Florida's open meetings law and its effect on the policy making process in dade county: The administrative perspective

Open meetings laws are designed to make the process of governmental decision making more accessible to the general public. The objective of this study is to explore the views of key governmental officials on the operation and effects of Florida's open meetings (sunshine) law. The interviews uncovered considerable dissatisfaction with many of its provisions. Florida's sunshine law is one of the most comprehensive in the country and can provide insight on the potential effects of other state or local sunshine laws. The analysis is based upon the administrative perspective of city managers, city clerks and city attorneys in Dade County, Florida. This convenience sample of Dade County administrators perceives that significant costs are imposed by the operation of the sunshine law. There is a clear consensus that the presence of the media alters the process of policy making, increases the amount and degree of political posturing, increases the time to reach consensus, and inhibits the candor and openness of the deliberations. The respondents report that the open meeting provisions are so burdensome that council and board members routinely violate its provisions in order to discuss sensitive issues in private.     

Implementing pay reform in the public sector: Different approaches to flexible pay in sweden and the united states

A set of implementation criteria drawn from the United States experience provide a framework for examining pay reform in the Swedish public sector. The study finds that the Swedish approach is quite distinct and this may be attributable to unique features in the Swedish labor market. The reform toward flexible or individualized pay in government agencies appears to be based on an assumption of greater cost efficiency in human resource management and a broad unwillingness to employ objective measures of individual or organizational productivity. Consequently the study calls into question the utility of an analytical framework based on the Anglo-American experience for examining the Swedish case.     

Strategic management and public organizations: Lessons from the past and prescriptions for the future

The 1990s have become a decade of reflection and rethinking of foundational concepts in the field of public administration. Public adminstrationists are attempting to bring the best of management approaches to bear on the problems facing public organizations. Strategic management has been widely used in the private sector since the 1960s, and has gained increased acceptance in the public sector since the 1980s. It is a management approach that synthesizes much of what management theorists have long recognized as essential to effective management practice. This article traces the development of strategic management and examines what has been learned from the past that will improve future implementation efforts in public organizations.     

The impact of equal offortunity compliance laws in government contrgcting: the shelby county,tennessee experience

Abstract

Very few researchers have addressed the long‐term financing arrangements of municipal governments in developing countries. No research has evaluated empirically either the elements that affect municipal borrowing in developing countries or what those elements reveal about the municipal credit system. Analyzing Brazilian municipal loan and financial data with a series of simultaneous equations, this paper addresses the following questions: What factors determine municipal government investment levels, borrowing levels, and borrowing prices? What do empirical data reveal about the character of the Brazilian municipal credit system? The results show that investment, borrowing, and borrowing prices are interconnected. Furthermore, while some signs of a market‐based system exist, there is evidence that investment and borrowing decisions are made within an administered market.     

Public sector reform and the public interest in Australia

Contemporary public sector reforms in Australia have been dominated by efficiency, productivity and contestability considerations captured in the National Competition Policy (NCP). Both in the reform process in general and in the NCP processes in particular, the lack of priority attributed to non‐economic concerns such as co‐ordination, equity, representation, political accountability, consultation and distributive outcomes has been a serious omission. The idea of public interest, once central to democratic public administration, has re‐emerged to challenge the perceived excesses of economic rationalism as the unifying idea of reform. In this article it is argued that substantive situational manifestations of public interest can be used to complement rather than undermine the efficiency, productivity and contestability objectives of public sector reform.     

Overview of administrative reform and implementation in italy: organization,personnel,procedures and delivery of public services

In the early nineties Italy as well as many industrialized countries embarked on a wide governmental reform. Important measures were undertaken by Amato Cabinet in 1991-1992 and Ciampi Cabinet 1993-1994. Later, the Prodi Cabinet has drawn up a comprehensive government reform and modernization plan. This plan deals more courageously and with greater determination with the difficult issue of rethinking the whole Italian administrative system: its institutional architecture, its mission, its rules, its organizational and management models, the patterns of behavior of its managers and employees and its way of dealing with individual citizens and businesses.     

