Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory - Advance Access

Representation of Lesbians and Gay Men in Federal, State, and Local Bureaucracies

Lewis, G. B., Pitts, D. W. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:34:05 PST

Using a 5% sample of the 2000 Census, we present the first estimates of the percentages of federal, state, and local government employees who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB). For each state, we estimate that percentage not only for its total state and local government workforce but also for three occupations where active representation of LGB interests may be the most important: managers, teachers, and police. We then try to explain variation in LGB representation. Using states as units of analysis, we examine the effects of the LGB share of the labor force, gay rights laws, executive orders, and supportive public opinion on LGB representation. Using individual-level data, we examine whether differences in education, work experience, gender, race/ethnicity, and occupation explain differences between partnered LGBs and heterosexuals in probabilities of working for government.

Personnel Flexibility and Red Tape in Public and Nonprofit Organizations: Distinctions Due to Institutional and Political Accountability

Feeney, M. K., Rainey, H. G. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:04:10 PST

Academics and journalists have depicted government bureaucracies as particularly subject to administrative constraints, including the infamous red tape and personnel rules that sharply constrain pay, promotion, and dismissal and weaken their relations to performance. Research on these topics has often focused on public organizations alone or on comparisons of public and private organizations. The analysis reported here extends this research to include nonprofit organizations. Certain theoretical perspectives would predict sharp differences between public and nonprofit organizations, whereas others would predict no differences. Using survey data from managerial-level respondents in state government and nonprofit organizations in Georgia and Illinois, this analysis compares perceptions of red tape and personnel rule constraints in public and nonprofit organizations. We investigate whether or not public and nonprofit respondents differ in their perceptions about levels of organizational red tape and about whether formal rules enable or constrain managers in promoting and rewarding good employees and removing poor performers. The results indicate sharp public and nonprofit differences, with public managers reporting higher perceived organizational red tape and lower levels of personnel flexibility. In addition to public and nonprofit comparisons, the analysis takes into account other factors that might influence public and nonprofit managers’ perceptions of red tape and personnel flexibility in their organizations, including individual motivations to choose the job, the respondent's state (Georgia or Illinois), and others.

Stability and Punctuations in Public Spending: A Comparative Study of Budget Functions

Breunig, C., Koski, C., Mortensen, P. B. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:39:35 PST

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of stability and punctuations in public spending within and across two different countries—Denmark and the United States. The theoretical starting point is the classic model of budget incrementalism and Jones and Baumgartner's model of disproportionate information processing. First, despite the clear differences in institutional setup, we show that public spending spanning many decades in Denmark and the United States are characterized by a similar distribution of small-, medium-, and large-scale spending changes. What is more intriguing is that we show how this aggregate result obscures (1) substantial variation between categories of public spending and (2) similar tendencies within similar spending categories across the two countries. These findings suggest that we need to unpack the overall budgets for detecting the particular sources of stability and change in government spending. Hence, the article offers important comparative findings that not only challenge the empirical validity of classic budgetary incrementalism but also advocate an increased focus on more disaggregated spending dynamics than employed in previous studies of the model of disproportionate information processing.

Rule Following and Discretion at Government's Frontlines: Continuity and Change during Organization Socialization

Oberfield, Z. W. — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:50:26 PST

As important players in the policy process, many studies have investigated the determinants of bureaucratic behavior. One intriguing set of findings suggests that behavior is linked to bureaucrats’ views of themselves as government officials and their views of the people who they serve. Despite the importance of workers’ perceptions, we have little understanding about how bureaucrats develop psychologically. From a theoretical perspective, workers’ views may be associated with extraorganization influences (like their personalities and preorganization experiences) or organization influences (like training, peers, and culture). However, few studies have examined how workers develop during organization socialization, so it is difficult to disentangle the impact of these various influences. This article improves our understanding of bureaucratic psychology by studying how police officers and welfare caseworkers develop their default rule-following identities: the typical rule-following selves that bureaucrats project during interactions with citizens. This article's findings show change and continuity during socialization: though many workers shifted their default rule-following identities, and some organization influences were associated with the identities that workers developed, they remained tethered to their entering rule-following expectations. The article concludes by discussing the theoretical implications of these findings for our understanding of bureaucrats as well as the practical implications for how public organizations recruit and manage their workforces.

