Coproduction and Equity in Public Service Delivery

Public managers and researchers devote much attention to the benefits of coproduction, or the mixing of the productive efforts of public employees and citizens in public service design and delivery. One concern, however, is the distributional consequences of coproduction. This article proposes that disadvantaged citizens may be constrained by a lack of knowledge or other resources necessary to contribute to and benefit from the coproduction process. From this assumption, the authors develop the theoretical argument that if coproduction programs were designed to lift constraints on disadvantaged citizens, they might increase both efficiency and equity. This claim is tested using a field experiment on educational services. A coproduction program providing immigrant parents with knowledge and materials useful to their children's early educational development had a substantial positive impact on the educational outcomes of disadvantaged children, thereby diminishing inequity. Economically, the program was more efficient than later compensation of low‐performing children.     

Evictions: The hidden housing problem

Abstract

Although evictions are a major housing problem that disproportionately affects lower‐income and minority tenants, no systematic data about evictions are collected on a local or national level. This article presents the scattered available data on the magnitude and impact of the problem, along with existing model efforts to reduce its incidence and impact.

Creating a national database on evictions—how many, where, who, why, and what happens to evictees—would be an important first step in focusing attention on this neglected issue. Definitional questions must be resolved as an initial step. In an effort to launch such a project, suggestions are offered on how to begin creating such a database.     

Beyond Engagement and Participation: User and Community Coproduction of Public Services

In recent years, there has been a radical reinterpretation of the role of policy making and service delivery in the public domain. Policy making is no longer seen as a purely top-down process but rather as a negotiation among many interacting policy systems. Similarly, services are no longer simply delivered by professional and managerial staff in public agencies but are coproduced by users and their communities. This article presents a conceptual framework for understanding the emerging role of user and community coproduction and presents several case studies that illustrate how different forms of coproduction have played out in practice. Traditional conceptions of service planning and management are now outdated and need to be revised to account for coproduction as an integrating mechanism and an incentive for resource mobilization—a potential that is still greatly underestimated. However, coproduction in the context of multipurpose, multistakeholder networks raises important public governance issues that have implications for public services reform.     

Does density exacerbate income segregation? Evidence from U.S. metropolitan areas, 1980 to 2000

Abstract

A fundamental goal of many smart growth efforts is to promote greater socioeconomic equity through more compact development. In this article, we point out that the connection between the built environment and socioeconomic outcomes may be more complex than it is generally portrayed to be, particularly in light of recent trends in urban and regional development.

Through an empirical analysis involving two measures of income segregation, dissimilarity and isolation, in a national data set of metropolitan areas from 1980 to 2000, we illustrate that the relationship between density and income segregation follows a quadratic function, first rising, then falling, as densities increase. Moreover, changes in density—whether increases or decreases—always increased segregation. These findings suggest that, if greater socioeconomic equity is a goal, smart growth programs need to pay as much attention to market forces and the underlying political landscape as they do to the built environment.     

Representative Bureaucracy and the Willingness to Coproduce: An Experimental Study

Relying on the theory of representative bureaucracy—specifically, the notion of symbolic representation—this article examines whether varying the number of female public officials overseeing a local recycling program influences citizens’ (especially women's) willingness to cooperate with the government by recycling, thus coproducing important policy outcomes. Using a survey experiment in which the first names of public officials are manipulated, the authors find a clear pattern of increasing willingness on the part of women to coproduce when female names are more represented in the agency responsible for recycling, particularly with respect to the more difficult task of composting food waste. Overall, men in the experiment were less willing to coproduce across all measures and less responsive to the gender balance of names. These findings have important implications for the theory of representative bureaucracy and for efforts to promote the coproduction of public services.     

