It's a long way to Auchterarder! 'Negotiated management' and mismanagement in the policing of G8 protests

Recent analyses of protest policing in Western democracies argue that there has been a marked shift away from oppressive or coercive approaches to an emphasis on consensus based negotiation. King and Waddington (2005) amongst others, however, suggest that the policing of international summits may be an exception to this rule. This paper examines protest policing in relation to the 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. We argue that 'negotiated management' cannot be imported wholesale as a policing strategy. Rather it is mediated by local history, forms of police knowledge and modes of engagement. Drawing on interviews and participant observation we show that 'negotiated management' works best when both sides are committed to negotiation and that police stereotyping or protestor intransigence can lead to the escalation of any given event. In closing we note the new challenges posed by forms of 'global' protest and consider the implications for future policing of protest.     

Managers' personal values as predictors of importance attached to training and development: a cross-country exploratory study

Few empirical studies have examined the effect of personal values on the importance attached by individuals to training and development in organizations. We argue that personal values play an important role in decision-making processes (i.e. commitment to training and development) and that such values are the product of socialization processes operating at an organizational and societal level. Questionnaire data were collected from 340 Irish and Canadian line managers to test the hypothesis that personal values affect the importance attached by respondents to training and development. Capability values were found to be a significant positive predictor of the perceived importance of training and development. The findings emphasize the need for simultaneously examining both personal values and organizational factors as predictors of training and development activity.     

Corporate Political Activity: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

This paper reviews the diverse literature on corporate political activity (CPA) and develops a framework that details and integrates existing research in this field. A systematic analysis of extant CPA literatures is conducted to order them into domains that have implications for organizational performance. The paper is structured into three such domain emphases, which require further research investigation: resources and capabilities focus; institutional focus; and political environment focus. The contribution of each to an understanding of CPA in pursuit or defence of corporate competitive advantage is discussed. The authors also suggest that the internationalization of business, including the more recent emergence of developing country economies and companies, presents scholars with the challenge of understanding CPA in more varied institutional settings. CPA practices continue to expand as commerce goes increasingly global and, consequently, involves a wider array of political actors and institutions. The paper contributes by increasing the clarity of CPA classification, reflecting on the implications of a multi‐polar world for CPA research and advancing future agendas for scholars in this research community.     

Nation speaking unto nation? Newspapers and national identity in the devolved UK

There are two problems with the existing account of the relationship between newspapers and national identity in the UK. The first is that although it is widely assumed that the mass media are central to the reproduction and evolution of national identity this has never been empirically demonstrated. The second is that exactly what comprises the relevant ‘national’ context in the UK is unclear. Content analysis of 2,500 sampled articles, together with qualitative comparison of different editions of the same newspaper titles and interviews with editors and journalists are used to show the extent and nature of ‘national’ frames of reference in newspapers in England and Scotland. Paradoxically, devolution may have reduced the spatial diversity of news stories in the press in England and Scotland.     

Total System Performance Assessment for Waste Disposal Using a Logic Tree Approach

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has sponsored the development of a model to assess the long-term, overall performance of the candidate spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste (HLW) disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The model simulates the processes that lead to HLW container corrosion, HLW mobilization from the spent fuel, and transport by groundwater, and contaminated groundwater usage by future hypothetical individuals leading to radiation doses to those individuals. The model must incorporate a multitude of complex, coupled processes across a variety of technical disciplines. Furthermore, because of the very long time frames involved in the modeling effort (10⁴ years), the relative lack of directly applicable data, and many uncertainties and variabilities in those data, a probabilistic approach to model development was necessary. The developers of the model chose a logic tree approach to represent uncertainties in both conceptual models and model parameter values. The developers felt the logic tree approach was the most appropriate. This paper discusses the value and use of logic trees applied to assessing the uncertainties in HLW disposal, the components of the model, and a few of the results of that model. The paper concludes with a comparison of logic trees and Monte Carlo approaches.     

‘Next Steps’ for Equality?: The Impact of Organizational Change on Opportunities for Women in the Civil Service

The ‘Next Steps’ restructuring programme (1988) has had a fundamental impact on the management and organization of the Civil Service, and on the practice of equal opportunities. The fragmentation of the service into semi-autonomous agencies has resulted in greater managerial autonomy in relation to staffing issues. Equality initiatives such as part-time and flexible working patterns, ‘family friendly’ policies, women-only training programmes and the provision of nurseries are coming under threat due to increased discretion over decision-making in these areas. Other aspects of restructuring — such as ‘downsizing’— have resulted in a reduction of the middle management layer, making it more difficult for women to breach the ‘glass ceiling’ and access senior posts. The persistence of a hostile managerial sub-culture to equal opportunities has been instrumental in pushing equality issues to the bottom of the agenda in the current climate of change because of ‘more important’ organizational pressures. Within this context, equality of opportunity for women in the Civil Service has reached a critical stage.     

Parenting education for young fathers in prison

This paper explores the effectiveness of delivering an intensive parenting class to groups of young fathers in prison. Evaluation was based on course feedback from a total of 75 participants. Results demonstrate that even within a group of young prisoners of similar ages there were diverse parenting educational requirements, indicating a need for courses to remain flexible and participant‐led. In considering parenting support needs, three‐quarters of all course participants highlighted the importance of better visiting procedures to allow them to keep in contact with their children whilst in prison. Participants expressed reluctance in accessing parenting support services after release, with the majority of the young fathers indicating that they did not need or want to access formal post‐release provision. Results suggest that further efforts need to be made to support young fathers in custody and after release, with implications for preventing reoffending and engaging young men in parenting education.     

The Confederate Constitution, Tariffs, and the Laffer Relationship

This article offers an example of a national constitution, that of the Confederate States of America, which effectively constrained its fiscal authorities to tax rates on the lower end of the Laffer relationship. The taxes were Confederate import tariffs. Drawing on primary sources, the paper documents the role that this de facto capping of tariff rates played in the history of the drafting of the Confederate Constitution. That the Laffer relationship found constitutional expression for an important tax suggests that the "tariff" might have played a more significant role in the North–South conflict than is currently acknowledged.     

Social Constructions of Young Children in ‘Special’, ‘Inclusive’ and Home Environments

The paper tells of the social constructs surrounding young children with learning difficulties in their home, ‘special’ early education setting and ‘inclusive’ or mainstream early education setting in England. The exploratory study focused on how three‐ to four‐year‐old children made sense of their environments and how their identities were constructed by different parties in the different contexts. Ethnographic case studies were conducted using semi‐structured and informal interviews with parents and practitioners, documentary analysis, fieldnotes, and live and video observations. Shared constructions across the contexts for each child were common, with constructions of them being happy and making progress pervasive across the children and settings. Differences in constructions across settings indicated that qualities could shine or negative constructions be tempered, thus showing the role of the environment and the culture of inclusion in socially constructing children with special needs.