Representation beyond people: Lobbying access of umbrella associations to legislatures and the media

Lobbying access to policy discussions determines how political interests are voiced and potentially exert influence. This article addresses whether access to the national legislature and the media favors umbrella organizations, which represent interests of their member groups. It theorizes that the role of umbrellas goes beyond signaling a large individual membership or constituency of people, but that umbrellas are distinct in transmitting interests from other organizations. This function is expected to be valuable in exchanges with legislators who seek efficiency, input legitimacy, and policy implementation, but less valuable in the media arena. Using a new data set on lobbying by 286 groups on 12 issues in the United Kingdom and Germany, the article serves support for this theory: Umbrellas enjoy higher legislative access, but lower media access than groups without member organizations, irrespective of their individual membership or claimed constituency. The findings have implications for how we understand and study political representation.     

Cities,Tax Revenues,and a State's Fiscal Future: The Value of Major Urban Centers

Competition among core cities or urban centers and suburban and rural areas besets numerous states. The competition often occurs amid a political environment in which suburban and rural areas enjoy a political majority in the state legislature, a majority that directs state investments to their areas. With Ohio as a case study, the issues that have created the urban–suburban–rural trichotomy are reviewed and an analysis of the tax returns, by area, to state investments is presented. The findings illustrate that urban centers produce more tax dollars per dollar of state investment than other areas, implying that state underinvestment in urban areas harms overall state tax revenues.     

Conjoint Federalism and Environmental Regulation in the United States

Many of the environmental laws enacted by Congress employ adistinctive blend of national and state authority. In theseconjoint arrangements, state authority is not totally preempted,but it is subordinated to national authority if states wishto participate in environmental regulation. Under normal circumstances,national and state authority are deployed concurrently in pursuitof environmental policy objectives. Conjoint arrangements aremuch more controlling of state action than the stimulative andfacilitative approach to intergovernmental program implementationcommonly associated with cooperative federalism. Despite nationalprimacy, in the bargaining that marks implementation processes,state officials may enjoy considerable influence. Although administrativelycumbersome and criticized from a variety of perspectives, conjointarrangements are not the major reasons for a slow rate of improvementin environmental quality. When the various options are considered,there are reasons to conclude that conjoint arrangements arethe most realistic means for attacking environmental problems,although questions remain about the appropriate balance of nationaland state authority in them.     

Morality,Benevolence, and Responsibility: Regime Legitimacy in China from Past to the Present

Taking an interpretive approach, this study argues that Chinese political tradition plays an important role in the maintenance of regime legitimacy in China today. Contrary to the popular view that the Chinese Communist regime relies primarily on economic performance to sustain its legitimacy, the current regime legitimacy is maintained because of the historically rooted moral bond between the state and society and the societal expectation that the state would be responsible for the wellbeing of the population. The regime legitimacy in China has three overlapping layers: The basic layer is the morality of political elite. The crucial part of the morality is the benevolent governance which specifies that the government has to be compassionate to the people. The central component of a benevolent government is the state responsibility to the welfare of the people. All together, these layers create a moral bond between the state and society. The government will enjoy legitimacy as far as the society expects it to fulfill its end of the deal. This study further argues that the morality-based regime legitimacy in China has to be calibrated within its multi-level power structure. Governments at different levels enjoy different degree of legitimacy and face different degree of challenges. In general, the central government enjoys the most legitimacy and faces the least challenges comparing to the local governments. This multi-level power structure would cushion many regime legitimacy crises.     

The political role of the Japanese media

This article examines the political role of the mass media in contemporary Japan. Journalists, especially newspaper reporters, have long enjoyed privileged access to politicians through a system of kisha (reporters') clubs, a system which allows for a cosy rapport between reporters and their sources, but often works against the public interest. In recent years, however, some television journalists have adopted a more rigorous approach to political stories. Critical programming by television stations such as TV Asahi may have contributed to the end of 38 years of Liberal Democrat Party rule in 1993. Nevertheless, there is insufficient evidence to argue that the Japanese media is now acting as an effective political watchdog. Like the mass media in many other Asian countries, the Japanese media continues to enjoy an ambiguous relationship with holders of political power.     

