Abe's Fall: Leadership and Expectations in Japanese Politics

On becoming prime minister in 2006, Abe Shinzō was feted as the ‘prince’ of Japanese politics. A year later, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party had suffered a major electoral defeat and Abe's time as his country's leader was over. As a study of political leadership, this article seeks to explain the leadership outcomes of Abe's brief prime ministership, in particular the dramatic fall in public support Abe suffered during his tenure. It is argued that, despite the difficult circumstances Abe faced, the nature of his political demise cannot be fully accounted for by structural factors alone. It is also necessary to understand the role played by Abe himself and, in particular, his flawed leadership strategy. In the end, Abe's political demise followed a basic logic: high expectations followed by disillusionment characterised by sudden plunges in approval—a tragedy of hubris leading to nemesis.     

Prospects for Local Collaboration into an Uncertain Future: Learning from Practice within Labour's Partnership Paradigm

Achieving effective local collaboration, a strong theme of the previous Labour government, may actually become more important given Coalition government policies emphasising decentralisation and encouraging alternative providers of public services. Therefore, it remains essential to learn from experiences of collaboration especially as, despite significant research, few studies explicitly identify guidance for improving this practice that is of specific relevance to local policy actors. In order to do so, a decentred and ethnographic approach was adopted to examine collaboration in a case study of a Sport and Physical Activity Alliance in Casetown, a medium-sized city in the south of England. Findings from this case study reinforced those found in other studies that pointed to the constraints of targets imposed by the Labour government, ingrained approaches to public administration and lack of open acknowledgement of power differentials impeding the development of effective collaboration. Drawing on the suggestions of those involved in the alliance, an alternative vision of collaboration is advocated, focused on shared learning and bottom-up implementation within more fluid and open structures in which there would be greater scope for the exercise of agency on behalf of those individuals and organisations involved. As during the period of the Labour government, aspects of current wider policy agendas may impede as well as support the development of this alternative vision of collaboration. Nevertheless, it is argued that reflexive local actors may collectively be able to address the contextual challenges that exist in order to develop more effective forms and practices of collaboration.     

‘Managing’ the Middle Classes: Urban Managers,Public Services and the Response to Middle-Class Capture

There is a longstanding concern about middle-class capture of the benefits of public service provision, although relatively little evidence exists on the exact nature of any advantage or on the processes by which this comes about. Using a framework developed from Gal (J. Gal, 1998. Formulating the Matthew Principle: on the role of the middle-classes in the welfare state. Scandinavian Journal of Social Welfare, 7, 42–55), and via two case studies of street cleansing services in the UK, the article explores the ways in which middle-class service users assert influence in relation to service design, resource allocation and practice on the ground. It explores how urban managers respond to middle-class influence, revealing the ways in which influence is accommodated and the benefits of this to middle-class service users. It also evidences how urban managers attempt to resist aspects of middle-class advantage, and the challenges such resistance presents. The article concludes that the need to ‘manage’ middle-class influence permeates the routine institutional policies and practices of this key public service.     

Overreporting Voting: Campaign Media,Public Mood,and the Vote

This study used regional telephone survey data collected after the 1996 U.S. presidential election to examine how two possibly important affective variables public mood and political cynicism predict actual as compared with self-reported voting. Public mood, a construct introduced by Rahn, Kroeger, and Kite (1996) to suggest how affective processes may play a role in political behavior, is shown to have two distinct but positively correlated dimensions, one positive and one negative. After demographic variables were controlled, perceived media usefulness predicted positive mood about the presidential election, which in turn predicted self-reported voting. Negative campaign attitude predicted negative mood, which, in turn, influenced actual but not self-reported voting. Political cynicism, although correlated with both positive and negative public mood, predicted neither measure of voting. The bifurcation of influence of negative and positive public mood about elections may explain why researchers have often shown positive affect to influence voting (as measured by self-report), and why political consultants have continued to rely on negative campaigning and the reported increases in negative feelings it engenders in voters to influence actual votes.     

