Party competition and citizens' political attitudes in the American states

Democratic theorists argue that vigorous competition between candidates/parties is essential for democracy to flourish because it engages citizens' political interest and ultimately makes elected officials more accountable to their constituents. Using data on citizens' perceptions of government responsiveness to their political opinions from the American National Election Studies and the Ranney measure of party competition for control of state government, we examine the effects of competition on citizens' political attitudes from 1952 to 2008. Our analysis reveals that citizens feel government is more responsive to them when there is greater competition between the two parties for control of government in their state. However, this relationship is confined only to citizens who identify with the party that controls government in their state. We also find that the relationship between competition and efficacy is strongest among citizens with lower levels of education and income. These results suggest that vigorous competition for control of state government can have important implications for citizens' political attitudes.     

Institutional Anticorruption in China: Effectiveness on Bribery Incidence

This article investigates the effectiveness of anticorruption practices against bribery incidence, highlighting top‐down and bottom‐up approaches. A random survey of local residents is used in conjunction with institutional anticorruption indicators. Findings suggest that the top‐down approach works, but with substantial variation across practices. More intense top‐down anticorruption deters bribery incidence within citizens' dense networks, and more judicial convictions directly suppress citizens' bribery experience and willingness. The bottom‐up and combined approaches yield both deterrence and signaling effects, contingent on institutional parameters. More public whistle‐blowing deters citizens' bribery experience and willingness, yet, when coupled with more intense top‐down anticorruption, it signals severe government corruption and predicts more bribery incidence. On the contrary, more grievance filings predict more bribery incidence via signaling effects, but, when bundled with more intense top‐down anticorruption, they deter citizens' subsequent bribery experience and willingness. The article concludes with a discussion of the research findings and theoretical and practical implications.     

Distance,services, and citizen perceptions of the state in rural Africa

In most poor countries, basic services in rural areas are less accessible and of lower quality than those in urban settings. In this article, we investigate the subnational geography of service delivery and its relationship with citizens' perceptions of their government by analyzing the relationship between service access, satisfaction with services and government, and the distance to urban centers for more than 21,000 survey respondents across 17 African countries. We confirm that access to services and service satisfaction suffer from a spatial gradient. However, distant citizens are less likely than their urban peers to translate service dissatisfaction into discontent with their government; distant citizens have more trust in government and more positive evaluations of both local and national officials. Our findings suggest that increasing responsiveness and accountability to citizens as a means of improving remote rural services may face more limits than promoters of democratic governance and citizen‐centered accountability presume.     

Does democracy produce quality of government?

This article analyses the effects of political regimes over state capacity or the quality of government (QoG): Do democratic states perform better than authoritarian ones? Previous studies point to a nonlinear relationship between democracy and government quality. It is argued here that QoG is a function of both forces of supply (leaders who have the power to make reforms) and demand (citizens' desire for mid‐ to long‐term investments over short‐term needs), the latter of which is a function of economic development. In democratic states, leaders have stronger incentives to improve QoG after a certain degree of wealth is reached, while in poorer countries they have little incentive for long‐term bureaucratic investments. Thus it is predicted that the relationship between democracy and QoG is conditional, based on economic development. With over 125 countries in the sample, this hypothesis is tested using time‐series panel data and spatial models, and strong empirical support is found.     

Interlocal Service Cooperation in U.S. Cities: A Social Network Explanation

Local governments increasingly confront policy problems that span the boundaries of individual political jurisdictions. Institutional theories of local governance and intergovernmental relations emphasize the importance of networks for fostering service cooperation among local governments. Yet empirical research fails to examine systematically the effects of social networks on interlocal service cooperation. Do the individual networks of local government actors increase their jurisdiction's level of interlocal service delivery? Drawing data from the National Administrative Studies Project IV (NASP‐IV), multivariate analysis is applied to examine this question among 919 municipal managers and department heads across the United States. The findings indicate that interlocal service cooperation increases when jurisdictional actors network frequently through a regional association or council of government and when they are united by a common set of professional norms and disciplinary values. Manager participation in professional associations, however, does not increase interjurisdictional cooperation. The key conclusion for local government practitioners searching for ways to increase collaboration: networks that afford opportunities for more face‐to‐face interaction yield better results for effective service partnerships.     