Working with the State: Exploring Interagency Collaboration within a Federalist System

Mullin, M., Daley, D. M. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:26:35 PDT

In an era of devolution, collaboration between state and local institutions could be an effective tool for state governments to capitalize on local knowledge and respect local autonomy, while maintaining consistent standards and enforcement. However, the benefits to local agencies are less clear. Local agency personnel may have goals that diverge from their state counterparts and significant constraints on their resources, forcing them to consider the opportunity costs of collaboration. This article examines the determinants of subnational vertical collaboration in two settings: nested institutions with parallel missions and institutions with separate, but overlapping, missions. Augmenting an original survey of local public health departments in Wisconsin with data from other sources, we simultaneously estimate models predicting local cooperation with state agencies within and across issue boundaries. Our analysis indicates that management techniques, particularly performance evaluations that are tied to collaborative efforts, are the strongest determinant of collaboration across levels of government. We also find that political context facilitates vertical collaboration across nonnested institutions. Within nested institutions, local agencies are more likely to work with their state counterpart if they lack the capacity to act alone.

Informal Norms as a Bridge between Formal Rules and Outcomes of Government Financial Operations: Evidence from State Balanced Budget Requirements

Hou, Y., Smith, D. L. — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:26:33 PDT

Both formal rules and informal norms guide government operations; formal rules often function through informal norms. Balanced budget requirements (BBRs) are formal rules, but they are implemented via the intermediary of informal norms—interpretation of BBRs by state officials. This article examines the fiscal implications of informal norms that govern budgetary balance. We propose that informal norms have substantive implications in policy making and implementation. To test the proposition, we obtain state self-reported, time-varying data on balanced budget provisions as observations of informal norms, compare them against formal, codified balanced budget requirements from recent research to identify gaps between rules and norms, and decompose the gaps using two categories—"interpretations" and "reverse interpretations" of formal balanced budget requirements. We then conduct probit estimation to obtain the effects of informal norms as well as the interpretations and reverse interpretations on two measures of budgetary balance. Results show that informal norms do affect outcomes of government financial operations; the two-step decomposition of the gaps between formal rules and informal norms provides further information on the locus of these effects. The article identifies the interpretation of formal rules as a new research area, thus contributing to the budgetary institutions and policy implementation literatures.

Customer, Partner, Principal: Local Government Perspectives on State Agency Performance in Georgia

Thomas, J. C., Poister, T. H., Ertas, N. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:37:37 PDT

Public agencies increasingly perform their functions in partnership with other public, nonprofit, and private sector actors, prompting growing research interest in how these collaborations function. As yet, almost no one has thought it worth asking how collaborative partners perceive each other's performance, although these perceptions may themselves constitute important measures of agency effectiveness. Their determinants, in turn, could point to how agency effectiveness might be enhanced. This article examines these perceptions and their possible determinants for the partnerships between the state of Georgia's Department of Transportation and the state's local governments. Drawing from prior research on citizen satisfaction with local governments, the article proposes a preliminary theory of local government partner perceptions of state agency performance, including several principal dimensions of those perceptions—customer, partner, and overseer or principal—and hypotheses on possible determinants of those perceptions. The relevance of the dimensions and the hypotheses are then tested using data from two surveys of local government officials in Georgia. A concluding section offers speculations on the meaning of these findings for thinking about public service collaborations.

Temporary Crises and Priority Changes: The Case of State Substance Abuse Systems

Sosin, M. R., Smith, S. R., Hilton, T., Jordan, L. P. — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 05:56:43 PDT

Many doubts have been expressed about the capacity of states to administer federally supported social service programs. This article relies on institutional theory, punctuated equilibrium theory, and evidence from two states to analyze the way states administer the programs in times of fiscal crisis. The particular context is the fiscal crisis of the early 2000s in substance abuse programs. The analysis suggest that, during the crisis, state administrative authorities and the providers they funded refocused services on federal rather than local priorities. The states and providers also further integrated substance abuse services with the services of other programs and promoted managerial practices that seemed to loosen the match between services and clients. The findings point to some of the ways in which the states’ capacities to respond to crises can be undermined by the national trend toward encouraging state discretion. Findings also reveal challenges for state-level crisis management.

