Defining Environmental Justice Communities for Regulatory Enforcement: Implications from a Block‐Group‐Level Analysis of New York State

The absence of a clear definition of environmental justice areas has been cited as one of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's major deficiencies in managing federal environmental justice programs. Several states have explicitly defined potential environmental justice areas and integrated targeted efforts into the policy‐making process. At the block‐group level, this study evaluates the effects of New York State's environmental justice policy, which defines communities of concern in terms of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as well as mandates supplemental regulatory enforcement activities for these neighborhoods, on the agency's policy implementation practices under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. The empirical findings suggest that there is inconclusive evidence regarding race/ethnicity‐ and class‐based environmental inequity. Also, the state's policy intervention is not universally effective. Moreover, task environments of a given community are a consistent determinant of the agency's regulatory compliance monitoring and assurance activities. This study then derives broader implications regarding the adoption of a policy instrument that defines and screens potential environmental justice communities.     

Opposition party policy shifts in response to no‐confidence motions

No‐confidence motions (NCMs) are attempts by opposition parties to publicise the government's failings in a salient policy arena, and previous research has shown that they often negatively affect citizens' evaluations of governing parties' competence and damage their electoral prospects. Yet currently there is a lack of understanding of how opposition parties respond ideologically to these NCMs. It is argued in this article that opposition parties should distance themselves from the government challenged by NCMs to show that they are different from the incompetent government and to compete for the votes that the government is likely to lose. Using a sample of 19 advanced democracies from 1970–2007, empirical evidence is presented that NCMs encourage political parties to move their positions away from the government's position, especially in the presence of reinforcing negative signals about government performance. These results have important implications for our understanding of opposition party policy change, for the economic voting literature, and for the spatial and valence models of party competition.     

Regulatory enforcement and compliance: Examining Danish agro‐environmental policy

This study of municipal enforcement of agro‐environmental regulations in Denmark provides an empirical understanding of how enforcement affects compliance. A key contribution is sorting out the relative influence of inspectors' different styles of enforcement and choices made by enforcement agencies. The latter are shown to be more important in bringing about compliance than are inspectors' enforcement styles. Municipal agencies are shown to increase compliance through the use of third parties, more frequent inspection, and setting priorities for inspection of major items. The findings about enforcement styles of inspectors suggest it is necessary to get tough up to a point, but beyond that the threat of coercion can be counterproductive. These findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of overly legalistic enforcement styles, particularly for the Danish culture with its strong emphasis on cooperation and consultation in regulation. But the findings also advise us to be cautious about the use of cooperative styles of enforcement in that we find evidence for capture of the enforcement process by agricultural organizations. This leads to a more nuanced view of enforcement rather than the broad generalizations found in the literature concerning legalism and cooperation. © 1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. <@:>     

Confidence and Caretakers: Some Less‐Obvious Implications of the Fixed‐Term Parliaments Act

This article explores the 2011 Fixed‐term Parliaments Act's less‐obvious implications. First, it discusses why Theresa May found calling the 2017 election so straightforward, and notes what this implies for how FTPA works. Second, it looks at executive–legislative relations. FTPA removed the government's ability to designate controversial parliamentary votes as matters of confidence, and introduced a fourteen‐day cushion between a no‐confidence vote and Parliament's dissolution. In the process, it shifted the balance of power from ministers to backbenchers, to an extent potentially greater than most observers recognise. Third, it considers the more outlandish possibilities raised by FTPA's imposition of a fourteen‐day waiting period after a government's defeat on a no‐confidence motion before a new election can be called. It is possible, for example, for rebel MPs from the governing party to use the no‐confidence procedure to force concessions from the cabinet. Finally, it assesses FTPA's long‐term survival prospects, and what repeal would involve.     