Land reform in the shadow of the state: The implementation of new land laws in Sub-Saharan Africa

The importance of effective implementation of new land laws and the difficulties associated with it are alluded to in almost every recent piece of writing on African land reform. However, the process of implementation has remained neglected and little theorised. Drawing on a body of political science and policy studies literature which considers implementation and the difficulties to which it gives rise, this paper will attempt to advance a critical approach to the role of law in altering land relations in Africa. It will use the experiences of Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa to illustrate that, while some barriers to implementation are easily identified, and therefore receive relatively more attention, there are other important factors which might hamper attempts to change land relations. It is usual to understand land reform as direct state intervention in property relations. However, this paper will argue that the capacity of the state in Africa to carry out land reform is severely limited. The paper therefore attempts to identify an altogether different set of actors in the reform process. Its starting point will be the observation that land reform may take place less as a result of direct state action and more as a consequence of the actions of private individuals within the state.     

The third sector, user involvement and public service reform: a case study in the co-governance of health service provision

The ‘modernization’ of British public services seeks to broaden public sector governance networks, bringing the views of third sector organizations, the public and service users (among others) to the design, management and delivery of welfare. Building on previous analyses of the contradictions generated by these roles, this paper draws on longitudinal qualitative research to enunciate the challenges faced by one third-sector organization in facilitating service user influence in a UK National Health Service (NHS) pilot programme, alongside other roles in tension with this advocacy function. The analysis highlights limits in the extent to which lateral governance networks pluralize stakeholder involvement. The ‘framing’ of governance may mean that traditional concerns outweigh the views of new stakeholders such as the third sector and service users. Rather than prioritizing wider stakeholders' views in the design and delivery of public services, placing third sector organizations at the centre of governance networks may do more to co-opt these organizations in reproducing predominant priorities.     

Policy entrepreneurship in the development of public sector strategy: the case of London health reform

The development of health policy is recognized as complex; however, there has been little development of the role of agency in this process. Kingdon developed the concept of policy entrepreneur (PE) within his ‘windows’ model. He argued inter-related ‘policy streams' must coincide for important issues to become addressed. The conjoining of these streams may be aided by a policy entrepreneur. We contribute by clarifying the role of the policy entrepreneur and highlighting the translational processes of key actors in creating and aligning policy windows. We analyse the work in London of Professor Sir Ara Darzi as a policy entrepreneur. An important aspect of Darzi's approach was to align a number of important institutional networks to conjoin related problems. Our findings highlight how a policy entrepreneur not only opens policy windows but also yokes together a network to make policy agendas happen. Our contribution reveals the role of clinical leadership in health reform.     

Black administrators and racial road blocks in public organizations: problems and recourse

Discussions in the representative bureaucracy literature have tacitly assigned the responsibility of representing the interests of blacks to individual black administrators. Relying on black employee groups (or solidarity groups) to represent the interests of blacks is ignored. The possibility that black members of organizations have a group interest to be represented is not considered in the literature.

Assigning there presentation responsibility to individual black administrators is rejected be cause of barriers that can be created by racial road blocks (to kenism and different perceptions of race relations). It is argued that solidarity groups are a more effective means of representing the interests of blacks. Assigning the responsibility to solidarity groups should: (1) neutralize the effects of racial road blocks; (2) limit individual representation activities and thus permit each black administrator to concentrate on job performance; and (3) shift the focus in there presentative bureaucracy literature away from the individual and start concentrating on the representation activities of solidarity groups.     

Change leadership and change embeddedness in public organizations: Connecting macrolevel reform to microlevel implementation

Governments initiate major public sector reforms for various reasons. Although change leadership appears crucial, its role in implementing reforms in public organizations receives scant attention. Insights from public administration and change management literature help to bridge the gap between these macrolevel and microlevel perspectives. Our multilevel study of two youth care organizations addressing public sector reform explores how leadership behavior—and in interaction between top and middle managers—contributes to the concept of what we call change embeddedness among front-line employees. The use of leadership behaviors during the reform that are leader centric (shaping) appear to be associated with greater ambiguity and worse change embeddedness. However, leadership focused on engaging employees and boundary spanning with external organizations seems to support the embeddedness of the reform, especially when these behaviors are connected to a clear sense of purpose around the change.     

