Ideology,party systems and corruption voting in European democracies

What is the impact of corruption on citizens' voting behavior? There is a growing literature on an increasingly ubiquitous puzzle in many democratic countries: that corrupt officials continue to be re-elected by voters. In this study we address this issue with a novel theory and newly collected original survey data for 24 European countries. The crux of the argument is that voters' ideology is a salient factor in explaining why citizens would continue voting for their preferred party despite the fact that it has been involved in a corruption scandal. Developing a theory of supply (number of effective parties) and demand (voters must have acceptable ideological alternatives to their preferred party), we posit that there is a U-shaped relationship between the likelihood of corruption voting and where voters place themselves on the left/right spectrum. The further to the fringes, the more likely the voters are to neglect corruption charges and continue to support their party. However, as the number of viable party alternatives increases, the effect of ideology is expected to play a smaller role. In systems with a large number of effective parties, the curve is expected to be flat, as the likelihood that the fringe voters also have a clean and reasonably ideologically close alternative to switch to. The hypothesis implies a cross level interaction for which we find strong and robust empirical evidence using hierarchical modeling. In addition, we provide empirical insights about how individual level ideology and country level party systems – among other factors – impact a voter's decision to switch parties or stay home in the face of their party being involved in a corruption scandal.     

Within‐party Allocation of Committee Seats: Evidence from Danish Local Elections

This article examines two traditional and four new explanations of committee composition. Using survey data on 541 Danish local politicians' pre‐election committee seat preferences and their actual post‐election committee seats, it is found that politicians are more likely to have their committee seat preferences fulfilled the less their preferences for the committees' policy domains differ from those of their fellow party members and the more specialised they are within the jurisdiction area of their preferred committee. Thus, the ex ante control of committee members sometimes observed in the American context is also relevant in the very different institutional setting of Danish local government. Moreover, a number of other explanations are found to be of equal relevance. In particular, individual‐level popular support is important to politicians' committee seat preference fulfilment and seats are distributed among party members in order to assure that everybody, at least to some extent, obtains a post that they find attractive. The findings thus suggest that ex ante control of committee members is but one of many concerns of parties. Accordingly, scholars should broaden their attention to other aspects of committee seat allocation, such as fair share norms and the popular support of politicians.     

These rules are made for spending: testing and extending the law of 1/n

What is the influence of the rules of political representation on local spending? This research tests the law of 1/n in the Portuguese local context and finds that the law fails to apply. We suggest an alternative measure—the density of representation—to assess the impact of the rules of city council representation on local public expenditures. Density of representation is defined as the number of elected officials in the city council divided by city population. We find an S-shaped relationship between the density of representation and the level of local government expenditures. The level of municipal spending initially declines with increases in the density of representation, reflecting an increase in the ability of constituents to monitor their elected representatives. At higher levels of representation density, the relationship becomes positive, suggesting that the dynamics of the budgetary commons become salient. The relationship becomes negative again for extremely high density of representation owing to increases in the transaction costs of legislative decision-making. This paper discusses the implications of our findings for the reform of local government institutions and the rules of political representation.     

Support for China–Pakistan Economic Corridor development in Pakistan: A local community perspective using the social exchange theory

China and Pakistan have initiated a mega project with the name of China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). This study examines how local residence support of CPEC is shaped in Pakistan. This study employs a social exchange theory to explain how perceived impacts affect an individual's level of support for CPEC development. Findings reveal that social exchange theory fits the data well by confirming that the more residents perceive impacts positively, the more they are likely to support CPEC. Data were collected online using the Google platform from 280 citizens, residing in all provinces of Pakistan. Findings of this study validate most of the hypothesis. Positive impact shows significant effect on personal benefit and support for CPEC development. Similarly, personal benefit also shows significant effect on support for CPEC development. However, negative impact shows insignificant effect on personal benefit and support for CPEC development. Findings of this study will guide the government officials and policymakers of CPEC about the perception of local people residence, both positive and negative impact. Policymakers can use the findings of this study to gain local citizen's support for the CPEC development projects and designs policies accordingly for the future projects.     

