Law, Policymaking, and the Policy Process: Closing the Gaps

Public policy scholars and public Law scholars often study the same substantive issues and have similar theoretical interests Yet students of the public policy process rarely consider the courts as policymakers in the same manner as do their public law counterpart We seek to explain this difference in approaches between the two Subfield on the question of the courts as policymakers, and we ask. how models of the public policy process should incorporate the judiciary.     

User-Centred Time Geography for Location-Based Services

Location‐based services assist people in their decision‐making during the performance of tasks in space. They do not consider the user's individual preferences, time constraints and possible subtasks to be performed. In order to account for these important aspects, a user‐centred spatio‐temporal theory of location‐based services is required. We propose such a theory by combining classical time geography with an extended theory of affordances. It assumes that affordances belong to three realms: physical, social‐institutional, and mental. In addition to covering the capability, coupling and authority constraints from time geography, this allows for a user‐centred perspective because affordances describe action possibilities with regard to a specific person. Furthermore, the integration of mental affordances offers the possibility to account for cognitive time constraints due to the duration of decision‐making processes. This new theory for location‐based services is closer to the individual user and more plausible with respect to their daily lives. A business traveller scenario is used as a case study to demonstrate this.     

Wired Communities in the City: Sydney,Australia

Questions relating to the ability of particular groups in society to access information and communications technologies (ICTs) have become a growing part of the academic and policy literature. The issues raised in this literature have revolved around a number of themes, many of which can be subsumed under concerns about a growing digital divide whereby society is being divided into information rich and information poor sectors. This differentiation can be between particular social groups irrespective of place, or between people in particular places be these large regional areas (e.g. metropolitan versus non‐metropolitan) or localities and communities within an urban area. This paper focuses on the existence of a ‘digital divide’ across the Sydney metropolitan area. Using ABS 2001 census data the paper presents an analysis of computer and internet access and use for clusters of local communities and focuses on how usage differs across communities as differentiated by socio‐economic status, household and family status and ethnic background.     

Delivering Integrated Rural Development: Insights from Northern Ireland

This article explores progress being made in the sphere of integrated rural development in Northern Ireland, based on the experiences of 15 LEADER II local action groups. Research suggests that the local action groups experienced difficulties in developing integrative and multi-dimensional approaches to rural development during the initial stages of strategy formulation. In addition there appears to have been an emphasis on delivering the products of rural development with little importance attached to supporting processes such as capacity building and animation. However, as the programme progressed, this article examines the potential added value of LEADER II in Northern Ireland as demonstrated by the enhanced scope for cross-sector dialogue and local collaboration rooted in partnership based activity.