Civic Hackathons: Innovation,Procurement, or Civic Engagement?

At all levels, governments around the world are moving toward the provision of open data, that is, the direct provision to citizens, the private sector, and other third parties, of raw government datasets, controlled by a relatively permissible license. In tandem with this distribution of open data is the promotion of civic hackathons, or “app contests” by government. The civic hackathon is designed to offer prize money to developers as a way to spur innovative use of open data, more specifically the creation of commercial software applications that deliver services to citizens. Within this context, we propose that the civic hackathon has the potential to act in multiple ways, possibly as a backdoor to the traditional government procurement process, and as a form of civic engagement. We move beyond much of the hype of civic hackathons, critically framing an approach to understanding civic hackathons through these two lenses. Key questions for future research emphasize the emerging, and important, nature of this research path.     

Understanding the Implications of Government Ties for Nonprofit Operations and Functions

This research explores the implications of nonprofit leaders’ government ties for nonprofit operations and functions. Based on 81 survey questionnaires completed by civic environmental NGOs (eNGOs) in China and interviews with executives from 33 eNGOs, the authors examine the personal backgrounds of eNGO leaders and find that most Chinese civic eNGOs are connected with the government in one or more of three ways: political ties, service organization ties, or personal ties. Personal ties, or good guanxi with government officials, are positively associated with a higher level of funding stability and a more developed management system. Environmental NGOs with leaders who are current government officials or legislative body members are more likely to be engaged in policy advocacy. Service organization ties facilitate eNGOs’ efforts to be engaged in legal services and to scale up to work on environmental issues at the national level. Moreover, an eNGO’s policy advocacy engagement is associated with its ties with the nonprofit community.     

Radical civic virtue: women in 19th‐century civil society

This article contests the conservative revisionism that emphasizes the importance of traditional families, pietistic religion, individual moral virtue, and small government for undergirding democratic self‐government. The first part exposes the conservative misreading of American history and political theory. The second part uses the civic engagement of middle‐ and upper‐class women in 19th‐century America to construct a progressive alternative to conservative narratives. It shows that women did not stay home and focus on the family during the 19th century but instead entered civil society to address the problems created by industrialization, formed social reform movements, built institutions to pursue a social justice agenda, and demanded that the government take an active role in solving public problems. Their civic engagement built on and created social capital, grew out of and produced a sense of civic virtue (defined as public‐spiritedness), and resulted in the demand for progressive government.     

Building community? The characteristics of America's most civic cities

A tremendous amount is known about individual civic and political participation. Those who participate are more educated, more affluent and easier to mobilize. Yet, the social value of participation lies not in its individual impact but in democratically meaningful units such as local governments. Little is known about why some communities display vibrant patterns of participation while others are characterized by disengagement. This paper furthers this understanding by examining what corporate, political and nonprofit leaders in 10 America's cities see as fostering their civic life. This study finds that institutional factors unite those cities with the highest levels of participation. These include a strong corporate presence, mechanisms for mobilization, a strong community identity, public spaces, good government and investment in youth. This serves as a basis for fostering pro‐civic policies. This is a practitioner‐oriented paper that while grounded in research is designed to foster policy solutions rather than prove casual mechanisms. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

政府绩效视角下的行政管理体制改革战略反思——基于地方政府公务员的感知调查

改革开放以来,我国行政管理体制改革一直坚持以组织结构调整为主的模式.对于这一模式的影响,尤其对地方政府的影响,一直缺少科学层面的检验和理论层面的反思.本文选取政府绩效作为标杆,利用地方政府公务员的问卷调查数据,探索政府部门间关系和部门管理制度建设影响部门绩效的路径和程度,使用结构方程模型实证检验了行政管理体制改革战略在地方层面的有效性.结果表明,部门间关系作为政府结构的核心特征对于政府绩效并没有直接的影响作用,其影响作用是通过部门制度建设和部门文化间接发挥的;部门制度建设对政府绩效的整体影响要大于部门间关系.因此,在今后的改革中应该给予管理制度层面的改革更多的重视,通过局部的、具体制度的改革为整体的、基本制度的变革创造条件.同时,还应在改革过程中维护政府组织文化的凝聚力和激励性.     

