How political and social change will transform the EU public affairs industry

The EU public affairs industry is failing to recognise that political and social change is rendering its traditional approach to lobbying redundant. The key change is the growing importance of public opinion. Politicians are tending to follow rather than lead public opinion. The public is becoming more individualistic and more prone to emotional appeals. Pressure groups are increasingly setting the political agenda. The Internet is reinforcing all these trends and multiplying the number of political actors. To survive and prosper, public affairs practitioners need to adopt a strategic view of public affairs, which is aligned with companies' brand strategies. This view must be based on a holistic view of politics and recognition that winning public trust, acceptance and support is the prerequisite of successful lobbying. The emphasis will therefore shift away from traditional elite lobbying towards NGO‐style campaigning and mobilisation of public support. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Cooperation and competition in public welfare policies

Present public welfare policies and various proposals for reforming them do not often exploit the advantages of cooperation between otherwise competing altruists. The article examines this principle from a number of perspectives. It shows first how the advantages of the existing cooperative payments structure could be lost in some widely-publicized welfare reform proposals, and it makes a suggestion for retaining these advantages. The article next shows how the same principle could be used to improve existing incentives for private giving. Finally, it uses the same logic to rationalize newly evolving notions of sharing responsibility between governments and the recipients themselves.     

Federalism and regional interest intermediation in Brazilian public policies

Brazil became a highly decentralized country following democratization and the 1988 Constitution. The consequences of decentralization at the federal level are quite clear: the federal government is facing financial constraints and difficulties in building governing coalitions, allowing the Presidents to govern and to implement public policies, especially those concerning fiscal control. At the level of the states, however, the results of decentralization are quite heterogeneous given the country's high degree of regional inequality. The article identifies the cleavages and tensions surrounding federal–state relations, as well as the mutual dependency of the states and the federal government. It argues that the Brazilian experience of political and financial decentralization has contributed to the prospects of democratic consolidation and has forced the federal government to negotiate and compromise with subnational governments the implementation of national policies. On the other hand, the Brazilian experience highlights the constraints of decentralization in countries with deep‐rooted regional disparities. Furthermore, the financial weakness of the federal government which has been brought about by decentralization and by fiscal control brings new tensions to the federal arrangements and to public policies. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preventing construction deaths: The role of public policies

Are stronger direct financial incentives or regulatory enforcement effective in reducing fatalities in the construction industry? We examine two important policies—state workers' compensation (WC) programs and federal and state Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) activities—which embody those strategies. We examine their impact by looking at state-level fatality rates in the construction industry from 1992 to 2016. Setting aside highway crashes and violence, the majority of employee deaths occur in construction. We find that states which exempt small firms from the requirement to buy WC insurance have higher fatality rates. When eligibility for compensation is restricted by longer waiting periods, fatality rates are substantially higher. More frequent federal or state OSHA inspections and, especially, consultation visits are associated with lower fatality rates, but higher average penalties are not. Limited variation in these policies over our sample period, especially for WC, makes these results suggestive rather than definitively causal.     

How migration policies moderate the diffusion of terrorism

There is an ongoing debate among practitioners and scholars about the security consequences of transnational migration. Yet, existing work has not, so far, fully taken into account the policy instruments states have at their disposal to mitigate these risks, and reliable evidence is lacking for the effectiveness of such measures. This article addresses both shortcomings as whether and to what extent national migration policies affect the diffusion of terrorism via population movements are analysed. Spatial analyses report robust support for a moderating influence of states’ policies: while terrorism can travel from one country to another via larger migration populations, this only applies to target countries with extremely lax regulations and control mechanisms. This research sheds new light on the security implications of population movements, and it crucially adds to our understanding of governments’ instruments for addressing migration challenges as well as their effectiveness.     

Choosing a media outlet when seeking public approval

This paper considers the media outlet choice of a politician who seeks public approval for a political agenda in a broadcast interview. The available media outlets differ in their “toughness” towards the politician. An interview with a tougher media outlet is more informative, but is also more likely to yield a negative outcome. The choice of the media outlet determines the accuracy of the information that flows to the public and the volume of citizens who consume that information. The analysis shows that (1) politicians who enjoy sufficient popularity are likely to avoid tough media outlets, (2) when seeking approval for controversial agendas, politicians are more likely to appear in tougher outlets.     

IPO effects: corporate restructuring when a firm goes public

The public affairs of a firm issuing an initial public offering (IPO) are a critical part of the corporate restructuring efforts which firms face during the process of going public. In this paper, Bowman and Singh's (1993) definition is used to illustrate how issuing an IPO is a significant form of corporate restructuring. Public affairs are critical during both the pre‐IPO phase and during the period leading up to the IPO, as the firm must negotiate a heavily institutionalised process to successfully complete the issue. Here, the six‐year life of ‘Deja News’ is used as a way to illustrate and explain the public affairs during the process of preparing for and issuing an IPO. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Median voters,political systems and public policies: An empirical test

This paper tests the median voter hypothesis that variations in policies across political systems are caused by variations in median voter preferences. The context of the empirical analysis is the tax policies of three groups of sub-national governments in England in three time periods. The results of a median voter model of tax policy variation are compared to the results of a mean voter model in different party systems and different electoral systems. The evidence provides little support for the median voter hypothesis.     

