CHANGING DIMENSIONS OF TRUST IN GOVERNMENT: AN EXPLORATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY IN HONG KONG

This study reports the findings of a 3‐year investigation into dimensions of trust in governmental capacity to deal with environmental risks (air pollution, sustainable development, waste, and water). We explore if levels of trust in Hong Kong correspond with the two‐dimensional structure identified in the research of Poortinga and Pidgeon. Findings of this multi‐method study (survey and focus group) conducted between 2005 and 2008 point towards largely low but unchanging levels of trust in the Hong Kong government. By contrast, the number of dimensions of trust reduced over the study period, pointing towards growing levels of scepticism. This leads us to conclude that, in relation to environmental risks, Hong Kong is characterised by cynicism. These findings reflect a wider argument that there are two underlying dimensions of trust—reliance and scepticism. The implications of these findings are discussed, and strategies to address low levels of trust are outlined. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

INADEQUACIES IN THE PROCESSES OF POLICY DEVELOPMENT IN AUSTRALIA

Abstract: Policy and policy development have received considerable attention in Australia over the last decade or more. This attention has resulted in many recommendations on policy in the series of major public service inquiries of the 1970s, in a number of books and journal articles on varied aspects of public policy, and in the considerable strengthening of the policy development capacities of many government agencies. This attention has to date been inadequate, because it has in almost all cases concentrated on the questions of where within the bureaucratic structure policy development should occur and what procedural mechanisms are needed to allow ministers or cabinet to choose between alternative policies and to facilitate the coordination of policies. These questions are of course important, but questions of how a well-considered policy option that can be considered by a cabinet or a minister is actually developed appear to have been almost totally ignored. In the public service inquiries, in the published literature, and in public accounts of the work of policy units, there appears to be virtually no analysis of the process of policy development. There is little or no discussion of how the standard formal models of policy development match or fail to match the techniques used in Australia, and although there have been many individual case studies of policy issues, there are no comparative case studies from which general observations might be drawn. Lastly, there are very few positive suggestions as to how policy development in Australia could be improved. Overcoming these inadequacies provides a major challenge to Australian policy workers.     

ANGELS IN PLASTIC: THE LIBERAL SURGE IN 1974

Abstract. Before the Liberal surge in 1974, survey research stressed that the Liberal vote was electorally volatile, socially representative, and negative in character. Data from 1974 indicates that the volatility of the Liberal vote owes more to the absence of a large core of stable Liberal voters than to any difference among parties in their ability to retain the votes of recent converts. Moreover, the small core of regular Liberal voters is unusually middle-aged and middle-class, socially very different from the larger and socially representative body of occasional Liberal voters. In the eyes of the electorate, the Liberal Party continues to have a diffuse image, largely devoid of any specific policy content. The Party benefited from dissatisfaction with the state of the country, but there is no evidence that an image of classlessness contributed to its electoral success. Moreover, while most Liberal voters did so for some positive reason, many of their reasons had more to do with style than policy, and the personalities of party leaders appear to have had much to do with moving people to consider—if not actually vote for—the Liberal Party.     

GOVERNMENTS IN BUSINESS

Books reviewed in this article
Neil W. Hamilton and Peter R. Hamilton. Governance of Public Enterprise: A Case Study of Urban Mass Transit
R. Joseph Monsen and Kenneth D. Walters. Nationalized Companies: A Threat to American Business
Lloyd Musolf. Uncle Sam's Private, Profitseeking Corporations
W.T. Stanbury and Fred Thompson (Eds.). Managing Public Enterprises