Public Attitudes Toward Social Spending in the United States: The Differences Between Direct Spending and Tax Expenditures

This paper uses a survey experiment to examine differences in public attitudes toward ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ government spending. Federal social welfare spending in the USA has two components: the federal government spends money to directly provide social benefits to citizens, and also indirectly subsidizes the private provision of social benefits through tax expenditures. Though benefits provided through tax expenditures are considered spending for budgetary purposes, they differ from direct spending in several ways: in the mechanisms through which benefits are delivered to citizens, in how they distribute wealth across the income spectrum, and in the visibility of their policy consequences to the mass public. We develop and test a model explaining how these differences will affect public attitudes toward spending conducted through direct and indirect means. We find that support for otherwise identical social programs is generally higher when such programs are portrayed as being delivered through tax expenditures than when they are portrayed as being delivered by direct spending. In addition, support for tax expenditure programs which redistribute wealth upward drops when citizens are provided information about the redistributive effects. Both of these results are conditioned by partisanship, with the opinions of Republicans more sensitive to the mechanism through which benefits are delivered, and the opinions of Democrats more sensitive to information about their redistributive effects.     

The Power of Nonprofits: Mechanisms for Nonprofit Policy Influence

The dramatic increase in public funding for nonprofit organizations has raised concerns about the potential disadvantages of a nonprofit sector that is too reliant on government funding. Using nonprofits to deliver public programs also presents risks for the public sector, but the question of nonprofit policy influence is largely absent from discussions of public–nonprofit service collaborations. The motivation for this article stems from the contradiction between the perceived weakness of publicly funded nonprofits and their potential for policy influence. This research asks, how do nonprofits exert policy influence? Using a grounded theory approach, the research draws on the attitudes and experiences of professionals and elected officials involved in policy making and policy implementation in the area of low‐income housing. The findings indicate a variety of mechanisms through which the government–nonprofit relationship can strengthen the power of nonprofit organizations, sometimes while weakening their government counterparts.     

民营经济发展过程中的公共政策创新——温州地方政府政策的演变与分析

地方政府作为正式制度供给的主体之一,在民营经济发展过程中起着特殊而又重要的作用。以温州民营经济发展为背景,实证描述和分析了地方政府政策在突破旧制度约束过程中所呈现出的显著跃迁性的特征。温州地方政府适时的政策创新,促使民营企业的非正式制度创新逐步转变为正式制度安排,为民营企业从非法走向合法奠定了坚实的基础。温州地方政府在公共政策设计过程中,既符合了温州民营企业的利益和制度知识,又符合了政策者的既得利益和意识目标,政策供给兼备了社会可行性和组织可行性,从而使得政策效能得到了充分的发挥。     

On the sustained importance of attitudes toward technological risks and benefits in policy studies

This is a summary of the study by Baruch Fischhoff, Paul Slovic, Sarah Lichtenstein, Stephen Read and Barbara Combs, as well as a reflection on why the study has attracted sustained interest since its publication in Policy Sciences in 1978. The article’s contribution to the study of policy approaches to (new) technologies is threefold. First, it drew attention to the importance of public attitudes toward technological risks and benefits. Second, the study has been crucial for the emergence of empirical investigations on decision-making. Third, the types of risks identified by the authors continue to be discussed in contemporary studies. The article demonstrates how issues relating to risk and risky decisions are able to stimulate a truly multi- and even interdisciplinary scientific discourse in which policy sciences play an important role. In terms of policy implications, Fischhoff and his collaborators have compellingly argued that citizens are more likely to accept a technological risk when they realize the benefit of the corresponding technology.     

The risky business of public–private partnerships

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are now a common strand of third way government policy, with better efficiency promised from the private funding of public infrastructure through the transfer of risks to private parties. This paper aims to investigate, on an empirical basis, the realities of risk transfers in PPPs and compare this experience against both the rhetoric of project proponents and the formal contract conditions. The paper outlines some conceptual frameworks underpinning PPPs and establishes the notions of risk shifting and risk sharing. The range of typical risks encountered in infrastructure projects is specially considered, and differences to traditional project delivery arrangements are articulated. Some empirical experience on the transfer of risks under PPPs is then outlined through a case study. This analysis shows the extent to which risks were shifted to the private parties as planned, or whether risks remained with government. It is argued that while commercial risks were largely well managed, governance risks were not. It is critical to understand better the nature of risk transfers in PPPs in view of the large financial implications of these deals along with long contract terms.     

