Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: An examination of the extent to which it still remains appropriate to use the term civic culture in the 21st century. Can the term be used in a political system in which there is dwindling public trust and respect for politicians and political institutions? How should we describe the contemporary political system? This paper looks at the recently conducted citizen audit of Britain to examine the public's contemporary attitudes and behaviour in relation to these questions; in particular, it examines the public attitudes towards the political system in general, levels of political trust. political competence and efficacy, the level and range of political activities and associational involvements.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Pension reform has proved to be a persistent policy issue. Faced with demographic changes, a rapid increase in global economic competition, and consequent fiscal constraints, many countries have been seeking for a way to achieve efficient fiscal balances and contributions in old-age pensions, and significant pension reforms have been made in many countries. There are differences in the scope and extent of pension reform, but the pension reform processes are described as ?path-dependent?, arguing that any reforms or any policy choice are resisted by historical legacy, institutional settings and programmatic designs inherited from the past, hence policy reform illustrates continuity rather than radical breaks. This paper examines the policy transformation of welfare regimes, focusing on the post-war pension reforms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan as case studies. An attempt is made to sketch out historical trajectories of pension regimes and policy transformation in each country, drawing on recent theories about the role played by ideas in policy development and policy change. The paper argues the relations between the core component of regime and technical justification showing both the common path and divergent patterns of policies.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper reviews the span of abortion politics in Great Britain from the enactment of the 1967 Abortion Act through legislative activities in the 1990s. The paper is drawn from research on Britain I conducted as part of the project of the Research Network on Gender Politics and the State (RNGS), a cross national study of women?s movement impact on the state in post-industrial democracies and the role of women?s policy agencies in opening up the policy making process to women and women?s interests (Stetson 2001a). This project covers policy debates in several areas in addition to abortion: job training, political representation, prostitution and priority issues of the 1990s (RNGS 2002). The goal of the paper is to determine if there is a ?typical? British pattern of abortion politics by examining three policy debates that typify the British political system?s response to the competing interests over the regulation of the procedure.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper uses survey and focus group data to explore conceptions of citizenship held by the public in the United States and Great Britain. It shows how liberal and cultural pluralist understandings are impeded by communitarian thinking in both nations.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper compares the political mobilization of Muslims in Britain and France on two major issues: state funding of Islamic schools and the wearing of the hijab by Muslim schoolgirls in state schools.