Managing Incentive Dynamics for Collaborative Governance in Land and Ecological Conservation

Public governance often involves policy tools and stakeholders from multiple sectors. How different policy tools are used may affect the chances that the values and interests of diverse stakeholders can be aligned in mutually supportive ways. Drawing on insights from behavioral and cognitive economics, this article uses the case of land and ecological conservation in Twin Lake, Taiwan, to illustrate how various interactive dynamics—hierarchical exclusion and preemptive effects—may affect efforts in land and ecological conservation involving stakeholders from multiple sectors. Such illustrations may inform the choice and sequencing of policy tools for facilitating collaborative governance.     

Employees without a Cause: The Motivational Effects of Prosocial Impact in Public Service

ABSTRACT

Public service employees often lack opportunities to see the prosocial impact of their jobs—how their efforts make a difference in other people's lives. Drawing on recent job design theory and research, I tested the hypothesis that the motivation of public service employees can be enhanced by connecting them to their prosocial impact. In a longitudinal quasi-experiment, a group of fundraising callers serving a public university met a fellowship student who benefited from the funds raised by the organization. A full month later, these callers increased significantly in the number of pledges and the amount of donation money that they obtained, whereas callers in a control group did not change on these measures. I discuss the implications of these results for theory, research, and practice related to work motivation in public service.     

Alternative measures for the financial condition of the multifamily housing stock

Abstract

Indicators of the financial condition of the multifamily housing stock can potentially inform several policy issues, such as the loss of affordable rental units, multifamily developers’ access to capital, and the emerging secondary mortgage market for multifamily properties. Several rules of thumb exist for assessing financial condition. This article uses the Residential Finance Survey to investigate whether it matters, from a practical standpoint, which one is employed. Specifically, we ascertain how five measures—loan‐to‐value, debt coverage, rent‐to‐value, net operating income—to‐value, and vacancy loss ratios—relate to each other and rank properties.

We found that Pearsonian correlations among the measures varied dramatically. Factor analysis produced two factors, one corresponding to a rent‐flow measure and the other to a debt‐burden measure. Spearman rank‐order correlations revealed that with one exception, measures yielded noticeably dissimilar financial condition rankings. We conclude that single‐dimensional measures of financial condition should not be used in isolation.     

Blunt force regulation and bureaucratic control: Understanding China's war on pollution

In the past decade, China has increasingly resorted to top‐down, “blunt force” solutions to environmental problems; officials forcibly shutter or destroy factories to reduce pollution, at immense cost to local growth and employment. Why would a high capacity state like China resort to such a costly method of pollution control? I argue that blunt force enforcement is targeted at overcoming principal–agent problems in the bureaucracy. When institutions are too weak to hold bureaucrats accountable, political leaders increase oversight by drastically reducing the number of steps and resources required to produce a regulatory outcome—resulting in blunt force measures. I illustrate this logic through case studies from China's multiyear war on pollution. Using original data on blunt force measures, I then show how localities with lower bureaucratic compliance face greater blunt force pollution enforcement. These findings reveal that when bureaucratic accountability is weak, states pay a very high cost for cleaner air.     

How Creating Semiautonomous Agencies Affects Staff Satisfaction

Abstract

Structural reforms such as the creation of autonomous agencies are a widely heralded solution for a multitude of problems in the public sector. These reforms have effects on public employees. This article shows how the structural disaggregation of ministries into autonomous agencies affects staff satisfaction with the organization. The article discusses three cases, where Dutch public organizations were either disaggregated from a ministry or reaggregated to the ministry. These structural reforms constitute a quasiexperimental setting where effects on agency staff and parent ministry staff are compared. In one case, creating the agency led to a decrease in staff satisfaction with the organization as compared to the staff that remained within the ministry. A second case showed that these negative effects linger and can last for more than eight years. An inverse organizational change—reaggregation—caused inverse effects: increasing satisfaction with the organization.     

