Don't Let It Put You Off Your Dinner: First Steps Towards Ethical Policies Shaped by Cultural Considerations

The Duke of Wellington's foreign policy was based on a simple ethical principle: essentially the assessment of options in terms of whether they would lessen or increase the likelihood of civil strife. This principle, being rooted in the culture of decency, is not compatible with the prevailing (but, it is argued, increasingly unattractive) realist approach. A major obstacle to the operationalization of Wellingtonian policy (which, incidentally, need not be foreign policy) is the lack of understanding of the causes of civil strife. This obstacle can, however, be side-stepped: first, by the increasingly well-established observation that civil strife, and related gross abuses of human rights, do not happen in stable democracies, and, second, by the more discriminating understanding of both democracy and nondemocracy that is provided by Cultural Theory. Together, these two developments offer a basis for option assessment that simply was not available to the Duke of Wellington. The article concludes with three tentative applications.     

To Know You is Not Necessarily to Love You: The Partisan Mediators of Intergroup Contact

We propose the contact–cue interaction approach to studying political contact—that cues from trusted political elites can moderate the effect of contact on the formation of public policy opinions. Allport’s initial formulation of the contact effect noted that it relies on authority support. In a highly polarized political era, authoritative voices for individuals vary based on party identification. Social experiences may affect public policy, but they must also be considered in light of partisan filters. Using data from the 2006 CCES, we examine the manner in which straight respondents with gay family members, friends, co-workers and acquaintances view same-sex marriage policy, finding a strong contact effect among Democrats, but no contact effect among the strongest Republican identifiers. Our data and analyses strongly support the perspective that social interactions (and their effect on policy) are understood through the lens of partisanship and elite cues.     

Case Study: Improving Customer Service at the NSW Registry of Births,Deaths and Marriages

The NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages met the challenge of increased customer demand by changing its approach to managing and allocating its resources. The Registry cut customer waiting times by 90% while dealing with 12% higher demand. This article shows how a public sector organisation can provide the level of customer service expected by the 21st century community without compromising its core business. The Registry used statistical and management tools to engage staff. The changes made were incremental, but achieved remarkable gains in performance.     

深圳：如何应对服务业市场的全方位开放

随着科技的进步 ,经济现代化水平的提高 ,特别是“知识经济”的迅猛发展 ,服务业 (第三产业 )在一个地区整体经济发展中的地位日显重要。据权威资料显示 ,近年来服务业增长在发达国家或城市经济总量中所占的比重不断提高 ,平均已达 6 0 %以上 ,最高的甚至达 80 %以上。而中国入世 ,将向外商全面开放服务业市场 ,这为我们在更高层次上更大规模的吸引外资 ,加快发展 ,提供了历史性的机遇。目前 ,京、沪、穗已为吸引跨国公司投资服务业展开竞争。上海较早前已提出要全面大力发展服务贸易、服务业 ,其他城市也纷纷提出要发展金融、物流、旅游等…     

Tell Me Who Is Your Leader,and I Will Tell You Who You Are: Foreign Leaders’ Perceived Personality and Public Attitudes toward Their Countries and Citizenry

The increasing visibility of prominent political leaders in news media is well documented in political science literature. The main concern that has been raised in this connection is that the complexity of political processes is being reduced to achievements and standpoints of individual politicians, and the importance of rational opinion building is discounted. The results of the current study provide the first empirical evidence to account for the misgivings about emotional effects of personalized political information on media audiences. Using data from an online experiment, this study shows that news coverage regarding behaviors and personal characteristics of a foreign leader influences (a) evaluations of personal characteristics typical of his or her nation's citizens and (b) emotional perceptions of that leader's country (sentiment and respect). This effect is shown to reflect a psychological phenomenon whereby people project their emotions and perceptions regarding a leader's personal characteristics onto his or her country and people.     

Testing What Matters (If You Must Test at All): A Context‐Driven Approach to Substantive and Statistical Significance

For over a half century, various fields in the behavioral and social sciences have debated the appropriateness of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) in the presentation and assessment of research results. A long list of criticisms has fueled the so‐called significance testing controversy. The conventional NHST framework encourages researchers to devote excessive attention to statistical significance while underemphasizing practical (e.g., scientific, substantive, social, political) significance. I introduce a simple, intuitive approach that grounds testing in subject‐area expertise, balancing the dual concerns of detectability and importance. The proposed practical and statistical significance test allows the social scientist to test for real‐world significance, taking into account both sampling error and an assessment of what parameter values should be deemed interesting, given theory. The matter of what constitutes practical significance is left in the hands of the researchers themselves, to be debated as a natural component of inference and interpretation.     