The Politics of England

Party political interest in the so‐called ‘English Question’ has grown in recent years, due to the enmeshing of constitutional issues with a growing political and public affiliation with and expression of English national identity and culture. More recently, attention has shifted to the decentralisation of government within England. The ‘English Question’ is thus defined by two interconnected but distinctive ‘English Questions’. This article will assess whether, in seeking to find answers for these ‘English Questions’, the Conservatives and Labour are establishing a more distinctive ‘politics of England’. It will first consider the extent to which the politicisation of English identity and civic society have stimulated a more nationally framed political culture and party politics, and then assess whether constitutional reforms undertaken in Westminster, especially the introduction of EVEL, and regional devolution initiatives within England might facilitate greater party political engagement with an emergent ‘politics of England’.     

Social capital,institutional structures,and democratic performance: A comparative study of German local governments

Abstract. The argument presented is that political culture and institutional structures independently shape government performance. This is consistent with Putnam et al.'s (1983) initial argument that 'endogenous' and 'exogenous' factors are independently at work in shaping institutional performance. It is hypothesized that: (I) social capital within a community positively contributes to government performance, and (2) governmental institutional forms that minimize the number of veto players in the decision making process generate performance superior to those where the number of veto players is large. An analysis of cross–sectional data (mainly drawn from surveys of citizens and elites) on 30 small– to medium–size municipalities in East and West Germany from the year 1995 is undertaken to evaluate these hypotheses. The results from this analysis lead to the following conclusions. Higher social capital within the elite political culture of a community leads to greater citizen satisfaction with local government performance. Local government structures where power is centralized (and thus the number of veto players minimized) generate greater citizen satisfaction with government performance than do those where the distribution of power is more diffuse.     

Theoretically,yes, but also empirically? How the corruption-turnout link is marginally explained by civic duty to vote

Corruption is generally associated with low electoral participation. A recurrent explanation of the negative correlation between corruption and electoral turnout involves the rational calculus of the costs and benefits of voting. More specifically, in a context of high corruption, citizens do not vote because they think that doing so will hardly affect policy decisions. A number of influential studies has argued that corruption affects citizens' electoral engagement in a different and more fundamental way as well: It erodes their sense of civic duty to vote in elections. Yet, a relation between corruption and civic duty and a mediation effect of the attitude remains empirically untested. This article examines empirically whether perceived corruption and sense of civic duty are correlated, as well as whether civic duty mediates the relation between perceived corruption and turnout. It does so with the pooled Making Electoral Democracy Work data, as these data contain measures on individuals’ sense of civic duty to vote in four election levels, namely, national, regional, European, and municipal elections, as well as on their perception of corruption in each of these government levels, and on their participation in these four election levels as well. I find a weak relation between perceived corruption and civic duty, and a low mediation effect of the attitude (compared with rational factors), irrespective of the election level.     

Strengthening Effective Government–Citizen Connections through Greater Civic Engagement

Citizens are more trusting of government since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but their civic behaviors are little changed. One reason is that they mostly have been asked for monetary gifts to fund disaster relief and to serve others through existing nonprofit organizations. Available theoretical and empirical analyses suggest the three factors of motivation, skills, and network connections contribute to increased civic engagement, which is defined by behaviors such as seeking to persuade others to join in mobilizing commitment and resources to address a collective problem. Responses to 9/11 have not addressed these three factors. Increased civic engagement strengthens democracy and can contribute to the development of public judgment, which is critical to sustaining support of efforts to thwart terrorism. Success in any effort to increase civic engagement requires different strategies and actions by public officials.     