A Longue Durée Approach to the Role of Civil Society in the Uprisings against Authoritarianism in the Arab world

Abstract

This article will show how a ‘new history’, inspired from longue durée approaches, can be methodologically applied, and how it equips us with analytical tools that improve our capacity to understand the long-term changes that fostered the civil society-based resistance in the Arab world. Although we cannot predict the exact timing of such resistance efforts, the application of the longue durée method provides us with tools that help us understand why and how the many uprisings transpired. This complements, and partly contrasts with, most previous research, which had its main focus on discussion of short-term factors that were claimed to have caused the Arab mass-mobilized resistance in 2010–2011. The article draws upon and intends to contribute to the theoretical debate on contentious politics within social movement research, resistance studies, and civil society-driven democratization research.     

Political obstacles to a clean environment

Abstract

Three wrongs of American politics are discussed—the fragmentation of policy‐making and implementation, its domination by business elites, and a tendency to muddle through public problems. After presenting evidence that environmental deterioration is widespread, despite many laws and substantial spending to combat it, I argue that these three wrongs are obstacles to environmental cleanup. Cleanup would require producers to internalize their environmental costs; it would slow growth and take privileges away from and impose heavy new obligations on the most important and powerful actors in the political system. Our present politics cannot produce such decisions. Environmental conditions will worsen until people feel the severe consequences of environmental deterioration and change old political patterns. I suggest ways to ameliorate the wrongs of American politics and our system of regulating environmental hazards before these systemic changes occur.     

Coproduction of Government Services and the New Information Technology: Investigating the Distributional Biases

This article investigates how communications advances affect citizens’ ability to participate in coproduction of government services. The authors analyze service requests made to the City of Boston during a one‐year period from 2010 to 2011 and, using geospatial analysis and negative binomial regression, investigate possible disparities by race, education, and income in making service requests. The findings reveal little concern that 311 systems (nonemergency call centers) may benefit one racial group over another; however, there is some indication that Hispanics may use these systems less as requests move from call centers to the Internet and smartphones. Consistent with prior research, the findings show that poorer neighborhoods are less likely to take advantage of 311 service, with the notable exception of smartphone utilization. The implications for citizen participation in coproduction and bridging the digital divide are discussed.     

Beyond regulatory capture: Coproducing expertise for critical infrastructure protection

Complex industries such as petroleum production, civil aviation, and nuclear power produce “public risks” that are widely distributed and temporally remote, and thus tend to be ignored by the risk producers. Regulation is perhaps the most common policy tool for governing such risks, but requires expert knowledge that often resides solely within the industries. Hence, many scholars and policymakers raise concerns about “regulatory capture,” wherein regulation serves private interests rather than the public good. This paper argues that regulatory capture framing has tended to limit understanding of expertise and its role in governing public risks. Most studies of regulatory capture treat expertise as a source of knowledge and skills that are created exogenously to political processes, and which can therefore be politically neutral. By contrast, we draw on work in science and technology studies that highlight the value‐laden and relational nature of knowledge and expertise, showing how its formation is endogenous to political processes. Thus, we argue for both broadening analyses of regulatory capture to consider the historically contingent and uncertain process of creating expert knowledge, and going beyond the capture framing by considering the challenge of negotiating different epistemologies and ways of life. We illustrate this analytic strategy by examining the history of and current debate about critical infrastructure protection standards to protect the United States electric power grid from cyberattack. We conclude by considering the broader implications of these findings for governing public risks.     

Leadership and Organizational Culture: Sustaining Dialogue between Practitioners and Scholars

Few topics in the study of contemporary public organizations better illustrate the burdens—and potential benefits—of sustaining dialogue between practitioners and scholars than the interplay between leadership, organizational culture, and public sector performance. Following two decades of intensive research and advocacy, the last 10 years have seen diminished scholarly attention to this subject, while efforts to shape culture remain central to the leadership of public organizations. This essay reflects on the 8 Cs of organizational culture: complicated, control, competence, commitments, credibility, conflict, context, and change.     

