Optimal compensating wages for military personnel

The current U.S. military pay structure offers inequitable and inefficient wages across locations. Military personnel are paid less competitive wages in high‐cost and/or low‐amenity locations compared to low‐cost and/or high‐amenity locations. This pay system results in unequal reenlistment rates across locations, which leads to production inefficiencies caused by short‐term manning shortages in highturnover locations. Wages set according to local civilian compensating wage differentials would result in a more stabilized force (across locations) by equalizing the opportunity cost of staying in the military at each location. Additionally, more personnel would volunteer to serve in the high‐cost and/or low‐amenity locations because wages would be more commensurate with local costs and amenities. This would result in fewer non‐volunteer assignments to undesirable locations and a minimized opportunity cost for personnel serving at each location. Reenlistment simulations on first‐term Air Force personnel show that the proposed wage structure would better equalize reenlistment rates across locations. This proposal could be implemented at no cost to the government by cutting wages in low‐cost and/or high‐amenity locations. A gradual implementation in which such wages are frozen or increased slowly may be more politically palatable. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Budgetary Incentives for Retail Activities at Military Bases

The Department of Defense (DoD) operates an extensive system of retail activities at military bases for active duty, retired, and reserve personnel and their families. DoD stores employ 96,000 civilian workers and sell $14 billion of goods and services annually at below-market prices. DoD resists efforts to reduce its role in retail activities, arguing that even within the United States stores with below-market prices are a cost-effective alternative to higher cash compensation for military personnel. This article examines the budgetary incentives that make inefficient, government-operated stores attractive to DoD and describes options that would change those incentives. Because most of DoD's retail stores are controlled by nonappropriated fund instrumentalities of the federal government, reforming those incentives could require changes in the treatment of these poorly understood federal entities.     

“被时代”引发的关于信息权的思考

近两年,网络上不断出现"被"词语,"被时代"来临,无论是被自杀,被代表,还是"被自愿"都表现出了话语权弱势一方的无奈,透过现象看本质,被时代的出现也折射出当今信息时代社会传播的失衡,政府、媒介和公民之间的传播链条出现症结,引起我们的深刻反思。政府与媒介,政府与公众,媒介与公众之间的关系需要改善和协调,从而促进信息民主的实现。     

Motivational dilemmas in collaborative learning activities: The case of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)

Complex social and environmental problems—such as climate change, rural poverty, and over‐fishing—defy simple policy solutions. An increasing number of scholars, practitioners, and policy makers now agree that coming to grips with such problems requires more collaborative and adaptive forms of learning and decision‐making. Such approaches seek to involve a variety of stakeholders to learn about system‐level effects of past human decisions and adapt future management decisions to the lessons learned. While there are plenty of success stories at the local level, the collaborative learning approach has turned out to be difficult to implement at broader scales—in large public organizations and in society at large. This article provides an explanation for such shortcomings, arguing that the creation of collaborative learning systems is plagued by several motivational dilemmas. By systematically mapping out the institutional incentives of the potential participants in collaborative learning activities, it is argued that one can gain a better understanding of the likelihood that adaptive systems will actually work. These ideas are tested on the case of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). It is found that most Sida staff face conflicting incentives to engage in collaborative learning, but there are opportunities for management to strengthen such incentives. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cleaning up and invigorating the civil service

Reliable quantitative estimates are not available of: (1) the quality of civil service performance and changes therein as the result of development projects, or (2) the importance of civil service performance for various development outcomes. Nonetheless, anecdotal evidence indicates that in some countries government performance has indeed collapsed, with calamitous effects on development. Although poor government performance is theoretically overdetermined—there are many possible causes, which we cannot disentangle in practice—a plausible story can be told based on institutional economics, using such concepts as information, incentives, and credible commitment. This version of both problems and solutions is supported by examples of successful reforms. The article argues that “institutional adjustment’ deserves more consideration as a basis for reforms. Two practical examples are discussed in some detail: improving incentives in the public sector and strategies to combat corruption. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IN THE USA: PROMISE VERSUS REALITY*

