Reapportionment and partisan competition: When does reapportionment matter?

This research considers the effects of reapportionment on partisan competition. More precisely, this study develops a set of specifications under which we might expect varying effects of reapportionment on electoral patterns. By considering the history of political competition in the state, the geographic distribution of partisans, the history and methods of previous apportionments, and the political nature of the reapportionment, a set of specific hypotheses regarding the effects can be deduced. The theory is tested by application of it to the state of Oklahoma. Utilizing an interrupted time-series analysis of election results, we conclude that the 1964 reapportionment in Oklahoma had immediate electoral consequences. The 1971 reapportionment had virtually no effect. These findings are consistent with the expectations based on the theory developed in the paper.     

The effects of technical parties and partisan election management bodies on voting outcomes

Research on election integrity has noted the important role of election administration in facilitating free and fair practices. However, limited research has assessed how the staffing of polling station level election commissions may influence voting. Using extensive personnel and election data from Ukraine, this article investigates how partisanship and liberal registration rules permit major parties to “stack” election commissions with sympathetic officials. The empirical analysis demonstrates that the placement of representatives from major parties, or affiliated parties, in leadership positions on polling station commissions is associated with improved election outcomes.     

Competition policy for elections: Do campaign contribution limits matter?

This paper examines whether campaign contribution restrictions have consequences for election outcomes. States are a natural laboratory to examine this issue. We analyze elections to Assemblies from 1980 to 2001 and determine whether candidates' vote shares are altered by changes in state campaign contribution restrictions. We find that limits on giving narrow the margin of victory of the winning candidate. Limits lead to closer elections for future incumbents, but have less effect on the margin of victory of incumbents who passed the campaign finance legislation. We also find some evidence that contribution limits increase the number of candidates in the race.     

Democracy and modern political community: limits and possibilities

There are various limits to what is politically possible. The exigencies of economic production and exchange represent one crucial limit to possible political structures. Inherited Marxist and liberal conceptions of the relation between economic systems and political structures are incoherent; these relations need to be reconceived, yet recent socialist political thinking has preferred to focus mainly on the political domain, pursuing a theory of self-governing community. Can there today be a coherent account of such a theory? One way of showing there cannot is by pressing the question of the contours an dsubstance of modern political community. Optimistic theorists of self-governing community rely on a self-enclosed, determinate conception of community that has its imaginative roots in a vision of ancient liberty: the demos exercising legitimate and effective agency over a particular territory. But modern political community cannot be conceived of in this way: because of the presence of global processes of economic causality, there is today no fit between the territorial identity of a political community and its effective powers of agency. Modern liberty (unlike its ancient counterpart) has no specific or determinate location: its availability depends upon an elaborate division of economic and political labour. In these circumstances, it no longer makes sense to heighten the stakes of membership in a political community, as optimistic theorists of democracy do when they call for a more active and participatory civil society. The for appraising what forms of the division of political labour may be legitimate.     

When industrial policy shapes public sector reform: Total quality management in Britain and France

Approaches seeking to explain the development of TQM ideas in government are very much ‘business‐centric’. The goal of this article is to show that in reforming the public sector, policy‐makers did not simply follow the lead of the private sector because ‐ in the case of TQM ‐ the private sector was itself, to some extent at least, led by government. In the mid‐1980s, Britain and France launched nationwide ‘quality initiatives’ which provided money for businesses to buy management consulting expertise. Through the implementation of these policies, consultants built channels of communication with the state, and this subsequently opened possibilities for consultants to help transfer TQM ideas from the industrial policy area to the field of public sector reform.     

Informational limits to democratic public policy: The jury theorem, yardstick competition, and ignorance

Condorcet’s jury theorem provides a possible explanation for the success of democracies relative to other forms of government. In its modern form, the jury theorem predicts that majority decisions are well informed, because they are based upon far more information than possessed by any single individual. On the other hand, it is evident that democratic politicians and policies are not always as good as the jury theorem implies they should be. This paper uses simulated elections to explore the power and limitations of majority rule as an estimator of candidate quality or policy effectiveness. The simulations demonstrate that slightly informed voters can make very accurate choices among candidates using majority rule. However, as the ratio of slightly informed voters relative to ignorant voters falls, the accuracy of majority decisions declines. The latter implies that institutions, policies, and technologies that promote the dissemination of information also tend to improve the efficiency of democratic governance.     

