Does Agency Autonomy Foster Public Participation?

Allocation of public resources is an area in which considerations of both economic efficiency and democratic legitimacy are likely to be present. Public administrators are often blamed for being too devoted to the norms of bureaucratic ethos, such as efficiency, effectiveness, and top‐down control, and less so to the norms of democratic ethos, such as inclusiveness and bottom‐up decision making. This article examines whether managers in agencies with greater budget autonomy are more likely to include the public when allocating resources. Because participation offers an opportunity for agencies to enhance the legitimacy of their decisions, it is expected that the value of citizen input will increase with the degree of agency autonomy. Using data on the practices of citizen participation in budgeting in two state departments—transportation and environment—this study finds that agencies with a higher degree of autonomy tend to be more open to public comment than agencies with more centralized budget processes.     

Salience and Complexity in Supranational Policymaking: The Case of Subnational Interests

This study examined whether Gormley's insights about the effects of public salience and technical complexity on the patterns of participation in the regulatory process have explanatory power in an international setting. Specifically, I tracked 60 legislative proposals initiated by the European Commission and estimated the change made by the supranational technocrats in response to the requests of subnational politicians. I found support for the theoretical propositions about the differentiated effect of salience and complexity on political and administrative actors. Consistent with the notion of bureaucratic expertise, the Commission is less responsive when the policy issues require expertise to be tackled efficiently. Although the European Union has been pursuing various mechanisms to democratize its policy process, the technical character of supranational regulation precludes the broader public and elected politicians from assuming a larger role and bureaucracy will continue to be a major player in the international arena.     

The effect of fiscal transparency on corruption: A panel cross-country analysis

Both academicians and practitioners have advocated for increased fiscal transparency in government as a means of promoting budget discipline, improving functioning of the public sector, fostering greater accountability, and fighting the global menace of corruption. Despite worldwide calls for greater disclosure, empirical analyses of whether and how fiscal transparency actually affects governance outcomes are still limited. This study draws on public choice and principal–agent theories to demonstrate how public disclosure of budgetary information helps deter government corruption. The data from 95 countries over the period 2006–14 provide evidence that more fiscally transparent countries are perceived as less corrupt. We also find that fiscal transparency matters most at the final stages of the budget process when information disclosure reflects actual government spending. Data also confirm that a Citizens Budget can serve as a strong anti-corruption tool.     

How Does Race Affect Perceptions of Police Trustworthiness?

While race is often discussed in relation to police, there is still little empirical evidence on the role of race in shaping citizens’ evaluations of government performance. Using an experimental design, this study examines how different levels of police performance affect perceptions of police trustworthiness and to which degree observed effects vary by individual race and across communities with different racial makeups. Specifically, we study the effect of different levels of performance on perceived trustworthiness in two communities—one predominantly African American and one predominantly White—and replicate across two samples: a sample consisting of primarily White participants and another consisting of only African American participants. Results indicate that the interaction between the racial composition of a community and individual race plays a critical role in shaping the effects of performance among White participants, who appeared more sensitive to community context than African American participants. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Social Anxiety and Aggression in Early Adolescents: Examining the Moderating Roles of Empathic Concern and Perspective Taking

Guided by a social information processing perspective, this study examined the unique and interactive contributions of social anxiety and two distinct components of empathy, empathic concern and perspective taking, to subsequent relational and overt aggression in early adolescents. Participants were 485 10- to 14-year old middle school students (54% female; 78% European-American) involved in two waves of a study with one year between each wave. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that higher levels of empathic concern were directly associated with decreases in subsequent relational and overt aggression one year later and buffered the impact of social anxiety on subsequent relational aggression. Although perspective taking did not moderate the impact of social anxiety on either form of aggression, it was a unique predictor of increased relational aggression one year later. Findings call for future research to assess both components of empathy separately as they relate to relational and overt aggression.     

The Effectiveness of Administrative Reform in New Democracies

Practitioners and scholars of postcommunist politics disagree on the accomplishments of administrative reforms in new Eastern European democracies. The transformation of the public sector after 1989 has aimed to consolidate the democratic process and enhance economic development. Skeptics, however, argue that administrative reforms face serious challenges in the context of economic liberalization, insufficient capacity for modernization, and cultural legacies of the past. The authors judge reform effectiveness by testing the impact of civil service reform on government transparency and foreign direct investment. The results of the empirical analysis confirm that once reform is adopted, administrations become more effective at reducing corruption and attracting investment. Despite the delays and difficulties of implementation, the adoption of reform is important in and of itself, and countries can expect positive results sooner than skeptics predict.     

Allele sharing in first-degree and unrelated pairs of individuals in the Ge F I AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus database

Eleven Italian forensic laboratories participated in a population study based on the AB Profiler Plus loci with proficiency testing. The validated database, including 1340 individuals, is available on-line. Tests for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, gametic unbalance, and heterogeneity of gene frequency were generally not significant. Gene frequencies at each locus were consistent with those of two previously published Italian studies, but different from a third. Individuals of each subsample were paired, and the total number of alleles shared across the nine loci was determined in each pair. The analysis was replicated over the total sample. In addition, two samples of mother-child pairs (N=315) and full-sib pairs (N=91) were subjected to allele sharing analysis. The resulting distributions were sufficiently distinct from the sample of unrelated pairs as to be of practical usefulness.     

How do international human rights influence national healthcare provisions for irregular migrants?: A case study in France and the United Kingdom

Debates about human rights have often questioned their potential for generating rights at national levels. In this article, we use the case of irregular migrants' access to health care in the United Kingdom and France to explore the extent to which international human rights influence national health care provisions for irregular migrants. We explore the extent to which health care access and provision for irregular migrants in these two countries is in agreement with international human rights. In so doing, we examine what constitutes an infringement of the international human right to health care. Finally, we sketch out some hypotheses about the role played by different state structures in the implementation of human rights norms, comparing the United Kingdom with France. We argue that, although international human rights often have a largely symbolic role in nation-state jurisdiction, they may sometimes represent a force for change.