful construction of a shower house in 2014, the EWB-USA UA team experience with community participation revealed the numerous complexities involved in engaging successfully with communities. The importance of previous aid in a community with development projects also emerged as critical in shaping actions. This article discusses lessons learnt and recommendations for rural infrastructure projects, as well as the EWB-USA model of sustainable development.