PRIME MINISTERS, PARTIES, AND THE PUBLIC: THE DYNAMICS OF GOVERNMENT POPULARITY IN GREAT BRITAIN

This article proposes and tests a model of British party supportbetween 1953 and 1987, including prime minister's popularity,economic fluctuations, and short-term noneconomic factors. Weargue that public evaluations of the prime minister (PM) havehad an increasingly important effect on relative party popularity("government lead"). We demonstrate that this enhanced linkbetween PM popularity and government lead began in the 1960s,well before the Thatcher era. We also attempt to demonstratethat noneconomic factors (wars, scandals, etc.) exert indirecteffects on government lead through voters' evaluations of theprime minister. The results of this test, however, are inconclusive.We discuss the implications of these findings for our understandingof British politics.     

Rules, Red Tape, and Paperwork: The Archeology of State Control over Migrants

Abstract Conventional accounts of a drastic shift to migration restriction after World War I following a golden era of free movement obscure crucial processes of state formation around matters of administering migration. How and with what consequences did state control over migration become acceptable and possible after the Great War? Existing studies have centered on core countries of immigration and thus underestimate the degree to which legitimate state capacities have developed in a political field spanning sending and receiving countries with similar designs on the same international migrants. Relying on archival research, and an examination of the migratory field constituted by two quintessential emigration countries (Italy and Spain), and a traditional immigration country (Argentina) since the mid‐nineteenth century, this article argues that widespread acceptance of migration control as an administrative domain rightfully under states' purview, and the development of attendant capacities have derived from legal, organizational, and administrative mechanisms crafted by state actors in response to the challenges posed by mass migration. Concretely, these countries codified migration and nationality laws, built, took over, and revamped migration‐related organizations, and administratively encaged mobile people through official paperwork. The nature of efforts to evade official checks on mobility implicitly signaled the acceptance of migration control as a bona fide administrative domain. In more routine migration management, states legitimate capacity has had unforeseen intermediate‐ and long‐term consequences such as the subjection of migrants (and, because of ius sanguinis nationality laws, sometimes their descendants) to other states' administrative influence and the generation of conditions for dual citizenship. Study findings challenge scholarship that implicitly views states as constant factors conditioning migration flows, rather than as developing institutions with historically variable regulatory abilities and legitimacy. It extends current work by specifying mechanism used by state actors to establish migration as an accepted administrative domain.     

DISAGGREGATE EVIDENCE ON PRICE STICKINESS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MACRO MODELS

We use the methodology applied at the aggregate level by Gali and Gertler (1999) to analyze price and cost data for U.S. six‐digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industries. Industries with price adjustment periods of at least 6 quarters generate no more than about 43% of total sales of industries we analyze. Industries with estimated price adjustment speeds of less than a year generate at least 44% of sales. Our conclusion is that disaggregate U.S. data provide as much support in favor of relatively high price flexibility as they do for the assumption of widespread price stickiness utilized in many modern macroeconomic theories. (JEL E31, L16)     

Differences between Poker Players and Non-Poker-Playing Gamblers

Since approximately 2003, the popularity of poker has quickly risen to unprecedented heights. This study examined poker play among university students who gamble on a regular basis. A total of 513 undergraduate students (females = 344, males = 170; mean age = 22.1) who gamble in some form at least two times per month completed an online questionnaire; 62.2 per cent (n = 319) of the respondents reported playing poker for money in the past year. A logistic regression analysis showed that poker players were more likely to be male, younger, have higher scores on an index of alcohol abuse, spend more time gambling and gamble more frequently compared to non-poker players. A second logistic regression showed that online/casino poker players were more likely to be male, have higher scores on an index of problem gambling, spend more time and money gambling, and gamble more often compared to social/non-poker players. These results are discussed in terms of the potential of poker's newfound popularity to lead to an increase in addictive behaviours, particularly among adolescents and young males.     

Gentlemen v. Players: Lay--Professional Relations in the Administration of Juvenile Justice

Summary The relationship between professional social workers and laypanel members in the Scottish children's hearing system is examined.We analyse the generation and containment of conflict in thecontext of the disposal of specific cases. Finally we suggestthe implications of our material for the status of social work,the accomplishment of juvenile justice, and the direction oforganisational research.     

Social Workers and Supervision Orders: A Case of Occupational Uncertainty

Summary A distinctive feature of the supervision order is that it canbe administered either by the Probation Service or by the LocalAuthority Social Services Department. An examination of the case files on a large sample of boys (N=971)aged 14–16 placed on supervision orders for criminal offencesreveals a number of differences between the way in which workersin the two agencies approach the task of supervision. The findingssuggest that social workers are in some respects less professionallysecure and certain as to their purpose in performing their supervisorytask than are probation officers. This is accounted for by locatingtheir practice in a number of intersecting contexts, includingan occupational ambivalence over the exercise of authority anda lack of clarity in relation to the role of welfare in thecontext of juridical requirements