Mega‐Disasters and Federalism

Measured in dollar terms, Hurricane Katrina was the worst natural disaster in American history. Mega‐disaster response recovery and mitigation put federalism to an especially difficult test because they require speed, efficiency, decisiveness, and effective coordination. This essay focuses on the response to and recovery from Katrina in order to probe the implications of mega‐disasters for federalism. It understands federalism as being composed of four dimensions: the three levels of government and the civic realm. It tests key defenses of federalism against civic and government performance during Katrina. It offers examples of successes and failures involving all four dimensions and provides specific recommendations for improving mega‐disaster mitigation, response, and recovery while maintaining an appropriate constitutional balance among the three levels of government and between the civilian government and the military.     

Creating Civic Bureaucrats

ABSTRACT

Kirlin (1996a; 1996b) argued that big questions of public management should be placed within a democratic framework emphasizing government's role in creating “civic infrastructure.” For this study, those who build civic infrastructure are called “civic bureaucrats,” and new measures (Civic Bureaucrat Scale and subscales:civic skills, faith in the public, deliberative democracy value, civic motivation, and political system value) are used to examine which factors are associated with encouraging public servants, such as U.S. city planners, to pursue democratic processes. These measures are different from those that examine public service or public participation, and are more focused on finding public servants guided by democratic values. Variables that might influence civic bureaucrats are individual, job, work, and community characteristics. Regression results found Civic Bureaucrat levels associated with gender (being a woman), dedication to civic duty, citizens bashing government, cities’ civic capital levels, and non-competitive elections. Notably, Civic Bureaucrat levels go up when elections are less competitive, suggesting civic bureaucrats picking up the slack when democratic institutions falter. Understanding such factors sheds light on what boosts and saps the civic energies of public servants.     

Advocate or Reflection? Associations and Political Culture

This article questions one of the crucial issues of the current social capital debate: do voluntary associations necessarily contribute to the creation or maintenance of a civic culture? Based upon empirical and historical evidence this article demonstrates that associations' cultural spirit simply reflects and amplifies dominant cultural traits of a given time and a given society. Changes in public culture prompt changes in associative culture, and not vice versa. In other words, contemporary associations are more democratic and more civil because they exist within societies which are themselves more democratic and civil than societies of past times. Members in associations represent society's active parts; as activists they have a higher susceptibility to cultural trends and fashions. This susceptibility is the major reason for the modest but statistically significant relationship between membership in associations and a range of cultural attitudes. Zaller's concept of political persuasion is applied to explain the Zeitgeist dependence of voluntary associations.     

Regulation and Compliance Motivations: Examining Different Approaches

This research examines how traditional regulatory and voluntary approaches affect motivations to address potential harms to water quality. The traditional approach consists of governmental enforcement of mandatory requirements; the voluntary approach consists of government calling attention to potential harms and facilitating actions to address them. These approaches are best thought of as ends of a continuum rather than as the sole choices. Three sets of findings emerge from the research. One, not surprisingly, is that traditional regulation is more effective than the voluntary approach alone. A second shows that deterrent fears and the sense of duty to comply are important motivations for action. A third concerns factors that account for the variation in each motivation for which inspections, peer reputation, and attitudes toward government are shown to be important considerations. These findings point to the duality of deterrent fears and civic obligations as motivations to address potential harms.     

The role of civil society in European integration

This paper explores the concept of ‘civic society’ in Western political thought, charting the changing understanding of this concept through history and its manifestation in contemporary political and social life. The paper draws out the inferences for our understanding of the role of government, particularly with the European Union and its relationship with citizens and other representative community‐based and non‐governmental organisations. The paper argues that the fundamental values that are central to civic society underpin the proposed EU Charter on Fundamental Rights and maintains that effective European integration requires responsible participation by Europe's citizens. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

公民参与网络与公共政策过程的有效运行

社会资本的生产、维持和积累主要依赖于两大来源:互利互惠的规范和公民参与网络。公民参与网络与公共政策过程的有效运行存在着内在的逻辑关联,即公共政策的有效制定和执行等与公民参与网络社会资本的储量息息相关。公民参与网络社会资本的充分发育是公民切实进入公共政策过程、讨论特定的政策议题、协力执行公共政策的前提。因此,政府在公共决策过程中必须考虑公民参与网络这个变量,通过有效的制度设计和建构促进公民参与网络社会资本存量的提升,以形成公民参与网络和公共政策过程之间的良性互动关系,从而有利于维持公共政策的公共利益的价值取向。     

