Characteristics of female patients admitted to an adolescent secure forensic psychiatric hospital

Bluebird House is the only mixed gender NHS secure forensic psychiatric hospital for adolescents in the South of England. It has admitted more than 30 female patients since the service opened in 2008. The admission criteria are that patients must be detained under the Mental Health Act and present evidence of being a risk of harm to others. This article describes the clinical characteristics of 30 consecutive female patients admitted to a highly specialised adolescent forensic inpatient service. Key results include a very high rate of incidents of risk behaviours exhibited by female patients within the unit but good clinical outcomes. The majority of patients had severe symptoms of mental disorder, especially emotional instability, self-harm behaviours and aggressive behaviours. Few had diagnoses of mental illness. Assessment findings from the Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory and the Structured Assessment of Violence Risk are discussed, as are parallel with studies from other female secure services.     

The Role of Just World Beliefs in Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Social Justice Research - This study investigated whether people’s personal belief in a just world (BJW) is linked to their willingness to physically distance themselves from others during...     

The impact of within-party and between-party ideological dispersion on fiscal outcomes: evidence from Swiss cantonal parliaments

The impact of the fragmentation of executive and legislative bodies on the level and composition of government expenditure is a feature of politics that has attracted considerable attention from economists. However, previous authors have abstracted from two important concepts: ideology and intra-party politics. In this paper, we account for these two phenomena explicitly, and make two main contributions. First, we show that both intra- and inter-party ideological dispersion matter in explaining the level of sub-national public spending. Therefore, it is improper to consider parties as monolithic entities. We also show that ideological dispersion matters especially for current expenditures, and not so much for investment expenditures. To do so, we construct a panel database (2003–2010) comprising data from a survey that quantifies the policy preferences of party members who were candidates in Swiss elections.     

Germany and the Eurozone Crisis: Between Hegemony and Domestic Politics

This paper explores Germany’s centrality to the outcome of the eurozone crisis. It argues that the eurozone crisis has led Germany’s ordo-liberal principles to trump its other longstanding commitment – i.e. to European integration. These two principles are explored in order then to shed light on how they have played out during the crisis. German centrality has created high expectations for it to provide leadership. Exploring hegemony conceptually and in practice, it is argued that international legitimacy and increasing domestic constraints have limited a leadership role. Indeed, it is argued that it is the domestic political situation that explains why ordo-liberalism has trumped pro-Europeanism. Ordo-liberal emphasis on stability culture has provided a valuable strategic resource for securing German objectives within the eurozone while satisfying the requirements of domestic politics.     

Transatlantic conflict management inside-out: the impact of domestic norms on regional security practices

This article explores the impact of domestic norms on regional security practices in a pluralistic security community in the transatlantic area. A security community is considered to be ‘a group which has become integrated, where integration is defined as the attainment of a sense of community, accompanied by formal or informal institutions or practices, sufficiently strong and widespread to assure peaceful change among members of a group with “reasonable” certainty over a “long” period of time’ (Karl W Deutsch, Sidney A Burrell, Robert A Kann, Maurice Lee Jr, Martin Lichterman, Raymond E Lindgren, Francis L Loewenheim and Richard W Van Wagenen (1957) Political community and the North Atlantic area: international organization in the light of historical experience (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press)). Recent studies have aligned the concept of security community with the practice turn in International Relations theory. Although practice theory is able to explain peaceful conflict resolution within a security community, this article shows that its explanatory power is significantly weaker when it comes to military interventions outside the security community. The article theoretically and empirically investigates this argument by using the empirical case of extraregional conflict management in Afghanistan. The importance of domestic norms in constructing and perceiving regional security practices in out-of-area operations emphasizes the ‘local’ over the ‘regional’ as a crucial driver behind the emergence of a regional actor's understanding of security and thus for the formation and consolidation of regional peace.     

Book reviews

Policy Evaluation in the Public Sector: Approaches and Methods. By Colin Palfrey, Ceri Phillips, Paul Thomas and David Edwards. Avebury, 1992. Pp. 176. £32.50 hb.

Managing for Service Quality. By Chris Skelcher. Managing Local Government series, Longman, 1992. Pp. 125. £16.95 pb.

Working Together for Better Community Care. By Randall Smith, Lucy Gaster, Lyn Harrison, Linda Martin, Robin Means and Peter Thistlethwaite. School of Urban Advanced Studies, University of Bristol, 1993. Pp. 228. £11.95 pb.

Citizen Involvement: A Practical Guide for Change. By Peter Beresford and Suzy Croft. Practical Social Work series edited by Jo Campling. Macmillan, 1993. Pp. 240. £32.50 hb, £9.50 pb.

Implementing Housing Policy. Edited by Peter Malpass and Robin Means. Buckingham, Open University Press, 1993. Pp. 199. £37.50 hb, £12.99 pb.

In Support of Education: The Functioning of Local Government. By Philippa Cordingley and Maurice Kogan. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 1993. Pp. 122. £11.50 pb.

Tourism, Museums and the Local Economy: The Economic Impact of the North of England Open Air Museum at Beamish. By Peter Johnson and Barry Thomas. Edward Elgar, 1992. Pp. 160. £29.50 hb.

The A‐Z of Council Tax and Council Tax Benefit: A Citizen's Guide. Association of District Councils, December 1992. £8.00.     

Grass-Root Organisations,Intergovernmental Collaboration,and Emergency Preparedness: An Institutional Collective Action Approach

Abstract

This paper examines the importance of grass-root emergency response groups in emergency preparedness. Consistent with the Institutional Collective Action framework, we highlight key constraints associated with local government strategies of mutual resource exchange and barriers to intergovernmental collaboration. We examine local governments’ emergency preparedness using survey data collected in the North Central Texas region. We employed a simple OLS analysis to determine mutual exchange and Poisson estimations on the likelihood of local governments receiving and providing external assistance. Findings showed that the presence of grass-root organisations in a jurisdiction is associated with emergency preparedness, highlighting the importance of norms of volunteerism. Local political institutions and participation in federally funded programmes also have an effect on local government decisions.     

Development at any cost: ICTs and people's participation in South Africa

SUMMARY

This article, which is based on empirical research, reveals the diametrically opposed approaches to persuasion of the National Party and the Progressive Federal Party during the 1987 electoral campaign in Umhlanga Rocks. The study concentrates mainly on the candidates, and it describes how they put their persuasion “into action’. Personal pre- and post-election interviews reveal, on the one hand, a candidate's inability to pinpoint and satisfy voters' needs and fears and, on the other hand, the opposing candidate's ability not only to recognise these aspects, but also to manipulate them to the best advantage. The necessity of co-ordinated electoral team work is also discussed.     

End Matter

One of the most intriguing, yet forgotten, terrorist groups in history is the Galleanists, an innovative group of militant Italian anarchists active in the United States during the early part of the twentieth century. They introduced tactics and strategies that are widely used today in the world of terrorism. This article examines the rise and fall of the group, and discusses how America's experience with it holds many lessons for understanding today's global terrorist threat.