Competitive Tendering in the Welfare State: Perceptions and Preferences among Local Politicians

Competitive tendering for public services has triggered a heated academic debate. In political economy, competition is claimed to improve efficiency. If this is true, why are most governments faithful to the monopoly model? Political economists suggest that public sector employees and unions influence the preferences of the elected politicians. In new institutional theory, competition is claimed to undermine democratic governance. If this is true, why do some elected governments make use of competitive tendering? In this tradition, organisational solutions are seen as expressions of autonomous values and perceptions about the outcomes of organisational solutions – not as manifestations of vote–maximising politicians subject to self–interested interest groups. When governments use competition, it is due to misconceived management fads that have temporarily penetrated long–established perceptions and value systems. These propositions have not been subjected to proper empirical testing. We have analysed extensive data about Norwegian local politicians, and found support for the notion that the perceptions of elected politicians affect their preferences for tendering for residential care services for elderly people and hospital services. But we found support for the political economy propositions as well. Party affiliation, interest group background and economic situation influence the perceptions and organisational preferences of elected politicians. Reform may be a question of political values and perceived consequences, but these values, perceptions and policy preferences are influenced by political self–interest and can be changed by exogenous economic shocks.     

The Dynamics of Critical Realignments: An Analysis Across Time and Space

Much of the scholarly interest in critical realignments results from the pivotal role that ordinary citizens play during these periods. By altering their voting behavior, citizens hold political elites accountable and forge non-incremental change in policy outputs. A central question regarding realignments is thus how are citizens changing their behavior to hold elites accountable? Are citizens producing realignments by converting from one party to the opposition? Are previous non-voters becoming mobilized in response to emerging issues or crises? Or are one party’s supporters disproportionately abstaining from voting and altering the partisan balance in the process? This article makes four central contributions to our understanding of these realignment processes, or dynamics. We present a theoretical framework for the analysis of realignment dynamics, based upon the Michigan model of voting and its conception of the normal vote. Where previous dynamics studies have collectively only examined two realignments, we examine the dynamics of all presidential realignments in American electoral history. Where previous studies have often focused on national, sectional, or state levels of analysis, we focus on city- and county-level realignments, a critical advancement for an inherently local-level phenomenon such as critical realignments. Finally, unlike previous studies, we identify the factors that promote particular realignment dynamics. We find that the conversion of active partisans has produced most of the enduring change in voting behavior in the United States, with the relative contribution of different dynamics varying both across time and space. Political factors such as the strength of state and local parties and demographic factors such as changes in the size of local immigrant populations have each favored particular realignment dynamics in American electoral history.     

Competition of Politicians for Incentive Contracts and Elections

When politicians are short-term oriented or future elections do not sufficiently reflect the success of past policies, democratic elections cannot motivate politicians to undertake long-term socially beneficial projects. When politicians can offer incentive contracts which become effective upon reelection, the hierarchy of contracts and elections can alleviate such inefficient decision-making in politics. This mechanism still works if the public cannot commit itself to a reelection scheme or if the public is unsure about the politicians’ time preferences. In the non-commitment case, incentive contracts may need to include a golden parachute clause.     

Perceptions of Federal Aid Impacts on State Agencies: Patterns, Trends, and Variations Across the 20th Century

American federalism is a dynamic process involving the viewsand interactions among state and national officials. Based onmultiple mail surveys of state agency heads across 75 years,this article traces the perspectives of state executives towarda core component of state–national relationships—federalaid. The time frame dates from the 1920s and covers a periodin which federal aid programs to the states grew enormously,as did state administrative establishments. There was a long-termrise in the perceived intrusiveness of federal aid as well asincreased policy distortion effects. Despite substantial fluctuationsin perceived aid impacts, there was a four-decade consistencyin the penetration of federal aid into and across the existing3,000 state agencies. Furthermore, when perceptions of nationalinfluence are combined in an index of perceived national fiscalinfluence, there was a roller coaster effect with an overallsecular "decline" in national influence since 1974.     