Voting strength in the European Parliament: The influence of national and of partisan actors

Abstract. Most decisions by the European Parliament are taken by an absolute majority of its members. Some decisions however – such as the approval of the budget of the European Union – require a two-thirds majority. The paper analyzes the a priori voting strength of the member states when their representatives vote coherently. It is shown that the increase in votes for Germany in the 1994 reallocation enhanced its position. A less favourable effect, however, can be seen for the other large members (France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain). However, since votes in the EP tend to be cast according to partisan rather than national affiliation, the relative voting power of the political groups with respect to the two quotas is also analyzed. The tool to measure this is the (normalized) Banzhaf power index, partially extended to account for connected coalitions. The paper demonstrates that the distribution of votes between the present EU member states as allocated in proportion to their population size indeed roughly corresponds to their a priori voting power. However, the relative influence of the largest political groups, the European Socialists and the European People's Party, tends to be overestimated by their share of seats in the framework of the simple majority rule, but it is considerable if the quota is two-thirds. Finally, under the two-thirds majority rule, the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party as well as the small groups appear to be almost powerless. The more the EP gains political leverage – a further increase in its institutional powers is to be expected in the framework of the ongoing Intergovernmental Conference – the more the distribution of voting power between the member states and between the political groups will be a crucial factor in the shaping of EU policies.     

Public Policy and Legitimacy: A historical policy analysis of the interplay of public policy and legitimacy

This article explores the interplay of local government policy and legitimacy from a broad postpositivist perspective where historical accounts and narratives are used in a complementary fashion. The basic assumption is that legitimacy is the product of satisfying felt needs and solving perceived problems. Health and social malaise problems and related policies of the past 120 years are analyzed in 50 Swedish municipalities. The analysis indicates that municipality policies respond to local problems only partly. Generally, local government policies responded dynamically to 'objective’ and perceived problems before the 1970s, but did not resolve the problems. Today’s legitimacy crisis could, to some extent, be explained by the discrepancy between high expectations created in the policy discourse and the central and local government’s incapacity to offer sustainable solutions to ongoing problems. It is suggested that if history is considered more seriously in public policy making it could help policy makers and citizens readjust expectations, illuminate the limits and prospects for public policy, and identify ways to restore legitimacy. Moreover, legitimacy could be restored if more realistic policies are worked out and if a new division of power between the levels of government is introduced.     

The politics of social spending after the Great Recession: The return of partisan policy making

Prior research shows that the effect of partisanship on social expenditure declined over time in Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) countries. In this article, the author argues that the 2007/2008 recession resulted in the reemergence of partisan policy making in social spending. This was a result of mainstream parties needing to respond to the growing challenge from nonmainstream parties as well as demonstrating that they responded to the economic crisis by offering different policy solutions. Using a panel of 23 OECD countries, the author shows that since the Great Recession, partisan effects on social spending are once again significant. These effects are more likely to be observed where the salience of the Left–Right dimension is higher. In accordance with classic theories of economic policy making, left‐wing governments are more likely to increase social spending when unemployment is higher and right‐wing governments restrain social expenditure when the budget deficit is greater.     

Do parties matter for local revenue policies? A comparison of Denmark and Norway

Abstract.  This article investigates the impact of party ideology on revenue politics. Theoretically, claims can be made that party ideology should matter for revenue policies. First, leftist governments are more favourable towards government intervention and a large public sector. To accomplish this, leftist governments need more revenue than bourgeois governments. Second, revenue policy is a redistributive policy area well suited for ideological positioning. However, the claim that party ideology does not matter can also be made since raising revenue is unpopular and politicians may shy away from new initiatives. Empirically, the question is unsettled. The article investigates the problem by looking at three revenue policy areas (income and property taxation, and user charges) in two countries (Denmark and Norway). The data used is from the municipal level, providing several hundreds of units to compare. The evidence favours the 'parties matter' argument, particularly in the Danish case.     

