New Labour and Government in Britain: Change or Continuity?

The 1997 British election marks a major change in British government. Eighteen years of Conservative rule had brought about growing inequality and social division and have generated powerful demands for new directions in public policy, especially in the areas of welfare and public administration. On welfare state reform Labour is constrained by election promises to restrain taxation and public expenditure. New Labour ministers influenced by the New Right have in any case largely rejected traditional social democratic redistributive strategies and are seeking instead new ways of reducing welfare dependency.
The virulent spread of quangos at all levels of government and a marked increase in the centralisation of power in Whitehall have given a new impetus to demands for constitutional reform. Labour's response to these demands is a major program of regional devolution, House of Lords reform and open government measures.
This article explains what 'New Labour' means and discusses New Labour policies on welfare and constitutional reform and their implications for the future of public administration in Britain.     

An integrated perspective on the three potential sources of partisan bias: Malapportionment, turnout differences, and the geographic distribution of party vote shares

Partisan bias refers to an asymmetry in the way party vote share is translated into seats, i.e., a situation where some parties are able to win a given share of seats with a lesser (share of the) vote than is true for other parties. Any districted system is potentially subject to partisan biases. We show that there are three potential sources of partisan bias: (1) differences in the nature of the vote shares of the winning candidates of different parties that give rise to differences in the proportion of each party's votes that come to be ‘wasted’—differences which arise because of the nature of the geographic distribution of partisan support; (2) turnout rate differences across districts that are linked to the partisan vote shares in those districts, such that certain parties are more likely to have ‘cheap seats’ vis-à-vis turnout; and (3) malapportionment. In the context of two-party competition over single-member districts we provide a simple formulation to calculate the independent effect of each of these three factors. We illustrate our analysis with a calculation of the magnitude and direction of effects of the three determinants of partisan bias in elections to the US House and the US Senate in 1984, 1986 and 1988; then we consider how to extend the approach to a system with a mix of single- and multi-member districts or to a weighted voting system such as the US electoral college. We then apply the method to calculate the nature and sources of partisan bias in the 1984 and 1988 US presidential elections.     

The prohibition-repeal amendments: A natural experiment in interest group influence

The pattern of state support for Prohibition (18th Amendment, 1919) and Repeal (21st Amendment, 1933) is analyzed and compared. This comparison is important because Prohibition is the only amendment ever to be repealed. The main thesis is that there was no wholesale change in preferences of citizens. Instead, producer interests failed to mobilize effectively in 1919, and the coupling of moral and economic arguments that worked in 1919 broke apart in 1933. Regression analysis is conducted on state legislatures (for Prohibition) and state referenda on convention delegates (for Repeal), so states are observations in the cross-sectional regression analysis. The results broadly support the main thesis.     

Partisan politics and public finance: Changes in public spending in the industrialized democracies, 1955–1989

This paper evaluates the role that partisan politics plays in altering public spending levels. The analysis covers over three decades of data on the developments of the public sectors in 16 OECD countries. The results of the analysis lend firm support to the partisan politics model. Of special note is the distinction between the electorate' and the government' ideological preferences and the dominant role that the former plays. The results also suggest, contrary to conventional wisdom, that partisan political influences have not been eliminated with the tightening of linkages to the international economy.     

Fission and Federalism: The Disaggregation of Canadian Party Activists

This article focuses on the Progressive Conservative (PC) partyof Canada and contrasts the orientations of four different setsof PC party workers: those who are active in the provincialarena in Nova Scotia and in Alberta, as well as those who areactive in the national arena from the same two provinces. Thedata reveal that federalism has had a disaggregative effecton Canadian political party ideology. Not only is the cleavagebetween activists in different orders of government consistentlylarge; it also generally exceeds that which exists between activistsin different provinces.     

The cumulation problem

Abstract After a discussion of possible components in a definition of 'cumulation' and the relative lack of cumulation in political science, a scheme for research strategies is outlined with the aim of facilitating cumulation, or at least facilitating a diagnosis of the state of political science in this respect. The scheme includes three types of studies: (1) analysis of the formal properties of theoretical approaches in political science, (2) content analyses in the form of inventories of problems, propositions and concepts in the discipline, (3) evaluational analysis, i.e. an assessment of what 'theory criteria' to use for evaluating the approaches and of the probable relations between these criteria.     

Disordered Eating Precursors in Pre- and Early Adolescent Girls and Boys

First- and second-year findings from a study of the development of disordered eating in pre- and early adolescents are presented. Fifth- and sixth-grade girls (n = 80) and boys (n = 85) were assessed on depression, body image, self-esteem, and eating behaviors and attitudes in Year 1 and again one year later. Weight, height, and pubertal development were also evaluated in Year 1 and Year 2. Gender differences existed on all measures in Year 2 and indicated consistently poorer scores for girls compared to boys. For girls, Year 1 Body Mass Index and pubertal development predicted Year 2 disordered eating. For boys, poor body image in Year 1 predicted Year 2 disordered eating. The importance of identifying early risk factors for eating disorders is discussed.