Command without control: The case of China's environmental target system

In the existing literature there is general agreement that the effectiveness and efficiency of command and control instruments versus market‐based instruments is highly context specific. A country's particular regulatory environment and state capacity, as well as the features of given environmental problems, play an important role in ascertaining what the “right” set of policy instruments for environmental management might be. This article examines how command and control instruments are used as an environmental enforcement mechanism in China's authoritarian state. Based on extensive fieldwork, this paper shows that the reliance on binding environmental targets as the main domestic policy instrument in China has generated numerous undesirable consequences. While China's target‐based approach to implementation has incentivized local officials to strictly enforce environmental mandates, there are numerous shortcomings in the system. In particular, target rigidity, cyclical behaviour, poor data quality, and the absence of an independent monitoring agency have generated adverse effects and contribute to a yawning gap between regulatory goals and outcomes. The paper concludes that binding environmental targets as the main command–control instrument in China can be more accurately described as “command without control” as the target‐setting central government does not exercise a high degree of control over implementation and monitoring processes. But command and control instruments can be suited for managing “first‐generation” environmental problems and addressing environmental issues that have easily identifiable pollution sources and which are easy to verify.     

Rallying in fear? Estimating the effect of the UK COVID-19 lockdown with a natural experiment

We use a natural experiment to study how the announcement of the UK COVID-19 lockdown affected citizens' attitudes towards the pandemic and the government's response to it. On the day of the lockdown announcement, YouGov ran a survey that captured responses before and after the announcement. Comparison of these responses suggests that the lockdown announcement made people more supportive of the government's response to the crisis but also (perhaps surprisingly) more concerned about the pandemic. Analysis of heterogeneous treatment effects suggests that the announcement narrowed gaps in perceptions of the crisis, increasing support for the government's response especially among those who had been least supportive and increasing concern about the pandemic especially among those who had been least concerned. Overall, the findings highlight a tension inherent in governing during times of crisis: actions that increase people's confidence in government and induce compliance with government directives may also tend to increase anxiety among the population.     

Campaign‐Style Enforcement and Regulatory Compliance

This article examines the recoupling mechanism of campaign‐style enforcement and its effects on environmental regulatory compliance. Drawing on the policy implementation literature and institutional theory, the authors develop a conceptual model of campaign‐style enforcement in which both resource mobilization and power redistribution are theorized to address decoupling problems in regulatory compliance. The two‐pathway recoupling mechanism is evidenced by an empirical investigation of the implementation of China's energy conservation and emission reduction policy as part of that country's 11th Five‐Year Plan. Findings suggest that campaign‐style enforcement can effectively improve regulatory compliance when it addresses the efficiency/legitimacy conflict by providing policy incentives and reorganizing a clear hierarchy of political authority. The article concludes with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of campaign‐style enforcement.     

What can a government do? Government issue ownership and real‐world problems

Despite major interest in issue ownership, what shapes it remains a puzzle. In his pioneering work on issue ownership, John Petrocik emphasises the importance of a party's performance. Recent research acknowledges this by pointing to the role of real‐world problems and incumbency for issue ownership. However, if performance truly matters, it should be difficult to understand the impact of such problems without taking into account the government's response to it. Based on novel data on issue ownership, policy development and government attention across five issues in nine countries over time, the analysis shows that the government's issue‐handling reputation is associated with the policy development, and the government's attention to the problem is important for this association. This is especially true for parties with no history of issue ownership on the issue and if the government is a coalition or in minority.     

Opposition Policy Influence through Agenda‐setting: The Environment in Denmark, 1993–2009

This article addresses the opportunities that the opposition has to influence policy – a topic that has been neglected in existing party policy research. The idea that is developed is applied to a remarkable environmental policy development during the Danish right‐wing government in the 2000s. Contrary to its position when it took office in 2001, the right‐wing government turned green and adopted a series of green policy initiatives. It is argued in this article that vehement and persistent criticism from the left‐wing opposition provides an explanation for this turn. Taking media coverage, public opinion, carbon dioxide emissions and the government's approval ratings into account, the empirical estimation based on unique quarterly data shows that opposition criticism had a systematic impact on the government's pro‐environmental policy development. The implications for party policy research are important. If the aim is to understand how parties matter to policy, the opposition should be taken more seriously.     

Democracy without choice: Citizens’ perceptions of government autonomy during the Eurozone crisis

In this article it is argued that citizens take into account the degree of a government's political autonomy to implement particular policies when expressing their views on satisfaction with democracy (SWD) but, in order to do so, they need to perceive it. When citizens directly observe the external constraints that reduce their government's autonomy, then variations in levels of regime satisfaction may no longer be exclusively about government performance – as widely argued by political economists – but also about democratic choice. The argument develops after comparing the existing scenarios in the Eurozone before and after the Great Recession. Citizens only began to perceive their own lack of choice to decide between policy alternatives when the sovereign debt crisis broke out in May 2010, the date of the first Greek bail‐out. It is then when citizens started to update their beliefs about the functioning of democracy as a system in which alternative policies can be adopted as bail‐out deals were signed between national governments from the Euro periphery and the Troika. This updating process towards the way democracy works explains the increasing gap in the levels of SWD between bailed‐out economies and the rest of the countries in the Eurozone. Empirical confirmation for this claim is found after analysing Eurobarometer surveys from 2002 to 2014 and using a two‐step difference‐in‐difference analysis that combines individual and aggregate data.     