Representative Bureaucracy,Organizational Integrity,and Citizen Coproduction: Does an Increase in Police Ethnic Representativeness Reduce Crime?

In 1999, the U.K. government set force‐specific 10‐year targets for recruiting new police officers from ethnic minorities. Using these targets as instrumental variables, this study finds that this policy mandating an increase in the share of ethnic minority officers in a given force is associated with a decrease in the number of crimes in the area under the force's jurisdiction during the 10‐year period. It is argued that greater representativeness and diversity within a public organization improves organizational integrity, which influences bureaucrats’ attitudes and behaviors toward minority citizens. In the context of policing, diversity can mitigate the institutionalized practice of officers acting on implicit assumptions about minorities being inherently more unlawful than whites: Police representativeness is associated with a decrease in the overrepresentation of black individuals among those subject to “stop and search.” Such a change may make minority citizens more willing to cooperate in the coproduction of public values, facilitating the attainment of organizational goals.     

Information Sharing for Infrastructure Risk Management: Barriers and Solutions

There is a public interest in ensuring that infrastructure systems are appropriately protected and prepared for disruptions. While infrastructure protection is usually viewed as a public responsibility, infrastructure risk management actually requires a high degree of cooperation between the public and private sectors, particularly in the sharing of information about risks to infrastructure. Discussions with Chief Security Officers across sectors of the US economy reveal the complexity of the task, as they describe at length the private sector's requirements of multiples types of information about a range of potential threats. While the US government has established many mechanisms for sharing information, barriers remain that inhibit both the private and public partners from obtaining the information needed to protect infrastructure. Overcoming these barriers requires new thinking about the intelligence generation process, the mechanisms and practices upon which the process relies, and the responsibilities of those in the private sector who participate in it.     

Policy Stalemate and Policy Change in Israel's Water Sector 1970–2010: Advocacy Coalitions and Policy Narratives

This paper seeks to explain policy stalemates that persist despite recognition of their risks and damages, as well as the factors and processes that enable a breakthrough and lead to policy change. The paper seeks to fill a gap in the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) theory by supplementing it with Narrative Analysis (NA). We claim that NA provides a link missing in the ACF that is required for the transformation of “necessary” conditions—like external and internal shocks to the system—into “sufficient” conditions for policy persistence or change. We use the ACF to delineate coalition members and their belief systems and policy positions, as well as external, internal, and structural shocks to the system. We rely on NA to analyze the narratives employed in the public arena, which turn conditions necessary both for hurting stalemates and for policy change into sufficient conditions. We illustrate the benefits of combining the two approaches through a study of Israel's water policy during four decades (1970s–2000s) based on government records and on information from interviews with key players.     

Work Sharing Policy: Power Sharing and Stalemate in American Federalism

Work sharing benefits are partial unemployment benefits, andfederal policy related to them is in an administrative muddle.A lack of leadership by the federal government has stalled stateimplementation. During economic downturns when political voltageis high, policy makers look to work sharing as one way to managejob loss. Conversely, work sharing is often forgotten duringprosperous times. This article describes how federalism sometimesfacilitates state initiation of work sharing policy and at othertimes impedes it. The authors discuss work sharing through sixpolicy phases during a thirty-year era of devolving federalauthority to states for employment services and job training,and they make observations about the stalemate in federal policy.     

Public information campaigns as policy instruments

Considerable controversy surrounds public information campaigns: government-directed and sponsored efforts to communicate to large numbers of citizens in order to achieve a policy result, or what might be called government propaganda. We analyze the use of campaigns as policy instruments in three ways: (1) effectiveness in achieving substantive outcomes; (2) political benefits for public officials; and (3) consequences for democratic processes. Our review of 100 campaigns from these three perspectives reveals significant advantages and disadvantages of using campaigns in practice. We conclude that the advantages of public information campaigns justify their use as policy intruments when used appropriately and with care to mitigate the disadvantages.     