Explaining Cross-Country Differences in Performance-Related Pay in the Public Sector

Dahlstrom, C., Lapuente, V. — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:36:08 PDT

This article aims to explain cross-country variations in a paradigmatic element of the new public management reforms: the shift from low-powered incentives (i.e., flat salaries) to high-powered ones (i.e., performance-related pay [PRP] systems). It presents a theoretical model based on insights developed for understanding the success of performance-related incentives in the private sector. Economic literature has underlined the need for a system of separation of interests within firms to make promises on incentives credible. The interests of those who benefit from the incentives (e.g., owners) must be relatively different from the interests of those who manage the incentive system (e.g., managers). Similarly, this article argues that incentives in the public sector are more likely to be implemented in those administrations in which there is a relative separation between those who benefit from the incentives (e.g., politicians) and those who manage the incentive system (e.g., senior civil servants). Where the interests of both groups overlap (e.g., the careers of senior officials and politicians are intertwined), incentives will be less credible and thus less likely. A quantitative analysis for 25 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries confirms that PRP is significantly more used in contexts with clear separation of interests between politicians and senior civil servants.

The Impact of Organized Interests on Eligibility Determination: The Case of Veterans' Disability Compensation

Keiser, L. R., Miller, S. M. — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:51:18 PDT

The bureaucracy has a profound impact on the direction of policy when it determines eligibility for a variety of government programs. Given the significance of eligibility determination for policy and the fact that street-level bureaucrats have great latitude when interpreting eligibility standards, organized interests have an incentive to try to influence the application of eligibility rules. Despite this, few researchers have explored the impact of organized interests on eligibility determination. Using data from the Veterans’ Disability Compensation (VDC) program, we examine how organized interests affect the implementation of eligibility-based programs. We emphasize the dual role of many organized interests as both traditional advocacy groups and service providers and use insight from the interest group and third-party service provider literature to formulate hypotheses. We find that veterans’ groups affect variables capturing demand for, access to, and effective implementation of the VDC program, although we do not find effects for every measure of implementation included in our study.

Network Embeddedness and Public Agency Performance: The Strength of Strong Ties in Dutch Higher Education

Schalk, J., Torenvlied, R., Allen, J. — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:38:24 PDT

Current research in public management reports a positive effect of agency network activity in the interorganizational network on its performance (degree centrality hypothesis). This study presents a different hypothesis: The embeddedness of agency network relations in cohesive subgroups in the interorganizational network positively affects its performance ("cohesive subgroup" hypothesis). The dependent variable in the present study is organizational performance and measured in terms of individual client satisfaction. The hypotheses are tested using data on the interorganizational network of Dutch colleges for the training of primary education teachers (n = 28). These data are combined with college-level performance and contextual data for 2002–2005 (n = 90), and with the evaluations of college graduates in a large sample of graduates for the same period (n = 7,119). Multilevel logistic regression analyses show that colleges’ cohesive subgroup membership rather than college degree centrality significantly contributes to a positive evaluation by graduates. These analyses control for various control variables at the college level and the graduate level.

A Woman's Touch? Gendered Management and Performance in State Administration

Jacobson, W. S., Palus, C. K., Bowling, C. J. — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:26:45 PDT

Understanding the relationship between organizational performance, gender, and management is crucial to scholars and practitioners alike. In this article, we focus on whether women manage differently than their male counterparts and whether these varied behaviors translate to organizational outcomes. With respect to management activities, we examine internal management as well as external networking patterns with peers and political principals. Through our investigation, we also address a number of theoretical issues related to previous research on management and performance, particularly the work on modeling public management. This analysis offers avenues for expansion, explanation, and evaluation of its theoretical and empirical implications. We find evidence that female managers spend less time on internal management and networking relationships than their male counterparts. We also see that networking with citizens and clientele groups has a positive effect on organization outcomes for men, whereas networking with peers is more beneficial for women.

