The Global Reproduction of American Politics

The process of economic transnationalization and liberalization that has accelerated in recent years has a corollary in the political sphere. One of the political areas that has been transformed under neoliberalism is the organization and management of election campaigns. Political consultants from the United States and other leading industrialized states have been hired as campaign managers or experts in elections held in Russia, Israel, Britain, Germany, Mexico, Argentina, Canada, and a host of other countries. Part of this newly transnationalized electioneering mode involves the employment of specialists from the commercial sector who are skilled in the use of new communication and information/media technologies and techniques and in modern fund-raising methods. Encouraged and supported by increasing corporate financing, campaign managers have begun to standardize and make greater media spectacles of the process of electing a nation's political representatives, using campaigning styles and procedures that largely originated in the United States. A weakening of political parties and citizen activism in the formal political process and a deemphasis on major governing issues are among the changes observed, along with greater attention given to voter surveillance and profiling, opposition research, focus groups and polling, symbolic manipulation, and media-oriented construction of candidate personalities.     

Political Training and Attitudes of Taiwan's Police Recruits

This article investigates police training and attitudes in Taiwan by means of inverviews with educators and students and a questionnaire administered to a random sample of police recruits (N=316). Police recruits in Taiwan are disproportionately rural and Taiwanese in origin; they are children of poorly educated parents whose status is perceived to be low. Today, police recruits are trained in two institutions on Taiwan: the Provincial Police Academy, comparable to a police administration program in a junior college or an extended pre-service program; and the Central Police College, comparable to a four-year, liberal arts institution in the United States.

Most recruits were found to believe they could be highly efficacious and to be supportive of the basic rules of Taiwan's political game. They showed less support for political tolerance and competition, and one-third were cynical toward governing authorities. The site of education appeared to be a major factor in producing differences in attitudes. Recruits trained at the academy were more tolerant and accepting of competition, and they were less cynical; those trained in the regular, four-year program were the reverse. Elite police officers and staff tend to be drawn from the latter institution, and line police officers from the former. These findings suggest that the higher education of police has had consequences in Taiwan different from those observed in the U.S. The findings also bear on Taiwan's security in an increasingly precarious environment     

PARENTAL MANAGEMENT: MEDIATOR OF THE EFFECT OF SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS ON EARLY DELINQUENCY *

This study used structural equation modeling with longitudinal data from the Oregon Youth Study to test the hypothesis that the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on delinquency in early adolescence would be mediated entirely by parental management skills. SES was measured by parental education and occupation when the son was in the fourth grade, parental management skills during the sixth grade, and delinquency during the seventh grade. The hypothesis was supported: The direct effect of SES on delinquency was not significant after controlling for parental management, which was modeled as a second-order factor consisting of parental monitoring and discipline. Implications are discussed for theories of delinquency and for delinquency prevention and treatment.     

Implications of Successful Career Paths of Top Local Government Finance Managers

Little is known about successful local government financial management careers and their implications for organizations. This study identifies three levels of career success—top managers, aspirants, and the plateaued status—and how these groups differ on important personal and professional characteristics. Findings reveal that top managers differ in important ways from aspirants and the plateaued. Furthermore, top managers hired from outside the organization pay more attention to the financial viability of the organization and are more willing to innovate financially than those promoted from within. Results have implications for professionals, their employing organizations, educators, and the ethics of government finance.     

THE PARADOX OF POLICY DIVERSITY IN A UNITARY STATE: COMMUNITY CARE IN BRITAIN

Studies of policy-making and management in health and related fields have generally been confined to England even when professing to embrace Britain or the United Kingdom. The assumption of a unitary state in which the policy lead is given by Westminster/Whitehall is shown to be grossly misleading in the case of community care policy. Considerable variations exist not only in policy means but also in policy ends. The paper demonstrates the limitations of studying health and personal social services adopting a unitary state perspective. It argues for more intra-Britain comparative work aimed at evaluating the costs and benefits of service variations in different policy fields.