高校政工人员的诚信危机与对策

大学生诚信道德水平的下降,高校政工人员的诚信危机是其主要因素。本文就长久以来高校政治思想教育中讳莫如深的问题进行了深刻地揭示与批判,提出了从制度上解决诚信危机的方案。     

Tele-Reality: How Space Technology Transforms Human Perceptions of Space,Time, and Self

With the introduction and development of space techniques, three types of remote reality, or tele-reality, have emerged: (1) the Earth, its environments, and its inhabitants have been brought closer to each of us; (2) the planets in the solar system are now “at hand's reach”—a robotic hand, that is; and (3) deep space is brought to our screens in three dimensions. But remote reality raises questions: What connection does it make between the perceptible and the intelligible; and what confusion does it maintain between what is real and what appears on the screen? New practices are challenging the way we handle the relationship between seeing, knowledge, and power, and questioning our ethical values. It is time and essential that we redefine the conditions and boundaries of our “tele-techniques.”     

How Politicians Discount the Opinions of Constituents with Whom They Disagree

We argue that politicians systematically discount the opinions of constituents with whom they disagree and that this “disagreement discounting” is a contributing factor to ideological incongruence. A pair of survey experiments where state and local politicians are the subjects of interest show that public officials rationalize this behavior by assuming that constituents with opposing views are less informed about the issue. This finding applies both to well‐established issues that divide the parties as well as to nonpartisan ones. Further, it cannot be explained by politicians’ desires to favor the opinions of either copartisans or likely voters. A third survey experiment using a sample of voters shows that the bias is exacerbated by an activity central to representative governance—taking and explaining one's policy positions. This suggests that the job of being a representative exacerbates this bias.     

Advertising and the Image of Politicians in Evolving and Established Democracies

Abstract

The article¹ analyzes the constructivist and realist approaches to research on voting behavior in presidential elections in evolving (Poland) and established (U.S.) democracies. The influence of a politician's image on affective attitudes toward the candidate is stressed in the first approach; the other approach stresses the role of affect in forming such an image. Using experimental data from the 2000 presidential elections in each country, the research applied structural equation modeling and multiple regression analysis to show the best way to use image construction to influence voting behavior and, in the realist approach, the key role of affects as the starting point for designing and creating politicans' images. The results of the research also show that Polish and American voters perceive slightly differently the socio-political reality created by the media, but in both countries political advertising plays an important role in creating political images.     

What Wins Votes: Why Some Politicians Opt Out of Clientelism

In a context where clientelism is widespread, why do some politicians choose not to condition the delivery of goods and services to citizens on individual political behavior? I argue that the answer to this question lies in the heretofore unexamined electoral costs of clientelism: clientelism decreases support from nonpoor constituents even while it generates votes from among the poor. Taking into account these costs and other factors that shape politician incentives, I posit that the interaction between political competition and poverty will explain variation in clientelism. I test this claim using an original measure of clientelism that assesses mayoral involvement in social policy implementation in Argentine municipalities. The results of statistical analysis suggest that high levels of political competition are compatible with clientelism when poverty is also high. Only when high competition is coupled with low rates of poverty does clientelism decline.     

An Insider–Outsider Theory of Popular Tolerance for Corrupt Politicians

This article addresses the puzzle of electoral support for corrupt politicians in emerging democracies by examining citizens’ varying attitudes toward political corruption. We make an important theoretical distinction between perceptions of and tolerance for corruption, and argue that these different attitudes vary across individuals depending on whether they are political insiders or outsiders. We test our theory using Afrobarometer survey data from 18 sub‐Saharan African countries and find that individuals included within clientelistic networks simultaneously perceive corruption as ubiquitous and are more tolerant of malfeasance. Meanwhile, those individuals with partisan or ethnic ties to the incumbent are less likely to consider corruption as widespread. Finally, we explore whether variation in attitudes toward corruption influences citizens’ voting behavior, and find that insiders are less likely to “vote the rascals out.”     

Swedish Reaction to the Assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme

Sweden's Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot dead, on a street in central Stockholm, on his way home from the cinema late in the evening of 28 February 1986. The Swedish public reacted with grief and horror. The emotional reactions to Prime Minister Palme's assassination were greater than expected. However, placed in an international context they are, nevertheless, relatively weak. In the analysis, the situation six and four years after the assassination will be compared with the situation three weeks after the event. The focus is on: what role, if any, the assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme has played in the way in which Swedes and immigrants express their views on a number of important issues related to the murder and what effect, if any, it might have on the Swedish political culture and on the trust of the Swedes in the political and judicial system. The final argument that can be presented from this study of the connection between exposure to a dramatic event, such as the murder of a prime minister, and children's and adults' political values, is that the emotional effect of the assassination fades away fairly quickly and is replaced by a much more vague and unclear structural effect related to the total impact of the assassination seen as a dramatic event of national importance. This kind of structural effect on the political culture in a country can never be clearly described and analysed for the simple reason that an effect of this magnitude is almost impossible to control and isolate from other experiences.     

