IMPROVED PERFORMANCE IN LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: A WARM EMBRACE OR AN ARTFUL SIDESTEP?

This article examines the extent to which changing approaches to performance management have had an impact on a range of agencies responsible for local economic development programmes in Britain. It explores the possibility that the effectiveness of public programmes could be more sharply highlighted and incorporated in the performance review of organizations. It demonstrates that major improvements have occurred but that overall the planning and management of local economic development remains largely incremental. While the FMI (Financial Management Initiative) has led to greater understanding of the extent to which corporate and programme accountability can be achieved in public agencies, it is not clear that sufficient momentum has been achieved for future changes to be self-generating. Further progress in performance management continues to be dependent on strong external pressures to publicize, probe and reward demonstrable improvements in public sector performance.     

POLITICS AND VIOLENCE IN RHODESIA

The ferocity and imbecility of an autocratic rule rejectingall legality and in fact basing itself upon complete moral anarchismprovokes the no less imbecile and atrocious answer of a purelyUtopian revolutionism encompassing desstruction by the firstmeans to hand, in the strange conviction that a fundamentalchange of hearts must follow the downfall of any given humaninstitutions.     

All Choices are Ugly for Europe

Three years into the protracted Eurocrisis “all choices are ugly,” as former British prime minister Tony Blair comments. Indeed, the high cost of bad options is prompting some to question whether Europe is worth saving the euro. Along with Tony Blair, the former Italian prime minister Romano Prodi as well as two of the best financial minds around—Nouriel Roubini and Mohamed el‐Erian—warn of the dire consequences of a euro breakup. One of France's most prominent philosophers, André Glucksmann, wonders whether the idea of a united Europe—a reaction to the horrors of World War II—can hold everyone together in the future when peace is the norm.     

A Norms Approach to Jury "Nullification:" Interests, Values, and Scripts

Juries and other lay tribunals are often justified because they leaven the law with community norms. Unfortunately, we do not have a particularly good theory of when and how juries substitute their normative judgments for the law. A first step in developing such a theory is to examine the nature of norms and the way jurors bring normative judgments to their task. In this article I compare and contrast different understandings of norms that currently are in vogue in the social sciences and then use these approaches to develop a more systematic understanding of when juries do and when they do not substitute their normative judgment for that of the law.     

In memoriam: Leonard J. Theberge

The study examines Pat Robertson's use of The 700 Club television program to establish and sustain celebrity status and in turn to promote partisan politics through seemingly objective news accounts. The findings indicate that The 700 Club news segments consistently rely on narrative techniques that mask Robertson's intensely partisan content and provide what Kenneth Burke terms symbolic medicine for his particular audience.