The politics of the doorstep : female survival strategies and the legacy of the miners’ strike 1984–85.

This paper considers the legacy of continuing activism of women in the North East of England who organized in support of the 1984-85 miners' strike. It refers to the traditional responsibility of women in mining localities for the maintenance of neighbourhood and kin relations and using the example of a key activist in one ex-mining village, it argues that the values associated with 'mining community' remain relevant as a reference point for a self-conscious, politicized reshaping of local relationships in post-industrial conditions. The material basis for this self-conscious approach has shifted from the masculine sphere of mining work and its associated community institutions to the feminized sphere of location and neighbourhood

A Trojan Horse Behind Chinese Walls?: Problems and Prospects of US-Sponsored "Rule of Law" Reform Projects in the People’s Republic of China

The US government has announced an initiative to promote the "rule of law" in the People’s Republic of China. However, though China has also endorsed building the "rule of law" as a goal, the American and Chinese views of what "rule of law" entails differ substantially. In the US government, rule of law reform is seen as a way to promote human rights and political reform, whereas the Chinese government wants to restrict law reform to those areas closely related to developing a market economy. To deal with this divergence in goals, the US has adopted a "Trojan Horse" strategy: the belief is that the Chinese will allow US-sponsored law reform programs for economic reasons, but once established, these programs will lead to broader political reform. However, this view is not well-supported by theory or empirical evidence. Thus, while law reform programs in China may be worthwhile, we should be skeptical of their ability to trigger more fundamental political reform.rule of law; China; legal reform; political reform

Quark Model Calculations Of Symmetry Breaking in Parton Distributions

Using a quark model, we calculate symmetry breaking effects in the valence quark distributions of the nucleon. In particular, we examine the breaking of the quark model SU(4) symmetry by color magnetic effects, and find that color magnetism provides an explanation for deviation of the ratio $d_V(x)/u_V(x)$ from $1/2$. Additionally, we calculate the effect of charge symmetry breaking in the valence quark distributions of the proton and neutron and find, in contrast to other authors, that the effect is too small to be seen experimentally.Comment: 6 Pages, 3 postscript figures compressed using uufile

Optimal Political Control of the Bureaucracy

It is widely believed that insulating an administrative agency from the influence of elected officials, whatever its other benefits orjustifications, reduces the agency\u27s responsiveness to the preferences of political majorities. This Article argues, to the contrary, that a moderate degree of bureaucratic insulation from political control alleviates rather than exacerbates the countermajoritarian problems inherent in bureaucratic policymaking. An elected politician, though responsive to majoritarian preferences, will almost always deviate from the majority in one direction or the other Therefore, even if the average policy position of a given elected official tends to track the policy views of the median voter in the electorate, the average divergence between the preferences of that official and the median voter in the electorate is generally greater than zero. Forcing the politically responsive official to share power with a partially insulated bureaucracy can reduce the variance in policy outcomes, because bureaucratic insulation creates a kind of compensatory inertia that mutes the significance of variation in the elected official\u27s policy preferences. Up to a point, the median voter\u27s benefit from this reduction in outcome variance outweighs the costs associated with biasing the expected outcome away from the median voter\u27s ideal policy

Mixed Signals: Reconsidering the Political Economy of Judicial Deference to Administrative Agencies

This paper investigates rational choice explanations for patterns of Supreme Court decision-making with respect to the appropriate level of judicial deference to administrative agency decisions. In particular, I assess empirically the thesis that the Supreme Court expands deference when the Supreme Court is ideologically closer to the executive than to the circuit courts, and contracts deference when the opposite is true. I find little to no evidence supporting this rational choice theory of judicial deference. Given this surprising null finding, I offer alternative explanations for the data and suggest directions for future research