Monopoly rights in the privatization of telephone firms

Data from utility privatization sales in 74 countries is analyzed to investigate why governments award monopoly rights, and how monopoly affects government revenue from these sales. Financially constrained governments are more likely to award monopoly rights. Interest groups and institutions are important. Increased importance of taxed business users reduces the probability of a government granting monopoly rights, while an increase in the importance of subsidized residential users has the opposite effect. Durable democracies and market-oriented governments are less likely to award monopoly rights. Monopolies increase government revenue by 66 percent.     

New forms of industrial policy in the age of regulation: A comparison of electricity and telecommunications in Italy and Spain

Relying on insights from the comparative capitalism debate, this article compares the industrial policy strategies implemented by the Italian and Spanish governments to favor the internationalization of domestic electricity and telecommunications incumbents. It is shown how the cross‐sectoral and cross‐country variation in the outcome of their industrial policy efforts—that is, successful or unsuccessful internationalization—is explained by the reciprocal power relationship between governments and domestic large shareholders (“blockholders”). Successful internationalization is conditional on the availability of two power resources the government can use to influence blockholders' behavior: ownership power and regulatory power. When these resources were available, governments were able to impose a stable ownership structure on national champions, leading to successful internationalization. When they were not available, ownership instability led to failure. The findings presented here contribute to the debate on new forms of state involvement in the economy in the neoliberal era.     

The Impact of Federalism on the Organization of Canadian Foreign Policy

The international activities of Canadian provinces—mainlyAlbert, British Columbia, Ontario, and Québec—challengeconventional concepts of sovereignty and the federal view ofa national monopoly in foreign policy. These provincial activitieshave become more important since the early 1970s and have yieldedoutcomes in the field of foreign policy that would not haveoccurred otherwise. Provinces engage in international activitiesfor a number of reasons. They have the capacity, jurisdictionalobligation, and political desire to do so. Economic necessity,especially the international economic environment, is importantmotivation. Both conflict and cooperation with Ottawa also encourageprovincial involvements in international activities. Occasionally,foreign governments invite such activity as well. Present trendscoupled with the constitutional division of responsibilitiesin Canada suggest that territorial transgovernmentalism willhave greater consequences for Canadian foreign policy, therebygiving to Canada's international presence a character similarto the complexities and contradictions of the country's domesticmosaic.     

Politicians,Media Moguls and PayTV: Pay‐TV Policy‐making in Australia 1977‐1995

This article explores the major influences on pay‐TV policy‐making in Australia from the late 1970s, when the issue was first discussed in the context of proposals to establish a domestic communications satellite, up until the introduction of pay‐TV in Australia in 1995, thereby placing current developments in the pay‐TV industry in context. The article argues that among larger broadcasting and telecommunications issues, pay‐TV has never been ‘the main game’. For both Coalition and Labor governments, the expansion of existing free‐to‐air television services in regional Australia and the introduction of competition in telecommunications have been much more important policy priorities than the introduction of pay‐TV. Furthermore, because pay‐TV policy‐making largely took place in this wider policy context, the structure of the broadcasting and telecommunications industries also shaped pay‐TV policy outcomes.     

Consultation, Constraints and Norms: The Case of Nuclear Waste

The objectives of public consultation can clash with other policy objectives, partly because the norms underpinning public consultation clash with other institutional norms within the policy process. This phenomenon is evident in the case of selecting a site for a low-level nuclear waste disposal facility in Australia. This case shows how the results of consultation processes are moulded by the process design, which in turn is constrained by a range of policy process norms to which governments adhere. The case confirms some recent critiques of participatory practices. It also suggests that reconciling potentially competing policy process norms will be an important exercise in institutional design if elected representatives wish to mitigate citizens' alienation from their governments.     

Making a difference? Public perceptions of coalition,single-party,and minority governments

It is often argued that coalition governments are less likely to ‘make a difference’ than single-party governments. Because they are composed of multiple actors who need to agree to policy innovations, and because there are fewer personnel changes between successive coalition governments, coalitions are associated with fewer policy differences. From this it follows that public perceptions that governments should ‘make a difference’ will be weaker under coalition than single-party governments. The same logic applies to minority governments, which require support to pass legislation from opposition parties, and hence are less likely to deliver on their commitments. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, this paper tests these hypotheses. The expected effects, albeit small ones, are found for coalition governments, but only in old democracies.     

‘When I find myself in times of trouble …’ : The conditional effect of international organisations on policy convergence

Most quantitative analyses of policy convergence treat transnational communication in international organisations and domestic economic problems as additive factors. By contrast, this article argues that domestic economic problems motivate governments to search for successful policies, while international organisations offer channels for policy learning. Thus, both factors interact, magnifying each other's effects. The argument is corroborated by a quantitative analysis of the privatisation of telecommunications providers in the Western OECD world. A dyadic logit model shows that joint membership in international organisations increases the likelihood of policy convergence if governments face budget deficits. The argument of the article builds a bridge between theories of international organisations and domestic theories of policy making. Theories of the former gain an important scope condition specifying the conditions under which transnational communication works, while exploring the latter gains a theory specifying where new policy ideas come from.     