Tear Your Mask, and Have it Too: A Reply to Peter Baehr

Peter Baehr highly praises Berger’s contribution to sociology, and yet sharply criticises his claim that unmasking or debunking is he signature method of sociology. Baehr hold such method of enquiry to be dangerously corrosive and in tension with the humanist intentions of Berger. I largely agree with this critique, but I have doubts that a viable alternative could be developed within the framework of the social sciences. Thus, I would suggest that Berger was right in linking unmasking/debunking with the humanist enterprise, despite the negative implications highlighted by Baehr.     

Taxes, Subsidies, and Listeners Like You: Public Policy and Contributions to Public Radio

Public radio in the United States receives both direct and indirect government funding. Direct subsidies come in the form of lump-sum and matching grants, while indirect subsidies proceed from tax revenues forgone on tax-deductible private donations. Each of these sources of government money affects charitable giving to public radio. This article estimates both of these effects, using data on 91 public radio stations in the United States during 1995. Data analysis shows that public funding to stations has a positive impact on private giving, but this impact rapidly decreases as the level of government subsidies increases. The analysis also indicates that increases in state tax rates correspond with significantly higher donation levels. This article explores the implications of these and other findings for policy makers, public administrators, and nonprofit managers.     

The Call to Public Service: Entrance, Learning, and Reflection

Books reviewed in this article: Richard P. Nathan, So You Want to Be in Government? Handbook for Appointed Officials in America's Governments Kenneth H. Ashworth, Caught between the Dog and the Fireplug, or, How to Survive Public Service O.C. McSwite, Invitation to Public Administration     

读原著，通要籍——中国公共管理学科建设的当务之急

哈工大这次主办的公共管理学科建设研讨会,可以说是小规模,高规格,高质量。在会上大家进行了广泛的交流,涉及到公共管理学科建设的基本问题。大家就公共管理的外延、内涵,以及公共管理的主体、研究范式、方法等进行了深入的交流。讨论所涉及的问题与近年来公共管理领域所讨论的问题有一定的相似之处,但此次会议探讨的更加深入、更全面。此次会议后,我更认为“,读原著,通要籍”是中国公共管理学科建设的当务之急,也是重中之重。读原著是为了弄清公共管理学科的源流,掌握公共管理学科的主要文献,这是基础性的工作,也是开创性的工作。这也是中…     

There Must Be End to Confusion: Policy Networks, Intellectual Fatigue, and the Need for Political Science Methods Courses in British Universities

'Keith Dowding's critique of the network approach ≡ might yet turn out to be a watershed finally marking the intellectual fatigue of policy community and network analysis in Britain.' (Richardson 1999, pp. 198–9)     

Public Service Reform in Malta, 1988-95: Lessons to be Learned

Malta's latest round of administrative reform has produced mixed results. While it has achieved more than any previous initiative, vital elements of the reform program have not been carried out and results have fallen short of initial expectations.
The reform initiative yields a number of lessons, some of which have already been brought to light—the need to keep the reform agenda small, the need for sustained political backing—and others which are less well known, such as the difficulty of creating an effective authority to direct reform, and the drawbacks to giving reform agencies lavish funding and a high profile.     

To Participate or Not to Participate: The Link Between Survey Participation, Electoral Participation, and Political Interest

Survey participation, electoral participation, and politicalinterest have been given wide attention in the research literature,but no one so far has combined these three variables in onemodel. Taking the social isolation-hypothesis as our startingpoint, we developed a model with one factor, social involvement,as the common factor underlying these three types of participation.We reviewed the literature and concluded that we had to includea second underlying factor: attachment to society. Using a newdata set, gathered on the occasion of the 1998 Dutch nationalelections and including validated voter turnout measures, wewere able to test the model. After making some adaptions, wefound a model with a satisfactory fit. The results show that,by including social involvement and attachment to society asmediating variables, we can reach much higher levels of explainedvariances of survey and electoral participation than we canwith traditional models. The results also add to our understandingof the relationship between survey and electoral participationand political interest.     

State First,Then Democracy: Using Cadastral Records to Explain Governmental Performance in Public Goods Provision

This article presents a theoretical argument of how and why democratization at different levels of state capacity matters for public goods provision and subjects the argument to empirical tests. Building on rational choice theories of public goods production, we argue that credible enforcement before credible commitment—democratizing after the state has acquired high levels of state capacity—leads to a more efficient social order than the opposite sequence. Using a theoretically grounded and novel indicator of historical state capacity—the extent and quality of cadastral records—the analysis shows that those countries where the state developed extensive enforcement capacities before democratization exhibit, on average, better provision of essential public goods and are less corrupt.