Nationalism and ethnic heterogeneity: The importance of local context for nationalist party vote choice

This article explores the individual-level correlates of nationalist party vote choice and the extent to which these correlates are conditioned by an individual's local context. We argue that the influence of individuals' policy positions on nationalism should vary in importance for predicting voting for nationalist parties in localities where voters feel threatened culturally or economically. To test this argument we use the case of support for the Bloc Quebecois in the Canadian province of Quebec and data from the 2011 Canadian Vote Compass. We show that voters' policy positions on nationalism become more important in predicting a vote for the Bloc Quebecois when the percentage of English speakers (our proxy for ethno-cultural threat) increases in their locality. By contrast, we find that the relationship between nationalism and support for the Bloc Quebecois is not conditioned by economic hardship in the place where an individual lives. To test the robustness of our findings, we reestimate our models using a different dataset from multiple elections – the Canadian Election Study as well as an additional modelling approach. Our findings contribute to the broader vote choice literature by examining the role that local context plays in individuals' choice of parties. Furthermore, our findings lend support to arguments made in the literature on the importance of an ethno-cultural calculus among voters voting for nationalist parties.     

Never Change a Winning Policy? Public Sector Performance and Politicians' Preferences for Reforms

Despite the increasing stress on performance in public sector organizations, there is still little empirical evidence on whether—and if so, how—politicians respond to performance information. This article addresses this research gap by linking registry statistics on school performance in Norway's 428 municipalities with data from an information experiment embedded in a survey of local politicians. Findings show that school performance bears only a weak relationship to politicians' preferences for resource‐related reforms, but it strongly affects preferences for governance‐related reforms, indicating the importance of accounting for heterogeneity across alternative types of (school) reforms. Moreover, local politicians are, on average, well informed about school performance. This reflects the force of local inhabitants' high information level on politicians' accountability.     

Globalization and the Retreat of Citizen Participation in Collective Action: A Challenge for Public Administration

Globalization challenges the ability of contemporary public administration to encourage citizen participation in collective action through behaviors such as tax compliance and contributions to public goods. The authors introduce a new individual‐level approach to globalization, arguing that people vary in the extent to which they are globalized and that an individual's level of globalism (ILG) reflects attitudes and dispositions that influence the way he or she resolves the social dilemma of participation in collective action (i.e., the decision to contribute versus follow a “free‐ride” strategy). Using a four‐country sample, the article examines the relationship between ILG and collective action participation decisions in three behavioral experiments. Findings support the hypothesis that regardless of country‐level globalization, a more globalized individual complies less willingly with tax codes, donates less to local nongovernmental organizations, and prefers to adopt a free‐ride strategy in a public goods game. The consequences for public administration are discussed.     

Do public grants to American theatres crowd-out private donations?

This paper examines the relationship between public support and private donations by disaggregating the crowding effect into two components: one determined by level of public support and one determined by changes in public support levels. The analysis of a panel of American non-profit theatres shows that the crowding effect induced by the level of public support takes an inverted U shape: at low levels public support crowds-in private donations while at higher levels it displaces them. The change in total public support in the past year produces a constant crowding-in effect on the level of private donations. The paper finally illustrates how federal and state support have a crowding-in effect at all levels, while local support has a similar impact to total public support.     

Performance Federalism and Local Democracy: Theory and Evidence from School Tax Referenda

Federal governments are increasingly employing empirical measures of lower‐level government performance to ensure that provincial and local jurisdictions pursue national policy goals. We call this burgeoning phenomenon “performance federalism” and argue that it can distort democratic accountability in lower‐level elections. We estimate the impact of a widely publicized federal indicator of local school district performance—one that we show does not allow voters to draw valid inferences about the quality of local educational institutions—on voter support for school tax levies in a U.S. state uniquely appropriate for this analysis. The results indicate that a signal of poor district performance increases the probability of levy failure, a substantively large and robust effect that disproportionately affects impoverished communities. The analysis employs a number of identification strategies and tests for multiple behavioral mechanisms to support the causal interpretation of these findings.     