Bottom-Up Federalism: The Diffusion of Antismoking Policies from U.S. Cities to States

Studies of policy diffusion often focus on the horizontal spread of enactments from one state to another, paying little or no attention to the effects of local laws on state-level adoptions. For example, scholars have not tested whether local policy adoptions make state action more likely (through a snowball effect) or less likely (through a pressure valve effect). This study conducts the first comprehensive analysis of vertical policy diffusion from city governments to state governments, while simultaneously examining the influence of state-to-state and national-to-state diffusion. Focusing on three different types of antismoking laws, we find evidence that policies do bubble up from city governments to state governments. State politics are crucial to this relationship, however, as local-to-state diffusion is contingent on the level of legislative professionalism and the strength of health advocates in the state.     

Diffusion through Democracy

Many argue that international norms influence government behavior, and that policies diffuse from country to country, because of idea exchanges within elite networks. However, politicians are not free to follow their foreign counterparts, because domestic constituencies constrain them. This article examines how electoral concerns shape diffusion patterns and argues that foreign templates and international organization recommendations can shift voters’ policy positions and produce electoral incentives for politicians to mimic certain foreign models. Experimental individual‐level data from the field of family policy illustrates that even U.S. voters shift positions substantially when informed about UN recommendations and foreign countries’ choices. However, voters receive limited information about international developments, biased towards the policy choices of large and proximate countries. Aggregate data on the family policy choices of OECD countries show how voters’ limited information about international models shapes government decisions: governments are disproportionately likely to mimic countries whose news citizens follow, and international organizations are most influential in countries with internationally oriented citizens.     

Coalition government and electoral accountability

Single-party governments are commonly thought to be more clearly responsible for government policy than coalition governments. One particular problem for voters evaluating coalition governments is how to assess whether all parties within a coalition should be held equally responsible for past performance. As a result, it is generally argued that voters are less likely to hold coalition governments to account for past performance. This article uses data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project to assess whether and how the composition of coalition governments affects the way in which people use their votes to hold governments to account, and which parties within coalitions are more likely to be held to account for the government’s past performance.     

Contract–Management Capacity in Municipal and County Governments

Under pressure to do more with less, governments across the country have moved from direct service provision to providing services by contract. Proponents argue that contracting can reduce costs and improve flexibility and customer satisfaction. Critics point to a growing number of failed contracts, arguing there are numerous pitfalls associated with contracting. Missing from these debates is a discussion of how governments' managerial capacity can improve contract performance. In this article, we identify specific capacities that governments can use to harness the promise of contracting while avoiding its pitfalls. We present analyses of data on municipal and county government contracting activities that show how governments invest in contract– management capacity in response to several internal and external threats to effective contract performance. Because government investment in contract–management capacity is uneven—that is, some governments invest in less capacity even when circumstances would call for more—our analyses may help to explain why some contract arrangements are more successful than others.     

Auctioned oil import licenses

Three times in recent years American Presidents have tried to levy a tax on imported oil in order to decrease the quantity. Three times, the U.S. Congress has blocked the policy, demonstrating that a tax is politically infeasible. As an alternative, we propose an auctioned import license policy, in which the President would have discretion over the quantity of petroleum sold each month. The quantity might be chosen to maintain a certain differential between the domestic and international prices of oil. Under this strategy, licenses would have economic characteristics very similar to those of a tax. The political characteristics, however, would be quite different. Sections of the public would be less likely to perceive licenses as transferring revenues from households to the government and more likely to perceive them as effective in reducing imports. Alternatively, oil import licenses could be used to negotiate with OPEC and other importing nations.The authors wish to thank William Dunn, Robert Walters, Richard Nehring and Charles Phelps for their helpful comments. The usual caveat applies.     

