Explaining Divergent Attitudes Toward Lethal Drone Strikes

Although lethal drone strikes have become a central component of the U.S. campaign against international terrorism, the program remains a low salience issue with considerable bi-partisan consensus and a supportive U.S. general public. This article explains American attitudes toward lethal drone strikes by testing arguments based on partisanship and ideology, core values and abstract beliefs, and elite cues. Results suggest that respondent core values and governmental cues offer important insights. Consequently, the political environment under certain conditions may not frame important issues in such a way that the general public is likely to gain a knowledgeable understanding of the alternatives.     

The centralisation of local government functions in Northern Ireland — an appraisal

This paper reviews the work of Local Development Agencies (LDAs), such as Councils for Voluntary Service and Rural Community Councils in promoting and supporting voluntary and community action in local communities in the UK. Based upon the first substantive study of these bodies since the late 1970s the paper evaluates both their work and the extent of their support to local communities. It then maps this work against the roles delineated for LDAs in the Wolfenden Report, in 1978, and suggests a reformulation of their roles for the new millennium. It concludes by considering the import of these ‘reformulated’ LDAs for the community governance initiative of the present Labour government.     

The impact of TUPE on compulsory competitive tendering: Evidence from employers

The transposing of the 1977 Acquired Rights Directive into UK law has resulted in prolonged uncertainty regarding whether its protection of terms and conditions of employment extends to workers transferred under compulsory competitive tendering (CCT). In this paper we examine briefly the origins and scope of the directive and the development of relevant case law. We then report the results of a survey of employers confirming the existence of widespread confusion over the legal position of transferred employees. We also provide evidence that terms and conditions of employment are commonly being revised following CCT transfers. Concentrating upon the responses of contractors we show that any experience of litigation tends to lead to a less favourable assessment of the overall success of CCT. We conclude by examining both the causes and consequences of the continuing legal confusion associated with CCT transfers and consider the policy implications of our findings.     

The Great Republican Transformation on Oversight

For a relatively small country that does not have a very large intelligence establishment, Canada has produced quite a sizeable literature on such matters. Produced mainly in the past twenty years, it essentially dates from the period when revelations began that the Security Services of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had been involved in illegal activities. The resulting scandal produced a Royal Commission of Inquiry, the McDonald Commission, and the establishment of review institutions. While Igor Gouzenko's disclosures of Soviet involvement had drawn some public and academic attention to espionage matters in Canada in the late 1940s, the Security Service controversies of the late sixties and seventies marked the real beginning of a spate of publications in the field.