Exploring Aggregate vs. Relative Public Trust in Administrative Agencies that Manage Spent Nuclear Fuel in the United States

Trust is a key component of democratic decision‐making and becomes even more salient in highly technical policy areas, where the public relies heavily on experts for decision making and on the information provided by federal agencies. Research to date has not examined whether the members of the public place different levels of trust in the various agencies that operate within the same policy subsystem, especially in a highly technical subsystem such as that of nuclear energy and waste management. This paper explores public trust in multiple agencies operating within the same subsystem, trust in each agency relative to aggregate trust across agencies that operate within the nuclear waste subsystem, and trust in alternative agencies that have been suggested as possible players in the decision‐making process. We find that trust accorded to different federal agencies within the nuclear waste subsystem varies. The variation in trust is systematically associated with multiple factors, including basic trust in government, perceptions about the risks and benefits of nuclear energy/waste management, party identification, and education. These findings have significant implications for research on public trust in specific government agencies, alternative policy entities, and for policy makers who want to design robust and successful policies and programs in highly technical policy domains.     

Building informal knowledge‐sharing relationships between policy makers and academics: Insights from a PM&C engagement project

This article outlines an innovative project to encourage knowledge sharing and engagement between academics and a policy team within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C). The project was designed to enhance policy advice by drawing on a group of academics outside the policy ranks to act as a sounding board, to question, and provide differing perspectives within the policy process of crafting advice to government. External expertise and particularly academic research has the potential to improve evidence‐based policy but often fails to be specific or timely for those at the “pointy end” of policy decision making. An informal knowledge sharing framework has the potential to improve the exchange of information through confidential and targeted conversations between researchers and public servants as one way of overcoming these barriers.     

Why Governments Should Produce Balance Sheets

This contribution to a controversy argues that accrual reporting at the whole of government level is appropriate and necessary as it provides a full picture of a government's financial position, discloses the impact of policy over the longer term (and therefore the sharing of the burdens between current and future taxpayers), focuses the attention of governments and public sector managers on the management of total resources and obligations and introduces discipline in financial reporting and therefore ensuring the integrity of the reported information.
Yet, accrual reporting, whether at the whole of government level or individual agency level, will not bring about changes of behaviour necessary to realise the full benefits of financial and other management reforms unless it is complemented by an accrual planning and budgeting regime to ensure that financial performance is planned and assessed on the same basis.     

The Quality of Management and Government Performance: An Empirical Analysis of the American States

Government performance is an enduring concern for students of public management, public administration, and political science. Government's administrative arrangements and managerial behavior can profoundly influence programmatic content, activities, and outcomes; therefore, considering public management's effects is necessary for a true understanding of public policy and government performance. This article uses data from the Maxwell School's Government Performance Project to examine the relationship between state governments' managerial capacity and a measure of government performance (specifically, state policy priorities). We find that state management capacity has direct effects on state policy commitments: States possessing higher levels of management capacity tend to favor programmatic areas that distribute societal benefits widely (that is, collective benefits) as opposed to narrowly (that is, particularized benefits). Our analysis demonstrates that public interest group activity, government ideology, and citizen ideology each have significant, predictable effects on state policy commitments. Thus, our findings place managerial capacity alongside other more commonly studied state characteristics as an important influence on government activities.     

Predicting Organizational Actual Turnover Rates in the U.S. Federal Government

ABSTRACT

This study expands the level of analysis on turnover in public administration, especially in the U.S. federal government, from the individual level to the organizational level by using organizational actual turnover rates. Some scholars argue that public employees' turnover intention generally reflects actual turnover. However, very little empirical evidence supporting this argument has been provided in public administration, especially in a broad array of public agencies. This study has rejected this argument by showing insignificant or weakly significant correlations between organizational actual turnover and weighted turnover intention rates. In addition, overall, the two regression results for organizational actual turnover and turnover intention also show different results from those in the existing literature on individual-level turnover intention. The significant predictors of organizational actual turnover rates are goal ambiguity, pay satisfaction, and diversity policy satisfaction. The correlation and regression results imply that research on predictors of turnover may need to consider the differences that may result from using different units of analysis and to make a distinction between turnover intention and actual turnover.     

