Forcible Stops: Police and Citizens Speak Out

A recent federal district court decision found that the New York City Police Department engaged in unconstitutional policing. Officers stopped millions of minority young men over the span of several years. Most of those stopped were innocent of any wrongdoing. This article uses qualitative and quantitative research methods to investigate these inequities, examining the views of both the police and those who were stopped. The authors find that pressure on officers emanating from headquarters was responsible for much of the illegal behavior by lower‐level officers. Additionally, youth in minority neighborhoods felt mistreated by the police; this led to distrust in the police. The authors suggest solutions to ameliorate this painful episode in police practice. The article concludes with specific recommendations such as reducing management pressure on officers and police developing community partnerships.     

No renters in my suburban backyard: Land use regulation and rental housing

Academics and policymakers have argued that the ability of low‐ and moderate‐income families to move into desirable suburban areas is constrained by the high cost of housing. Local zoning and other forms of land use regulation are believed to contribute to increased housing prices by reducing supply and increasing the size of new housing. Suburban restrictions on rental housing are particularly likely to reduce mobility for low‐income families. In this paper, I employ an instrumental variables approach to examine the effects of zoning on the quantity and price of rental housing in Massachusetts, using historical municipal characteristics to instrument for current regulations. Results suggest that communities with more restrictive zoning issue significantly fewer building permits for multifamily housing but provide only weak evidence of the effects of regulations on rents. The lack of effects on rents may reflect the low level of multifamily development, while analysis is complicated by development of subsidized housing under the state's affordable housing law. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

'Order Out of Chaos': The Politics of Transitional Justice

This article critically assesses the application of the 'transitional justice' model of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland. The model addresses a number of important issues for societies emerging from violent conflict, including victims' rights and dealing with the past. This article claims that the model is founded upon highly contentious political assumptions that give rise to a problematic framing of the issues involved. The underlying implication is that by eschewing basic political analysis in favour of unexamined ideals concerning conflict transformation, the TJ approach belies its commitment to truth recovery, victims' rights and democratic accountability.     

Purchasing Policy Advice: The Limits to Contracting Out

Throughout the OECD, governments have been contracting out an increasing range of goods and services. Against this background, this article outlines the case for, and assesses the merits of, placing the purchase of governmental policy advice on a more competitive basis. Two options are given particular attention: first, the creation of an internal market for policy advice within the public sector under which departments and other government agencies would tender to supply specific policy outputs; and second, a more radical option under which public and private sector organizations would compete for the contracts to supply governmental policy advice. Drawing on the insights of the new institutional economics, it is argued that neither option is likely to enhance the efficiency or effectiveness with which policy advice is produced, whether under conditions of short-term or long-term contracting. This is due to the likelihood of: only partial contestability (due, among other things, to asset specificity in the form of transaction-specific expertise and trust); a greater risk of opportunistic behavior by the suppliers of advice (and also, under some conditions, by the purchasers); higher agency costs and transaction costs; and greater problems with respect to horizontal and vertical policy coordination. Such considerations suggest that the widespread reliance of governments on relatively permanent advisory institutions and in-house expertise can be explained and justified on the same theoretical grounds that have prompted the contracting out of other publicly-funded goods and services.     

Out of Court: Why Have the Courts Played No Role in Resolving Devolution Disputes in the United Kingdom?

The U.K. is an outlier in comparative terms in having experiencedno litigation about the division of powers following the introductionof devolution in 1998. Conventional wisdom ascribes this tothe coincidence of Labour-led governments in London, Scotland,and Wales. But other factors are also at work, which are informativeabout the flexible nature of the British constitution and theBritish approach to devolution. These include the continuingsovereignty of the U.K. Parliament, the limited extent of devolutionin the U.K., elaborate checks to ensure devolved legislationremains within competence, and adjustment mechanisms built intothe original devolution settlement. The absence of litigationhas obvious advantages, but also disadvantages, in that theinterpretation of the division of powers under devolution remainssecret law.     

Looking Out for Our Indigenous People: The Canadian Experience

Respected Elders Djerrkura and Dodson, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. My Aboriginal name is Pad8gi Pai8, which means 'Coming Thunder' in the Abenaki language and I am a member of the Odanak Band of the Abenaki First Nation. I want to acknowledge and thank the traditional caretakers of the land we stand on today, the Larrakia People Meegwetch. I am truly honoured to be here with you today and want to take this opportunity to thank the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) and the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM) for inviting me.     

A Political Perspective on Contracting Out: The Politics of Good Times. Experiences from Danish Local Governments

Privatization has been on the political agenda for the last two decades. The literature points to two major explanations of privatization. One explanation is political-ideological, considering privatization to be a Liberal-Conservative strategy. Economic crisis or fiscal stress is the other main explanation of privatization. The two theses are investigated by evaluating the determinants of contracting out in Danish local governments. The analysis shows that fiscal stress is strongly, but inversely related to contracting out, while Liberal-Conservative political leadership is not associated with higher levels of contracting out than Social Democratic governance. Thus, the richer a local government becomes, the more it contracts out. Although party politics is not decisive for contracting out, the motivation seems to be political rather than economical. Specifically, it is argued that in a strongly decentralized public sector with influential public employees, contracting out is possible in good times when revenue and public expenditure are easier to increase, which reduces public employee resistance to contracting out.     

