Local Autonomy, Local Democracy and the 'New Localism'

Most studies of local autonomy and local democracy fail to distinguish adequately between the two terms. As a consequence, there is an assumed bilateral relationship between them in which changes in one are always deemed to affect the other – particularly in policy formulations. This article develops a stronger analytical distinction between them by considering local autonomy in three separate ways: as freedom from central interference; as freedom to effect particular outcomes; and as the reflection of local identity . Each of these conceptualisations raises different challenges for local democracy and its relationship to broader forms of democratic practice. When used to analyse the recent emergence of the 'new localism' as a policy approach within Britain, this separation also shows significant limitations in current policies towards democratic renewal and central policies that are supposedly focused on outcomes rather than processes. Although localities are being afforded some autonomy, most initiatives are not supporting the enhancement of local democracy.     

Flexibility or Stability? Analyzing Proposals to Reform the Separation of Powers

The social welfare effects of legislatures in presidential systems, such as the U.S. Congress, are frequently lamented. In response, there are proposals to reform the separation of powers system by giving presidents control of the legislative agenda and weakening rules such as the filibuster. We provide a game-theoretic analysis of the policy and social welfare consequences of a more executive-centric system. Integrating standard assumptions about legislative and executive incentives into a dynamic model of decision making with private investment, we show there are a variety of conditions under which stronger executives do not produce better outcomes. Moreover, we characterize how these conditions depend on factors such as the stability of the policymaking environment or investment fundamentals. Our findings are robust and consistent with empirical observations that U.S. policy outputs are not necessarily worse than those of nations with stronger executives, which more closely approximate prominent proposals by populist-oriented reformers.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Adopting Open Educational Resources in an Introductory American Government Course

In this article, we present findings from a grant-funded initiative to replace traditional, proprietary textbooks with an open content textbook under a Creative Commons license in the introductory American government course (POLS 1101) at Middle Georgia State University. We find that the use of an open content textbook led to somewhat negative effects on student learning outcomes and student course satisfaction, although the associated lower textbook cost increased textbook accessibility to students. We conclude with some suggestions to those adopting textbooks in this course and to the wider discipline regarding measures that may lead to more unequivocally positive outcomes than those experienced in this study.     

Battling for the regions: Local government policy networks and the reform of the european structural funds

The recent reform of the European Structural Funds led to a wide‐ranging set of lobbying activities on the part of UK regions which felt their previous allocations were likely to be threatened. Much of this activity took place through existing networks or alliances of networks at a national and transnational level. This paper examines the issues at stake in the reforms, the attitudes of the networks to those issues and the need for networks to have a common focus, adequate resources and effective internal communication structures to be effective.     

Institutional features of congressional decisions: The fight to prohibit smoking on airlines

A pervasive theme of the congressional politics literature is that the committee system is fundamental in determining the policy status quo. Such an assertion hinges crucially upon committees controlling their jurisdictions; congressional delegation is undermined if a committee can assert authority over any issue domain at any time. Yet, representatives may possess an incentive to support a policy proposal that would change the status quo, even if it entails disregarding procedures. Indeed, standard conceptualizations of how members of Congress make their voting choices assume that only the benefits and costs associated with a policy matter, and they do not consider institutional factors such as whether a bill emerged from the correct committee.This analysis examines whether representatives will sacrifice policy interests to preserve institutional features of the legislature. The effort in 1987 to curb smoking on airplanes — which became embroiled in a difficult-to-resolve jurisdictional dispute — serves as a vehicle to analyze how sensitive members are to such features. The results demonstrate that a sizable number put aside their [generally moderate] policy preferences and voted against limits on smoking for institutional reasons. These findings have important implications both for specifying the determinants of policy change and for understanding institutional stability.     

Urban youth under stress: Empirical identification of protective factors

Explored the influence of life stress as mediated or moderated by locus of control, family environment, social support, and coping style on psychological adjustment and school performance in 164 ninth graders from Baltimore. Gender differences in findings were shown. For boys, family cohesion was the only variable found to protect against the effects of stress. Family cohesion did not serve protective functions for girls, and along with overall social support, was associated with increased vulnerability to school problems. The report of problem-focused coping strategies exerted a number of protective functions for girls only. External locus of control was found to increase boys' and girls' vulnerability to the effects of life stress. Empirical development of interventions to improve the psychosocial adjustment of inner-city adolescents is discussed.Received Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1991. Research interests include evaluation of school mental health services, empirical development of interventions for children, and the impact of violence on urban youth.Received B.A. from Cornell University. Interests include stress and coping in children, identification of resilience factors, and evaluation of child mental health systems of care.Received Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 1967. Research interests include psychophysiology, sleep disorders, and biofeedback and instrumentation.Received B.A. from Loyola College. Interested in applied work with adolescents and adults.Received M.D. from Duke University in 1968. Research interests include training in child and adolescent psychiatry, adolescent psychopathology, and the development of school mental health programs.