“Don't knows” and public opinion towards economic reform: Evidence from Russia

As market reform has spread throughout the globe, both scholars and policy makers have become increasingly interested in measuring public opinion towards economic changes. However, recent research from American politics suggests that special care must be paid to how surveys treat non-respondents to these types of questions. We extend this line of inquiry to a well-known case of large-scale economic reform, Russia in the mid-1990s. Our major finding is that Russians who fail to answer survey questions tend to be consistently less “liberal” than their counterparts who are able to answer such questions. This finding has implications both for our understanding of Russian public opinion in the 1990s, as well as for measuring attitudes towards economic reform more generally.     

Inequality,discrimination, and service delivery: A recapitulation for the public administrator

The equitable provision of urban public services has begun to receive increased attention from researchers, administrators, and the courts. Recent research has questioned the view that minority and low-income groups are systematically deprived in the distribution of public services, e.g. police and fire services, libraries, street quality and maintenance, and parks and recreational facilities. This paper reviews empirical studies in urban service distribution and judicial responses to municipal service claims. The research reveals that discimination in service delivery does exist. However, it is difficult to determine empirically in larger cities if a consistent pattern of discrimination exists and whether or not it bears a significant relationship to race or class. Discrimination and inequality on the basis of race has been subject to meticulous judicial prowess benefitting at one time or another the citizen and the municipality. The courts are requiring overwhelming statistical documentation to substantiate racial discrimination in the provision of urban public services.     

Ideas,interests and practical authority in reform politics: decentralization reform in South Korea in the 2000s

This paper explains the reason why the hitherto statist country, Korea, has carried out significant decentralization since the 2000s. In explaining the motivation for decentralization, extant literature has focused on the role of parties, bureaucratic politics, democratization, or territorial interests. Yet there is still limited explanation of how the decentralization laws in Korea could be successfully passed in the 2000s, while cental stakeholders still persisted. By tracing the process of decentralization reform in the 2000s, this article demonstrates how structural factors created favourable circumstances and discursive background for institutional change, and how the idea of decentralization, through the idea diffusion mechanism, gave directions for central decision makers to produce a specific path of reform strategies. It also pays attention to the formation of ‘practical authority’ for reform politicians that made it possible to overcome obdurate resistance from central bureaucrats and politicians.     

State-local sales tax,spillover, and economic activity: examining county governments in the US

The reliance on sales taxation has increased in both states and counties. This study aggregated county-level data and empirically explored the associations between state-local sales taxes and economic activity by industry types in county governments for the period of 1990–2013. The results revealed negative associations of sales tax rates with economic activity, especially in the manufacturing industry. Further, the findings provided the spatial dependence of economic activity across counties as a form of possible spillover. This study suggests that policymakers should pay attention to how the manufacturing and retail industries respond to any changes in sales tax rates for business activity.     

Privatization, Chinese-style: economic reform and the state-owned enterprises

This article reviews 'corporatization' and 'marketization', shorthands for privatization, in the Chinese economy. In particular it concentrates upon the most recent round of state-owned enterprise reforms, the Modern Enterprise System and Group Company System, aimed at transforming China's largest state-owned enterprises into internationally competitive corporations. This represents a partial privatization, given that the state will retain majority ownership, while acquiring domestic and foreign capital via sharelistings and foreign and domestic joint ventures.
Drawing upon interview material from a five-year study of state-owned enterprises, the authors will indicate that such part privatization has been pragmatic and relatively slow. It has been constrained and circumscribed by broader economic and social reform programmes and accompanied by political decentralization and reforms. Ultimately, the reform and pace of reform is shaped by the desire to avoid political and social unrest which could, potentially, threaten the harmony of the Chinese central state apparatus.     