Politicians,regulators, and regulatory governance: The neglected sides of the story

We offer a series of reflective insights about the state and direction of studies related to the politics of regulation. Notably we argue that the field is characterized by persisting divisions between Americanists and Europeanists. Largely focused on the actions taken by political principals, the former regularly report a substantial politicization of regulatory behavior. Reflecting on recent developments in US politics however, we show that political influence could be overestimated in the United States. Symmetrically, this same influence could be underestimated by Europeanists, who for now have largely focused on regulators and agencies. This is notably suggested by a discussion of recent development in European politics, as revealed by contributions systematically measuring agency politicization in Western European democracies. On this basis, we identify some promising research questions and agendas for future studies on the politics of regulation.     

The Political Economy of Tax Coordination as a Bargaining Game Between Bureaucrats and Politicians

In the public finance literature, the view prevails that taxcompetition among countries gives rise to an underprovision ofpublic goods and that coordinated tax increases are thereforedesirable. Public choice arguments, in contrast, suggest thattax coordination may not be in the interest of thetaxpayers/citizens because imperfections of the politicalprocess (political distortions) may lead to a waste of taxmoney. According to this view, tax competition is a desirablecheck on the power to tax whereas tax coordination would onlyrelax the budget constraint of an inefficient public sector.The present paper integrates the underprovision argument andthe public choice view into a common theoretical framework.The government is assumed to consist of politicians andbureaucrats with diverging interests. Fiscal policy ismodelled as the outcome of a bargaining game between thebureaucrats and the politicians. It turns out that coordinatedtax increases always raise the provision of public goods butalso increase the cost of political distortions. The effect onthe welfare of the representative citizen may be positive ofnegative, depending in particular on the distribution ofbargaining power between bureaucrats and politicians.     

Do Local Politicians Respond to Citizens' Demands? A Microanalysis of Norwegian Local Government

The correspondence between citizens' preferences and the preferences of the elected politicians is a critical concern of democratic institutions. Models founded on the central tendency of politicians' behaviour in elections, such as the median-voter model and the model of the "uncovered set", predict that politicians respond to local demands. Other models, notably those that assume imperfectly informed citizens and representatives, predict lack of response. The present article relies on a demand model. We estimate the model by combining survey data for 80 Norwegian municipalities with information on economic, social and demographic factors. The study uses independent surveys to measure the spending preferences of citizens and representatives. The politicians' and the citizens' demand functions are structurally similar, and the article demonstrates that the spending preferences of the representatives are positively related to preferences of the electorate. Alternative interpretations of these findings are discussed.     

Public Support for Climate Change Policy: Consistency in the Influence of Values and Attitudes Over Time and Across Specific Policy Alternatives

This study examines the factors that explain public preferences for a set of climate change policy alternatives. While scholarly work indicates a relationship between attitudes and values on views toward specific issues, the literature often examines general support for issues rather than specific policy proposals. Consequently, it is unclear the extent to which these attitudes and values affect specific policy considerations. This project examines public support for five climate change policy options in two national surveys taken three years apart. The empirical analysis reveals that time is a factor and that those who are liberal, have strong ecological values, report greater concern for climate change, and trust experts are consistently more supportive of the climate policy options considered here. The results shed new light on the nuanced views of the American public toward climate change.     

基于胜任力的政府公务员绩效评估体系构建

绩效评估是公务员管理中的重要环节。在我国现行公务员绩效评估体系中,存在着绩效指标效度较低,绩效评估方式陈旧、单一,评估主体的非专业化和评估过程的形式化,绩效管理功能严重缺失等问题。从胜任力的视角建立公务员胜任力模型,首先要做好职位分析工作;其次制定出具体化的针对性强的绩效标准体系;最后从国内建立公务员胜任力模型的实践来看,基本是以问卷调查法为主。胜任力模型建立后,绩效评估的主要工作步骤就是绩效评估目标的设定、实施、控制与反馈。