Distinguishing Different Types of Coproduction: A Conceptual Analysis Based on the Classical Definitions

Coproduction of public services means that services are not only delivered by professional and managerial staff in public agencies but also coproduced by citizens and communities. Although recent research on this topic has advanced the debate considerably, there is still no consensus on precisely what coproduction means. This article argues that rather than trying to determine one encompassing definition of the concept, several different types of coproduction can be distinguished. Starting from the classical definitions of Elinor Ostrom and Roger Parks, the article draws on the literature on professionalism, volunteering, and public management to identify the distinctive nature of coproduction and identify basic dimensions on which a typology of coproduction can be constructed. Recognizing different types of coproduction more systematically is a critical step in making research on this phenomenon more comparable and more cumulative.     

Resilient Social Contracts and Peace: Towards a Needed Reconceptualization

ABSTRACT

This article makes the case for rethinking the social contract concept with attention to countries affected by conflict, fragility, and fraught transition. Inspired by related policy efforts and engaging scholarship across multiple disciplines, this piece and the multi-country research represented in this Special Issue aim to build the intellectual lineage of the concept. A conceptual framework and proposed heuristic device for enhancing policy and practice is presented. Five case studies and a thematic paper on inclusion are discussed with this in mind. Comparative findings and implications are assessed for how resilient social contracts aid the attaining and sustaining of peace.     

Holocaust inversion,anti-Zionism and British neo-fascism: the Israel–Palestine conflict and the extreme right in post-war Britain

ABSTRACT

The British extreme right has always struggled to distance itself from the crimes of the Third Reich, not helped by the high level of Holocaust consciousness in Britain and by the importance of antisemitic conspiracy theory to British neo-fascist ideology. Bland’s article charts attempts by British neo-fascist actors to use Holocaust inversion and—by extension—anti-Zionism as a mask for their Nazi sympathies. It shall, first of all, demonstrate how the Israel–Palestine conflict was incorporated into British neo-fascist antisemitic discourse in the 1960s. It shall then use the 1980s National Front as a case study, to illustrate the manner in which the extreme right can use anti-Zionist activism as a tactic aimed at legitimizing its politics and gaining new supporters. The article therefore contributes to the historiographies of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in Britain, as well as to scholarly understandings of neo-fascism.     

Teaching Party Systems: A Culinary Demonstration

Abstract

Duverger’s Law—the principle that first-past-the-post systems tend to promote two major political parties while proportional representation systems tend to promote multipartism—is a commonly taught topic in introductory and some upper-level political science courses across subfields. However, it also contains concepts that are difficult for undergraduate students to grasp, particularly those who are unfamiliar with other electoral systems. In partial response to these concerns, this article introduces a memorable in-class demonstration that utilizes food items to illustrate the logic behind Duverger’s Law. The demonstration serves as a flexible blend between lecture-oriented and active learning techniques, and can be adapted to teach other topics—such as directional and proximity models of voting, the Median Voter Theorem, and other topics in rational choice theory. Preliminary evidence presented suggests that students enjoy the demonstration, remember the concepts, and perform better on assessments related to the topic. The article concludes by challenging political science educators to develop and share more demonstration-type activities, which are commonly used in STEM and other fields.     

How Organizational Learning Is Supported by Performance Management Systems: Evidence from a Longitudinal Case Study

Abstract

Performance management is meant to encourage organizational change by providing better and more relevant feedback to managers. But there is no denying the complexity of learning and change. How performance management helps this process goes beyond the simple availability of performance information. In this study, we examine the learning processes in a large Belgian public organization through interviews of managers, directors, and administrators. By using 4Is framework of organizational learning—from Intuitions to Interpretation to Integration to Institutionalization—we identify critical blocks and enablers of learning and change. Critical impediments include off-topic discussions of performance information, lack of opportunity to share and discuss management practices, and limited motivation to change entrenched processes of work. Performance management also provides reliable enablers of organizational learning, such as giving credibility-by-results to new management practices, focusing discussions on processes that lead to measurable results, the ability to follow new innovations closely as they are implemented, and the possibility of creating a learning culture supported by performance information. Finally, we discuss how perceived credibility of performance information is crucial to organizational learning and how it is reinforced by use and dialogue.