Abstract: The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) mobilized changes to the basis and structure of the federal service which are the most far-reaching since those installed by the Pendleton Act in 1883. Several of the 1978 provisions were directed toward encouraging a more incentive-oriented approach to personnel matters. Other measures involved the dismantling of the Civil Service Commission, the installation of new mechanisms to handle labour-management relations, the codification of merit principles, and the delegation to individual agency managements of wider personnel responsibilities. This paper raises the question of whether, four years after the passage of CSRA, there are indications that the legislation is living up to its earlier promise. Attention focuses upon the character of the 1978 measures and how well the federal service is coping, or is being allowed to cope, with the private sector-style, rewards-sanctions approach to personnel matters which was embraced by the Carter proposals. To a very significant degree the 1978 Act's provisions in that respect concentrated upon the more senior managerial and supervisory levels. It is less surprising, therefore, that many of the difficulties now associated with CSRA's implementation also are concentrated among those same groups (Senior Executive Service and merit pay). The salary and other incentives available to career executives for outstanding job performance have been eroded by Congress; the sanctions for poor performance remain, however, while worries persist about the possibilities of manipulating the new performance appraisal procedures in order to harass or remove career government officials. Meanwhile, the bulk of the federal service is, in practice, largely unaffected by the new performance appraisal arrangements. Many of the concerns about CSRA have been reinforced by the actions of the Reagan Administration and the 97th Congress. The bonus system for career executives remains under siege, the pay cap remains intact, while there are more general doubts about the Reagan Administration's commitment to civil service reform. The locus of responsibility for overseeing CSRA's implementation remains unclear, while there is evidence in some agencies that Reagan political appointees have attempted deliberately to exclude career executives from the policy process. Thus, despite the probably well-intentioned initiatives enshrined by CSRA, the US federal service still finds itself beset by problems of identity and support. It still feels vulnerable, too, to the types of political abuse from which the 1978 measures were supposed to afford protection.     

Negotiating Education Reform: Teacher Evaluations and Incentives in Chile (1990–2010)

Reforms designed to improve the quality of teaching by reforming personnel practices, such as pay for performance arrangements, usually run into opposition from well‐organized teacher unions that can either block reform in the short run or undermine it over the longer term. The experience of a series of reforms that introduced collective and individual pay incentives for teachers in Chile from 1990 to 2010 provide a rare example of ongoing negotiation with the teacher union that resulted in an institutionalized structure of incentive pay for teachers as well as widespread attitudes of sustained support among teachers for performance pay. Chile offers an important example of how sustained change in incentive pay can be achieved through ongoing negotiation.     

Retention and retirement: The case of the U.S. military

The military retirement system provides an immediate, lifetime, inflation-protected annuity to personnel who complete 20 or more years of service. The cost of this system has risen substantially in the past 15 years, and the system's actuarial costs now comprise almost one-third of total military manpower costs. Because of its importance in the total military compensation system, the military retirement system exerts a significant influence on the age structure of the force and on personnel turnover patterns. This article evaluates the relative efficiency of the current retirement system by comparing it with two recently proposed alternatives, one by a presidential commission and one by the Department of Defense. It estimates the impact of these proposed alternatives on the military personnel force structure and on manpower costs. It is concluded that these alternatives would provide a force as capable as today's force at significantly lower cost.Order of authorship determined alphabetically. This paper presents results of analysis conducted while Enns and Nelson were associated with the Department of Defense and Warner was on the staff at the Center for Naval Analyses. The views presented herein are those of the authors.     

Motivation Crowding and the Federal Civil Servant: Evidence from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service

ABSTRACT

Pay-for-performance reforms create “high-powered” incentives for civil servants to meet or exceed specified performance objectives as measured by such things as customer satisfaction. Economists and social psychologists have advanced the claim that high-powered incentives for performance may empirically lessen the effect of civil servants' intrinsic motivation toward achieving agency goals (motivation can be “crowded out”). Nonetheless, well-designed pay-for-performance incentives may “crowd in” intrinsic motivation. A number of federal agencies and subagencies have undergone personnel management reforms that raise the specter of this pattern of “motivation crowding.” Does it happen? Is intrinsic motivation crowded in or crowded out? This paper employs item response theory to create measurement models for the estimation a latent trait of intrinsic motivation for employees of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) using data from the 2002 Federal Human Capital Survey. The IRS, but not the OCC, implemented a paybanding system that imposed high-powered performance incentives on supervisors, but not on non-supervisory personnel. Results suggest that the IRS reward structure crowded in intrinsic motivation at the lowest levels, but that at the highest levels of motivation intrinsic motivation is crowded out, a pattern not seen in the OCC data.     

