Community policing: a critique of recent proposals

In this article the proposals by the Association for Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, for a scheme of Community Policing, are outlined and discussed. Their innovatory nature is recognised but a number of problems — the notion of community which they use, difficulties in implementing such schemes and the question of whether they constitute a scheme of community policing — are considered. Finally the question is posed as to whether the Gardai could make the changes required to produce genuine community policing

The Demonization of Women in Popular Culture: Some Recent Examples

Until recently the study of popular culture .was dominated by the perspective of the Frankfurt School. For them all mass culture was identical. Cultural products were \u27cyclically recurrent and rigidly invariable types\u27 (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1 977:352}. They were the products of the \u27assembly-line character of the culture industry\u27 (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1977:380}. The similarities extended beyond plotlines and genre-types to the consistent promotion of conventional values. This culture was primarily a form of social control. It was, to quote De Tocquevil!e, ·a tyranny (which} leaves the body free and directs its attack at the soul\u27 (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1 977:358}

Some problems of policy-related attitude surveys — with examples from the Davis-Sinnott report

This paper offers a criticism of some of the problems involved in policy-related attitude surveys. It argues that the assumptions made in order to generate information useful to policy-makers are difficult to defend. The four particular assumptions examined concern the nature of the problem towards which people are presumed to have attitudes, the nature of attitudes themselves, the belief that attitude research is descriptive and finally the relationship between the nature of public opinion and the choice of a research methodology. The argument is illustrated with examples from the report by Davis and Sinnott (1979) on attitudes to the Northern Ireland problem

Entrepreneurship and development - an alternative perspective

This paper offers an alternative to the more orthodox psychological approach to the study of entrepreneurship. It suggests that an adequate theory of entrepreneurship must consider a country's political and economic history and especially the way in which this history has structured the opportunities for economic gain open to social groups in the society. It further suggests that due to the different historical experience of underdeveloped countries, and especially international monopoly capital, these opportunities will be differently structured in such societies. Whilst the particular structure may not lead to development, it will be maintained by the class structure and political system which emerges in such societies and which may resist attempts to alter that particular structure of economic opportunities. However, while such opportunities are so structured, analysis of entrepreneurship must also consider why there might be differential response to such opportunities in a society. This, it suggests, can be explained in terms of the degree of role continuity and congruity in economic roles in the society. Consideration of both the historical and the economic role level is essential for the study of entrepreneurship