Private Versus Public Charity: Reassessing Crowding Out from the Supply Side

This paper tests a model where governmentand private charity are perfect substitutesin consumption, but the cost of providingcharitable assistance differs betweenprivate and government suppliers. Theanalysis demonstrates that higher costs oftransferring through the government canaccount for the observed phenomenon of lessthan complete crowding out and theempirical results are broadly consistentwith that approach. Overall the evidenceis consistent with the hypothesis thatindividuals both care about the leakagesinvolved in transferring funds to the poorthrough government and respond in theirprivate giving to changes in thedifferential public cost.     

The Political Value of Land: Political Reform and Land Prices in Chile

In this article, we argue that when patron‐client relations are grounded in economic relationships, such as between landlord and worker, we should expect clientelism to influence not just how public policy, the state, and the political system work, but also how the economy works. We develop a simple model of the economic consequences of electoral clientelism when voting behavior can be observed. Landlords/patrons provide economic rents to workers, and in exchange workers vote for parties favored by landlords. As votes are used by the landlords to accumulate political rents, vote control increases the demand for labor and for land. The model implies that the introduction of the Australian ballot, which destroys this form of clientelism, should lead to a fall in the price of land in those areas where patron‐client relationships are strongest. We test the predictions of the model by examining in detail the evolution of land prices in Chile around May 31, 1958, for which we collected original data. A characteristic of rural Chile at this time were patron‐client relations based on the inquilinaje system, by which a worker, the inquilino, entered into a long‐term, often hereditary, employment relationship with a landlord and lived on his landlord’s estate. We show that the introduction of the Australian ballot in 1958 led to a fall of about 26% in land prices in the areas where these patron‐client relationships were predominant.     

"大中东民主化"与中东未来局势探析

从长期控制中东的目的出发,美国在伊拉克战争后抛出了民主改造中东的方案和措施.但是,由于美国自身不同时期战略任务的矛盾,美国中东民主化改造方案与中东民主化客观进程的矛盾以及中东有别于其它地区的民众文化心理结构,不仅使得这一战略的前景暗淡渺茫,而且还将使未来中东地区的局势面临更大的动荡与冲突.     

Measuring the Financial Position of Municipalities: Numbers Do Not Speak for Themselves

There are several challenges facing someone who wants to know if a city's revenue structure is fair and reasonable. There are few generally accepted standards to use as benchmarks of financial condition, and there is no generally accepted methodology to assess relative financial position. This article reviews literature on financial position and condition, and then develops a methodological approach that creates a cohort of similar cities for benchmarking financial position, and then forming a basis for assessing financial condition. Based on a study of the financial position of a medium-sized city, the article offers lessons for practitioners and scholars.     

The Effects of Administrative Professionals on Contracting Out

An often-debated subject in the public administration literature concerns why some units contract out more than others. The present article decomposes the influence of public employees on municipal contracting as different types of employees have different skills and incentives and must be treated accordingly. First, the analysis shows that the apparent negative relationship between public employees in general and municipal contracting is partly reflecting the fact that the number of public employees is endogenous to contracting. Second, we suggest that administrative professionals and not bureaucrats in general have a positive impact on contracting. This is because administrative professional skills are vital for carrying out a tender and because contracting is essentially a part of administrative professionals' bureau-shaping interests. Finally, we find support for two often-discussed claims in the literature, namely, the influence of prosperity and ideology.     

城郊土地管理困境:中央与地方的“土地博弈”

中央政府和地方政府的土地博弈在城郊土地管理中表现得最为突出,造成城郊土地管理困境的原因主要是中央政府和地方政府的主要目标存在差异,分税制的不完善,以及我国现行的农村集体土地制度尚不完善等。而化解土地博弈的困境在于将农民纳入博弈之中,完善中央和地方的财政分配制度,建立土地配额转让流通机制。     

农地市场性流转的深化——基于有效保障的视角

发端于基层的土地流转实验为新时期农村土地制度变革指出了方向,各种土地流转形式和集体土地经营模式,也为农业产业化以及传统农业转向现代农业提供了有益的启示.但新农业集体经济组织在走向市场化的过程中面对各种风险.因此需要通过金融和保险等来支撑现代农业的发展,化解农民从事现代农业的风险,维护农民的利益,稳步推进有保障性的土地流转.     

Cheap and Dirty: The Effect of Contracting Out Cleaning on Efficiency and Effectiveness

Contracting out of public services, especially ancillary services, has been a key feature of New Public Management since the 1980s. By 2014, more than £100 billion of U.K. public services were being contracted out annually to the private sector. A number of high‐profile cases have prompted a debate about the value for money that these contracts provide. Value for money comprises both the cost and the quality of the services. This article empirically tests the contestability and quality shading hypotheses of contracting out in the context of cleaning services in the English National Health Service. Additionally, a new hypothesis of coupling is presented and tested: the effect of contracting of ancillary services on patient health outcomes, using the hospital‐acquired infection rate as our measure. Using data from 2010–11 to 2013–14 for 130 National Health Service trusts, the study finds that private providers are cheaper but dirtier than their in‐house counterparts.