The Public/Private Cleavage in a Welfare State: Attitudes Toward Public Management Reform

This study contributes to the growing literature on differences in attitudes between public and private sector employees, particularly with respect to their receptivity or resistance to public management reforms. We begin by asking the question: to what degree does perceived self-interest play a role in accounting for attitudes toward public management reforms such as downsizing, privatization, and public spending? Using attitudinal data from Sweden, a social welfare state with a large public bureaucracy, a tension is observed both among public employees in different levels of government and between public and private sector employees. In the context of public management reforms, national government employees emerge as more right-leaning politically and more supportive of public management reforms than those working in local government. The analysis finds, particularly among national government employees, that while interest as measured here is strongly related to attitudes toward reform, status as a public employee and status as a public bureaucrat are not as significant as other components of interest in accounting for attitudes toward public management reform.     

Coverage of bombings for political advantage: Turkish on-line news reporting of the 2016 Ankara attacks

On 17 February 2016, a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing 28 people and injuring another 61 in the “heart” of Turkey’s capital Ankara. A few hours after the attack, the Turkish government blamed Salih Neccar from the (mostly) Kurdish-Syrian People’s protection Unit (YPG). Two days later, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility and named the bomber as Abdülbaki Sömer a Turkish citizen. The bombing is part of a resumption of violence in Turkey between Turkish government authorities and Kurdish groups. In this paper, we examine how on-line news stories recontextualise the bombing. We assert that news sources multimodally recontextualise the bombing in ways which are advantageous to the news organisations’ owners, political alliances and supporters. By each news source representing their political interests unquestionably positive and opposition unconditionally negative, polarisation in Turkish politics is articulated. This does nothing to solve problems and heal wounds in a time of national crisis.     

The structural sources of postcommunist regime trajectories

Regime trajectories in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (FSU) have diverged considerably since the collapse of communism. We argue that this variation is the product of two largely structural factors: the salience of anti-Soviet nationalism and the opportunity for membership in the European Union (EU) that was mostly the product of geography. In Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, anti-Soviet nationalism and the stimulus of EU democratic conditionality contributed to the rise of a non-communist elite that confronted serious internal and external pressure to democratize. By contrast, weaker anti-Soviet nationalism and dearth of pressure from the EU allowed for the persistence of communist elites who faced relatively weak external constraints on autocratic behavior. We argue that these structural factors played a more important role in accounting for variation in democratization across the postcommunist world than factors such as institutional design. At the same time, the different character of structural forces in Eastern Europe and the FSU has likely created greater room for voluntarist factors in determining regime variation within the former Soviet Union than within Eastern Europe.     

Forensic psychiatric inpatients served in the United States: regional and system differences.

This research note presents data about regional and system variations in psychiatric inpatient services for forensic patients provided in state operated psychiatric inpatient programs in the United States in 1986. Patient census by legal status and service provision information were collected from state forensic directors. In 1986, about 5,400 patients found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) and 3,200 patients found incompetent to stand trial (IST) were being served in state operated inpatient units. About 70 percent of both groups were being served in designated forensic beds. There were wide differences among the states in the volume and rates for NGRI, IST, forensic exams, and dangerous civil patients (DCP). The regional analyses revealed large variability among states within each region.     

Reconceptualising the Custody Threshold in England and Wales

The custody threshold provision in England and Wales was intended to operate as a limit on the use of custodial sentences, preserving what is the system’s most severe sanction for the most serious offences. However over the past few decades it has become apparent that the custody threshold is failing. Academics have discussed the reasons for this failure, which has seen the prison population double in space of a quarter of a century. This piece explores the custody threshold in the context of the use of custody in other Western European jurisdictions. It examines the courts’ response to the provision and various judicial attempts to amplify Parliament’s language. The authors then consider the academic critiques of the custody threshold provision, analysing the extent to which said criticism can be seen as a solution to the problem, before offering a new critique of their own. Finally, in a move towards more a more principled approach to the custody threshold, the piece offers a solution which would, it is argued, make the provision more effective and more theoretically sound.     

“White Queensland”: The Queensland Government's Ideological Position on the Use of Pacific Island Labourers in the Sugar Sector 1880–1901

This article looks at the Queensland Government's attitudes towards the Pacific Island labour trade between 1880 and the time of Federation. Especially after the failure of the Griffith Government to abolish the Pacific Island labour trade during the 1880s, the dominant Queensland politicians of the late nineteenth century tended to pursue a paradoxical vision of a “White Queensland” in which the settlement and commercial aims of European Queenslanders were partially fulfilled by a barely acknowledged labour force of Pacific Islanders. It will be demonstrated that “White Queensland” was a powerful racial ideal similar yet subtly different to the White Australia policy pursued by the Commonwealth after 1901.