A Prosperity of Thought in an Age of Austerity: The Case of Ulster Loyalism

A central failing of analysis of the peace process has been to account for, explain and determine the extent of loyalist‐led conflict transformation. My argument is that, despite evident wrong‐doing, there has been a failure to appreciate the prosperity of loyalist thinking and action in the period after the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994. Loyalism has appeared less relevant than it is to peacemaking due to its criminalisation, its refusal to accept positive morphology and a failure to self‐promote. An appreciation of the positive nature of loyalist transition offers much to those who seek to comprehend the future of Northern Ireland.     

New Political Governance in Westminster Systems: Impartial Public Administration and Management Performance at Risk

This article examines the phenomenon of increased political pressures on governments in four Westminster systems (Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand) derived from changes in mass media and communications, increased transparency, expanded audit, increased competition in the political marketplace, and political polarization in the electorate. These pressures raise the risk to impartial public administration and management performance to the extent that governments integrate governance and campaigning, allow political staff to be a separate force in governance, politicize top public service posts, and expect public servants to be promiscuously partisan. The article concludes that New Zealand is best positioned to cope with these risks, in part because of its process for independently staffing its top public service posts. The article recommends this approach as well as the establishment of independently appointed management boards for public service departments and agencies to perform the governance of management function.     

MANAGERIAL CHALLENGES IN PUBLIC SERVICE CONTRACTING: LESSONS IN GREEN‐SPACE MANAGEMENT

In this article, we address a series of interrelated issues in the managerial challenge of public service contracting. This is done by prompting ten issues within four objectives and highlighting their relevance and potential interrelatedness in effective contract management. In contrast to prevalent piecemeal and theoretically one‐dimensional approaches, the objectives and issues constitute a holistic framework that advances a comprehensive and pragmatic understanding of contracting processes. We hope that the framework merits further in‐depth exploration that may generate new insights, themes and questions for research in public service contracting. We identify and exemplify the framework by combining insights from different theoretical perspectives with empirical evidence through an iterative process. The evidence is educed as a set of observed and self‐reported stories in a cross‐national sample of 15 cases of contracting‐out in urban green‐space management.     

‘Getting Tough’ With Youth Legislative waiver as crime control

In the rush to punish juvenile offenders and to reform the juvenile justice system, legislatures have redefined the philosophy of juvenile justice and restructured the waiver process. As the convergence of juvenile and adult systems continues, the future of juvenile justice has become the new object of politicalization. This paper critiques the politics of ‘get-tough’ legislation and the implications of legislative waivers. The authors review the language and intent of waiver reforms, images of juvenile justice and the concept of crime control.     

Industrial Relations and the Limits of the State: Can a Left Labour Government Resurrect Comprehensive Sectoral Collective Bargaining and Restore Trade Union Power?

Since 2017 the British Labour Party has proposed mandatory sectoral collective bargaining (SCB) as a comprehensive strategy to rebuild the trade union voice across the entire economy. The intellectual roots lie in the Institute of Employment Rights’ (IER) Manifesto for Labour Law (2016). First, this article explains the core IER approach, questioning its feasibility given current low levels of union membership and bargaining coverage and whether it would produce the stable and productive economy promised. Second, the article develops four social science objections to this state-driven approach centred on industrial relations history; political sociology; economics; and political philosophy. The conclusion argues that while stronger voluntary trade unions could help, it is neither practicable nor desirable for the state to impose a trade union, single-channel approach to employee voice. Instead, a ‘mixed economy of voice’ is proposed, perhaps including statutory works councils, which speaks directly to all employees—union and non-union—and wins broader political, employer and public support.     

The Incidence and Timing of PAC Contributions to Incumbent U.S. House Members, 1993‐94

In this article, we discuss how donor and recipient characteristics affected the incidence and timing of political action committee (PAC) contributions to incumbent members of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1993‐94 election cycle. We contribute to the campaign finance literature by modeling the timing of contributions, which is important because timing affects the perception of political actors about the competitiveness of elections and the loci of power among members of Congress, interest groups, and between members of Congress and interest groups. Split‐population event history models allow us to compare and contrast determinants of whether and when contributions are made across various types and sizes of PACs.