Network Structure and Perceived Legitimacy in Collaborative Wildlife Management

The widespread supposition that collaborative management designs enhance legitimacy must be examined empirically, and the rich diversity of different collaborative arrangements should be better acknowledged in this endeavor. This study adopts a social network perspective and examines three state‐initiated and interest‐based collaborative management arenas in Swedish wildlife management: wildlife conservation committees (WCCs). Is there a link between social network structures in collaborative management arenas and the perceived legitimacy of output by policy stakeholders? This puzzle is addressed through social network analysis combined with survey data and interviews. The empirical results confirm the notion that collaborative arenas consisting of high network closure with many bridging ties across organizational boundaries enjoy a higher level of support among stakeholders directly involved in management, as members of the committees, than networks with a more sparse structure do. This type of well‐integrated network structure seemingly increases stakeholders’ understanding of other actors’ perspectives through deliberation. Contrary to what was expected, though, the empirical analysis did not verify the effect of linking, or outreaching ties between the committee members and the organizations that they represent, on the organizations’ support of WCC decisions. Given the rapid rise of collaborative designs in public administrations, the topic elaborated in this paper is urgent and further research is encouraged.     

The New Elites in the Baltic States: Recirculation and Change

Regime change is closely connected to elite change. although classical theories of elite rule would predict considerable elite continuity. The basic question is how the downfall of communist regimes and introduction of democracy have affected elite patterns in the three Baltic states. The data indicate a combination of continuity and change: circulation of indigenous elites has taken place, while Russians are excluded from power in important state institutions. Elite continuity is explained by lack of "alternative elites" and a need for competent leaders in the state building process. Elite change is explained by ethnic cleavages which raise the issue of indigenous control over power positions.     

Legitimacy,self-determination,and conditional cooperators

ABSTRACT

This article critically examines the account of collective self-determination and state legitimacy developed by Stilz in her book. Central to this account is the idea that for a state to be legitimate it must reflect the shared will of the people over which it governs. I argue that the normative taxonomy Stilz employs to develop this criterion of legitimacy ignores the possibility of conditional cooperators: groups who are alienated from society due to the injustices they experience but are willing to affirm their participation in state institutions if these injustices are rectified. I then demonstrate that since there are no grounds for discounting the dissent of conditional cooperators, their presence significantly increases the threshold for state legitimacy that follows from Stilz’s theory. As a result, Stilz is forced to abandon her claim that basically just states generally enjoy a qualified ‘right to do wrong’.     

The Scandinavian Democratic Model

Given the continuing importance of democracy as an analytic concept. this article seeks to compare Scandinavian practice with accepted general definitions and theories. Definitions that recognize contemporary political democracy as consensual and procedural seem most appropriate to the Scandinavian cases. Although remaining dynamic. political democracy has not been a contested principle for more than 50 years.
Efforts since 1945 to extend democracy to social and economic spheres have been more controversial, however. Welfare state measures enjoy broad support, not least for functional reasons. For many, however, such policies seek a broader social democracy instead of merely a humane 'safety net'. Economic democracy remains the most contested dimension. Seeking to transcend corporatism and rational collective bargaining, economic democracy seeks simultaneously to promote greater economic equality and participation while maintaining an efficient productive system.
The dynamic and expanded democratic model has engendered much domestic debate about means and ends. This has been, on balance, a source of reinvigoration.     

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.     

External Actors,State‐Building,and Service Provision in Areas of Limited Statehood: Introduction

This article introduces the themes and arguments of the special issue. While virtually all polities enjoy uncontested international legal sovereignty, there are wide variations in statehood, that is, the monopoly over the means of violence and the ability of the state to make and implement policies. Areas of limited statehood are not, however, ungoverned spaces where anarchy and chaos prevail. The provision of collective goods and services is possible even under extremely adverse conditions of fragile or failed statehood. We specify the conditions under which external efforts at state‐building and service provision by state and nonstate actors can achieve their goals. We focus on the extent to which external actors enhance the capacity (statehood) of authority structures in weak states, or directly contribute to the provision of collective goods and services, such as public health, clean environment, social security, and infrastructure. We argue that three factors determine success: legitimacy, task complexity, and institutionalization, including the provision of adequate resources.     

