CONTROLLING LOCAL GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE: THE CASE OF NORTHERN IRELAND

The purposes of this paper are twofold, namely to outline the basic features of local government finance in Northern Ireland and to discuss how this financial system has been affected by the concerns of central government to control public expenditure. It will be argued that there has been no radical revision of the local government financial system but that central government used traditional methods of moral suasion and capital controls to induce councils to restrict their spending. The reasons for this include the small size of local expenditure and the political risks involved in further curbing local government in Northern Ireland.     

The investigation of alleged insecticide toxicity: a case involving chlordane exposure, multiple sclerosis, and peripheral neuropathy

A man with no previous medical problems had two documented exposures to an insecticide containing the organophosphorous compounds chlordane and heptachlor. Six months to one year later, he began to experience neurological symptoms which progressed until his death. At autopsy, his brain showed classic findings of multiple sclerosis, and he had a severe peripheral neuropathy. Review of the literature indicates that the findings are not compatible with chlordane toxicity. Some of the factors to be used in determining the casual relationship between toxic exposure and disease processes are discussed.     

A Framework for Understanding Consensus-Building Initiation

The potential of consensus building is dependent upon overcoming difficulties associated with the challenges in getting parties to the table. This article builds a framework for understanding the factors and variables most fundamentally involved in the initiation of consensus-building efforts. Nine factors involved at the beginning of a consensus-building process are identified and outlined. The framework is structured on three major functions of the initiation phase: the definition of the problem, the structure of negotiation, and the motivation to participate.     

THE PRINCIPLE OF VOLUNTARY AGREEMENT

There may be many perfectly good reasons, of a purely pragmatic sort, for policy-making by voluntary agreement between regulators and those whose conduct is to be regulated. Pragmatism aside, however, policy-makers characteristically claim that that strategy is also morally superior to legislative compulsion. That claim is incorrect. Voluntary agreement, as it is presently procured, does nothing to enhance the moral legitimacy of the policies thereby promulgated. Anything a government is morally entitled to do with voluntary agreement of that sort, it would be morally equally entitled to do without it.     

STRUCTURAL FACTORS AND BLACK INTERRACIAL HOMICIDE: A NEW EXAMINATION OF THE CAUSAL PROCESS*

This study evaluates the assumption that deprivation among African Americans and racial inequality lead to black interracial homicide due to racial conflict and antagonism. Using refined race‐adjusted Supplemental Homicide Report data, Uniform Crime Report data and census data, we test an alternative hypothesis that draws on the macrostructural opportunity theory to assess and more accurately specify the relationship between structural characteristics and black interracial homicide. We find that first, the relationship between economic factors and black interracial homicide can be explained in large part by high rates of financially motivated crime such as robbery, and second, that economic factors are associated with financially motivated but not expressive black interracial killings. Analyses of black intraracial killings are performed for comparison purposes. Collectively, the findings suggest that conflict‐based explanations rooted in racial antagonism and frustration aggression may be premature.     

Digital Rank-and-file: Party Activists' Perceptions and Use of the Internet

Political parties are in a transitional phase. A declining, socially restricted membership, decreasing levels of activism and a shift towards more individualistic modes of political engagement threaten the linkage role that parties have played in modern democracy. The development of the Internet in a period of change has meant that it quickly became intertwined with debates about reviving representative political organisations. Using data from a survey of party activists in the UK (N = 4,770), this article answers questions about the perception and use of new media by party activists, the Internet's potential for members' participation and engagement and the penetration of the Internet in pre-existing political careers. In general, the article asks which role new media are playing in the transition of political parties.     

MEDIATING JUDICIAL POLICY

Despite the widespread use of mediation to resolve public policy disputes, there is little written on the mediation of judicial rule disputes. A successful mediation of a dispute over proposed court rules to govern mediation of certain family law cases involving domestic violence concerns is reviewed. The authors conclude that the mediation provided (a) a confidential venue for disputing judges to respectfully disagree with one another, (b) an opportunity for collaborative problem solving, (c) an opportunity to reduce conflict among judicial colleagues. (d) a format for dialogue with other stakeholders, and (e) greater degree of influence with regard to the outcome of the dispute. Specific recommendations to encourage the effective use of judicial policy mediation are offered.