Liberalism and Political Allegiance in Anti-Federalist Political Thought

Disagreement between Federalists and Anti-Federalists over theConstitution hinged largely on empirical expectations regardingthe ability of the proposed system of government to promotecivic allegiance. I examine the views of allegiance offeredby major Anti-Federalists and the political psychology on whichthey are based. I conclude, first, that Anti-Federalist politicalpsychology is flawed, leaving the Constitution's opponents vulnerableto charges made by the authors of The Federalist, among others,that sound functioning and durability of government, ratherthan size, are sufficient to generate civic allegiance. Second,the Anti-Federalists' positions on allegiance are grounded inliberal first principles of government. The arguments offeredare not those one would expect if the Anti-Federalists adheredstrongly to the tenets of civic humanism.     

Civic Education,Political Discussion,and the Social Transmission of Democratic Knowledge and Values in a New Democracy: Kenya 2002

How does civic education affect the development of democratic political culture in new democracies? Using a unique three‐wave panel data set from Kenya spanning the transitional democratic election of 2002, we posit a two‐step process of the social transmission of democratic knowledge, norms, and values. Civic education first affected the knowledge, values, and participatory inclinations of individuals directly exposed to the Kenyan National Civic Education Programme (NCEP). These individuals became opinion leaders, communicating these new orientations to others within their social networks. Individuals who discussed others’ civic education experiences then showed significant growth in democratic knowledge and values, in many instances more than individuals with direct exposure to the program. We find further evidence of a “compensation effect,” such that the impact of civic education and post‐civic education discussion was greater among Kenyans with less education and with lower levels of social integration.     

Public Service and Commercial Broadcasting: Impacts on Politics and Society

This article provides an accessible overview of the growing research literature on the impact of public service and commercial broadcasting and highlights its main implications for policy discussions about the future of public service broadcasting in Western societies. It shows that the populations of countries with public service broad‐ and narrowcasting are better informed about government and politics, are more trusting of other people, have more positive civic attitudes, have greater confidence in democratic institutions and are more likely to engage in democratic politics. Moreover, levels of social trust are higher in countries which have a significant public service element in their media systems, even among individuals who do not habitually watch public TV channels. The article ends with a brief discussion of the implications of this research for the future of public broadcasting in the Western world.     

Civic engagement and participation among Ghanaian and Kenyan students and their correlates

This article examines levels of civic engagement among university students in Ghana and Kenya and identifies factors that may account for their civic engagement. Overall, the students reported low civic engagement, with the Kenyans reporting higher engagement. Demographic factors (gender and age) and personal values hardly contributed to the students’ civic engagement. Political interest and attentiveness, barriers and motivation towards participation made a consistent and significant contribution to political participation and future participation. Furthermore, trust, social endorsement and social efficacy showed a consistent and significant contribution to civic engagement. The findings underscore the need to work towards getting the youth more engaged.     

Measuring How Administration Shapes Citizenship: A Policy Feedback Perspective on Performance Management

Governments increasingly require administrators to develop outcome measurements that reflect a program's impact on society. But standard approaches to performance measurement have neglected the impact on citizenship outcomes—the individual civic capacities and dispositions and social bonds of civic reciprocity and trust. The concept is adapted from the growing policy feedback literature in political science, which offers strong empirical evidence that certain policies have measurable effects on citizenship outcomes such as political participation, social capital, a sense of civic belonging, and self-worth as a citizen. Using the Program Assessment Rating Tool as an example, the authors demonstrate the failure of performance assessments to consider the civic implications of public policies. They argue that performance management systems should focus on citizenship outcomes and offer a series of suggestions on how to measure such outcomes.