An Analysis of the Joint Board or County Model as the Structural Basis for Effective Australian Local Governance

Australian policy‐makers continue to rely on municipal amalgamation as the main engine of structural reform in local government, despite strong evidence that it diminishes participation and representation without improving service efficiency. Several promising, but neglected alternative models of structural reform have been developed, including ad hoc resource sharing models, Regional Organisations of Councils, virtual local government, and agency models. In an encouraging response to the recent policy of enforced council amalgamations in NSW, the Shires Association of NSW (2004) has recently proposed a ‘Joint Board model’ of local governance and invited comment on this model. This article takes up this challenge and seeks to place the Joint Board model in conceptual context and evaluate its characteristics and simulated cost savings.     

论警察出庭作证制度

完善我国司法制度,建立警察出庭作证制度是必要的;在我国现行法律体制下,警察出庭作证制度尚未形成。我们应根据国际法则与我国实际情况建立适合本国国情的警察出庭作证制度。     

The Frontiers of Legal Analysis: Reframing the Transition in Northern Ireland

British constitutional legal discourse is structurally limited in its capacity to capture the complexity of the Good Friday Agreement. Rather than assessing the Agreement in narrow devolutionary terms, it should be seen as a hybrid domestic and international law instrument, making an important contribution to accepted international law norms in relation to self-determination. The Agreement transforms and partly transcends the Northern Ireland conflict by substituting political contestation for violent conflict, and by defining the modalities of conducting that contestation. This analysis complements classical international law perspectives, and opens up the application of legal discourses associated with 'transitional justice' to the legal and political transformation in Northern Ireland. These discourses focus on the problem of reconciling the demands of peace with the imperatives of justice. The Agreement sits squarely in this terrain with its provisions on 'dealing with the past' and 'institutional legacies'. The insights gained here challenge orthodox thinking about conflict-management and the ongoing political process.     

Error minimization and deterrence in agency control

In the presented oversight model, in which a regulatory agency may collude with regulatees, a watchdog organization may scrutinize the agency’s decision-making and find evidence speaking for collusive behavior. Found evidence is of a specific, stochastic quality. Courts will overturn the administrative decision when the evidence presented in court exceeds a minimum quality standard set by the political principal. Lowering the quality standard increases the odds of finding evidence of sufficient quality and, hence, leads to increasing collusion deterrence and to a lower probability of acquitting collusive administrators (type I error), but also to a higher probability of convicting an innocent administrator (type II error). It is shown that, when welfare-maximization gives rise to an interior solution, the welfare-maximizing standard of evidence is lower than the one that merely minimizes the costs of legal errors without taking deterrence costs into account, but will imply incomplete deterrence. However, conditions can and will be identified under which both error cost minimization and complete deterrence coincide with welfare-maximization.     

领导干部的社会主义荣辱观

胡锦涛同志提出的社会主义荣辱观,涵盖了爱国主义、集体主义和社会主义的丰富内容,指明了社会主义市场经济条件下人们世界观、人生观、价值观的核心所在,明确了当代中国的道德评价体系和道德评价标准。高屋建瓴,切中时弊,具有强烈的现实针对性。各级领导干部应准确把握社会主义荣辱观的内涵,充分认识树立社会主义荣辱观的必要性,为全社会作出表率。     

中国政府形象传播目标模型

中国政府形象传播运作程序或运作过程,可分为五个基本步骤--调研、预测;计划(策划);传播、沟通(政府行为 对行为的解释);反馈、评估;矫正(形象修正).此五个环节相互衔接,不断循环上升,形成一个动态的循环式运转模式.它体现了政府形象传播流程的系统性、整体性和计划性.其核心是:政府与社会、公众的有效互动(双向模式),政府组织与其他组织的有效互动.     

政府促进科技创新比较研究

近年来 ,政府在创新中的作用呈现出加强之势。各国政府在促进创新中实施了不同的战略 ,如追赶型、重点化战略等 ;政府作用形成了三种代表类型 :美国模式、欧洲模式和东亚模式。创造适宜的环境 ,建立和完善风险投资机制、激励机制和知识产权保护机制是各国政府推动创新的主要措施。在转型期 ,我国政府在科技创新中应发挥主导作用 ,有效发挥宏观调控、导向和组织协调功能 ,为创新营造良好的软硬环境     

A Test of Generalizability of the Social Development Model Across Gender and Income Groups with Longitudinal Data from the Elementary School Developmental Period

The social development model (SDM) is a theory of behavior that has proven useful in explaining the etiology of delinquency, violence, and substance use among adolescents as well as early antisocial behavior among pre-adolescents. A further test of the model is its generalizability across population groups. A section of the SDM representing prosocial influences in the etiology of problem behavior was compared for boys and girls and for children from low- and non low-income families using three waves of child, parent and teacher survey data on a sample of 851 elementary school students. Multiple group structural equation modeling was used to assess differences across groups in both measurement of model constructs and hypothesized structural paths between constructs. The results indicate overall similarity in the reliability of measurement models and validity of structural models.     

市场经济与民族精神重构

西方文化思潮的冲击,强烈而深刻地作用于当代中国人的心理和观念,影响着以爱国主义、集体主义、社会主义的思想道德为核心的民族精神的时代走向,发展有中国特色社会主义的文化,成为重构民族精神价值取向的重要内容。     

DOES CRIME JUST MOVE AROUND THE CORNER? A CONTROLLED STUDY OF SPATIAL DISPLACEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF CRIME CONTROL BENEFITS*

Recent studies point to the potential theoretical and practical benefits of focusing police resources on crime hot spots. However, many scholars have noted that such approaches risk displacing crime or disorder to other places where programs are not in place. Although much attention has been paid to the idea of displacement, methodological problems associated with measuring it have often been overlooked. We try to fill these gaps in measurement and understanding of displacement and the related phenomenon of diffusion of crime control benefits. Our main focus is on immediate spatial displacement or diffusion of crime to areas near the targeted sites of an intervention. Do focused crime prevention efforts at places simply result in a movement of offenders to areas nearby targeted sites—“do they simply move crime around the corner”? Or, conversely, will a crime prevention effort focusing on specific places lead to improvement in areas nearby—what has come to be termed a diffusion of crime control benefits? Our data are drawn from a controlled study of displacement and diffusion in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two sites with substantial street‐level crime and disorder were targeted and carefully monitored during an experimental period. Two neighboring areas were selected as “catchment areas” from which to assess immediate spatial displacement or diffusion. Intensive police interventions were applied to each target site but not to the catchment areas. More than 6,000 20‐minute social observations were conducted in the target and catchment areas. They were supplemented by interviews and ethnographic field observations. Our findings indicate that, at least for crime markets involving drugs and prostitution, crime does not simply move around the corner. Indeed, this study supports the position that the most likely outcome of such focused crime prevention efforts is a diffusion of crime control benefits to nearby areas.