A TEST OF LIFE‐COURSE EXPLANATIONS FOR STABILITY AND CHANGE IN ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR FROM ADOLESCENCE TO YOUNG ADULTHOOD*

Using longitudinal data from a sample of 236 young adults and their romantic partners, we tested a life‐course model that integrates social control and peer influence arguments with the idea of assortative mating. For both males and females, adolescent delinquency and affiliation with deviant peers predicted having an antisocial romantic partner as a young adult. Involvement with an antisocial romantic partner, in turn, had both a direct effect on crime as well as indirect influence through adult peer affiliations. For females, quality of the romantic relationship also predicted crime. The analyses revealed several moderating influences in addition to these mediating effects. For females, a conventional romantic partner, strong job attachment, and conventional adult friends all served to moderate the chances that a woman with a delinquent history would graduate to adult crime. In contrast, only conventional adult friends served this function for males.     

MANAGING INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN UK PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: ISSUES AND PROSPECTS

The record on the development and use of information-based technologies in UK public administration is reviewed and distinctive risks identified. Risk levels associated with computerization may be increasing rather than abating as a result of both the content of New Public Management initiatives, and also how they are being introduced and applied. This article considers ways forward from the point of view of improving how informatization can proceed, and also how markets can be used to provide information-based services for public administration.     

THE CONSTITUTIONAL STATUS OF WOMEN: The Burger Court and the Sexual Revolution in American Law

This article analyzes the revolution in Constitutional Law concerning sex discrimination that has been brought about by the Burger Court. It provides an overview of both the doctrinal changes and the policy changes that have composed this legal revolution. It identifies certain policy areas that have troubled the Burger Court during this process and attempts to explain why some policy problems have proved more intractable than others. It concludes with a modest suggestion for dealing with those problems.     

PRODUCING PERSONAL SAFETY: THE EFFECTS OF CRIME RATES, POLICE FORCE SIZE, AND FEAR OF CRIME

Aggregate data from a sample of 23 Canadian cities are used to examine relationships among crime rates, police staffing rates, fear of crime, and citizens'crime prevention behaviors. Bivariate and path analyses reveal positive correlations between fear of crime and parallel production (crime prevention behaviors) and negative impacts of police force size on such behaviors. Crime rates have both direct and indirect positive effects (via fear of crime) on parallel production. while police force size does not have any real effect on fear of crime.     

IN THEIR OWN VOICES: WOMEN COUNCILLORS IN NORTHERN IRELAND

Based largely on in-depth interviews with the majority of women local councillors in Northern Ireland, this article addresses two substantive issues: the reasons for the numerical underrepresentation of women and the issue of gender difference. The authors illustrate and explore these questions within the context of both the councillors' own responses and that supplied by a concurrent survey of the general population. While the councillors and the general population favour the increased representation of women in public office, evidence of a gender cleavage - while present - is perceived to be more potential than actual, given the dominance of the mutually reinforcing cleavages of nationality and religion.
This research was financed primarily by a grant from the Nuffield Foundation and secondarily by one from the Lockheed Foundation, administered by Queen's University, Belfast. The results cited from the wider probability survey are derived from an ESRC-funded project ('The Political Participation, Interests and Attitudes of Women in Northern Ireland' - R0O0 23 2726) currently being undertaken by the authors.
The authors benefitted from the comments of members of the 'Gender and Power' workshop at the 1992 session of the European Consortium for Political Research held at the University of herick, at which an earlier version of the paper was first presented, and from the comments of two referees.     

Making Quotas Work: The Effect of Gender Quota Laws On the Election of Women

Gender quota laws are intended to increase the number of women elected to legislatures, but initial evidence suggests that many laws have had little effect. I present a cross‐national, statistical test that analyzes how three key dimensions of candidate quota laws affect women's representation. My results show that quotas that require more women to be on party ballots lead to the election of more women, independent of placement mandates and enforcement mechanisms, but rules governing where female candidates are listed on the ballot and sanctions for noncompliance amplify that effect. Candidate quotas can increase women's representation, but the quotas' effectiveness depends on their design.