Veto player theory and reform making in Western Europe

Veto player theory generates predictions about governments’ capacity for policy change. Due to the difficulty of identifying significant laws needed to change the policy status quo, evidence about governments’ ability to change policy has been mostly provided for a limited number of reforms and single‐country studies. To evaluate the predictive power of veto player theory for policy making across time, policy areas and countries, a dataset was gathered that incorporates about 5,600 important government reform measures in the areas of social, labour, economic and taxation policy undertaken in 13 Western European countries from the mid‐1980s until the mid‐2000s. Veto player theory is applied in a combined model with other central theoretical expectations on policy change derived from political economy (crisis‐driven policy change) and partisan theory (ideology‐driven policy change). Robust support is found that governments introduce more reform measures when economic conditions are poor and when the government is positioned further away from the policy status quo. No empirical support is found for predictions of veto player theory in its pure form, where no differentiation between government types is made. However, the findings provide support for the veto player theory in the special case of minimal winning cabinets, where the support of all government parties is sufficient (in contrast to minority cabinets) and necessary (in contrast to oversized cabinets) for policy change. In particular, it is found that in minimal winning cabinets the ideological distance between the extreme government parties significantly decreases the government's ability to introduce reforms. These findings improve our understanding of reform making in parliamentary democracies and highlight important issues and open questions for future applications and tests of the veto player theory.     

Multi-Level Governance in a Small State: A Study in Involvement,Participation, Partnership,and Subsidiarity

This article looks into the everyday practices of Estonian local governments regarding the emergence of multi-level governance (MLG) and their mobilization in EU affairs and policies, especially regional policy. The theoreti­cal framework is the concept of MLG, also emphasizing the principles of subsidiarity and partnership. The article contributes new empirical insights from a country outside of the mainstream scholarly debates on MLG. We test and answer five interconnected theses linking MLG with practices of the principles of subsidiarity and partnership and the status of a small, unitary state in the European integration process. For many Estonian municipalities, the EU has hardly any effect. We identified almost no adjustment of local-government structures and routines to EU pressures. There is hardly any involvement of local actors in policy-making processes or in networking. Estonian local governments are weak partners for the state     

The Government Agenda in Parliamentary Democracies

Lawmaking is a challenge for coalition governments because it inherently demands cooperation and compromise by parties with divergent policy goals. The jurisdictional system of cabinet government exacerbates the problem by providing parties the means to undermine the coalition bargain in the pursuit of their own policy interests. In this article, I explore whether arrangements that allow partners to police one another induce compromise on one of the most important decisions taken by a government—the organization of the policy agenda. In an analysis of original data on the timing and policy content of over 800 government bills from four European democracies, I show that coalition governments pursue a largely "accommodative" agenda. Policy initiatives dealing with issues that are more attractive to all partners in the coalition are likely to be given priority on the agenda, while those dealing with relatively unattractive issues are likely to be postponed .     

Building Reputation: Why Governments Fight Some Separatists but Not Others

This article attempts to show that future players and future stakes—two factors generally ignored by political scientists—strongly influence government decisions to cooperate or fight at least against ethnic minorities seeking self-determination. Data on all separatist movements between 1956 and 2002 reveals that governments are significantly less likely to accommodate one challenge if the number of ethnic groups in a country and the combined value of the land that may come under dispute in the future is high. Governments that refused to accommodate one challenger were also significantly less likely to face a second or third challenge down the road. This provides some of the first systematic evidence that governments invest in reputation building a least in the domain of domestic ethnic relations.     

社会和谐、社会公平与反垄断——论和谐社会的公共政策取向

社会发展的不均衡以及由此引发的社会矛盾,使和谐社会的构建变得不仅必要而且十分迫切。本文作者认为,社会和谐与社会公平作为政府所追求的两大目标,具有不同的价值取向,和谐社会应该以社会公平为基础和前提,而由于机会自由是社会公平的核心,垄断又是机会自由的天敌,所以,旨在构建和谐社会的努力就应该以保障机会自由,消除任何歧视性政策,反对任何形式的垄断为公共政策的依归和目标导向。     

The clandestine defence of empire: British special operations in Yemen 1951–64

This article provides an account of the special operations in Yemen authorized by successive Conservative governments in the 1950s and early 1960s. It suggests that these were undertaken in response to a perceived threat from Yemeni irredentism and Arab nationalism. The secrecy surrounding the operations was regarded as a useful means of avoiding the international condemnation which overt military action would attract. It is argued that the case of British involvement in Yemen provides further evidence of the continued commitment of post-war British governments to the defence of empire, and that the policy of clinging on to the remains of empire in this region was based on an over-optimistic analysis of the likely impact of Arab nationalism.     

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.     

Autonomous Local Climate Change Policy: An Analysis of the Effect of Intergovernmental Relations Among Subnational Governments

Local governments have emerged as important players in climate change governance, both at home and on the international stage. Likewise, action by states and provinces has been increasingly highlighted, particularly as national actors have moved slowly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But to what extent do local governments act independently from state and provincial governments in the area of climate change mitigation? Using an explicit process tracing approach, the article tests two hypotheses regarding the influence of upper level subnational governments on local policy. In Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, a city that is a climate change leader, provincial government intervention cannot explain the results of climate change mitigation policy making. This suggests that local governments can exercise an important degree of autonomy over climate change policy, but also implies that where municipalities are less independently committed to climate action, active upper level government intervention will likely be needed.