Innovation,voice, and hierarchy in the public sector: Evidence from Ghana's civil service

Research on innovation in government often focuses on ideas introduced by senior leaders or managers, but ideas from public servants themselves are an important and underexplored channel for improving performance in government bureaucracies. We provide new evidence on the potential for bottom‐up work process innovation, using data from 744 individual and team innovation plans and 51 qualitative interviews in Ghana's civil service. In contrast to common negative stereotypes of developing country bureaucrats, most officials do have meaningful ideas for improving performance. However, the overwhelming constraint to voicing these ideas is hostility by supervisors to new ideas from their subordinates. We argue that this anecdotally common yet understudied behavior is consistent with theories of psychological attachment to hierarchy rather than alternative theories rooted in material, structural, or cultural resistance to employee voice and innovation. We discuss implications for bottom‐up work process innovation in government and interventions to promote it.     

政府创新：社会资本视角

社会资本理论是研究政府与公民、民主与信任等之间关系的一种新范式。布迪厄从微观层面上将社会资本概括为一种资源集合;科尔曼从中观层面上将社会资本概括为一种社会结构;帕特南从宏观层面上将社会资本概括为一种价值规范。从本质上讲,政府创新是一个政府与社会互动的过程,与社会资本之间存在内在的结构性关联。社会资本是政府创新的基本变量,其中的信任因素是政府创新合法性的重要来源,支持信念因素是政府创新的基本条件,参与网络因素是政府创新的重要基础。在社会资本视角下进行政府创新的途径在于加强社会制度建设,实现传统社会资本的现代转型;支持公民参与网络建设,培育公共精神和发展基层民主;培育第三部门力量,以转变政府职能和增强政府能力。     

Mutual efforts for mutual trust: Impacts of citizens' knowledge and governmental communication channels on trust in participatory budgeting

Since participatory budgeting (PB) has been advocated by both theorists and practitioners of public administration, its adoption has become a global phenomenon. As of 2017, all local governments in South Korea are legally mandated to operate a PB system as a policy for inviting citizen participation in local budget decision-making. Using an impact assessment tool completed by PB managers in local governments, this research tested two sets of independent variables—citizens' participatory capacity and the diversification of communication in the PB process—that could be associated with the dependent variables “citizens' trust in government (CTG)” and “government officials' trust in citizens (GTC).” The paper presents the three major findings on the common drivers behind CTG and GTC: (1) citizen participants' knowledge on budget and budgeting process; (2) local government's efforts in gathering citizens' inputs for PB; and (3) the mutual efforts to understand the needs and limitations of both citizens and the local government. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for the design and delivery of effective PB implementation.     

Do Networks Really Work? A Framework for Evaluating Public‐Sector Organizational Networks

Although cooperative, interorganizational networks have become a common mechanism for delivery of public services, evaluating their effectiveness is extremely complex and has generally been neglected. To help resolve this problem, we discuss the evaluation of networks of community-based, mostly publicly funded health, human service, and public welfare organizations. Consistent with pressures to perform effectively from a broad range of key stakeholders, we argue that networks must be evaluated at three levels of analysis: community, network, and organization/participant levels. While the three levels are related, each has its own set of effectiveness criteria that must be considered. The article offers a general discussion of network effectiveness, followed by arguments explaining effectiveness criteria and stakeholders at each level of analysis. Finally, the article examines how effectiveness at one level of network analysis may or may not match effectiveness criteria at another level and the extent to which integration across levels may be possible.     

美国社区非营利组织基本结构与发展模式

美国社区非营利组织的发展是政府资助、政治赋权、项目化运作以及自组织能力建设四者结合的结果,也同时体现了美国公民传统与现代社区公共服务网络化供给的结合。     

Reinventing government through on‐line citizen involvement in the developing world: a case study of taipei city mayor's e‐mail box in Taiwan

Since the 1980s, a global administrative reform movement is reshaping the relationship between citizens and state. A major concern is how government can be more responsive to the governed through citizen participation. However, the more citizens participate, the more costly it is to govern. And the application of new information and communication technology (ICT) seems to be a cure for this limitation. In this research, authors take the Taipei City Mayor's e‐mail‐box (TCME) in Taiwan as a case to illustrate the complex relationships among citizen involvement, e‐government and public management. After a series of empirical investigations, the authors show that although ICT can reduce the cost of citizen involvement in governing affairs, it cannot increase citizens' satisfaction with government activities without reforming the bureaucratic organisation, regulatory structure, and managerial capacities of the public sector. The results could be helpful to public managers in planning and evaluating online governmental services in the developing countries. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transnationalism,neo-liberalism,and the rise of the shadow state