Political Competition and Pork-Barrel Politics in the Allocation of Public Investment in Mexico

This paper examines theeffect of political competition in localelections in regional allocation of publicinvestment. The study employs data onMexican elections covering the period 1990–95, characterisedby an increase in electoral competition and coupled withincreasing demands for decentralisationthroughout the states. Empirical evidencesupports the hypothesis that regionalallocation of public investment by centralgovernment was driven by `politicalopportunism' and `local pork-barrelpolitics'. A positive relationship wasfound between the regional allocation ofpublic investment and support for thecentral ruling party. This might indicatethat local spending inefficiencies werepartially explained by the specific supportfor the incumbent party.     

INSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE SYSTEM OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA: Service Organizations as an Alternative for Administrative Enhancement

The economic reform in the PRC inaugurated by Deng Xiaoping in 1979 has changed the landscape of the regime's environmental governance by putting it in a more market‐oriented context. As a strategy to strengthen administrative capacity in a situation heavily circumscribed by the limited resource support from local governments, the environmental protection authorities at all levels have established a sizable number of service organizations to provide them administrative support. These service organizations have to sponsor their own operation by engaging in revenue‐generating or fund raising activities. This has led to the emergence and proliferation of service organizations in the environmental governance system in the last decade. This article will examine, from a state capacity perspective, institutional reform in the environmental governance system of the PRC¹.     

Who Needs Leaders the Most? The Interactive Effect of Leadership and Core Self-Evaluations on Commitment to Change in the Public Sector

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to shed light on an understudied topic in public administration, namely, commitment to organizational change. Specifically, this study examines the extent to which the quality of the relationship between employees and their managers positively influences employees’ commitment to change. Further, it investigates whether this relationship varies as a function of a person's core self-evaluations, that is, the valence of a person's self-regard. Evidence from a multivariate regression analysis in a public sector organization at the local level in the UK revealed that individuals who have high-quality relationships with their managers are more likely to be accepting of change; this is especially true for individuals with lower levels of core self-evaluations. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

‘A quite natural and moderate defensive feeling’? The 1945 Hampstead ‘anti-alien’ petition

In October 1945 an ‘anti-alien’ petition was launched in the London Borough of Hampstead that, under the pretext of securing homes for returning ex-servicemen, campaigned for the removal of the district's predominantly Jewish refugee population. By examining the nature of support and opposition to the petition Macklin's local case study provides further evidence to suggest that reactions to those who had fled Nazi terror remained complex. Those who did find sanctuary were characterized by the local press not as ‘deserving victims’, but as the cause of the problems created by their Nazi persecutors. A detailed examination of the rhetoric of the petition movement reveals how this defence of local amenities against ‘alien‘ encroachment can rightfully be defined as ‘antisemitic’. Following an analysis of the role of the local press, Macklin examines its impact on, and interaction with, local and central government policy regarding reconstruction and immigration, which continued to be dominated by the dogma that harmonious race relations necessitated the strict control of immigrants, regardless of the desperation of their plight. He concludes by examining the media's symbiotic relationship with extremist and fascist politics.     

Malapportionment and democracy: A curvilinear relationship

This article examines electoral malapportionment by illuminating the relationship between malapportionment level and democracy. Although a seminal study rejects this relationship, we argue that a logical and empirically significant relationship exists, which is curvilinear and is based on a framework focusing on incumbent politicians' incentives and the constraints they face regarding malapportionment. Malapportionment is lowest in established democracies and electoral authoritarian regimes with an overwhelmingly strong incumbent; it is relatively high in new democracies and authoritarian regimes with robust opposition forces. The seminal study's null finding is due to the mismatch between theoretical mechanisms and choice of democracy indices. Employing an original cross-national dataset, we conduct regression analyses; the results support our claims. Furthermore, on controlling the degree of democracy, the single-member district system's effects become insignificant. Australia, Belarus, the Gambia, Japan, Malaysia, Tunisia, and the United States illustrate the political logic underlying curvilinear relations at democracy's various levels.     