Media malaise or a virtuous circle? Exploring the causal relationships between news media exposure,political news attention and political interest

Being politically interested is one of the most important norms from a democratic perspective, as it is a crucial antecedent for voting, political knowledge, civic and political participation, and attentiveness to political information. However, only limited research has focused on the relationship between media use and political interest, despite the notion that modern politics is mediated politics. Even more important is the fact that the causal relationship between media use and political interest still has not been firmly established. Against this background, the purpose of this study is to investigate the causal relationship between news media use and political interest. The results show that there are indeed causal and reciprocal relationships between political interest and attention to political news, and between political interest and exposure to some, but not all, news media. Overall these results lend stronger support to the perspective of media mobilisation theories than media malaise theories.     

Generation, Age, and Time: The Dynamics of Political Learning during Russia's Transformation

When the Soviet Union collapsed, most Russians had lived their entire lives in a quintessentially authoritarian culture. Having been socialized in this environment, how could citizens acquire the attitudes and behaviors necessary to support a new, more pluralistic regime? Cultural theories of political learning emphasize the primacy of childhood socialization and hold that altering initial attitudes is a decades‐long process that depends on generational replacement. Institutional theories emphasize adult relearning in response to changing circumstances regardless of socialization. Lifetime learning integrates the competing perspectives. Multilevel models using New Russia Barometer data from 1992 to 2005 confirm the persistence of some generational differences in Russian political attitudes but demonstrate even larger effects resulting from adult relearning. Lifetime learning provides the most comprehensive account and suggests that Russians would quickly acquire the attitudes and behaviors appropriate to democracy—if Russian elites supply more authentic democratic institutions.     

Public Support for Corporate Social Responsibility in the Welfare State: Evidence from Sweden

Several scholars have claimed that we are currently witnessing a growing saliency of so‐called ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR). Yet, while there is a lot of work suggesting that public opinion might prompt firms to behave in socially responsible ways, there is a lack of empirical studies exploring the extent ordinary to which citizens actually support CSR. Moreover, the state is conventionally theorised as the main institutional device for governing markets and their social consequences, and there is a growing literature exploring the relationship between CSR and the state. On the basis of these observations, this article juxtaposes public attitudes towards CSR and state intervention in the market. Considering that attitudes might vary across groups with different structural relationships to the firm, this study also looks at the social bases of support for different attitude profiles. Using Swedish survey data collected in 2011 and latent class analysis, the empirical results demonstrate that most Swedes in favour of CSR are highly supportive of state intervention in the market. The study of social cleavages restates this pattern: social groups with fewer marketable resources are strongly over‐represented in supporting a combination of CSR and state intervention in the market. No clear social profile is found for the relatively small group of people who support CSR but not state intervention. It is concluded that voluntary CSR is unlikely to offer a serious full‐scale alternative to the welfare state: Swedes continue to think of public authorities as the ultimate institutional guarantor of social welfare.     

Long–Serving City Managers: Why Do They Stay?

The literature on council–manager government often mentions the political difficulties that city managers face with their elected officials and constituent groups. In addition, the generally accepted route to success for city managers is to move to larger and better–paying cities. As a result of these push–and–pull factors, the average tenure of city managers is short. There are, however, a relatively small number of city managers who enjoy long tenure in single cities. The authors identified the 146 city managers who are serving and have served for at least 20 years the same city and sought to determine the factors leading to their long service. The survey indicates that long–serving city managers are more likely to be found in smaller cities that are homogeneous and politically stable. The majority of these city managers are white males with above–average educational levels, strong support from elected officials, and personal commitments to the cities they serve.     

Operation Restore Hope and the Illusion of a News Media Driven Intervention

US intervention in Somalia (1992) and Iraq (1991) are held as evidence for a more powerful media in the post Cold War era and the thesis that media coverage of suffering people is a major cause of humanitarian intervention. This paper investigates the role of mass media during the 1992 decision to deploy ground troops in Somalia. A media influence model is outlined and then applied to the decision to intervene in Somalia. The research indicates that significant levels of media attention actually followed the intervention decision and that this coverage was framed in a way that built support for the intervention. I conclude there is little evidence to support the claim that media coverage compelled policy makers to intervene or that media coverage was a major factor in policy deliberations. Overall, the role of media in causing intervention in Somalia has been substantially overplayed, instead other factors are likely to have had a far greater effect in causing the intervention. This finding challenges both the thesis that media coverage is a major cause of the deployment of ground troops during humanitarian crisis and suggests caution be exercised with regard to post-Cold War claims of a more powerful and influential media.     