This paper examines the processes through which a neo-liberal agenda is broadened and entrenched through time. The case study focuses on a federal immigration policy in Canada in the 1980s, which encouraged the rapid entry of wealthy entrepreneurs and investors from Hong Kong. One of the many impacts of the arrival of this Chinese business élite in British Columbia was the rapid growth of a key volunteer organization in Vancouver dedicated to social service provisioning for immigrants. With the donations and volunteerism of the new Chinese arrivals, this organization grew from a small, narrowly focused social service institution, to one of the largest and most extensive providers in the lower Mainland, supplying numerous goods and services formerly controlled primarily by the province and the federal government. As a result of the actions of this voluntary organization, a type of interstitial organization that some scholars have termed under the rubric, 'the shadow state', conservative politicians in the 1980s were able to roll back many welfare state programmes in British Columbia without a corresponding loss of legitimacy occurring from the immediate truncation of services. The Business Immigration Programme thus aided in the entrenchment of a neo-liberal agenda both through the increased circulation of capital and articulation with Asian networks, and also through the devolution of direct welfare-state governance. I argue that this immigration programme thus represents one good example of the multiple ways that seemingly simple policy shifts can have much broader effects, and can entrench neo-liberal policy socially,culturally and institutionally as well as economically.     

Policy congruence and its impact on satisfaction with democracy

The relationship between what citizens want in terms of policies and what they get from political elites is considered one of the key aspects of representative democracies. Scholars have thus investigated thoroughly the state of citizen-elite congruence in advanced democracies and whether this relationship influences citizens' democratic satisfaction. These studies do show that citizens' assessment of their political system and especially their satisfaction with democracy are importantly influenced by the quality of representation and how close they are to their preferred parties or the government position. In the paper, we build on this literature and consider whether congruence between citizen preferences and policies influences citizens' satisfaction with democracy. This last stage of representation has mostly been overlooked in past research. To address this question, we make use of data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (module 4). Policy congruence is measured based on respondent answers to a series of questions with respect to their preferences on public expenditure in eight policy domains. We also compare the effect of policy congruence to other conventional measures of congruence (e.g. party and government congruence). Our results indicate that this new measure of policy congruence has substantial effect on citizens’ satisfaction with democracy and more so than previous measures of ideological congruence.     

The Adoption of State Climate Change Policies and Renewable Portfolio Standards: Regional Diffusion or Internal Determinants?

This paper draws upon policy innovation literature and quantitatively explains the adoption of state climate change policies, leading to a broader question—what makes states more likely to adopt policies that provide a global public good? First, existing empirical evidence relating to state climate change policy adoption is reviewed. Following this brief discussion, several analytic approaches are presented that test specific hypotheses derived from the internal determinants and regional diffusion models of policy adoption. Policy diffusion is tested as a function of the motivations, resources, and obstacles of policy change. Motivations for policy innovation include environmental conditions and demands of citizens. Resources include state financial and geographic resources, such as wind and solar potential. Obstacles include a state's reliance on carbon‐intensive industries such as coal and natural gas. The results show that internal factors, particularly citizens' demands, are stronger predictors of states' policies than are diffusion effects from neighboring states.     

Better than Nothing: How Policies Influence Political Participation in Low‐Capacity Democracies

A growing body of policy feedback work demonstrates that citizens' experiences with public policy influence the way they participate in politics. Most of this work takes place in advanced industrial democracies, but the nuances of policy design influencing participation in advanced democracies are often irrelevant for those in low‐capacity democracies. This study extends the policy feedback framework to address how policies might “feed back” differently in low‐capacity countries with uneven basic service delivery. In low‐capacity democracies, the most salient distinction is between those who have access to basic state‐provided services and those who do not. Using original data collected in Zambia, it demonstrates that those who have even marginal access to state services have higher levels of political engagement and political participation than those without access, indicating that imperfect extension of services may help boost democratic citizenship in developing countries.     