Sponsorship Matters: Assessing Business Participation in Government- and Industry-Sponsored Voluntary Environmental Programs

Darnall, N., Potoski, M., Prakash, A. — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:05:30 PDT

Stakeholders who seek to reward or punish businesses for their environmental programs often cannot observe these organizations’ internal policies and operations. To address these informational problems, and signal their beyond-compliance environmental commitments, some businesses are participating in voluntary environmental programs (VEPs). This article examines whether business managers associate the brand value of VEPs—due to their differing program sponsors—with the perceived preferences of their critical stakeholders. Drawing on a novel data set of nearly 300 organizations, we assess business’ participation in 19 government- and industry-sponsored VEPs. We find that managers who recognize the importance of stakeholder influences on their business’ environmental practices are more likely to participate in a VEP but that pressures from different stakeholders are associated with variations in organizations’ participation in either government- or industry-sponsored VEPs.

City Managers' Policy Leadership in Council-Manager Cities

Zhang, Y., Feiock, R. C. — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:18:58 PDT

City managers’ policy leadership has drawn great attention from scholars of public administration. However, what factors explain variation in managers’ policy-making roles has not been systematically explored. This study investigates the mechanisms leading elected officials to defer to the manager in policy making. Survey data from Florida council-manager cities indicate that noninstitutional factors—such as mayors’ political experience, managers’ professionalism, and concordance of manager and council preferences—influence the likelihood that a council will allow a manager to exercise policy influence. The data reveal that city managers earn policy-making leadership at the expense of their administrative authority. Thus, managers must reconcile inherent tensions between responsibility and compliance.

Linking Management Reform with Employee Job Satisfaction: Evidence from Federal Agencies

Yang, K., Kassekert, A. — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:15:40 PDT

Recent public management literature has emphasized the influence of public sector characteristics on employee attitudes, behaviors, and performance. This article assesses how recent management reforms, such as contracting out, civil service overhaul (also known as Title 5 exemptions or removal of civil service protections), and managing for results are associated with employee job satisfaction in the federal government. Using the Federal Human Capital Survey 2006 dataset, this article finds that contracting out and Title 5 exemption are negatively related to job satisfaction. Managing for results, operationalized as perceived performance orientation and innovative culture, is positively related to job satisfaction, but the relationship is moderated by employees’ trust in leadership and their perceptions of the effectiveness and fairness of performance appraisal.

Administrative Procedures and Bureaucratic Performance: Is Federal Rule-making "Ossified"?

Yackee, J. W., Yackee, S. W. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:30:08 PDT

We provide the first empirical assessment of the ossification thesis, the widely accepted notion that procedural constraints on federal agencies have greatly hindered the ability of those agencies to formulate policy through notice and comment rule-making. Using data that cover all active federal rule-writing agencies from 1983 to 2006, our results largely disconfirm the ossification thesis. Agencies appear readily able to issue a sizeable number of rules and to do so relatively quickly. Indeed, our empirical results suggest that procedural constraints may actually speed up the promulgation of rules, though our model suggests that this positive effect may decline, or even reverse, as proposed rules age. We conclude that procedural constraints do not appear to unduly interfere with the ability of federal agencies to act, or in most cases, to act in a timely manner.

Contingent Professionalism: Bureaucratic Mobility and the Adoption of Water Conservation Rates

Teodoro, M. P. — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:36:28 PDT

Professional networks are widely recognized as important sources of environmental protection policy innovation. I argue that innovations are most likely to diffuse from professions to governments under conditions of bureaucratic job mobility. When an agency head arrives from outside the government he serves, she carries both a reputation and mandate for innovation. The incentives for innovation are less potent when an agency head is promoted from within. The result is mobility-contingent professionalism, for the priorities of an administrator's profession are more likely to become manifest in policy when she arrives from outside than when she is promoted from within an agency. Analysis of data from an original survey of water utility executives tests the effect of career path and professional involvement on utilities’ adoption of conservation-oriented water rate structures. I find that executive career path is a strong predictor of an agency's adoption of conservation rates, even after accounting for climatic and institutional conditions. Further, the effect of professional involvement is contingent on career path: Professionalism is strongly associated with adoption of conservation rates for diagonally mobile executives but not for executives promoted from within.