Effectiveness of private finance initiatives (PFI): study of private financing for the provision of capital assets for schools

The study reported in this paper explores how effective Public Private Partnerships (PPP) have been as critical providers of capital assets within the state education sector in the UK. Specifically, the research investigates the impact on educational provision of the UK government's contentious £43 billion Private Finance Initiative (PFI). The inquiry focuses on 27 English Local Education Authorities (LEAs) currently or recently involved in PFI. The investigation examines the effect of PFI's on LEA decision‐making processes and discusses these authorities assessment of the UK government's current PFI strategy. An evaluation of PFI as a source of sustainable finance is reported as well as recommendations made for LEAs currently considering adoption of PFI. Through such analysis, this study seeks to de‐layer and ascertain the influence of complex external environmental influences and stakeholders that need to be taken into account in order to make PPPs work. The paper concludes by presenting the critical considerations for enhancing the working relationship between private and public sector partners. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Job of Government: Interweaving Public Functions and Private Hands

Lively and sometimes raucous debate about the job of government has increasingly engulfed American politics. Much of that debate has swirled around government's size, with conservatives arguing the case for shrinking government and liberals fighting to grow it. In reality, however, neither of these debates engages the critical underlying trend: the increasing interweaving of governmental functions deeply into every fiber of the nongovernmental sectors. Many reforms have sought to rein in government's power, but none has engaged the fundamental interweaving of policy implementation, and, not surprisingly, most have failed. Indeed, many have eroded the public's trust in the governmental institutions on which they depend. This process raises fundamental challenges for defining government's core role, for building the capacity to govern effectively, and for enhancing the accountability of governmental programs. Many of government's administrative tools are a poor match for the governance problems they seek to solve.     

Women's Participation in Rural China's Self‐Governance: Institutional,Socioeconomic, and Cultural Factors in a Jiangsu County

We examined women's participation in village self‐governance in an Eastern Chinese county. While they have more or less been universally participating in voting in village elections, their representation in the village self‐governance bodies remains low, and their political aspiration and sense of empowerment remain limited. A wide range of factors contribute to this situation. In general, women enjoy a much lower level of education and are economically dependent upon male members of their families. Social gender, or the stereotypes of women as less competent and are expected to stay away from public affairs, plays a very significant role too. Institutional problems, such as frauds and irregularities in election, lack of government's attention in promoting women's political roles, and the inability of state‐sponsored women organizations to influence local governance, all contribute to underrepresentation and inadequate participation of women. Policy responses must look beyond women's electoral participation and address these many deep‐rooted issues.     

The regulatory style of environmental governance in China: the case of EIA regulation in Shanghai*

The body of literature that examines how institutional contexts affect environmental governance in advanced industrial countries finds that style of environmental regulation is country‐specific. In the pluralist form of democracy like the United States, environmental policy formulation involves bargaining and compromises among interest groups and regulation enforcement through relatively formal and legalistic means. In the corporatist form of democracy like Sweden and Great Britain, in contrast, environmental policies are more accommodating to divergent societal interests and tend to be less formal in their enforcement. These variations in regulatory style have been attributed to differences in basic constitutional structures, regime types and cultures. How do institutional contexts affect the style of environmental regulation in China, which is both a non‐democratic and developing country? This article examines China's regulatory style by focusing on environmental impact assessment (EIA) regulation in Shanghai. The Shanghai EIA system is analyzed in terms of policy ideology, policy content, regulatory process, public participation and policy consequences. It is shown that China's being a single‐party regime with a ‘rule of persons’ tradition has heavily shaped its environmental governance. Based on Shanghai experience, China's style can be characterized as formal in requirement, agency‐dominated in the regulatory process, legalistic in enforcement, and informal politics as the substance of regulation. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