WHAT SHAPES CITIZENS' EVALUATIONS OF THEIR PUBLIC OFFICIALS' ACCOUNTABILITY? EVIDENCE FROM LOCAL ETHIOPIA

In this article, we study which institutional factors shape citizens' views of the local accountability of their public officials. Our departing assumption is that evaluations of local accountability reflect not only citizens' poltical attitudes and beliefs but also whether local institutions contribute to an environment of mutual trust, accountability and ultimately democratic legitimacy. Combining public opinion data from a large‐N citizen survey (N = 10 651) with contextual information for 63 local governments in Ethiopia, we look at access to information, participatory planning and the publicness of basic services as potential predictors of citizens' evaluations of local public officials. Our findings suggest that local context matters. Jurisdictions that provide access to information on political decision making are perceived to have more accountable officials. Moreover, when local governments provide public fora that facilitate citizens' stakes in local planning processes, it positively affects citizens' evaluations of the accountability of their officials. Our study adds to the empirical literatrure by showing that establishing local institutions that can foster citizen–government relations at the local level through inclusive processes is crucial for improving public perceptions of accountability. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Globalization,state, and innovation: An appraisal of networked industrial policy

One of the most pressing questions in comparative social science is whether, and to what extent, the rapid advance of globalization has negatively affected states’ capacity to initiate successful economic and social policies. This paper puts forward the notion that states continue to be relevant because they have the potential to build and sustain networks of production and learning, which are sorely needed in the current era of globalization when productive arrangements are dominated by decentralized production networks. The paper argues that government efforts aimed at building and sustaining such networks, labeled as “networked industrial policy,” have become predominant. The study features a series of fixed‐effects time series cross‐section (TSCS) regressions linking innovation performance to several networked industrial policies in 17 countries from western and central Europe. The study finds that several of the policies have a robust effect on innovation performance and technology competitiveness, even after controls are included. These findings constitute considerable support for the notion of networked industrial policy. However, the results of the present study must be treated less as a definitive answer to the research question and more as a first step in an ongoing research process.     

Consumer well‐being through engagement and innovation in higher education: A conceptual model and research propositions

With globalization and the marketization of higher education, the relationship between higher education institutions (HEIs) and students is becoming more complex. As the cost of higher education increases, the expectations of students have not only changed dramatically but, combined with heightened competition in the market, it is clear that the balance of power has moved towards the students. Operating across this new landscape, HEIs are facing a different set of opportunities and challenges. In order to survive, differentiation through service innovation is imperative to achieving success in attracting and retaining students. While this has been voiced by a number of authors, until now, there is a paucity of empirical research examining the impact of service innovation in higher education on individual customer outcomes. This paper explores the links between service innovation and well‐being and the mediating roles of perceived service quality and customer engagement within the higher education context. The research is timely as previous studies have not taken into consideration the mediating roles of customer engagement between service innovation and customer well‐being. Yet, unless customers are engaged and participating in the service innovation process, or satisfied with the service innovation, the innovation may not lead to the desired customer outcomes. HEIs cannot afford to ignore the expectations of their primary customers (students). Hence, this conceptual paper seeks to develop a conceptual model of how service innovation leads to student/consumer well‐being and the mechanism through which perceived service quality and customer engagements affects this process.     

Knowledge Sharing in a Third‐Party‐Governed Health and Human Services Network

The rapid growth of knowledge in disease diagnosis and treatment requires health service provider organizations to continuously learn and update their practices. However, little is known about knowledge sharing in service implementation networks governed by a network administrative organization (NAO). The author suggests that strong ties enhance knowledge sharing and that there is a contingent effect of third‐party ties. Two provider agencies’ common ties with the NAO may undermine knowledge sharing because of resource competition. In contrast, a dyad's common ties with a peer agency may boost knowledge sharing as a result of social cohesion. Finally, the author posits that third‐party ties moderate the relationship between strong ties and knowledge sharing. These hypotheses are examined in a mental health network. Quantitative network analysis confirms the strong tie and third‐party tie hypotheses and provides partial support for the moderating effect of third‐party ties. The implications for public management, including the implementation of HealthCare.gov , are discussed.     

Authoritarian responsiveness: Online consultation with “issue publics” in China

In recent years, public consultation has become a standard feature of policymaking in authoritarian regimes. While previous studies found evidence of government responsiveness to citizens' demands, they did not measure responsiveness in terms of real policy change. This article presents the first systematic analysis of Chinese central government policy responsiveness to consultative input. In 2008, the Chinese government unveiled a blueprint for health‐care reform, inviting the public to post their opinions online. Having collected 27,899 online comments, the government subsequently published a revised draft. This article analyzes a random sample of 2% of this corpus of comments, assessing the effect of comments on revisions while controlling for both media content and bureaucratic preferences. The findings demonstrate that public comments have an impact upon policy revisions and suggest that the Chinese government is more responsive to street‐level implementers than to other social groups.