Averting Environmental Justice Claims? The Role of Environmental Management Systems

Today, more regulatory provisions are in place for protecting low‐income minority populations who shoulder a disproportionate amount of environmental risk. Recognized as communities of “environmental justice,” industrial facilities located within these areas bear greater legal liabilities for and societal scrutiny of their environmental impacts. The authors offer compelling evidence that, in an effort to avoid regulatory and societal claims that they are disproportionately harming minority and ethnic populations, businesses operating inside environmental justice communities tend to adopt an environmental management system (EMS). The article probes whether industries actually improve the environment as a consequence of EMS adoption or whether such systems are simply used to avoid greater governmental scrutiny without necessarily reducing overall environmental risks.     

How the News was Made: The Anti-Social Behaviour Day Count, Newsmaking Criminology and the Construction of Anti-Social Behaviour

‘Newsmaking criminology’ is an approach to criminological research characterised by critical engagement with topics being covered by the news media, offering greater engagement with public debate and reflexive critique of the objects of criminological knowledge. Two examples of Brisith criminological researchers taking an identifiable ‘newsmaking’ approach are discussed in this paper: the Anti-Social Behaviour One Day Count, a 24-h comprehensive survey of reports of anti-social behaviour carried out in 2003, and the 24-h Domestic Violence Audit, carried out in 2000. This paper analyses the construction of knowledge of anti-social behaviour through the Day Count, identifying continuities and discontinuities between the Day Count and the Domestic Violence Audit. This leads to a discussion of the strengths and limitations of the ‘newsmaking’ approach, suggesting that it may serve conservative as well as progressive ends.     

Economics of Polluter Pays Principles for Mitigating Social Costs of Electricity: A Search for an Optimal Liability Share

To deal with externalities associated with electricity generation, under the Polluter Pays Principles (PPP), companies can be made to pay the compliance costs and then pass these costs incurred on to the end-users by charging a higher price per kWh of electricity used. However, there is a need for an optimal liability scheme, in terms of economic efficiency, equity and ethics in a world of favor seeking politics. With implicit weighting of welfare gains and losses to society, we developed supply-demand models. By incorporating plausible parameter values into the models, the optimal liability shares fell to less 100 percent (full) liability. However, the model is very sensitive to changes in the parameter values.     

Public Sector Governance — Future Issues for Australia

Governments in many countries today find themselves in unchartered waters as they attempt to redefine their role, including how they relate to the business and community sectors and to citizens more broadly. There is currently a serious questioning of what are the appropriate structures, institutions, processes and organisational relationships required in an environment placing much more emphasis on collaboration with partners within the public sector and also outside it. Globalisation and the increased importance placed on competition, increased use and variety of information technologies and changes in values and political beliefs have contributed to this new environment (for example, see Davis and Keating 2000; Edwards 2001). Alongside this, and particularly noticeable in Australia, is a public sector facing uncertainties as it attempts to adopt private sector governance practices in the belief that this will lead to greater efficiency in achieving outcomes.     

Testing the Discourse of Declining Policy Capacity: Rail Policy and the Department of Transport

It has been observed that countries that implemented new public management (NPM) reforms are currently witnessing growing complaints about a decline in the policy capacity of their public services. Australia is a part of this trend with public sector leaders increasingly voicing concern about policy capacity decline within the Australian Public Service (APS). This article sets out to examine whether there is an empirical basis for this discourse and to assess allegations that NPM reforms have contributed to any related shifts. It draws on rail policy and the Department of Transport as its case study. It finds that the reforms transformed role of the department in a way that enhanced strategic policy capacity. However, the reforms also introduced a number of structural impediments that make it difficult for the new role to be effectively executed .     

Operationalizing Strategy Content: An Example from the Transit Industry

While models of organizational strategy saturate private sector research, public sector research lags behind. The model created by Boyne and Walker (2004) is an exception. The main objective of this study is to operationalize this model using a unique data set from the US transit industry. Through a survey of 103 local transit agencies, we developed separate strategy profiles for each agency that help us answer important questions about organizational strategy. We find that not only do the organizations adopt a mix of strategic stances through the action areas; they also have distinct profiles, which vary greatly between agencies.     

NGOs in a global future: marrying local delivery to worldwide leverage

This article argues that global trends are creating unprecedented opportunities for civic action at local, national and international levels. Three interconnected trends are identified: economic and cultural globalization, and the inequality and insecurity they breed; the increasing complexity of humanitarian action in response to ethnic conflict and intrastate violence; and the reform of international co‐operation to deal with the problems these trends create. In response, new forms of solidarity are emerging between citizens and authorities at different levels of the world system. It is these new relationships—expressed through partnerships, alliances and other forms of co‐operation—that provide the framework for NGO interventions, but they also require major changes in NGOs themselves. Chief among these changes are a move from ‘development‐as‐delivery’ to ‘development‐as‐leverage’; new relationships with corporations, elements of states, the military, international institutions and other groups in civil society; and new skills and capacities to mediate these linkages. These developments call for major changes in NGO roles, relationships, capacities and accountabilities. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Constructions of sexuality

Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice Raymond (eds) The Sexual Liberals And The Attack On Feminism (Pergamon) New York, 1990; Lynda Nead Myths Of Sexuality: Representations Of Women In Victorian Britain (Blackwell) Oxford, 1990; Lesley Holly (ed.) Girls And Sexuality: Teaching And Learning (O.U.P.) Milton Keynes, 1989.