Local Governments' Fiscal Responses to Welfare Reform

The devolution of the social safety net means that local governments must increasingly respond to the needs of their citizens, particularly those who are coming off the welfare rolls and making the transition to work. Based on our findings from a statewide, randomized experiment, this article describes how welfare reforms have affected the well-being of current and former welfare recipients. We look specifically at how those leaving welfare in Indiana are using the township trustee system, the state's general assistance program providing poor relief, to meet basic needs, as well as how the trustees have responded to welfare reform.     

Policy Community, Policy Network and Comparative Industrial Policies

This article explores ways in which the relationships between 'government' and 'industry' in the making and carrying out of policy can be compared cross-sectorally and cross-nationally. It draws attention to the accumulating empirical evidence which suggests a disjuncture between conventional characterizations of national economic and industrial policies and processes, with what actually happens in practice. It argues that more systematic attention needs to be given to the analysis of the norms of policy and behaviour at different policy levels. Using the concepts of policy community and policy network, it shows how policy networks can be identified, characterized and compared, and how relationships within networks are regulated by 'rules of the game'.     

Criminal justice and ethical ideology: an exploration of a loyalty-truthfulness dilemma

The notion of loyalty is well established in the criminological literature pertaining to ethics, ethical decision making, and ethical and ideological orientations. The present research addresses the topic of ethics and loyalty in an attempt to address three research questions germane to these areas within criminal justice and criminology. Using two samples equivalent in characteristics other than academic major, this research examines: (1) what impact gender, college major, and the ethical perspective of the observer and the nature of the actor’s action have upon the observer’s attitude toward the action (specific act of deception/truth); (2) what impact gender, college major, and the ethical perspective of the observer and the nature of the actor’s action have upon the observer’s perception of the social attractiveness of the deceiver; and (3) what impact gender, college major, the ethical perspective of the observer, and the nature of the actor’s action have upon the observer’s perception of the task attractiveness of the deceiver. Using a vignette design in this exploratory research, attempts are made to shed light on the impact of gender, major (criminal justice v. others), and ethical orientation on perceptions of an actor confronted with an ethical dilemma of loyalty versus disloyalty involving deception.     

Who Governs Japan? Politicians and Bureaucrats in the Policy-making Processes

The long-running debate about who governs Japan has been given a new twist by 'rat-choicers' who argue that Japan has been governed for the last thirty years or more neither by bureaucrats nor by a 'conservative coalition' of bureaucrats, politicians and businessmen but by the Liberal Democratic Party alone. This article examines their arguments and sets them in the context of other competing and conflicting explanations. It is argued that more relevant and researchable questions are what is governed and how, an approach calling for a more nuanced analysis of policy making in order to observe the impact on different policies and policy-processes of the role of the state and its institutional structures and their embedded 'collective identities'.     

Attitudes toward hate crime laws

The research reported here was a survey study exploring attitudes toward hate crime laws and possible causes of such attitudes. In a path model, which was supported by the data, it was found that the major factor determining acceptance or rejection of a hate crime law was whether or not homosexuals would be included as a protected group: those wanting inclusion supporting such a law, and those not wanting inclusion opposing such a law. Consistent with identity politics theory, the data-supported model further found that both social and economic liberals, and people who thought hate crimes created fear in other members of the victim's group, wanted homosexuals included in hate crime laws. Other findings, however, were inconsistent with the identity politics theory position that this movement was a united front. Other results from the data-supported model are also discussed and explanations are provided.