Science,technology, and public administration: the government-university nexus

The relations between governments and universities, particularly with respect to science and technology, is traced from the agricultural period and the land-grant era to the research and development era involving particularly the fields of medicine and defense, to the modern era which is lacking a coherent national policy.

Among the institutional relations that are critical to science, technology, and public administration, those involving government-university linkages stand out. In the past, there have been two major eras of government/university relations: the land-grant era and the federal mission agency era. More recently, a third era has emerged—what we call the new federalist era. The first period featured a decentralized institutional model focused on a single economic sector: agriculture. The second was characterized by a more centralized federally dominated approach. This third era is still evolving. Its primary ingredients include university ties with many segments of industry. And government includes that as well as federal agency roles.

During the land-grant era, dating from 1862, a large number of universities, devoted initially to problems of agriculture and the mechanical arts, were created. The era was characterized by a research system involving a federal agency, state government, universities, and an industry of individuals with little or no research capability. It was a highly decentralized system, responsive to multiple needs throughout the country, with a heavy emphasis on technology transfer. It gave the initial impetus to the university in fashioning an applied role. Whatever else may be said about this system—good or bad—it certainly made the American agricultural industry more productive.

In the federal mission agency era, dating from World War II, federal agencies spent vast sums to pursue national goals in defense, space, energy, and other fields by creating programs supporting universities. On the expectation there would eventually be practical payoffs, federal agencies supported basic research largely on the universities’ terms. States were not involved in any significant degree. Industry was, of course, very much a part of this system, but in the case of defense and space, it was primarily as developers of technology for government rather than users of technology for civilian goals.

This system worked unevenly. The greatest continuity was the Department of Defense (DOD) as a sponsor of research and development, including research in universities. That is what was seen as a problem in the era of Vietnam. For many critics, it is a problem today, with Star Wars merely the most dramatic example of a too close university involvement with DOD.

There were discontinuities in most of the areas of federal mission agency support. At the time of Minnowbrook I, the desire was to redeploy science and technology to other mission areas that would improve the human condition. The process was difficult, as various domestic agencies had problems establishing and maintaining relations with science and technology. In the 1980s, most of the civilian programs were cut back and the energy program was slated to be eliminated altogether.

Today, the United States research system, and thus the government-university partnership, is in a new-federalist era of science and technology. Here, the federal government, state governments, industry, and universities cooperate and collide as each tries to make the most of several new technologies now emerging with a perceived high economic potential. Meanwhile, the university-DOD relationship has been rebuilt after a decade of rupture. In an environment of increasing global competition, the old institutional models are giving way to novel arrangements.

What has happened is that a new mission—a new problem or opportunity—has become more salient in the 1980s. This is the mission of economic development and competitiveness. Economic competitiveness is a broad and diffuse mission. The juxtaposition of this mission with science and technology is because a good part of this competition is expected to be waged on the frontier of new technology. Japan, in particular, has made technological leadership in the cluster of fields cited above a national imperative, and other nations are following suit.⁽¹⁾

No federal mission agency is clearly identified with, much less in charge of, a mission. Indeed, the mission has not been officially proclaimed but exists only as a rallying cry. The question to be resolved is whether the present scattered response is enough, or if a more comprehensive national policy should be established. If established, should a new federal mission agency be set in motion to lead the assault—perhaps one modeled after the Japanese MITI? If so, how would it relate to the other players? Given the role of the states in particular, it would seem that a cooperative model drawing on federal and state resources might be designed.     

Seizing the moment: outcomes assessment,curriculum reform,and mpa education

This article reviews a recent exercise in developing an outcomes-based capstone course for the MPA program at the University of Baltimore. Chronicled is the way a reversible logic approach to designing that course led ineluctably into a full-scale, outcomes-based, strategic planning exercise for the program as a whole. In the process, the department was able to craft a performance-based curriculum that attacked an “entitlement ethic” among students, that made the faculty more accountable for its actions in the classroom, that streamlined course offerings and content in mission-related ways, and that introduced a “continuous process improvement” ethic driven by constant feedback from the capstone course.