Intergovernmental relations in Nigeria: Local government and the 1979 Nigerian Constitution

This paper examines the intergovernmental relations prescribed by the Nigerian Constitution of 1979. In particular it discusses the elevated constitutional status of local government, tracing the origins of this to the 1976 local government reform. The question of how to interpret the provisions of the Constitution on the restructuring of local government and whether this is solely a State responsibility or a joint State/Federal responsibility is analysed. The article argues that the States have political and administrative responsibility for local government whereas the Federal responsibility concerns the regulation of the amount of money to be distributed to local government from the Federal Account. The Lagos State High Court judgement which supports the view that States have political and administrative responsibility for local government, but nullified the State's legislation, is extensively reported and analysed. Also discussed is the Allocation of Revenue (Federation Account, etc.) Act 1981 which both reflects and supports the view that the federal relationship to local government is defined by finance. The paper also probes the intention of the Constituent Assembly by analysing its report. The paper complements that by Smith and Owojaiye in the previous number.     

A Tale of One City: The Devo Manc Deal and Its Implications for English Devolution

On 2 November 2014 George Osborne stood in the impressive great council chamber of Manchester town hall and, flanked by the ten leaders of Greater Manchester's local authorities, announced a devolution deal for the city‐region. Greater Manchester would receive a significant package of powers over transport, housing, planning, skills, business support and welfare in exchange for creating new governance structures, including a directly elected mayor for the city‐region. This article explores the background to the Devo Manc deal, arguing that it is the product of both a long history of local government collaboration in Greater Manchester and George Osborne's desire for a sweeping restructure of English governance. It traces how the key decisions were taken quickly and by a small number of key officials. The article also identifies some flaws in Devo Manc and considers whether it is an appropriate model for other city‐regions in the UK.     

Much Ado about nothing? A multilevel analysis of the relationship between voluntary associations' characteristics and their members' generalized trust

The last 20 years of research on the micro-level relationship between involvement in voluntary associations and generalized trust has been characterized by a growing theory–data gap. This gap is especially problematic in terms of including diversity across voluntary associations in empirical analyses. This article aims to bridge this gap by using a hierarchically clustered data set (active members nested in voluntary associations) and multilevel analyses to test several hypotheses drawn from prior studies about the relationship between voluntary associations' characteristics and members' level of generalized trust. Overall, the results indicate that in explaining the variability in individual generalized trust levels, differences among the associations in which individuals are involved could contribute marginally at best. Almost all variance (97.6%) in individual level of generalized trust lies between the individuals and not between the associations. Furthermore, the analyses show no correlations for most tested associational characteristics. As for membership diversity, the most pronounced result runs opposite to expectation—thus providing some support for a membership similarity hypothesis rather than for a diversity hypothesis. The article raises the question whether the search for associational differences that might explain the lack of a general relationship between membership in voluntary associations and individual level of generalized trust is in fact a dead end.     

When a Career Public Servant Sues the Agency He Loves: Claude Ferguson, the Forest Service, and Off-Road Vehicles in the Hoosier National Forest

Claude Ferguson, who in his own words “met the test of his lifetime,” deviated from the norms of the U.S. Forest Service articulated by Herbert Kaufman in The Forest Ranger to became a government guerrilla against the organization he loved. This profile highlights several enduring themes: the inherent tensions between democracy and bureaucracy, the many masters of career bureaucrats, how organizational culture can both empower and constrain employees, and what it means to act responsibly, ethically, and with integrity as a public servant. In addition, this case demonstrates how the Forest Service has evolved since Kaufman's classic study. First, Kaufman depicted forest rangers as “valuing the organization more than they value[d] getting their own way,” yet this profile underscores that public servants do not check their worldviews, mores, or ethics at the door. Second, Kaufman described the Forest Service's efforts to routinize the decisions of its employees in an effort to prevent allegiances to, or co‐optation by, local populations. Yet in this Administrative Profile, Ferguson's hidden strategic tactics co‐opted local stakeholders to enlist their support for a cause he deeply felt was right and just.     

Do conditional cash transfer programs shift votes? Evidence from the Honduran PRAF

How do national social programs influence local voting? This study utilizes the experimental set up of a conditional cash transfer program to show that small, targeted cash transfers can have large electoral effects. The Honduran PRAF program allocated an average of $18 per capita per year to poor households within municipalities that were randomly assigned to receive the program. Although the program was administered at the national level, the program increased an incumbent mayor's re-election probabilities by 39%, without significantly influencing voting behavior in presidential elections. Moreover, the evidence suggests that transferring cash to poor households were more effective at increasing political support than interventions providing public goods for poor villages.