Biennial Budgeting in the Federal Government

This article examines the possible outcomes of changing from the current annual budget review to biennial budgeting. It looks at the experience of various states and its application to the federal level. It explores all of the supposed benefits , including less time spent on budgeting issues, more accurate budget projections, reduction of congressional workload and increased congressional oversight and, for the president's point of view, increased power of the executive branch. Concluding on a cautious note, the article offers some plausible applications of biennial budgeting to the national budget.     

The Institutionalization of Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Federal Government

This article uses resource dependence and institutional theory to examine the implementation of the Administrative Dispute Resolution Acts of 1990 and 1996. The insights from these theories are employed to explain the diffusion of and variation in the application of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to different programmatic areas. Although agencies have generally complied with the direct requirements of the acts, their intent has not been fully realized. Several factors have complicated the implementation of the ADR Acts, prompting agencies to take different strategic approaches to the application of ADR in programmatic areas. In general, agencies have acquiesced to the use of ADR in employment disputes, compromised on ADR use in contracting and procurement disputes, and avoided ADR use in civil enforcement disputes. Finally, this article evaluates progress toward impact evaluations of the ADR Acts and suggests directions for future research.     

The Federal, and the State and Local Roles in Government Expenditures

This article compares government expenditures by functional category of the federal government relative to state and local governments and the changes in their respective roles since 1955. The article includes a review of the federal role relative to the state and local role on a function-by-function basis for these three and a half decades. This analysis demonstrates considerable stability in the federal sector and the state and local sector, but also the capacity for change.     

The Executive Budget in the Federal Government: The First Century and Beyond

This article reviews the history of executive budgeting in the United States a century after President William Howard Taft's Economy and Efficiency Commission proposed an executive budget. This history, the authors argue, does not suggest that giving more budget power to the president will improve budget outcomes. Instead, what is needed is more cooperation between the branches of government and a better‐educated public—goals that were shared by budget reformers when the Taft report was published.     

Government reform in Canada

Today the Canadian federation is facing various challenges. External factors such as globalization, changing markets and the revolution in communications, as well as internal factors such as a growing deficit and debt, provinces wanting more autonomy and uncontrolled government spending are some of the pressures Canada is facing. In 1994 the government launched the most important review of federal policies and programmes since the early 1950s. This article examines how Programme Review, the most important of these activities, is helping to refocus the role of the federal government in a way that would be meaningful to all Canadians. The implementation of the combined results of policy and programme review will involve reductions in government programmes, the development of new delivery agencies, the launching of new partnerships, and the achievement of greater efficiencies. The article also looks at the important role the Public Service of Canada is playing in responding to the need for change. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

A Government Ill Executed: The Depletion of the Federal Service

The federal government's "quiet crisis" of the 1980s has become the "deafening crisis" of the early twenty-first century. Virtually every measure of the state of the public service as envisioned by Alexander Hamilton has worsened over the past two decades. This lecture outlines Hamilton's seven characteristics of an energetic federal service and examines recent trends in its decline. Although the federal service still executes an enormous agenda of important missions, it is increasingly frustrated in its work.     

The Emerging Federal Quasi Government: Issues of Management and Accountability

There has been a growing trend in the federal government toward reliance on organizations that commingle legal attributes of the government and private sectors. These hybrid organizations now constitute a quasi government that occasions both interest and concern by political leaders, practitioners, and scholars alike because these organizations touch the very heart of democratic governance: To whom are these hybrids accountable? How well is the public interest being protected against the interests of private parties? In this article, the author seeks to define the quasi government and place these hybrid entities into manageable categories from which legal and behavioral generalizations may be drawn. Are hybrid organizations a problem or a solution? Looking critically at this question, the author suggests the answer may depend in large measure on which of two management paradigms the reader accepts: the constitutionalist management paradigm or the entrepreneurial management paradigm, both of which are defined and discussed. The author concludes that the increasin reliance on hybrid organizations constitutes a threat not only to accountable management within the government, but to the fundamental values of democratic governance as well.     

The Impact of Political Debate on Government Trust: Reminding the Public What the Federal Government Does

Americans' confidence in government is low by historical standards. We fielded a national telephone survey to examine influences on government confidence and whether public discontent was affected by altering the salience of specific government operations. We used a question order experiment where we alternated between first asking a general question about confidence in government and first asking about confidence in specific government operations. We found that posing the specific policy questions first elevated general confidence more than the reverse. The largest and most noticeable effects were observed for Republicans and those most knowledgeable and attentive to politics. Findings of context effects and the partisan subgroup differences are consistent with existing theories on public opinion change as well as with previous question order experiments. But, evidence that the cognitive elite was especially influenced by question order challenges previous theories that presumed that its sophistication made it immune to influence. We suggest that education and political knowledge expand rather than contract the opportunities for priming.     