From support to pressure: The dynamics of social and governmental influences on environmental law enforcement in Guangzhou City,China

This paper examines how changes in governmental and social influences affect environmental enforcement in Guangzhou city, China, between 2000 and 2006. The paper finds that a form of “decentered regulation” has developed. Regulatory enforcement is no longer the sole affair of the government and the regulatory bureaucracy, but has been increasingly influenced by societal forces. The transformation over time shows the promises and limits of decentered regulation in Guangzhou's dynamic authoritarian setting. Analyzing a set of longitudinal survey data and qualitative interviews, the paper finds that by 2006, the rise of civil society and its increased support for protecting the environment had a double‐edged impact on the enforcement of environmental regulations. The paper demonstrates that on the one hand, by 2006, when government support for enforcement was low, societal forces developed an ability to counterbalance such lack of governmental support and positively influence enforcement. However, it also shows that when government support was high, a concurrent rise in societal support created a negative effect on enforcement. Thus too much societal support can become an enforcement burden.     

Did they ‘Read Before Burning’? The Coalition and Quangos

Attitudes to quangos are paradoxical. On the one hand they are perceived to be undemocratic, unaccountable organisations, while on the other they are seen to improve effectiveness, limit political interference and increase public confidence in government. This paradox is reflected in the behaviour of political parties, which generally adopt a harsh line towards quangos in opposition, but come to rely on these bodies in office. Ahead of the 2010 general election it was, however, noticeable that the Conservative party rejected this dynamic by promising to pursue ‘a more sophisticated approach’. This article explores the Coalition government's subsequent ‘public bodies reform programme’, assessing its progress against recommendations contained within the Institute for Government's Read before Burning report of July 2010. It concludes that while the Coalition has addressed long‐standing concerns about the day‐to‐day governance of public bodies, it has failed to resolve a set of broader and strategic (metagovernance) issues.     

FHA restructuring proposals: Alternatives and implications

Abstract

This article evaluates problems of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) under its current structure, develops criteria for judging alternative structures, and suggests one alternative—an assigned risk pool—that encourages efficiency in the insurance function while still promoting low‐ and moderate‐income housing. A historical introduction explains how the current institutional relationships came about and created FHA's problems.

FHA's decline resulted from the mixing of a heavy social agenda with the basic insurance objective, a destructive reorganization of the Department of Housing and Urban Development that caused FHA to lose control and focus, and government's inherent inability to respond to market signals. Yet the economic rationale for government involvement in FHA functions is strong. An FHA organized as an independent government agency, a government‐sponsored enterprise, or even a privatized entity structured as an assigned risk pool could improve efficiency of underwriting, pricing, and administration while achieving the redistributional objectives.     

Who Will Be the “Principled‐Principals”? Perceptions of Corruption and Willingness to Engage in Anticorruption Activism

Many anticorruption campaigns aim to encourage citizens to demand better control over corruption. Recent literature suggests that perceived high levels of corruption and government effectiveness in controlling corruption will limit citizens' willingness to actively oppose corruption. Using Transparency International's 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, we test these ideas across a 71‐country sample. We find that perceived government effectiveness tends to encourage anticorruption civic action, while perceptions of corruption being widespread tend to have the opposite impact in non‐OECD countries. Our analyses also suggest that the interaction between these perceptions is important; we find that, especially among those who perceive that the level of corruption is high, when confidence in the government's efforts grows, so does their willingness fight corruption.     

The Rudd Government's Employment Services Agenda: Is it Post‐NPM and Why is that Important?

Perhaps the most potent symbol of the Howard government's faith in New Public Management (NPM) was the Job Network. Interrogating the Rudd government's replacement package, this article assesses whether the recent restructuring of employment services constitutes a post‐NPM environment. It is argued that there are major post‐NPM elements, seen most clearly in: the softening of jobseeker sanctions; greater deliberation on policy direction and results; a more inclusive employment super‐ministry and reliance on other ‘horizontal’ governance reforms; and enhanced government resources for multiple‐disadvantage clients. However, categorising these changes as post‐NPM is problematic because the steering mechanism remains the market‐based contract, a central NPM characteristic. Theoretical difficulties in applying paradigmatic concepts to services provide additional barriers to conclusive assessments, though the Rudd government's employment services regime provides a basis for taking stock in the post‐NPM debate.