Policy feedback and pathways: when change leads to endurance and continuity to change

Policy Sciences - The policy feedback literature was initially concerned with explaining how positive feedback could lead to self-reinforcing policy trajectories. More recently, policy scholars...     

How powerful are public bureaucrats as voters?

Empirical evidence is collected and discussed regarding the influence of public bureaucrats on government sector outcome in their capacity as consumer-voters. It is necessary to isolate the specific effect of working in the public sector (compared to other occupations) on voting participation and on the probability to support an increase in the public budget. For a balanced evaluation of public bureaucrats' power, other forms of their influencing the government sector outcome need to be taken into account.     

How to argue about the new public management

Hood and Jackson's (1991) distinction between administrative argument and administrative philosophy has been largely overlooked in writings on NPM. This seemingly subtle distinction flows from the more obvious one between “practical argument” and “social scientific explanation.” These terms refer to different scholarly practices. Practical reasoning is a highly-developed form of scholarship in law, public policy, and political theory. Explanation is a highly-developed scholarly activity in political science and related disciplines. The fact that practical argument and explanation are, in principle, complementary scholarly activities in practically-oriented fields such as public management is not a reason to overlook the distinction between them. If scholars writing on NPM made more of this distinction, it might prove easier for their readers to see precisely how social science explanations and practical arguments are interrelated. Discussion of how well claims have been supported would then be facilitated. Also, it would be easier for writers to decide how to engage the NPM literature. Not only would the issues be clearer, but it would also be easier to discuss the merits of alternative approaches to tackling them. If more weight is given to the distinction between practical argumentation and social scientific research by scholars of NPM, an urgent question is: how should the scholarly practice of practical argumentation be characterized?     

Experiments and evaluation of public policies: Methods,implementation, and challenges

Evidence-based policymaking is all about developing and implementing better public policies. Although the logic underpinning this philosophy is simple, the practicalities of demonstrating causal effects of a public policy are much more complex. In recent years, there has been a wave of optimism about the usefulness of experimental approaches to public policy evaluation which mimics the clean, causal inferences observed in clinical trials. Although these methods, such as randomised controlled trials, have been widely advocated and implemented, they are not without their potential problems. In this paper, we consider the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges posed by the revolution in policy evaluation brought about by embracing experimental methods.     

Effects of public opinion on abortion policies and use in the American states

A central feature of democratic theory is substantial publiccontrol over the shape of public policies. Recent research onpublic opinion bolsters the connection between public preferencesand policies enacted in the American states. Yet, the next logicalconnection—that of policy and public behavior—isoften omitted in the research. Ideally, preferences should influencepolicy, and policy should influence public behavior. This studyexamines the hypothesis that public opinion influences abortionpolicies, and that public opinion and public policy both influencerates of abortion utilization by state publics. The findingssuggest that public preferences have profound effects on thecontours of abortion policy and access to abortion providers.There are equally significant links to abortion use, even whencontrolling for socioeconomic factors and religious orientationsin the states.     

Of change,training and public affairs in Europe

European public affairs practitioners need to be increasingly professional in their reactions to an EU undergoing transformational change. The paper offers a comprehensive summary of the subtleties of institutional change in Commission, Parliament and Council in 2004. In particular, the author argues that expansion from 15 member states to 25 has fundamentally changed the nature of the Union's politics and the skills required to influence it. This new EU requires more of practitioners than experience and amateur instinct: to achieve results and avoid restrictive regulation, the public affairs community must adopt effective training strategies, challenging competence targets and regular self‐assessment of its performance and ethics. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Institutional change and the delivery of urban public services

Problems associated with providing efficient and equitable distribution of public services are attributable in part to the inabilities of government or other public institutions to be responsive to requirements of their clientele. To permit a better understanding of the nature of such institutional failures, and to suggest avenues of effective reform, this paper views institutional systems of service provision in a control systems framework. In this perspective, the elements of feedback are seen as essential to successful system performance over time and changing conditions. The paper identifies the kinds of error signals a system needs to generate, and the types of corrective mechanisms that it may employ, and then discusses three basic modes of institutional reform—performance evaluation, decentralization, and market competition—for improving the dynamic capability of systems of providing urban public services. Two service areas—sanitation and criminal corrections—are used for illustrating possible applications of the reform strategies.The author wishes to thank his colleagues at the Urban Institute, especially Richard P. Burton, for suggestions and comments on the substance and style of the paper. This paper is based on ideas first presented by the author at the First Annual Convention of the World Future Society, May, 1971. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of The Urban Institute or its sponsors.     

Aspects of change in the Canadian federal public service

This article is divided into two parts. The first part looks at some significant changes that have taken place in Canada's federal public service over the last two or three years. These changes include the introduction of new management techniques, new organizational structures and new approaches to governance. The second part deals with my own organization, Consulting and Audit Canada, including the rationale for our existence, the kind of work we do and the issues we face. Both parts raise issues that are pertinent to the subject of public sector versus private sector, in the context of service delivery. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)