Driven by politics: agenda setting and policy-making in Hungary 2010–2014

Studies on media and politics generally find an effect of the media on the symbolic policy agenda. Analysing data from the Hungarian Comparative Agendas Project, we demonstrate that this effect is extremely weak in the Hungarian policy-making process. We identified those issues that received greater than average coverage in the media. However, we found that in the majority of cases governmental initiatives or decisions preceded the media coverage – that is, instead of the media agenda pulling the policy agenda, the general logic is the opposite: the media are talking about the policy initiatives of the government. The ambition of the paper is twofold. First, our findings reinforce those claims in the literature that point to the many institutional and political factors affecting the media-politics nexus. This suggests that policy-making might be very different in new(er) democracies. Second, our research analyses the policy-making side of Viktor Orbán’s governance. Changes in the polity, democratic backlash and illiberal tendencies are usually the focus concerning the political changes in Hungary since 2010, but no attention has been devoted to how this type of governance is reflected in policy-making. Our paper seeks to make a contribution also in this respect.     

Separation of powers and the Ecuadorian Supreme Court: exploring presidential–judicial conflict in a post-transition democracy

In 2005 ongoing political conflict between the executive and legislative branches of government in Ecuador culminated in a struggle over the judiciary. These events resulted in the dismissal, re-constitution, and dismissal again of the Ecuadorian high court (the Corte Suprema de Justicia) and the impeachment of the president. This paper uses the political crisis surrounding the dismissal of the Ecuadorian Supreme Court of Justice to examine the broader phenomenon of executive branch attacks on the judiciary in South American and Africa. We make three general observations: (1) the longevity of the judiciary alone (time without attack) does not guarantee a sufficiently deep reservoir of diffuse support to protect it from successful efforts at structural change or dissolution, (2) despite previous evidence that multilateral constitutional processes result in increased court independence (Dargent, 2009), we conclude that multi-party institutional arrangements are more vulnerable to the types of crisis that cause them to seek to use courts and their legitimacy to achieve political goals thereby limiting previous gains in independence, and (3) a court's institutional legitimacy is enhanced when it survives political threats from other branches of government. The crisis in Ecuador is used to demonstrate the challenges facing newer democracies with continuing multilateral conflict as well as the utility of thinking about how, why and when political institutions attack high courts and how the judiciary and citizens respond.     

Physick and the Family: Health,Medicine and Care in Wales, 1600–1750

Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform 1250–1550. An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe (1980), xii+458 (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, £15.75).

Ian Maclean, The Renaissance Notion of Woman. A Study in the Fortunes of Scholasticism and Medical Science in European Intellectual Life (1980), viii+119 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £7.50).

Edward Royle, Radicals, Secularists and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866–1915 (1980), xii+380 (Manchester University Press, Manchester, £19.50).

Gail Braybon, Women Workers in the First World War (1981), 244 (Croom Helm, £11.95).

Eric Cahm and Vladimir Claude Fisera (eds), Socialism and Nationalism, 3 vols (1978–1980), 116+132+132 (Spokesman, Nottingham, £2.50 each).

Harold Perkin, The Structured Crowd, Essays in English Social History (1981), xii+230 (Harvester, Brighton, £20.00).     

The role of individual agents in promoting peace processes: business people and policy entrepreneurship in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Are individual businesspeople who operate as policy entrepreneurs willing and able to influence peace processes in conflict areas? The literature on businesspeople as policy agents shifts when talking about peace processes, focusing on group level activities and ignoring the effect of individual agents. We argue that rather than regarding businesspeople as a traditional interest group, we should consider the approaches to promoting change that strongly motivated individuals adopt as policy entrepreneurs. Based on interviews with senior Israeli businesspeople and decision-makers, we demonstrate how strongly motivated Israeli businesspeople promote peace as policy entrepreneurs. We identify their motivations, goals, challenges, and the strategies they use. The findings indicate that although motivated by economic profits, businesspeople undertake activities that may prove very beneficial to both themselves and society as a whole.     

Popular Culture and the Public Sphere in the Rhineland, 1800–1850

Nicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley and Sherry B. Ortner (eds), Culture/Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory (1994), xiv + 621 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, $55.00).

Adrian Wilson (ed.), Rethinking Social History: English Society 1570–1920 and Its Interpretation (1993), ix + 342 (Manchester University Press, Manchester, £14.99, $24.95).

Andrew D. Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England: The Diocese of Salisbury 1250–1550 (1995), x + 297 (Clarendon Press, Oxford and New York, £35.00, $58.00).

Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (eds), Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England (1994), viii + 216 (UCL Press, London, £35.00, paperback £11.95).

Drohr Wahrman, Imagining the Middle Class: The Political Representation of Class in Britain, c. 1780–1840 (1995), xiv + 428 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, $69.95, paperback $22.95).

Patricia Grimshaw, Marilyn Lake, Ann McGrath and Marian Quartly, Creating a Nation (1994), 360 (McPhee Gribble, Ringwood, Victoria), $A19.95).

Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum : History, Theory, Politics (1995), x + 278 (Routledge, London, £40.00, paperback £14.99).

Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather. Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Context (1995), xi + 449 (Routledge, London and New York, £13.99).

Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity. The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate Bengali’ in the Late Nineteenth Century (1995), xi + 191 (Manchester University Press, Manchester, £40.00).

Mary J. Hickman, Religion, Class and Identity. The State, the Catholic Church and the Education of the Irish in Britain (1995), viii + 287 (Avebury, Aldershot, £37.50).

David Blackbourn, Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Nineteenth Century Germany (1994), xxxiv + 510 (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, $35.00).     

Varieties of marketisation in the UK: examining divergence in activation markets between Great Britain and Northern Ireland 2008–2014

This article examines the sub-national diversity in activation quasi-markets in the United Kingdom (UK). Through comparison of four active labour market programmes in Great Britain and Northern Ireland between 2008 and 2014, the article clarifies and maps intra-UK diversity in employment service governance and unpacks the shifting configurations of market structures in each jurisdiction to reveal a temporally and spatially distinct patterning of marketisation. Drawing on Gingrich's approach to analysis and classification of quasi-market variation, the article proposes that between 2008 and 2014, Great Britain rapidly evolved a provider-directed activation market. In contrast, the activation market structure in Northern Ireland, up to late 2014, is better characterised as state directed. A recent reconfiguration of the activation market in Northern Ireland does however indicate some (modified) convergence on Great Britain's approach. One common and consistent feature of the configuration of activation markets in each jurisdiction is the few powers given to direct users of employment services to shape contracted out provision.     

Does job satisfaction mediate the relationship between work–family conflict and psychological strain? A study of Australian social workers

The present study investigated the mediating effects of job satisfaction on the relationship between work–family conflict and psychological strain among Australian social workers. Data for the study were collected by an online survey of the membership of the Australian Association of Social Workers, yielding 439 usable responses. The results provide evidence that job satisfaction mediates the relationship between work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict and psychological strain. These findings contribute significantly to the social work literature on work–family interface and confirm the importance of developing and targeting not only strategies that aim to reduce work–family conflict, but also those that aim to increase job satisfaction among social workers.