Understanding the Political Context of "New" Policy Issues: The Use of the Advocacy Coalition Framework in the Case of Expanded After-School Programs

Brecher, C., Brazill, C., Weitzman, B. C., Silver, D. — Sat, 30 May 2009 00:31:02 PDT

This article uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework to identify the stakeholders and their coalitions in the arena of after-school policy, which drew much new attention beginning in the early 1990s in many American cities. Using evidence from case studies in five cities, we show how the framework can be extended beyond stakeholder analysis to include identification of core and secondary value conflicts and of opportunities for policy analysis to help strengthen coalitions and pressures for change. Coalitions in each of the cities differ over core values relating to the purposes of after-school programs (academics versus "fun"), but policy analysts can promote common goals by developing options to deal with the secondary conflicts over the relative importance of facilities versus program content, the modes of collaboration between public schools and community based organizations, and the incentives for public school teachers to engage in staffing after-school programs.

Pay for Performance in the Public Sector--Benefits and (Hidden) Costs

Weibel, A., Rost, K., Osterloh, M. — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:15:09 PDT

Current reforms in the public sector are characterized by the introduction of businesslike incentive structures, in particular the introduction of "pay for performance" schemes in public institutions. However, the public sector has some specific characteristics, which might restrict the naive adoption of pay for performance. Our article analyzes whether the impact of pay for performance on performance is bound to conditions, and if this is the case, under which conditions pay for performance has a positive or a negative effect on performance. We explore this contingency in a meta-analytic review of previous experimental studies on the effects of pay for performance on performance. We further show why pay for performance sometimes negatively affects personal efforts. With an experimental vignette study we demonstrate (a) that motivation is likely to be a key influence on the effect of performance-related pay on performance, and (b) that pay for performance is generally more costly as it appears because it almost always produces hidden costs of rewards. Our findings help to explain the modest success of pay for performance in the public sector.

Ecology of National Rule Birth: A Longitudinal Study of Dutch Higher Education Law, 1960-2004

van Witteloostuijn, A., de Jong, G. — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:58:47 PDT

To date, quantitative assessments of the evolution of national rules have only rarely been conducted, leaving many questions ill-understood and unaddressed, particularly as to the features of rule stock evolution patterns. Can such patterns be traced, and if so, can the underlying causal mechanisms be identified? This article will address these questions. The premise is that forces endogenous to the rule system, inherent to any population of national rules, together with the demographic characteristics of rule makers, and the institutional features of the rule-making bodies jointly determine the birth rates of national rules. Given this key assumption, we offer a three-fold contribution. First, we develop a theoretical framework that integrates ecological with demographic and institutional theories of the evolution of law. Second, we describe longitudinal quantitative data concerning rule (birth) events within the domain of postwar Dutch higher education legislation. Third, we apply negative binomial regression techniques in order to estimate a comprehensive theory-driven model specification of the underlying drivers of national rule birth.

Out of Sync and Unaware? Exploring the Effects of Problem Frame Alignment and Discordance in Community Collaboratives

Nowell, B. — Mon, 18 May 2009 05:34:48 PDT

In an effort to deal with complex community issues in a more comprehensive and cohesive manner, communities have increasingly created locally based interorganizational entities, referred to here as community collaboratives. Community collaboratives are comprised of representatives from multiple organizations and public agencies who meet regularly for the purpose of identifying and implementing strategies for improving their community's response to a specific issue of public concern. This article explores the role of problem frames and perceptions of problem frame alignment among members of community collaboratives. Specifically, this study uses an innovative combination of social network analysis methods and hierarchical linear modeling to explore how differences in the extent to which stakeholders view themselves in alignment with other members and how much they are perceived to be in alignment by other members effects the outcomes of the collaborative as a whole. Findings are based on data from members of 48 different domestic violence community collaboratives. Results suggest that the presence of stakeholders who are perceived to be philosophically out of sync by other stakeholders with regards to their understanding of domestic violence but do not acknowledge this apparent disconnect can negatively impact the effectiveness of the collaborative over and above the impact associated with the general degree of alignment in the collaborative. Implications of results for public and nonprofit organizations seeking to provide leadership in promoting the effectiveness of community collaboratives are discussed.