Implementing the Chief Financial Officers Act and the Government Performance and Results Act in the Federal Government

The Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990 and the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, along with other legislation passed by Congress, are stimulating major financial management reform in the federal government. This article evaluates reform implementation against nine criteria developed in previous research on this topic. The criteria are accounting system adequacy, congressional intent, ability of Congress to use financial statement data, executive branch implementation incentives, capability of the Office of Management and Budget, utility of financial statements for decision making, use of performance measures in budgeting, coordination of federal organizations charged with implementation responsibility, and executive and congressional support for reform.     

The Effects of Changes in Federal Aid on State and Local Government Spending

This study suggests federal grants-in-aid had an important influenceon state and local government spending during the 1960s andmost of the 1970s. This positive stimulation also seems to havecontinued during 1982–1985, despite the Reagan administration'sefforts to cut the level of federal aid to states and communities.The stimulative effect of federal aid, however, was showingsigns of diminishing after 1977 and was conspicuously absentfor the 1977–1981 and 1985–1988 periods.     

当代美国联邦政府伦理管理探析

美国联邦政府的伦理管理通过多年的实践,在探索有效约束公务员行政行为方面积累了一定的经验.当前美国联邦政府主要着眼于组织结构的合理安排或是通过立法、制定组织规则、设立严格的监督机构等外在制度来督促行政伦理的实现.比较与借鉴美国联邦政府的伦理管理的实践经验,对于进一步实现我国政府管理的行政伦理化有着很强的实践意义.     

The Role of Federal Budget and Trust Fund Institutions in Measuring the Effect of Federal Highway Grants on State and Local Government Highway Expenditure

Federal highway financing institutions affect the response of state and local government spending to federal highway aid. Most previous studies of the spending effects of federal highway grants consider federal highway expenditure as the highway grant variable, disregarding the reimbursement nature of this expenditure and the multiyear availability of highway aid. This article argues that obligations of federal highway aid to states rather than actual federal expenditure should be used in models assessing the spending effects of federal highway grants. Considering federal obligations rather than expenditure results in a greater effect of highway grants on spending than reported in previous studies.     

The Racial Bureaucracy: African Americans and the Federal Government in the Era of Segregated Race Relations

This article employs archival research to examine how the segregationist order was introduced and maintained in the Federal civil service between the 1890s and 1945. In the article a racial bureaucracy is defined by two characteristics. First, one group of employees was placed in a subordinate position to others, both formally and informally, as a consequence of their race. Second, physical working conditions and daily routines were constructed around the segregation of one group of employees because of their race and, furthermore, advancement and promotion within the bureaucracy was delimited by race. This framework is used first, critically to assess two common views of the composition of the US federal government (the local race state thesis and the weak state thesis), and second, to illustrate how segregation impinged directly upon African American employees in a range of agencies and positions.     

政府在农村公共物品供给中的理念创新

农村公共物品的有效供给是确保社会主义新农村建设进程和质量的决定性因素,政府作为推动新农村建设的主导力量,在农村公共物品供给中应该打破固有的观念束缚,用先进的理念来指导农村公共物品的有效供给,通过树立公共性理念、服务多元化理念、社会公正理念、民主正义理念、法治理念和追求效能理念,把政府对农村公共物品的供给提高到体现政府责任、实现社会公正和凸现价值正义上来。     

绩效管理改革的效果:来自美国联邦政府的证据

从1993年的《政府绩效与结果法案》(GPRA)以及布什政府的项目评估定级工具(PART)已经建立了一种新的政府管理惯例,两者的目的均在于促进美国联邦政府绩效管理实务的发展。但从绩效信息的使用方面来看,两者所做出的努力都极其有限,即一旦考虑其它因素,机构雇员不论是否参与PART评审,是否参与GPRA的实施进程,他们几乎都没有影响到绩效信息的使用。本文采用顺序Probit回归模型,通过对美国联邦审计总署基于1996、2000、2003和2007年的数据进行调研,最终得出依赖于难以观测的官僚行为来实现的政府改革是具有局限性的以及在政府绩效改善的过程中绩效信息使用的重要性。对数据的深层分析还揭示了一系列影响绩效信息使用的组织因素,这包括领导对结果的承诺、监管者引导学习惯例、工作动机的性质、将测量与行动链接起来的能力、管理的自由裁量权以及利益相关者之间的政治冲突。