Public policy‐making in France: The art of the possible

This article examines the policy performance of the Mitterrand administration from the perspective of rationalist and incremental models of policy‐making. It is argued that the incrementalist approach provides a more comprehensive and realistic framework with which to assess the policy record of the French Socialist government. The failure of that government to implement its radical programme supports the view that effective policy‐making even within a formally centralised state is, in practice, a highly complex and multilateral process involving constant negotiation between the government, the administration and powerful interest groups.     

Trusts in American law and some of their substitutes in Spanish law: Part II

The first part of this article examined, from a US point ofview, the principal uses of trusts and now this second partdescribes aspects of Spanish law which provide similar facilitiesfor investors, before concluding that none of the tools availablein Spanish law fulfil all the functions of trusts and that theintroduction of a trust law into Spanish law would not be simple.     

Gender Mainstreaming Strategies in the E.U.: Delivering on an Agenda?

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of anew policy style within the E.U., characterized by voluntary policy transfer between member states and soft policy instruments including exchange of best practice, targets, benchmarking and national league tables. This article examines how these methods have been used by gender mainstreaming advocates and evaluates the impact of this strategy to-date upon E.U. policy-making procedures and outputs. It is argued that mainstreaming has provided new opportunities for feminists to influence the E.U. policy agenda, but that the impact of mainstreaming varies between sectors and member states. The concluding section considers the implications of E.U. mainstreaming from the perspective of the European Women's Lobby(E.W.L.). This discussion highlights the potential opportunities and risks for feminists of mainstreaming.     

Juvenile Delinquency in Switzerland Over 50 Years: Assessing Trends beyond Statistics

The general public seems to be convinced that juvenile delinquency has massively increased over the last decades. However, this assumption is much less popular among academics and some media where doubts about the reality of this trend are often expressed. In the present paper, trends are followed using conviction statistics over 50 years, police and victimization data since the 1980s, and self-report data collected since 1992. All sources consistently point to a massive increase of offending among juveniles, particularly for violent offences during the 1990s. Given that trends were similar in most European countries, explanations should be sought at the European rather than the national level. The available evidence points to possible effects of increased opportunities for property offences since 1950, and although causality remains hard to prove, effects of increased exposure to extreme media violence since 1985Swiss conviction statistics are based on registration in the national register of convictions. After 1971, minors were registered only in exceptional cases (Balvig 1988, p. 30)     

Rethinking the English–Arabic Legal Translation Course: Restructuring for Specific Competence Acquisition

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - The standards for translating texts in specialized fields have become particularly rigorous with...     

Psycho-social, ethical and legal arguments for and against the retrospective release of information about donors to donor-conceived individuals in Australia

In the February 2011 report on its inquiry into the past and present practices of donor conception in Australia, the Australian Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee called for the introduction of legislation to regulate donor conception in all jurisdictions that do not have it in place "as a matter of priority". It further called for the establishment, "as a matter of priority", of a national register of donors to enable donor-conceived individuals to access identifying information about their donor. The Senate Committee left open the question as to whether the legislation and central register should have retrospective effect. This article focuses upon that question. It shows that arguments concerning the privacy, confidentiality and anonymity of some donors who may wish to remain anonymous are outweighed by the manifest injustice faced by donor-conceived individuals who are denied access to such information, as well as their families and donors who wish to exchange this information,     

Variation in Developmental Time for Geographically Distinct Populations of the Common Green Bottle Fly,Lucilia sericata (Meigen)*

Abstract: Time between death and discovery of remains, or postmortem interval (PMI), can be assessed using blow fly maggot age. Forensic entomologists rely on published, often nonlocal, species‐specific developmental tables to determine maggot age. In a series of common garden experiments, we investigated the developmental rate variation between populations of Lucilia sericata collected from Sacramento, CA, San Diego, CA, and Easton, MA at 16°C, 26°C, and 36°C. For the 16°C trial the time measurement started at egg hatch, while for the higher temperatures the experiment began at oviposition; the wandering stage signified the endpoint for all experiments. The distribution of developmental times differed significantly (ANOVA, p < 0.001) between the three populations within each temperature treatment. We discovered that regional variation of developmental times within a blow fly species exists. This study demonstrates the importance of assembling local population‐specific developmental tables when estimating larval age to determine PMI.     

Differential Effects of Adult Court Transfer on Juvenile Offender Recidivism

Prior research indicates that adolescent offenders transferred to adult court are more likely to recidivate than those retained in the juvenile system. The studies supporting this conclusion, however, are limited in addressing the issue of heterogeneity among transferred adolescents. This study estimates the effect of transfer on later crime using a sample of 654 serious juvenile offenders, 29% of whom were transferred. We use propensity score matching to reduce potential selection bias, and we partition the sample on legal characteristics to examine subgroup effects. We find an overall null effect of transfer on re-arrest, but evidence of differential effects of transfer for adolescents with different offending histories. These results suggest that evaluating the effects of transfer for all transferred adolescents together may lead to misguided policy conclusions.     

It's About Time: Catching Method Up to Meaning—The Usefulness of Narrative Inquiry in Public Administration Research

As a form of interpretive research, narrative inquiry contributes to the pursuit of high-quality public administration scholarship, along with other forms of explanatory research that have dominated the field. In this article we discuss the unique features of narrative inquiry, review how this research orientation has been used in public administration, and use our experience with a national, multimodal, multiyear research project on social-change leadership in the United States to identify and illustrate the contributions of narrative inquiry to address two key issues in the field: the concern with good research and the aspiration to cultivate a meaningful connection between researchers and practitioners in the field.