政策网络:公共政策创新的视角

引入政策网络分析的方法可以真实地认识到公共政策创新过程中的现实图景.我国某些公共政策创新失败的原因正是其忽略了政策网络的存在,忽略了政府对政策网络中个人和组织的依赖属性.我们应当重视政策网络在政策创新过程中的作用,通过培育网络主体的公共理性.构建协商民主与政策网络的良性互动,加强政策网络的学习机制等,从而形成合理、优良的创新政策,保证公共政策创新对社会的持续作用.     

The mission of public policy programs: A report on recent experience

This is the report of a meeting on graduate training and research programs in public policy organized by the Ford Foundation on September 10, 1975. The meeting was attended by various representatives of the Ford Foundation along with the following representatives of public policy schools: Graham Allison, Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; William B. Cannon, Former Dean, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas; John P. Crecine, Former Professor, Institute of Public Policy Studies, University of Michigan; Otto A. Davis, Dean, School of Urban and Public Affairs, Carnegie-Mellon University; Joel L. Fleishman, Director, Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs, Duke University; Edward K. Hamilton, Professor, Program in Public Management, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University; Donald E. Stokes, Dean, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University; Aaron Wildavsky, Dean, Graduate School of Public Policy, University of California (Berkeley); Charles Wolf, Jr., Head of Economics Department, and Director of Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, The Rand Corporation; Douglas T. Yates, Jr., Associate Dean, School of Organization and Management, Yale University.The author acted as the rapporteur of the meeting and offers the following account with the permission of those whose views and experience are directly represented. The author owes a special acknowledgement to Peter Bell of the Ford Foundation who made many useful comments on the original account and saved the author from numerous factual errors.     

Institutional policy analysis: A critical review

Institutional policy analysts, who study government reform and its consequences, have made three strategic choices: first, they support or emphasize procedural values; second, they use a single method to examine a single reform of a single institution; and third, they focus on declining institutions, formal reforms, and coercive controls. The author challenges these choices and argues in favor of alternative approaches.     

The temporal dimension of knowledge and the limits of policy appraisal: biofuels policy in the UK

What depth of learning can policy appraisal stimulate? How we can account for the survival policies that are known to pose significant countervailing risks? While heralded as a panacea to the inherent ambiguity of the political world, the proposition pursued is that policy appraisal processes intended to help decision-makers learn may actually be counterproductive. Rather than simulating policy-oriented learning, appraisals may reduce policy actors’ capacity to think clearly about the policy at hand. By encouraging a variety of epistemic inputs from a plurality of sources and shoehorning knowledge development into a specified timeframe, policy appraisal may leave decision-makers overloaded with conflicting information and evidence which dates rapidly. In such circumstances, they to fall back on institutionalised ways of thinking even when confronted with evidence of significant mismatches between policy objectives and the consequences of the planned course of action. Here learning is ‘single-loop’ rather than ‘double-loop’—focussed on adjustments in policy strategy rather than re-thinking the underlying policy goals. Using insights into new institutional economics, the paper explores how the results of policy appraisals in technically complex issues are mediated by institutionalised ‘rules of the game’ which feed back positively around initial policy frames and early interpretations of what constitutes policy success. Empirical evidence from UK biofuels policy appraisal confirms the usefulness of accounts that attend to the temporal tensions that exist between policy and knowledge development. Adopting an institutional approach that emphasises path dependence does not however preclude the possibility that the depth of decision-makers’ learning might change. Rather, the biofuels case suggests that moves towards deeper learning may be affected by reviews of appraisal evidence led by actors beyond immediate organizational context with Chief Scientific Advisers within government emerging as potentially powerful catalysts in this acquisition of learning capabilities.