The servant of two masters: Electoral incentives in the Scottish Parliament

Scholars have pointed out the potential impact of different electoral systems on the incentives for representatives to cultivate personal versus party reputations. The mixed-member proportional system (MMP) allows us to examine the effects of electoral systems on legislators’ incentives. Scholars have argued that MMP may be the ‘best of both worlds’; however, MMP may lead to competing demands on list representatives if they are also allowed to run as constituency candidates, as happens in the Scottish Parliament. I show that this leads to different levels of committee activity—which I use as a surrogate for party activity—from constituency Members of Scottish Parliament (MSPs), pure-list MSPs (who are elected via the party list and do not run in constituencies), and dual-candidate list MSPs (list MSPs who also run in constituencies), and that the proximity of elections also affects committee activity for those who run in constituencies.     

Soldiers to Citizens: The Link between Military Service and Volunteering

Research shows that military service is linked with political engagement, such as voting. This connection is strongest for minorities. The authors explore the relationship between military service and volunteering. They conclude that military service helps overcome barriers to volunteering by socializing people with civic responsibility norms, by providing social resources and skills that compensate for the lack of personal resources, and by making veterans aware of opportunities to volunteer as well as asking them to do so. Military service is positively related to volunteering among blacks and Hispanics. Married veterans are more likely to volunteer than nonveterans. Veterans who served during wartime are more likely to volunteer than those who served in peacetime.     

Politics of administrative reform and reorganization in Bangladesh

The present military government in Bangladesh has implemented a number of major administrative reform and reorganization measures. The government claims that effectuation of such measures has led to the decentralization of power and authority to the grass-root level ensuring increasing popular participation in administration; the achievement of cost-effectiveness by reducing the number of ministries, divisions and personnel from the public pay roll and by quickening of the pace of decision-making due to elimination of redundant bureaucratic layers. But the implementation, in reality, has contributed among other things to the legitimization and strengthening of the military government, and a weakening of the democratically organized political opposition. It also enables generalist civil servants to preserve, and to some extent strengthen, their position within the civil service system.     

Russia's armed forces

Vladimir Putin’s rise to the Russian presidency raised hopes within the Russian military that the acute social and economic problems facing the armed forces after 10 years of ill-executed reforms could be resolved. But Putin’s proposed force-structure changes risk eroding this crucial pillar of support, unless he can also improve living conditions for military personnel and boost employment opportunities for former members of the armed forces. Failure to address these issues could aggravate growing criminality among serving and former military personnel.     

Creative appropriation: academic knowledge and interventions against sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo

ABSTRACT

Recent academic research has questioned assumptions about sexual violence in (post-) conflict contexts. Gender norms rather than military decision-making have been found to constitute a major underlying reason for wartime sexual violence. In this contribution, we investigate whether international organisations seeking to prevent sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo have accordingly changed their analytical perspectives and modified policies and programming. We find that many, but not all, such organisations creatively appropriate new academic work in their policy and project documents. However, incentives for continuity in the humanitarian field have slackened the pace of any substantive practical changes.     

The Limits and Possibilities of Volunteering: A Framework for Explaining the Scope of Volunteer Involvement in Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Despite popular rhetoric concerning the benefits of volunteerism for public and nonprofit organizations, the use and management of volunteers to assist in the delivery of services is uneven: some organizations rely heavily on volunteer labor for this purpose, while others circumscribe volunteer contributions or eschew volunteer involvement altogether. This article introduces eight dimensions of volunteer involvement—four involving organizational decisions and four regarding volunteers’ decisions—that make up the overall scope of volunteer involvement in an organization. Based on a review of the literature, the article presents a conceptual framework and several research propositions concerning how organizational characteristics, volunteer management, and environmental factors affect the overall scope of volunteer involvement in an organization.     