Developing and Testing a Theoretical Framework for Computer‐Mediated Transparency of Local Governments

This article contributes to the emerging literature on transparency by developing and empirically testing a theoretical framework that explains the determinants of local government Web site transparency. It aims to answer the following central question: What institutional factors determine the different dimensions of government transparency? The framework distinguishes three dimensions of transparency—decision making transparency, policy information transparency, and policy outcome transparency—and hypothesizes three explanations for each: organizational capacity, political influence, and group influence on government. Results indicate that each dimension of transparency is associated with different factors. Decision‐making transparency is associated with political influence; when left‐wing parties are strong in the local council, local government tends to be more transparent. Policy information transparency is associated with media attention and external group pressure, and policy outcome transparency is associated with both external group pressure and the organizational capacity. The authors discuss the implications for policy and administration.     

Assembling E‐Government Research Designs: A Transdisciplinary View and Interactive Approach

There is a growing recognition in the field of e‐government that improving the quality and impact of research requires taking into account their complex contexts and drawing on more interdisciplinary and collaborative research. Limited attention so far has been directed toward the conduct of such research, particularly in contract‐based research arrangements for developing e‐government policy. A four‐nation study of public e‐procurement policy is used here to make transparent the process of designing and conducting transdisciplinary and interactive research. Further sharing of research designs and accounts is needed to advance theory, policy, and practice, and to develop a history of ideas in the e‐government research field.     

Strategic Human Resource Practices: Introducing Alternatives for Organizational Performance Improvement in the Public Sector

Can public sector organizations increase productivity through competition in spite of inherent limitations, such as budget constraints? This study addresses that question by examining the impact of four factors that contribute to employees’ expectations regarding competitive work environments on organizational performance in terms of overall quality of work and client satisfaction. The four factors measured include rewards for merit such as salary and benefits, opportunities, organizational rules, and the capacity to deal with risks as perceived by employees. Using data on public and nonprofit sector employees, expectations for merit rewards were positively related to employees’ perception of organizational performance when the conditions of performance‐based organizational rules and risk‐taking behaviors were also satisfied. Moreover, employees’ perceptions of organizational performance tended to increase when they felt that organizational rules were oriented toward performance plus organizational members and top leaders exhibited greater risk‐taking behaviors. However, no correlation was evident between employees’ expectations of opportunities and perceived organizational performance.     

We All Need Help: “Big Data” and the Mismeasure of Public Administration

Rapid advances in our ability to collect, analyze, and disseminate information are transforming public administration. This “big data” revolution presents opportunities for improving the management of public programs, but it also entails some risks. In addition to potentially magnifying well‐known problems with public sector performance management—particularly the problem of goal displacement—the widespread dissemination of administrative data and performance information increasingly enables external political actors to peer into and evaluate the administration of public programs. The latter trend is consequential because external actors may have little sense of the validity of performance metrics and little understanding of the policy priorities they capture. The author illustrates these potential problems using recent research on U.S. primary and secondary education and suggests that public administration scholars could help improve governance in the data‐rich future by informing the development and dissemination of organizational report cards that better capture the value that public agencies deliver.     

Policymaking with Multiple Agencies

Authority over related policy issues is often dispersed among multiple government agencies. In this article, I study when Congress should delegate to multiple agencies, and how shared regulatory space complicates agency decision making. To do so, I develop a formal model of decentralized policymaking with two agencies that incorporates information acquisition and information sharing, delineating situations where legislators should and should not prefer multiple agencies. Greater divergence between the agencies' ideal points distorts information sharing and policy choices, but it may increase the amount of information acquisition. Congress achieves better policy outcomes by delegating authority to both agencies if the agencies have strong policy disagreements. If the agencies have similar policy preferences, however, then Congress may want to consolidate authority within one agency because this approach mitigates free-riding and takes advantage of returns to scale.