Editorial: Evaluating the Local Government Modernisation Agenda: Impacts,Obstacles and Outcomes

The Appointed State: Quasi‐Governmental Organizations and Democracy. By Chris Skelcher. Open University Press, 1998. Pp.205. £55 hb; £19.99 pb.

Trust and Contracts: Relationships in Local Government, Health and Public Services. Edited by Andrew Coulson. Policy Press, 1998, Pp.309. £16.99 pb.

Ethical Management for the Public Services. By Alan Lawton. Managing the Public Services Series, Open University Press, 1998. £50 hb; £16.99 pb.

The Ethics Edge. Edited by Evan M. Benman, Jonathan P. West and Stephen J. Bonczek. International City/County Management Association, 1998. Pp.346. $23.95.

The Anonymous Leader: Appointed CEOs in Western Local Government. Edited by Kurt Klaudi Klausen and Annick Magnier. Odense University Press, 1998. 3,000 DKK.

Local Councils’ Use of Section 137: A Financial Review of Parish and Town Councils in England and their discretion to spend under Section 137 of the Local Government Act 1972. By Sheila Ellwood, Mike Tricker and Julie Green. Detr, Oct. 1998. Pp.86. £11.

Whitewash: Racialized Politics and the Media. By John Gabriel. Routledge, 1998. Pp.219. £14.99 pb.

The Chief Constables of England and Wales. The Sociolegal History of a Criminal Justice Elite. By David S. Wall. Ashgate, Dartmouth, 1998. Pp.341. £37.50 hb.

Private Security and Public Policing. By Trevor Jones and Tim Newburn. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. Pp.288. £40 hb.

Equality in Managing Service Delivery. By Rohan Collier. Open University Press, 1998. Pp.159. £50 hb; £16.99 pb.

Sociable Cities: The Legacy of Ebenezer Howard. By Peter Hall and Colin Ward. Wiley, 1998. Pp.229. £45 hb; £15.99 pb.

Transport Networks in Europe — Concepts, Analysis and Policies. Edited by Kenneth Button, Peter Nijkamp and Hugo Priemus. Edward Elgar. Pp.362 (many taken up by (obscure) diagrams and by referencss and other notes). £59.95 hb.

The New Regionalism in Western Europe, Territorial Restructuring and Political Change. By Michael Keating. Edward Elgar, 1998. Pp.242 + xi. £49.95 hb.

Remaking the Union: Devolution and British Politics in the 1990s, edited by Howard Elcock and Michael Keating. Frank Cass, 1998. Pp.216. £32.50 hb; £16.50 pb.     

The Audit Commission's View of Politics: A Critical Evaluation of the CPA Process

The Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) process introduced in the wake of the Local Government Act 2000 was in essence a managerial tool applied to a political environment. An analysis of the Commission's first tranche of CPA reports reveals a particular perspective on the role of politics and parties in local authorities which raises issues about the Commission's competence and legitimacy to make such judgements. Composite pictures of the ‘good political authority’ and the ‘poor political authority’ can be drawn up, which display a degree of political naivety and a failure to recognise the differences between political and managerial logic. It is concluded that the CPA process should have taken the political culture of an authority as a ‘given’ (at least in the short term), and evaluated the performance of the authority's management in the political circumstances in which they had to operate. Finally the role of the CPA process in contributing to the government-led pressures for depoliticisation of local decision-making is examined, with a particular concern about the substitution of the concept of ‘the good of the area’ for the different priorities and visions of different parties.     

EU–Russia Security Relations and the Survey of Russian Federation Foreign Policy: One Year On

Abstract

The Kremlin's change of leadership on 7 May 2008 and growing international fears of Russia's resurgence, especially in the aftermath of the Georgian conflict, make this an interesting time to reflect upon EU–Russia security relations. This article does so by examining closely the Survey of Russian Federation Foreign Policy and, one year on from its approval, drawing upon subsequent developments as preliminary corollary or otherwise of its bearing on policy. On balance, it seems that the Kremlin's evolving perception of Russia and international relations has encouraged revised priorities and objectives and a more forceful foreign policy that not only slow progress in filling the Common Spaces, but also increase the likelihood of Russia–EU competition especially in their shared neighbourhood.     