A Russian Citizen in Uniform? Assessing the Applicability of the German Model of Civil—Military Relations to the Armed Forces of a Democratising Russian State

A key element in determining the prospects for success in transforming totalitarian political systems into democratic political systems is the extent to which the armed forces can be included in the democratisation process and brought under constitutional, civilian and political control. In the aftermath of the 1998 financial crisis in Moscow and the probable retreat of democracy in Russia, this utterly critical question assumes even more importance. This article is concerned with the problem of devising a new system of civil—military relations for a democratising post-Soviet Russian state, particularly the relevance of the German citizen in uniform model to the armed forces of the Russian Federation. After a brief history of the German system of civil—military relations, the author proceeds to analyse the German model in detail. The paper then assesses the current context of the Russian state, society and armed forces before evaluating the prospects for the successful application of the German system of civil—military relations to Russia. The author concludes that the German system is inapplicable because Russia does not presently possess the socio-political structures and norms to sustain such a system of civil—military relations. However, the article proposes an immediately viable third strategy for democratising Russian civil—military relations which does not rely either on the inappropriate German model or on meekly managing the intolerable status quo.     

United Nations Peacekeeping and Civilian Protection in Civil War

Does United Nations peacekeeping protect civilians in civil war? Civilian protection is a primary purpose of UN peacekeeping, yet there is little systematic evidence for whether peacekeeping prevents civilian deaths. We propose that UN peacekeeping can protect civilians if missions are adequately composed of military troops and police in large numbers. Using unique monthly data on the number and type of UN personnel contributed to peacekeeping operations, along with monthly data on civilian deaths from 1991 to 2008 in armed conflicts in Africa, we find that as the UN commits more military and police forces to a peacekeeping mission, fewer civilians are targeted with violence. The effect is substantial—the analyses show that, on average, deploying several thousand troops and several hundred police dramatically reduces civilian killings. We conclude that although the UN is often criticized for its failures, UN peacekeeping is an effective mechanism of civilian protection.     

Creating Shared Responsibility through Respect for Military Culture: The Russian and American Cases

The key problem in civil‐military relations in established polities such as Russia and the United States is not civilian control of the military, but rather how to create a symbiotic relationship of “shared responsibility” between senior military officers and civilian leaders. In such a situation, civilian leaders obtain much needed expertise from the military, but ultimately remain in control. The keys to symbiotic civil‐military relations are a desire on the part of military officers to work with civilians and civilian respect for military culture. When civilians respect military culture—that is, the military’s (1) devotion to clear executive leadership, (2) commitment to corporate identity, (3) drive to increase professional expertise, and (4) dedication to political responsibility—a system of shared responsibility is likely to emerge. This thesis is elaborated by comparing recent civil‐military relations in Russia and the United States.     

Security,Not Defence,Strategic, Not Habit: Restructuring the Political Arrangements for Policy Making on Britain's Role in the World

The Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government has committed itself to a Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDR) in 2010. The government and the country face very hard choices to bring United Kingdom defence and security policy back from the brink of bankruptcy—both financial and strategic (Gow). To succeed, it must overcome the failings of the past (Chisnall, Dorman, Rees) and take a truly open and radical look at all aspects of policy and process—including the Trident independent nuclear deterrent (Allen), relations with Europe (Witney) and the importance of cyber‐issues in the future security context (Fisher). It must get strategic concepts right to provide flexibility with credibility (Stone). It must deliver ‘what the military wants’: true strategic prioritisation, radical defence acquisition reform, and credible balancing of resources and commitments (Kiszley). The scale of the challenge facing the United Kingdom in—and beyond—the 2010 SDR is why The Political Quarterly convened a workshop early in 2010 involving MPs, practitioners, retired military personnel, journalists, commentators, business people and academics, and publishes these associated papers. Most of all, to overcome the failings of the past, there must be a radical move beyond the welcome first steps of the Cameron–Clegg government to introduce a National Security Council and a National Security Advisor, to reconfigure relationships within government, across departments and with Parliament to have a government figure of accountability and responsibility—a Secretary of State for Security Policy, primus inter pares with other Secretaries of State—to make sense of the questions needing to be asked and answered (Gearson and Gow).     

Unintended Consequences: Implications of the 2014 Australian Defence Force Pay Deal

The Workplace Remuneration Arrangement agreed between the Australian Government and the Australian Defence Force (ADF) provides for a 4.5% pay over 3 years for ADF personnel. This article makes use of the concept of the psychological contract to argue that this pay deal represents a breach of the Australian Government's obligations towards ADF personnel that is likely to have unintended consequences for their long‐term commitment to their ADF careers.