Privacy,stigma and public protection: A socio-legal analysis of criminality information practices in the UK

Criminality information practices involve public authorities in the UK (and elsewhere) gathering, retaining and sharing information that connects with an identifiable individual; all with the ostensible aim of upholding and improving standards of public protection. This piece first charts the landscape of contemporary criminality information practices in the UK today. The article then examines recent legal emphases and policy directions for public protection networks. Consideration is then given in the piece to privacy rights and values and the difficulties in providing an exact typology and grounding for these. The piece then outlines a suggested framework for correct legal regulation, as well as a through commentary on the work done by Catherine Bellamy et al. to empirically determine the extent to which public protection information sharing can in fact occur in correct adherence to legal regulation. A socio-legal analysis is undertaken of the nature of public protection networks as variants on Goffman's performance teams within a dramaturgical routine that foregrounds stigmatisation of perceived ‘risky’ individuals as an aspect of that routine. This piece also explores the processes of institutional isomorphism as a reaction to shifting policy directions and legal doctrines, acting as a driving force towards a hierarchical performance of criminality information practices by public protection networks. Three conclusions are offered up for consideration: firstly, that the growing complexity of the law and regulation relating to criminality information practices might improve privacy values in the criminal justice system and help to add precision to necessary processes of stigmatisation in relation to the aim of public protection. Secondly, that these shifts in the law still need ongoing revisions, in order that a hierarchical approach to criminality information practices can be arrived at over time. Thirdly, that if the permanency of potential stigmatisation through the indefinite retention of criminality information cannot change, due to the competing pressure on the criminal justice system from public protection duties, then consultation with ‘risky’ individuals where practicable, before criminality information connected to them is shared across public protection networks becomes essential as a privacy-enhancing value and practice.     

Planning and Control System With a Network Approach： Evidence From the Italian Regional Governments

The focus on networks in public administration has grown rapidly in recent years and prompts modifications of traditional planning and control systems of public entities. Public networks have been defined as a response to the criticalities of New Public Management and they represent a recurring approach for policy implementation and service provision in the theoretical framework known as New Public Governance. This article addresses the question whether public entities are aware of being part of a network and whether they have actually changed, as such, their planning and control system. Focus is made on the case of Italian regional governments which are particularly significant for different reasons. First of all, the recent process of administrative devolution and federalism in Italy has reinforced regional governments＇ powers and responsibilities as well as their importance as actors in the political and economic scenario, where they can influence the behaviours of many public and private organizations. Furthermore, Italian regional governments have extensive autonomy and so they can actually modify and integrate traditional documents of their planning and control system. The article proposes a framework for mapping different approaches toward being part of a public network. This framework can support the interpretation of the behaviour of public entities involved in networks and take the initiatives to develop them.     

The Civil Society,the Uncivil Society,and the Difficulty Israel Has Making Peace with the Palestinians

Abstract

The difficulty Israel has making peace with the Palestinians, which became evident with the failure of the 1993 Oslo Agreements, can be explained through the internal relationships and historical dynamics within the Israeli public sphere, and the relations between the public sphere and the state. Using the terms ‘civil society’ and ‘uncivil society’ as a theoretical framework, the article examines both the relations between these two binary representations within the public sphere and the ability of each of them to influence state policy through two analytical tools: cultural politics and instrumental politics. The contention is that the Oslo Agreements failed in part because while both the civil and uncivil societies arose as a cultural innovation and alternative collective identities in neo-liberal Israel, the uncivil society succeeded in translating its collective representations into effective instrumental politics that influenced the Israeli state, while the civil society failed to do so.     

Does the Government Selection Process Promote or Hinder Pluralism? Exploring the Characteristics of Voluntary Organizations Invited to Public Consultations

To what extent does the government selection process practised in public consultations promote or hinder pluralism in the policy-making process? This article addresses this question by exploring and analysing the characteristics of voluntary organizations invited to public consultations. Evidence is drawn from the formerly corporatist Scandinavian country of Sweden and the policy-making process referred to as the ‘remiss procedure’. The article shows that the government selection process encourages a multitude of organizations to participate. Consistent with recent studies on Scandinavian corporatism, this study provides weak support of corporatist practices in the Swedish policy process. However, and without challenging the seemingly pluralistic nature of the remiss procedure, voluntary organizations with ‘insider status’ in the policy process are more frequently invited to formal decision-making arenas such as the remiss procedure. It is argued that the policy network literature and the theory of political opportunity structures may further the understanding of the government selection process practised in public consultations.     

上海高校校园治安防控体系建设的实践与思考

高校校园政治稳定、治安稳定事关高等教育改革、发展和稳定的大局,是社会稳定的晴雨表.在新的历史时期,随着高等教育进一步发展和校园进一步开放,高校校园治安情况日益复杂,校园安全形势趋于严峻,由校园治安问题引发社会热点的风险凸显.因此,以创建平安校园活动为抓手,建立以高校为校园安全责任主体,公安机关、高校教育行政主管部门为监督主体,公安机关与高校紧密合作、联动的校园治安防控体系,具有十分重要的现实意义.