Terrorist networks, support, and delegation

The paper presents a game-theoretic representation of a general terrorist organization (GTO) that delegates responsibility to local terrorist representatives in n countries. The GTO achieves a strategic advantage by deploying a more radical representative when the government is perceived to be weak and terrorist supporters are committed. When the government or terrorist supporters alter their posture, the GTO may regret its local representative. Outside assistance can change a besieged government’s posture, thereby removing the GTO’s delegation advantage. When both the GTO and the government delegate to surrogates, the delegators are worse off if the government appears to be weak.     

E‐Participation,Transparency, and Trust in Local Government

This article examines the relationship between electronic participation (e‐participation) and trust in local government by focusing on five dimensions of the e‐participationprocess: (1) satisfaction with e‐participation applications, (2) satisfaction with government responsiveness to e‐participants, (3) e‐participants’ development through the participation, (4) perceived influence on decision making, and (5) assessment of government transparency. Using data from the 2009 E‐Participation Survey in Seoul Metropolitan Government, this article finds that e‐participants’ satisfaction with e‐participation applications is directly associated with their development and their assessment of government transparency. The findings reveal that e‐participants’ satisfaction with government responsiveness is positively associated with their perceptions of influencing government decision making. Furthermore, there is a positive association between e‐participants’ perception of influencing government decision making and their assessment of government transparency. Finally, the article finds that there is a positive association between e‐participants’ assessment of government transparency and their trust in the local government providing the e‐participation program.     

Divided Government,Legislative Productivity,and Policy Change in the USA and France

The concept of “divided government” is more complicated than scholars have allowed. In the USA, truly unified government, where the president enjoys a filibuster‐proof majority in the Senate as well as a majority in the House, is rare. In France, truly unified government has been more common, but divided government has also occurred several times. Democratic governance requires that parties address important issues and they do so regardless of the patterns of institutional control. Nevertheless, policy changes or important laws are affected by the higher level of institutional friction associated with divided government. Looking at both the USA and France, we find that periods of unified government show higher levels of production of important laws in the USA, but we find no difference for overall legislative productivity.     

Trust,regulation, and redistribution why some governments overregulate and under-redistribute

For many social scientists, government intervention is linked to low levels of social trust and corruption, while others associate it with high trust and low corruption. We aim to reconcile these contrasting views by distinguishing the opposing effects of trust on two alternative types of government intervention: regulation and redistribution. We argue that distrusting individuals demand more governmental regulation (H1) but less government redistribution (H2), and this could be one of the mechanisms explaining why countries with low levels of trust tend to both overregulate and under-redistribute. And the effects of trust on policy preferences are conditional on the quality of institutions. The higher the level of quality of government in a particular region, the more high-trusting individuals will like government redistribution and dislike government regulation that restricts the operations of free markets (H3). We test these hypotheses with data from the latest round of the European Quality of Government Index (EQI) survey, which covers 77,000 individuals from 185 regions of 21 EU member states.     

Not again! Public perception,regulation, and nanotechnology

It is often argued that immediate government action regarding nanotechnology is needed to ensure that public opinion does not mistakenly view nanotechnology as dangerous, to restore public trust in government, and to increase the legitimacy of government action through increased public participation. This article questions whether governments can achieve these goals. As the world lurches toward regulation of nanotechnology, we should ask Why the rush? Can anticipatory action, perceived as the government doing something, fulfill the competing hopes to “restore trust,”“pave the way” for nanotechnology, “increase awareness,” and “satisfy democratic notions of accountability”? Or is government action more likely to increase existing divisions over nanotechnology's future?     

政府声誉、政府能力与非政府组织对政府的信任

非政府组织对政府部门的信任非常重要,政府声誉和政府能力是其重要影响因素.为了揭示政府声誉和政府能力对政府信任的影响,作者以非政府组织的项目负责人和志愿者为抽样对象,以非政府组织与政府部门的关系为背景,通过对政府声誉、政府能力与信任之间的相关分析和回归分析,分析了政府声誉、政府能力对政府信任的影响.研究表明,政府声誉、政府能力对政府信任产生正向影响,政府能力比政府声誉对政府信任的影响更加明显.因此,能否树立良好的声誉、培养较高的能力对政府部门获得非政府组织的信任与支持具有十分重要的现实意义.当然,影响非政府组织对政府部门信任的因素还包括非政府组织特征、制度特征等;研究模型可以进一步扩展,更全面地考察非政府组织与政府部门间的信任形成机制.     

Federal Government Leasing: Costs, Incentives, and Effects

This article examines the lease or borrow decision from the perspective of the United States federal government as the lessee. It argues that there are several sources of friction in the leasing market that will make leasing more costly than buying for the federal government. Nevertheless, the budget process contains powerful incentives for federal government agencies to lease even though leasing is the most costly alternative.     

Violence,Nonviolence, and the Effects of International Human Rights Law

Under what conditions are individuals more likely to approve of human rights abuses by their governments? While various theoretical expectations have been offered about public approval of repression, many of them have not been directly tested. We analyze the effects of differing opposition tactics, differing government tactics, and legal constraints on approval of repression through a series of survey experiments in India, Israel, and Argentina. Our results indicate that violent action by opposition groups consistently increases support for government repression. In the context of contentious politics, we find that the effects of international law vary by national context. While our respondents in India were less likely to approve of their government when told the government violated international law, the same information likely increased approval of the government in our Israel experiment. The findings provide insights into the microfoundations of existing theories and suggest areas for theory refinement.     

