Frank J. Macchiarola

Child Care: Facing the Hard Choices.

Child Care: Numbers, Trends, and Issues Local Child Care Incentives State Child Care Incentives Child Care and Privatization The Schools and Child Care Employers and Child Care Family Day Care and the Future Child Care Program Mix Learning While Doing

Minority Political Empowerment in New York City: Beyond the Voting Rights Act

The 1991 elections for the New York City Council resulted in substantial political change in the composition of that body. Minorities of virtually every description found themselves in new positions among the citys politically empowered communities. This article discusses how the districting process resulted in fundamental changes to the citys legislature. It suggests that the 1965 Voting Rights Act (the act) -including its 1982 amendments and the developing case law -is not the most appropriate method or tool by which to address the continuing empowerment of minority communities after their members are elected to public office in substantial numbers. The authors, who were key participant observers in this process, argue that the New York City districting process was a logical outgrowth of the act and that the act must be expanded to meet new needs. Twelve African Americans (up from six) and nine Latinos (up from three) were elected to the new council. For the first time in the history of the city, a minority council member was elected to represent a district where less than 80

The Republic of Choice: Law, Authority and Culture

In this imaginative exploration of modern legal culture, Lawrence Friedman addresses how the contemporary idea of individual rights has altered the legal systems and authority structures of Western societies. Every aspect of law, he argues--from civil rights to personal-injury litigation to divorce law--has been profoundly reshaped, reflecting the power of this concept. The new individualism is quite different from that of the nineteenth century, which stressed self-control, discipline, and traditional group values. Modern individualism focuses on the individual as the starting and ending point of life and assumes a wide zone of choice. Choice is vital, fundamental: the right to develop oneself, to build up a life uniquely suited to oneself through free, open selection among forms, models, and lifestyles. With striking clarity and force, Friedman demonstrates how the new individualism results from changes in the technological and social framework of society. Loose, unconnected, free-floating, mobile: this is the modern individual, at least in comparison with the immediate past. Written for the general reader as well as lawyers and legal scholars, The Republic of Choice offers keen and original observations about legal culture and the public consciousness that informs and expresses it.

Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It

Organizations * Armies, Prisons, Schools * Organization Matters Operators * Circumstances * Beliefs * Interests * Culture Managers * Constraints * People * Compliance Executives * Turf * Strategies * Innovation Context * Congress * Presidents * Courts * National Differences Change * Problems * Rules * Markets * Bureaucracy and the Public Interest