Suchergebnisse

This article analyzes U.S. vulnerabilities to state crimes against democracy (SCADs). SCADs are actions or inactions by government insiders intended to manipulate democratic processes and undermine popular sovereignty. Watergate and Iran–Contra are well‐known examples of SCADs involving top officials. SCADs in high office are difficult to detect and successfully prosecute because they are usually complex and compartmentalized; investigations are often compromised by conflicts of interests; and powerful norms discourage speculation about corruption in high office. However, liberal democracies can reduce their vulnerability to state political criminality by identifying vulnerabilities proactively and instituting policies for SCAD detection and prevention.

No current policy paradigm, however interdisciplinary, provides an adequate and coherent account of post-9/11 security doctrine for "a war with no clear end or scope." Like the hologram, the image of the terrorist constructed by PATRIOT and kindred legislation appears vivid while defying a definitive grasp, just as the holographic image dematerializes on the hand reaching to touch it. This article sketches etiology for a new policy analytic paradigm that is coined here, the Holographic State, and explores its suitability for policy and administrative sense making under conditions where the epistemological and ontological foundations of policy inquiry have been made profoundly unstable.

Although the subgovernment concept has proved useful in explaining activities & decisions in the formulation & legitimation of US public policy, recent empirical work & theorizing have challenged the assumptions of subgovernment consentaneity & hegemony. An attempt is made to modify & refine conceptions of subgovernments in the policy process in two ways: (1) conflict within subgovernments is not limited to the formulation stage of the process, but carries over into implementation; & (2) conflict exists not only within subgovernments, but also between them. These subgovernment conflicts have important implications that may help account for policies that are either flawed in their design or difficult to implement. A better understanding of the relationship between the formulation & implementation of public policy may be gained by examining the nature & consequences of subgovernment conflict. The empirical data were derived from a 2-year field study of a veterans' employment program conducted in 15 jurisdictions & in Washington, DC. 1 Table, 24 References. AA.