Accountability in Public Management Networks: An Analysis of Cost Monitoring in Chicago Municipal Networks

Public management networks (PMNs) continue to proliferate as governance becomes more complex, and so does the need to hold them accountable. Agency and collaboration theories provide a solid foundation, but additional constructs are necessary to adapt to this dynamic era. Building from Bovens et al. (2008), the authors offer an ecological framework of third-party accountability that incorporates a number of prominent accountability theories under the same construct. Employing a mixed-methods research design that examines eight local PMNs in the Chicago region, the study finds that an exemplar accountability mechanism—additional cost monitoring—occurs more often in situations predicted by the framework. Additionally, qualitative interviews of network participants suggest that cost structures can differ by network type, which is verified quantitatively.     

HARMONIOUS COEXISTENCE

正In upgrading its protection of wild elephants, China can look to Kenya Over the past few months, with the northward migration of Asian elephants in southwest China's Yunnan Province, the wild species has caught the eye of the international community, and the preparation for the establishment of an Asian elephant national park in China has been pushed forward.     

Blessed be Discord, 1910: Ricardo Flores Magón's Manifesto Mode

This article explores how Ricardo Flores Magón used images to transpose the graphic tradition of nineteenth-century Mexican political journalism into prose by deploying montage to craft both allegorical and prismatic images: while certain images are divorced from their original context and take on a new life, others, analogically related to a single idea, appear prismatically in fragments on the page. The affinities Flores Magón's writing shared with modernismo and the historical avant garde – as intensification of the former and precursor of the latter – have been a blind spot for literary history, to which this article attempts to restore the importance of his writing.     

Patterns of Local Policy Disruption: Regulatory Responses to Uber in Ten North American Cities

Since its inception in 2009, Uber has grown into a technology behemoth, with operations in over 70 countries and 500 cities around the world. Along the way, it has successfully forced regulatory upheaval in hundreds of local taxi markets controlled by municipal authorities. In this sense, Uber is not only a market disruptor, but also a policy disruptor. This paper examines the nature of such policy disruption at the local level by reviewing regulatory responses to Uber in ten North American cities. We find that regulatory outcomes are a function of two factors: Uber’s government relations strategy, either cooperative or confrontational, and the degree to which local governments perceive Uber as complementary or harmful to the existing marketplace. We conclude by proposing a typology of regulatory responses to Uber as a basis to identify patterns in the behavior of municipal regulatory authorities and political leaders.     

Reading between the lines: party cues and SNP support for Scottish independence and Brexit

Scotland’s future within the European Union (EU) played a prominent role in the 2014 independence referendum. The story goes that latent supporters of independence voted to stay within the UK to maintain EU access. Defeated, Scottish leaders declared the referendum a once-in-a-life-time event only repeated if conditions substantially changed. With the UK now facing a chaotic exit from the EU, proponents of Scottish independence have suggested that a second referendum may occur after Brexit negotiations are completed. Faced with a consensus among Scottish party leaders in supporting EU membership, those hoping for a second independence referendum, we argue, looked to alternate sources of information that saw Brexit as an opportunity to create the conditions that would spur a second referendum. Using panel data from the British Election Study, we examine whether Scottish voters voted tactically to leave the EU. We argue that Scottish National Party voters were likely to interpret statements on the conditions for a second independence referendum as an implicit signal to vote “Leave.” The results have important implications for the role of referendums in representative democracy, strategic voting, and the importance of intra-party division on individual vote choices.     

Preparing to lead: Mayoral transition planning in Canadian cities

Transition teams are often used to help Prime Ministers and Premiers move into their new roles. At the municipal level, the use of transition teams is relatively new. As such, we know little about what these groups do in comparison to federal and provincial transition teams. In this article, we examine mayoral transition teams and find that the increased use of these groups is a reflection of the enhanced organizational complexity of Canadian local government. Additionally, local conditions and candidate experience often dictate the shape and function of transition teams. Overall, we argue that more resources should be devoted to the municipal transition process.     

A new model for making Aboriginal policy? Evaluating the Kelowna Accord and the promise of multilevel governance in Canada

Government policy‐making affecting Indigenous communities in Canada has often been met with stiff resistance from Indigenous leadership. We examine multilevel governance as an alternate model for Aboriginal policy‐making by examining a particular case study: the process leading up to the 2005 Kelowna Accord. We find that although multilevel governance may have the potential to produce highly desirable outcomes, its emergence seems to depend heavily on political agency. Meaningful and enduring change to Aboriginal policy‐making will therefore likely require significant institutional adjustments to the Canadian federation.     

Innovation and Alliances

Explanations for national success in science and technology typically focus on domestic institutions and policies. However, that line of research has yet to identify any particular set of institutions or policies that explain variation in national innovation rates across cases or over time. This article offers new evidence that the problem with domestic institutions approaches stems from their failure to consider international security factors. Specifically, this article finds a positive effect for U.S. security alliances on innovation. This finding is robust across different specifications and periods of analysis. While countries that ally militarily with the United States are found to realize benefits in economy‐wide, indigenous innovation, such an effect is not observed in military technologies. This suggests that alliances may substitute for being on the frontier in military technologies. Therefore, this article contributes not just to debates over S&T competitiveness, but also to alliance formation.     

Assessing the Past and Promise of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey for Public Management Research: A Research Synthesis

Since 2002, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has used the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) to monitor efforts by federal executive agencies to manage human capital. Public management researchers have used FEVS data to produce dozens of peer‐reviewed publications on a range of topics of interest to policy makers, practitioners, and academics. Despite the proliferation of these empirical studies, the field of public management until now has lacked a critical assessment of the FEVS and of how researchers have used the data. In this article, the authors discuss the strengths of the FEVS and the opportunities this survey has created for public management researchers. Despite important contributions made to the literature using the data, there are weaknesses in the content, design, and implementation of the FEVS. The authors offer a set of recommendations for refining the survey and its implementation with the aim of improving the quality and value of the data. In doing so, they hope to foster a dialogue between public management researchers and the Office of Personnel Management on the future of the FEVS and to forge a stronger link between these two communities.