The Demise of Tax Credits

Introduced in the late 1990s, tax credits grew under successive Labour governments to become a cornerstone of UK social policy. Distinguished from traditional welfare policies by their target group and their mode of administration, and with goals that appeared capable of commanding support across the ideological spectrum, tax credits until recently seemed to hold the key to tackling poverty in a politically popular manner. But since 2010 the tax credit system has been systematically dismantled, initially qualitatively and latterly also quantitatively. This paper discusses the multiple factors that help to explain the rapid fall from grace in the UK of this liberal approach to supporting the incomes of poor working households.     

The Federal Civil Service: The Demise of an Institution

Recent changes in federal personnel practices, ostensibly for the purpose of "performance," serve to deprive the civil service of its moral content and hence to undermine its viability as an institution.     

Housing Policy Under the Reagan Presidency: The Demise of an Iron-triangle

This paper analyzes the changing politics of housing policy during the Reagan administration. The analysis applies the concept of "subgovernments" to the housing coalition. The demise of the housing subgovemment is analyzed within a theoretical framework that includes "policy type" as an important explanatory variable. Specifically, this paper argues that as housing policy shifted from "distributive" to "redistributive" due to a curtailment of funding, the housing coalition came under pressure from external farces and ultimately fragmented into competing (rather than cohesive) interests. As a result, the U.S. commitment to housing provision was drastically reduced.     

Fiscal Competition Among States in Australia: The Demise of Death Duties

This study examines interstate migration in Australia for theperiod 1972–1985 to determine if it was influenced byTiebout-style fiscal competition. In particular, it examinesthe impact of Queensland's abolition of death duties in themid-1970s. The evidence presented is consistent with the commonwisdom surrounding the event as well as with the Tiebout hypothesis.Interstate migration during this period appears to have beenin favor of Queensland and at the expense of those states thatdelayed following the Queensland example. Queensland's populationgrowth during the first three years after abolishing death dutieswas an average 0.20 percent higher due to migrants avoidingthe death duties of the other five states. On average, populationgrowth in each of these states was 0.04 percent lower as a resultof the tax.     

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.     

The Quest for Certainty and the Demise of Political Theory

In this paper, I contribute to the ongoing conversation in New Political Science regarding the status of political science in general, and political theory in particular. I argue that the quest for certainty and desire to quantify knowledge has not been limited to empiricist political scientists. The emphasis on quantification and deductive logic is found in many places within the political theory tradition itself. Time and again, mathematics and the physical sciences are held up as the model for all knowledge. I argue that this focus has led theorists to distance themselves from politics, either out of despair or disdain for the ambiguity and variability present in political life. While I do not propose that Aristotle provides a magic remedy for the current problems in the discipline, I suggest that his combined interest in logic and the close examination of material detail provides a perennially viable framework for political theory.     

The Big (Data) Bang: Policy,Prospects, and Challenges

Big data is increasingly the cornerstone on which policy making is based. However, with potential benefits and applications come challenges and dilemmas. In this set of symposium articles, authors examine the promise and problems of big data, exploring associated prospects, risks, parameters, and payoffs from a variety of perspectives. The articles address myriad challenges in the handling of big data sets, such as collection, validation, integrity, and security; ontological issues attending data analytics and conceptual transformations; the foundations of big data collection for social science research; the gap between the acquisition of data and its use to advance discovery and innovation; the costs and benefits of using big data in decision making and analysis; and, finally, related problems of privacy, security, and ethics. Issues such as these will continue to arise with increased use of big data as fundamental to policy making and governance in today's growing information society.     

US Science Education: The View from a Practicing Scientist

Science and mathematics education in the US is failing to produce an adequate number of American scientists. Foreign postdoctoral fellows and students who typically remain in the US and become permanent residents and citizens increasingly populate US research laboratories. Were these foreign scientists to return home upon completion of their training, we would be facing a severe shortage of well‐trained research personnel in US laboratories. The contributions of foreign scientists to US scientific research have been important and impressive, but as noted above, there are dangers in relying on other countries to provide the basic education of scientists to fill our US laboratories.     

Not Just Steering but Weaving: Relevant Knowledge and the Craft of Building Policy Capacity and Coherence

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Signed but Not Ratified: Limits to U.S. Participation in International Environmental Agreements

Why does the United States sign environmental treaties but not ratify them? U.S. presidents have negotiated and signed several environmental treaties that ultimately could not obtain Senate ratification. This article considers two alternative explanations. First, presidents may face divided government and upcoming elections; elections can increase uncertainty regarding ratification, because they upset majorities and change congressional preferences on issues. Such factors may have caused “involuntary” defection from international environmental cooperation. Second, compensation and compromise on enabling legislation could satisfy enough senators and their constituents to allow the legislation's passage. Failure to secure ratification may be a result of the president's overestimating the potential for negotiating a policy package capable of creating sufficient support to obtain Senate ratification. I compare domestic constraints on U.S. participation in three international environmental negotiations—climate change, biodiversity, and chemicals—to assess the alternative explanations. The cases exemplify how domestic institutions affect international environmental cooperation.