The will theory of rights: A defence

Hart's will theory of rights has been subjected to at least three significant criticisms. First, it is thought unable to account for the full range of legal rights. Second, it is incoherent, for it values freedom while permitting an agent the option of alienating his or her capacity for choice. Third, any attempt to remedy the first two problems renders the theory reducible to the rival benefit theory. My aim is to address these objections. I argue that will theory has been made vulnerable due to misinterpretation. The theory has been characterized as placing great stress on liberty rights (or claim-protected liberties), whereas it is powers that are central, and hence not choice but control. My argument does, however, depend upon appealing to an extra-legal notion — the hypothetical contract — but I argue that this is consistent with the main aim of a theory of rights.     

Building Social Capital in City Politics: Scope and Limitations at the Inter-organisational Level

This article explores the relations between voluntary organisations and the city administration in two British cities through an analysis of the impact of social capital. It provides a corrective to the dominant individual-level approach by offering an organisational-level analysis of social capital. The evidence suggests that inter-organisational social capital is not distributed equitably within cities. Voluntary organisations that regularly engage with a city administration can build networks of trust and information flows that outstrip those available to other voluntary organisations. Although it is easier to build social capital within a sector, such as the voluntary sector, building it in tight networks with voluntary organisations would appear to be an achievable goal for a city administration – but such networks do not guarantee an enhanced overall confidence in the local political system.     

Australia and the Emergence of the Modern Two-Party System

Although the Australian party system is accepted in some literature as a "classic" example of a two-party system, information about how this system came about does not feature prominently in international studies on political parties. It is here argued that Australia indeed blazed the trail for the two-party model by being the first to link parliamentary organisation directly to a mass electorate.     

Social divisions in caring

This article is concerned with the perspectives on caring developed by academic feminist researchers in Britain over the last decade. It notes how these perspectives defined caring in terms of the unpaid domestic and personal services provided through the social relations of marriage and kinship to those who found it hard to meet their own care needs. The article draws on Black feminist and disabled feminist perspectives, together with recent autocritical work by academic feminist researchers, to unpack this concept of care. It focuses on what the concept obscures about the social divisions that mediate women's experiences of care. It examines what is eclipsed and who is excluded from feminist perspectives on caring which are grounded in the experience of giving care on an unpaid basis within kinship networks based on marriage.     

Revitalizing public management training in the Americas

The decade of the 1980s signalled major changes within public administration and development-oriented activities. As a consequence of the internationalization of the agendas of practitioners and academics working in these areas, there is today a growing convergence among public policy, public management, public administration and political science. Given the complexity of the public sector cross-nationally, what has become necessary in public management education is the design of programmes that meet specific needs and priorities and which are responsive to very different national settings. This particular case study is centred around one endeavour to achieve more effective interfacing between theory and practice, in the teaching of public management and the design of development programmes in the United States (US). It is based on an assessment of a 10-year co-operative endeavour between the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration and the US Agency for International Development. The outcomes of this project provided not only leverage for important changes in the teaching programmes of schools concerned with international management education but also built a new relationship between government and a non-governmental organization through the contacting out of management development work.     

民营化:英国实践

我应邀去解释为什么民营化方案在英国会采取如此模式。为此,我需要对英国时下民营化的法律以及政治背景加以阐释。在这一过程中,我们将看到某些在他国少见而英国独有的因素。而这也引出了一个问题,那就是:究竟能够从英国的实践中汲取什么样的经验教训。一、法律背景英国在拥有一部不成文宪法方面完全可以说是独一无二的。但这并不意味着没有宪法。那只是说不存在一部宪法典,我们的宪法是一个包括制定法、判例法、条约以及非正式的惯例在内的混合体。这一结构的基石是议会主权原则,戴雪教授对此有着如此经典的论述:议会主权原则亦即如此,也就…     

Herceptin, Pharmac and the New Zealand District Health Boards: keeping abreast of the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights?

In an era of resource limitations, the problem of matching public expectations with health care provision will always be difficult. In New Zealand there has been recent debate surrounding the potential funding by the Pharmaceutical Management Agency (PHARMAC) of an expensive chemotherapy agent called Herceptin (trastuzumab). Taking the proposed funding options in turn, this article looks at the obligations PHARMAC and the New Zealand District Health Boards might then be subject to with respect to the legislation and the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights, and the impact this might have on a health system already subject to resource constraints.