Defending the European court of human rights: Experimental evidence from Britain

As nationalist sentiments gain traction globally, the attitudinal and institutional foundations of the international liberal order face new challenges. One manifestation of this trend is the growing backlash against international courts. Defenders of the liberal order struggle to articulate compelling reasons for why states, and their citizens, should continue delegating authority to international institutions. This article probes the effectiveness of arguments that emphasise the appropriateness and benefits of cooperation in containing preferences for backlash among the mass public. We rely on IR theories that explain why elites create international institutions to derive three sets of arguments that could be deployed to boost support for international courts. We then use experimental methods to test their impact on support for backlash against the European Court of Human Rights in Britain (ECtHR). First, in line with principal-agent models of delegation, we find that information about the court's reliability as an ‘agent’ boosts support for the ECtHR, but less so information that signals Britain's status as a principal. Second, in line with constructivist approaches, associating support for the court with the position of an in-group state like Denmark, and opposition with an out-group state like Russia, also elicits more positive attitudes. This finding points to the importance of ‘blame by association’ and cues of in/out-group identity in building support for cooperation. The effect is stronger when we increase social pressure by providing information about social attitudes towards Denmark and Russia in Britain, where the public overwhelmingly trusts the Danes and distrusts the Russians. Finally, in contrast to Liberal explanations for the creation of the ECtHR, the study finds no evidence that highlighting the court's mission to promote democracy and international peace contains backlash. We show that the positive effects of the first two arguments are not driven by pre-treatment attitudes such as political sophistication, patriotism, internationalism, institutional trust or political preferences.     

Mass Political Behaviour: Is There More to Learn?

Research progress in voting studies and party competition, the mass media, work on social movements, interest groups and collective action, is reviewed for the last decade. Theoretical impetus in applied work seems weak in British studies; sub-fields of research are being pursued in isolation. In electoral studies at least there are signs of over-specialization and loss of valuable interconnections with the mainstream of political science. A number of pathways for improving the state of the art are identified, focusing on a renewal of theoretical input, the correction of some 'system biases', greater methodological pluralism and more integration of demand-side and supply-side studies.     

PRIVATE PRISON MANAGEMENT: PANACEA OR PRETENCE?*

Abstract: Private prison management has been examined as a policy initiative by at least two state governments in Australia. Queensland boasts the only privately managed gaol in the country, and New South Wales has expressed interest in the possibility of contracting out the management of one of its new gaols. In the United States where it had its genesis, private management of adult correctional facilities has existed since the mid-1980s. Governments in America at federal, state and local levels have turned to private prison management because of budgetary constraints and chronic levels of overcrowding in their prisons and gaols due to an escalating rate of crime and incarceration. Private prison management in the United States has provided a last resort to a crisis situation. Among policy-makers in Australia there seems little appreciation of the factors which have motivated private prison management in the United States. In Queensland and New South Wales there is a view at government level that the private sector may well be a better manager of gaols than government, and that private management will achieve cost savings for government. Even in the United States, however, private prison management is still at an experimental stage and there is no evidence as yet to support assumptions about superior management and cost effectiveness. Governments in Australia are not experiencing the same crises which have prompted certain governments in America to adopt private prison management. Instead of introducing private corporations into the field of corrections in Australia, governments should be attempting to improve the performance of their own gaols and to make greater use of the private sector in those areas where its contribution can be of most significance — in the design and construction of prison facilities.     

State Lotteries for Public Revenue

Lotteries, the state fiscal gimmick of the eighties, operate in jurisdictions encompassing substantially more than half the nation's population and enjoy considerable public acceptance. The revenue they generate is small, rarely more than two percent of state general revenue, it is subject to major year-to-year swings, and it is very expensive to generate, particularly when vendor commissions are recognized as part of cost. Furthermore, lotteries bear a high implicit excise tax rate and, because of the pattern of play across income classes, appears to worsen the overall equity of the revenue system. Their economic impact appears to be that of an internal transfer, although states with major lottery equipment suppliers have most to gain, particularly if they do not operate their own lottery. Lotteries are not destined to become mainstays of government finance, although their spread is likely, even with the fiscal questions they raise.