American Indian religion in the iron house: searching for ‘some accommodation’

Religious freedom claims by American Indian prisoners are disfavored in law and policy more than most prisoner civil rights claims. This disfavor reflects the continuing influence of the cultural distance between traditional Indians and Christianity – a distance with an unfortunate history from the Indian point of view. The salutary effects of Christian religion within prisons have been assumed for as long as prisons have existed; this assumption is based upon scant evidence. Treating Indian religious expression as inferior to Christian religious expression within prisons is often allowed by law, but it is insupportable in policy without reference to the historical power relationship between Indians and the dominant culture. Indian spirituality, like Christianity, can engage prisoners in the moral discourse demanded by the tenets of restorative justice. Accommodation of Indian spirituality is as much in the public interest as accommodation of religion within prisons at all.     

A Bonfire of the Regulations,or Business as Usual? The UK Labour Market and the Political Economy of Brexit

Employment and labour market regulation initially appeared as one of the solid red lines in the UK's renegotiation of the country's place in the EU. The basic argument is that the UK's more deregulated labour market would sit uneasily in the more organised models, based on statutory instruments or collective bargaining, found on the continent. While there is a legitimate problem here, EU employment regulations appear manageable from the point of view of business, while unions see them as important tools for socially responsible economic restructuring. Most of UK employment case law is now deeply entangled with EU law; labour market regulations have, on the whole, become part of the way of doing business in the Single Market; and a simple cost–benefit analysis appears impossible because some costs are not quantifiable and the costs of others are reduced when taken as a bundle. Labour unions agree that transposition of European law needs to be done taking into account local sensitivities, while internationally oriented companies do not see EU regulations on the whole as detrimental to business. Importantly, though, the costs and benefits of EU employment regulations are not symmetrically distributed across different companies: large companies are better able to reap the rewards and accommodate the costs of operating in the Single Market than smaller companies.     

Identity crisis: Global challenges of identity protection in a networked world

Modern identity is valuable, multi-functional and complex. Today we typically manage multiple versions of self, made visible in digital trails distributed widely across offline and online spaces. Yet, technology-mediated identity leads us into crisis. Enduring accessibility to greater and growing personal details online, alongside increases in both computing power and data linkage techniques, fuel fears of identity exploitation. Will it be stolen? Who controls it? Are others aggregating or analysing our identities to infer new data about us without our knowledge or consent? New challenges present themselves globally around these fears, as manifested by concerns over massive online data breaches and automated identification technologies, which also highlight the conundrum faced by governments about how to safeguard individuals' interests on the Web while striking a fair balance with wider public interests. This paper reflects upon some of these problems as part of the inter-disciplinary, transatlantic ‘SuperIdentity’ project investigating links between cyber and real-world identifiers. To meet the crisis, we explore the relationship between identity and digitisation from the perspective of policy and law. We conclude that traditional models of identity protection need supplementing with new ways of thinking, including pioneering ‘technical-legal’ initiatives that are sensitive to the different risks that threaten our digital identity integrity. Only by re-conceiving identity dynamically to appreciate the increasing capabilities for connectivity between different aspects of our identity across the cyber and the physical domains, will policy and law be able to keep up with and address the challenges that lie ahead in our progressively networked world.     

Personal and Vicarious Experience with the Criminal Justice System as a Predictor of Punitive Sentencing Attitudes

This study examined the impact of prior personal or vicarious experience with the criminal justice system on sentencing attitudes. Existing research on sentencing attitudes has examined factors such as race, gender, income level, political affiliation, and education level, but few research studies have focused on actual contact with the criminal justice system and its influence on perceptions of sentencing as either too harsh or too lenient. The current study utilized data collected by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. Over 1,500 respondents were surveyed nationwide in 2006 regarding sentencing attitudes. Logistic regression analysis was utilized to assess the impact of factors of interest on sentencing attitudes. Results indicated that individuals who had been charged with a crime (personal experience), or who had an immediate relative or close friend who had been charged (vicarious experience), were more likely to perceive the criminal justice system as too harsh, regardless of race/ethnicity.     

Deaths and COVID-19: Talk,silence and alternative realities

This article critically considers the UK Government's insidious attempts to control the narrative around COVID-19 deaths through using the interrelated strategies of “talk and ‘silence’ in order to socially construct a definitive ‘truth’” around the virus. The article traces how these strategies worked in practice and the shift which took place from numerous press briefings and Parliamentary debates to an ominous silence around the number of deaths, in particular. At the same time, as the article illustrates, the government's truth has not prevailed. Their twin strategy has been contested and resisted by grassroots organizations and radical lawyers who have demanded that Ministers should take responsibility for the tens of thousands of preventable deaths which have occurred. Rather than government talk and silence prevailing, it is the voices of the haunted relatives of the dead, demanding accountability, which are creating an alternative narrative.