Destructive Competition or Competition Destroyed? Regulatory Theory and the History of Irish Road Transportation Legislation

The principal aim of our study is to contribute to the debate over whether regulation is enacted in the interest of consumers, producers, political agents, or some combination of these. We examine the legislative debates and subsequent regulatory bills surrounding road transportation regulation in Ireland in light of the three dominant theories which purport to explain the existence of regulation: the public interest theory and the so-called Chicago and Virginia theories. A unique feature of our study is an attempt to integrate specific rhetorical concepts used in the public policy debates into the theoretical analysis of regulation. One noteworthy conclusion of our study is that theories of economic processes affect the shaping and results of public policy.     

The experimental psychologist in court

This special issue comprises articles by psychologists, legal scholars, and ethicists on the ethics of expert testimony by experimental psychologists. In it the major ethical questions facing the prospective expert witness are clarified, and alternative positions on these issues are defined and debated. Fundamentals of moral reasoning are discussed, and the realities of interaction with a judicial system that subjects the psychologist to a variety of pressures and limitations are made apparent. The aim is not to offer final answers to complex ethical questions, but rather to provide a framework within which the questions can be considered by the individual psychologist.The conference on ethics of expert testimony by experimental psychologists was supported by National Science Foundation grant No. ISP-8209940. We thank Rachelle Hollander of the Ethics and Values in Science and Technology Program, Joe Young of the Memory and Cognitive Processes Program, and Eric Juengst of the National Endowment for the Humanities for their help in bringing about the conference.     

Occupational Class and Vote in the 1949 Norwegian Election. Research Note

In 1948–49 the Sociology Office of the University of Oslo, under the guidance of Prof. Paul Lazarsfeld of Columbia University, initiated a series of studies on the Norwegian economic planning system. Part of this Planning Project was a national election survey in the fall of 1949, on a modified probability sample of 2600 people. The results show the paramount influence of economic class on voting, interpreting class as a combination of employer/employee relationship, property ownership, prestige-status, and income. Indicators of the homogeneity of class environment also played a role. Given the occupational structure of Norway, the Labor party had to win over part of the non-working-class population to obtain control of the government. They did this by winning about 1/3 of the white-collar vote, and about 1/4 of the farmers and fishermen. The policies of economic stabilization - control of inflation through price controls, wage controls, food subsidies, and rationing, and maintenance of full employment under conditions of "suppressed inflation" - were crucial to winning over these white-collar and farm voters.     

The State as Parent: The Reluctant Parent? The Problems of Parents of Last Resort

This paper will explore the idea of the local authority as a reluctant parent. It will consider the extent to which this reluctance is produced by the care proceedings system and its consequences for children. Local authorities are both expected to refrain from intervening (care proceedings are a measure of last resort) and to be fully prepared for intervention (whilst leaving children with their parents). Amongst the themes which will be developed here are the impact of the juridification of social work and the emphasis on the courts for holding local authorities to account; the balance between voluntary accommodation and compulsory care; and the problems of resourcing care services. Its main focus will be on children who enter care because of abuse or neglect. Its thesis is that the conflicting expectations on local authorities, resource constraints, and considerations of legal process make them reluctant parents.     

On the political consequences of privatisation: the case of Teléfonos de México

This article examines the political consequences of the most important single privatisation in Mexico, that of the national telecommunications company, Telmex. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, diverse observers of Mexico claimed that, as the government pursued a dramatic privatisation programme as part of a broader plan to liberalise the economy, democratic growth would be encouraged. This argument is challenged in the case of the Telmex privatisation. It is shown how privatisation generated new resources that were channelled to lubricate corporatist relations and that the so‐called new unionism emerging from the telephone workers’union did not represent a departure from, but a culmination of, traditional state‐labour relations in Mexico.