Policy Stability and Organizational Performance: Is There a Relationship?

Andersen, S. C., Mortensen, P. B. — Thu, 14 May 2009 13:51:40 PDT

Many scholars have struggled to explain stability and change in public resource allocation. What ultimately matters to most citizens, however, are the effects of such spending patterns on organizational performance. In this article, we investigate the relationship between stability of resource allocation and organizational performance. Using time-series data on municipal school budgets and population data on more than 140,000 students including their examination scores as well as detailed information about the socioeconomic status of their parents, the analysis lends empirical support to the more or less implicit proposition underlying much literature on budgetary incrementalism, namely that stable budgets have a beneficial effect on organizational outcome. In that way, this article not only renews the old interest in budget incrementalism but also raises new perspectives for research on the performance of public organizations.

Transformational Leadership in the Public Sector: Does Structure Matter?

Wright, B. E., Pandey, S. K. — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:13:01 PDT

This study contributes to our understanding of leadership in public sector organizations by investigating the effect of organizational structure on the transformational leadership practices of municipal chief administrative officers. Using data from a national survey of senior managers in local government, the findings of this study suggest a number of possible explanations for why public sector organizations exhibit higher levels of transformational leadership than what scholars traditionally expect. Our findings suggest that the structure of these organizations may not be as bureaucratic as commonly believed and that some bureaucratic characteristics had little, if any, adverse affect on the prevalence or practice of transformational leadership behaviors. In particular, although organizational hierarchy and inadequate lateral/upward communication were associated with lower transformational leadership, no relationship was found between transformational leadership behaviors and two types of organizational red tape. Contrary to expectations in the mainstream leadership literature, however, the use of performance measurement by municipal organizations was associated with a significant increase in reported transformational leadership behaviors.

Institutional Design and Formal Autonomy: Political versus Historical and Cultural Explanations

Yesilkagit, K., Christensen, J. G. — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:55:55 PDT

This article tests two competing hypotheses in the study of the institutional design of regulatory agencies. Political explanations consider the degree of institutional design of regulatory agencies as a function of political factors, such as the degree of policy conflict and political uncertainty. By contrast, historical-cultural explanations of institutional design claim that the design of regulatory agencies is a function of path dependency and national administrative traditions. In this article, we test these hypotheses on a data set of 293 regulatory agencies that were created between 1945 and 2000 in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark. We find strong support for historical-cultural explanations, while our findings suggest that political factors play almost no role in the institutional design of regulatory agencies within parliamentary regimes.

The Role of Reference Groups and Network Position in the Timing of Employment Service Adoption

Jokisaari, M., Vuori, J. — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:53:03 PST

The effects of organizational networks on adoption behavior may vary over time in response to institutional environments. We found support for this argument in an analysis of the diffusion of a job search training program among Finnish employment offices. The results indicated that the adoption behavior of collaborative organizations and brokerage position in the local network were related to early adoption of the program. The results further showed that the adoption behavior of structurally equivalent organizations tended to inhibit early adoption of the program. Finally, the results indicated that brokerage position in the whole network was related to non-adoption.

The Impact of Red Tape on Governmental Performance: An Empirical Analysis

Brewer, G. A., Walker, R. M. — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 05:18:53 PST

This study investigates the impact of red tape on governmental performance in the context of English local government. Both the red tape and performance constructs are multidimensional, so relationships between the concepts and their several dimensions are examined in detail. The results show that different types of red tape have varying impacts on governmental performance but that these effects are somewhat weaker than public management theory and conventional wisdom suggest. Moreover, some types of red tape affect some dimensions of performance in surprising ways. For example, internal red tape has limited effects on efficiency but inflicts considerable damage on equity. The results also show that red tape is a subject-dependent concept—known in the literature as stakeholder red tape. We contend that this alternative conceptualization of red tape opens new vistas for understanding the concept and should be explored further. The implications for public management research and practice are discussed.

