If Immigrants Could Vote in the UK: A Thought Experiment with Data from the 2015 General Election

The distribution of voting rights in the UK is an artefact of history rather than a product of clear legal or philosophical principles. Consequently, some resident aliens (i.e. immigrants) have the right to vote in all UK elections; others can vote in local elections but are excluded from national elections; still others are excluded from all elections. In England and Wales alone, roughly 2.3 million immigrants are excluded from voting in national elections. This exclusion is inconsistent with the founding principle of democracy and distorts political discourse. What if all immigrants could vote in national elections? We estimate that up to ninety‐five parliamentary seats could have been won by a different party in the 2015 general election. More substantially, enfranchising all immigrants would require re‐drawing UK constituency boundaries. The new electoral map would increase the relative power of urban constituencies and would incentivise some political entrepreneurs and parties to temper anti‐immigration rhetoric.     

The Motivational Effects of Mission Matching: A Lab‐Experimental Test of a Moderated Mediation Model

Scholarly literature finds positive motivational effects of matching workers and missions. However, the psychological mechanisms behind this matching effect have not been explored. This article develops and tests a moderated mediation model of mission matching in which meaningfulness serves as an intervening mechanism that explains the association between mission matching and effort. It also considers how individual differences in prosocial motivation influence the intervening role of meaningfulness. Using a real‐effort laboratory experiment with monetary incentives, the article shows that matched subjects exert more effort than mismatched subjects, that this effect is mediated by increases in meaningfulness, that prosociality moderates the effect of a match on meaningfulness, and that the indirect effect of a match on effort through increases in meaningfulness varies as a function of prosociality. These results contribute to a more nuanced understanding of mission matching and suggest that matching may be particularly important for certain types of workers.     

The Westminster Model and the “Indivisibility of the Political and Administrative Elite”: A Convenient Myth Whose Time Is Up?

This article argues that the principle of indivisibility in the relationship between political and administrative elites acted as a central convention of the Westminster system for much of the twentieth century. It explores how in more recent decades this principle has been challenged by the shift to a principal–agent approach. It considers the extent to which this shift diminishes the traditional Westminster model's understanding of the minister–civil servant relationship as one based on a symbiotic interdependent partnership. In its place has emerged a more universal command and control relationship that is seen as necessary to meet the demands of modern accountability and transparency. Such a change has fundamentally altered a long‐established power‐bargain between ministers and civil servants and undermined a core tenet of the Westminster model.     

Mediated political masculinities: the commander-in-chief vs. the new man

The media play a very influential role in our perceptions of our political leaders, irrespective of where in the world they appear. Since the latter part of the twentieth century, our leaders’ personalities came to play an increasing role in their appeal, in particularly their gendered performances. As Barack Obama's presidency draws to the end of its second term, this paper will examine the representation of his persona in the context of the election in 2008 when he became the first Black US president. Much has been written of him being the first Black president of the USA, however, if we explore his campaign through a gendered lens, we can see that he is equally revolutionary. This contrasts with the gendered construction of male political leaders in other parts of the world, particularly that of Vladimir Putin in Russia. Building on work carried out in relation to the mediatisation and personalisation of politics in the last 50 years, this article shows how gendered performances can be seen to mirror changes in society.     

Ethnonationalism as a Source of Stability in the Party Systems of Bulgaria and Romania: Minority Parties,Nationalism, and EU Membership

Democratization, economic transformation, and EU accession have shaped the Bulgarian and Romanian party systems in ways similar to that seen across the rest of eastern Europe. A quarter century after democratization, the party systems remain unstable. The article demonstrates that nationalism and ethnic identity provide stable voter salience in party systems that remain dominated by fragmentation, personalistic political parties, and a lack of issue differentiation. An analysis of the use of ethnonationalism by political elites in Bulgaria is contrasted with a briefer analysis of Romania.     

Applying Knowledge of Species‐Typical Scavenging Behavior to the Search and Recovery of Mammalian Skeletal Remains

Forensic investigations involving animal scavenging of human remains require a physical search of the scene and surrounding areas. However, there is currently no standard procedure in the U.K. for physical searches of scavenged human remains. The Winthrop and grid search methods used by police specialist searchers for scavenged remains were examined through the use of mock red fox (Vulpes vulpes) scatter scenes. Forty‐two police specialist searchers from two different regions within the U.K. were divided between those briefed and not briefed with fox‐typical scavenging information. Briefing searchers with scavenging information significantly affected the recovery of scattered bones (χ² = 11.45, df = 1, p = 0.001). Searchers briefed with scavenging information were 2.05 times more likely to recover bones. Adaptions to search methods used by searchers were evident on a regional level, such that searchers more accustom to a peri‐urban to rural region recovered a higher percentage of scattered bones (58.33%, n = 84).     

Threats to Perceptions of Fairness in the Termination of Parental Rights

Termination of parental rights (TPR) proceedings are among the most important family court activities. This study contributes to knowledge of the TPR process by illustrating practices employed in TPR proceedings and considering ways that certain practices can hinder perceptions of fairness. TPR court records from one state were analyzed using inductive coding procedures. The analysis identified nine categories of threats to perceptions of fairness in the TPR process. Findings have implications for procedural justice and the legitimacy of child welfare practice.     

Staff Quality and Treatment Effectiveness: An Examination of the Relationship between Staff Factors and the Effectiveness of Correctional Programs

Although a growing body of research has focused on identifying the characteristics of effective interventions, relatively little research has looked at the impact that staff factors have on treatment effectiveness. The current research conceptualizes staff quality via three domains: staff characteristics, staff training, and staff supervision. Process and outcome evaluations of 54 community correctional facilities are used to examine the relationship between staff quality and reduced recidivism of program participants. The results suggest that measures of all three domains maintain substantively meaningful relationships with program effectiveness.     

Innovation capacity in the healthcare sector and historical anchors: examples from the UK,Switzerland and the US

Innovation is an integral part of economic development in developed economies. In the post 2008 period, a key policy agenda is that of sustainable development, which calls for innovation in all aspects of value-chains. In this paper, we focus on innovation from the biotech—pharma perspective to see whether or not this will lead to a sustainable future for the regions where there are clusters of firms in this sector. We examine data from a recently completed European Union study of innovation in the Healthcare sector from the UK and Switzerland, countries with an historical base in pharma, to understand how innovation pathways vary at the regional level in the broader life sciences, which incorporate biotech and more. Innovation in the healthcare sector in two regions, Oxfordshire in the UK and Zurich in Switzerland are compared. We contextualize our discussion by drawing on studies that focus on the sector in the US, specifically Boston. The analytical framework comprises three elements: innovation systems and national and regional economic development theories are the first two, followed by approaches which consider organizational or institutional activity. This framework is used to help explain and understand the complexity of how innovation is organized at the sub-national level. The overall context is that it is increasing becoming a condition for government financing of research that it has more immediate application in industry or have the possibility of commercialisation (e.g., translational research).