Credibility and Relevance in Environmental Policy: Measuring Strategies and Performance among Science Assessment Organizations

Keller, A. C. — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:42:16 PST

Organizations that provide scientific information to policy makers face the difficult challenge of maintaining scientific credibility while establishing their political relevance. A growing body of research examines how assessment organizations meet the potentially competing expectations of science and policy communities. However, existing research has failed to produce generalizable findings. This study draws together theoretical approaches in science studies and organization theory to develop a framework that allows for a comparative analysis of multiple cases. The study compares the organizational strategies of the National Research Council, the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Comparisons among the organizations are made using independent measures of credibility and political relevance. The evidence suggests that organizational strategies do impact assessment effectiveness and that it is possible for organizations to simultaneously achieve scientific credibility and political relevance.

Do Advocacy Coalitions Matter? Crisis and Change in Swedish Nuclear Energy Policy

Nohrstedt, D. — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:50:34 PST

This study applies the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to developments in Swedish nuclear energy policy in the 1970s and 80s. In an effort to contribute to the refinement and debate regarding the generalizability of ACF theory, the objective is to assess the utility of ACF assumptions when applied in this case. The study explores hypotheses about advocacy coalition stability and examines the motivations explaining policy change in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island accident and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Utilizing different sources of data, the study confirms patterns of coalition stability and shows that interests and political learning were important in explaining policy change in this case. Theoretical implications derived from this study call for further specification of basic ACF concepts (external perturbations, dominant coalitions, and skillful exploitation) and posit the intensity and breadth of political conflict and strategic action as critical factors contributing to the explanation of policy change in contested policy areas.

Re-Creating Street-Level Practice: The Role of Routines, Work Groups, and Team Learning

Foldy, E. G., Buckley, T. R. — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:53:49 PST

Ample research documents the ubiquity of routines in street-level practice. Some individual-level and organizational-level research has explored how to break street-level routines, but little has looked at the work group level. Our study observed teams of state child welfare workers over 2.5 years, documenting whether they discarded old routines and learned new ones. Results suggest that team characteristics such as clear direction and reflective behaviors had greater influence on team learning than individual characteristics such as stress level, tenure, and educational level. We suggest that group-level factors be included in future models of what enables the re-creation of street-level practice.

The Strange Disappearance of Investment in Human and Physical Capital in the United States

Witko, C., Newmark, A. J. — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:24:55 PST

Many scholars have argued that there are strong incentives for states to spend less money on redistributive or consumption programs, such as welfare, and more on developmental or investment programs, such as highways. Yet, over the last few decades, the proportion of state budgets allocated to expenditures intended to develop human and physical capital, specifically education and highways, has declined. In real terms, spending on virtually every government program has increased but expenditure increases to redistributive programs have been much greater than those to investment programs. Why this shift has happened despite theory predicting the contrary has not been adequately examined in a way that considers multiple developmental programs and multiple ways of conceptualizing spending over a substantial time period. We undertake this task in the following article using a large, cross-sectional time series data set of state budgeting toward K-12 education, higher education, and highways from 1965 to 2004. We test competing theories of the determinants of state spending using these data and then discuss the factors that we believe have led to the relative de-emphasis on developmental programs. We find that the most consistent predictors of state developmental spending patterns are federal grants, the state of the economy, and interstate and intrastate competition.

Working Relationships in the National Superfund Program: The State Administrators' Perspective

Cline, K. — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:32:28 PST

Why Do Agencies Work Together? The Determinants of Network Formation at the Subnational Level of Government in Thailand

Krueathep, W., Riccucci, N. M., Suwanmala, C. — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:15:31 PDT

There is a small, although well-established body of literature examining network performance and accountability. In addition, there are relatively few studies which examine potential factors for determining network formation. The current study provides a systematic analysis of network formation determinants. A logistic regression model is constructed to explain the probability of network formation; five major groups of explanatory variables are included: institutional, programmatic, managerial, political, and socioeconomic. Data for this study were collected between 2003 and 2005 from 411 programs at the subnational governance level of Thailand as part of a larger study on the management of local governments. The analysis shows that the most significant variables in determining network formation include the nature of the programs and management capacity. Local political climate also has a significant effect on network formation, but only indirectly. The study also reveals that collaborations in educational and cultural promotion programs are still restricted, which differs from the experiences in many developed countries. This study illustrates the importance of programmatic, managerial, and political contexts that administrators may consider when forming networks.