Electoral Competition, Participation, and Government Responsiveness in Mexico

In this article I test two competing visions about how democracy produces responsive government. Electoral theories of democracy posit that elected governments are responsive to public demands because citizens are able to sanction bad politicians and select good ones. Participatory theories attribute responsiveness to a citizenry's ability to articulate demands and pressure government through a wider range of political action. I test hypotheses derived from these two approaches, using an original dataset that combines electoral, socioeconomic, and public-financial indicators for Mexico's 2,400 municipalities, from 1989 to 2000. The data show that electoral competition has no effect on municipal government performance. But the results are consistent with the hypothesis that nonelectoral participation causes improved performance. Thus, I suggest that the quality of municipal government in Mexico depends on an engaged citizenry and cooperation between political leaders and their constituents, rather than the threat of electoral punishment. I recommend that scholars broaden the study of government responsiveness to account for participatory strategies of political influence and critically assess the claims of those who would promote elections as a cure-all for poor democratic performance.     

Decentralization,Local Government,and the Welfare State

Despite growing interest in decentralized governance, the local government systems that comprise the most common element of decentralization around the world have received little systematic attention. This article, drawing on the first systematic index of decentralization to local government in 21 countries, demonstrates a close relation between Social Democratic welfare states and an intergovernmental infrastructure that in important respects ranks as the most decentralized among advanced industrial countries. This empowerment of local government in these countries was less an outgrowth of Social Democratic welfare state development than a preexisting condition that helped make this type of welfare state possible.     

Public Opinion and American Federalism: Perspectives on Taxes, Spending, and Trust--An ACIR Update

The research reported here updates for 1999 some public opiniondata previously provided by the U. S. Advisory Commission onIntergovernmental Relations. The 1999 survey results indicatea general continuation of opinion trends established by thelate 1970s to the mid-1980s. Local government is viewed as givingcitizens the most for their money, followed by state governmentand the federal government. Americans still regard the federalincome tax as the worst tax, followed by the local propertytax. Likewise, Americans express the most trust and confidencein local government and the least trust and confidence in thefederal government, although confidence in all governments increasedover comparable data for 1992. Race and party identificationand, in one case, region are significant factors differentiatingopinions about the federal, state, and local governments andtheir taxes.     

以公共价值为基础的政府绩效治理——源起、架构与研究问题

政府绩效管理兴起二十多年来,已由西方国家应对财政和信任危机、提高行政效率的工具拓展为各国政府改革和创新的重要内容,新公共管理的实践价值和理论优势在其中都得到了充分体现。但其理论缺陷和实践中的困惑,特别是在公共价值方面的冲突使学术界的探索从未停止过。本文通过对中国、美国、日本等国的实践案例考察,从制度变迁和公共行政学术史两个层面的质性研究,提出了以公共价值为基础的政府绩效治理理论体系框架。文章首先从"公共性"、"合作生产"和"可持续"三个方面对新公共管理背景下的政府绩效管理进行了反思,认为公共价值对政府绩效合法性具有本质的规定性。其次,初步论证了以公共价值为基础的政府绩效治理的两个基本命题——政府绩效是一种社会建构、产出即绩效;认为只有来源于社会的政府绩效才能获得合法性基础,也只有根植于社会的政府绩效才能产生其可持续提升的需要,这是政府绩效管理的根本动力;而在政府绩效价值建构基础上的科学管理,才能保证政府产出与社会需求的高度一致,充分体现科学管理的价值。再次,从这两个基本命题出发,以价值管理和管理科学理论为基础,构建起了以公共价值为基础的政府绩效治理模型,并对模型中政府绩效的价值建构、组织管理和协同领导系统等主要内容进行了阐述。最后,从模型如何"落地"、政府绩效管理的价值分析和研究拓展等方面提出了未来的研究方向。     

Institutions, Policy Innovation, and E-Government in the American States

Examining the rankings of American states in one fast‐growing policy area, e‐government, states with the most sophisticated and comprehensive policies varied over a five‐year period. What factors account for change in digital government policy innovation over time? Using time‐series analysis and 50‐state data, the authors find that state institutional capacity is important for continued innovation. They also find an association between reinvention in state governments and the institutionalization of information technology, suggesting a more general orientation toward government reform and modernization. Although state wealth and education were not significant in previous studies, they emerge as predictors of later innovation. The theoretical contribution of this study is to better understand the dynamic character of innovation over time and the role of institutions. The link between reinvention and e‐government raises the possibility that the modernization of state institutions generally facilitates innovation.     

Federal, state, and local governments: evaluating their separate roles in US growth

We use US county level data from 1970 to 1998 to explore the relationship between economic growth and government employment at three levels: federal, state and local. Increases in federal, state and local government employments are all negatively related to economic growth. We find no evidence that government is more efficient at lower levels. While we cannot separate out the productive and redistributive services of government, we document that the county-level income distribution became slightly more unequal from 1970 to 1998. We conclude that a release of government-employed labor inputs to the private sector would be growth-enhancing.     

Guilds,corporations and socialist theory

This book is reviewed as an example of the manner in which cultural critique approaches the question of the formation and regulation of personal capacities and conducts. Despite its sophistication and power, it is argued that the dialectical character of this critique leaves it incapable of interrogating its two central objects: subjectivity and government. As a results, Donald's critique retains the notion of subjectivity and its unconscious formation as the essential site of resistance to government. Against this oppositional cultural politics it is argued that human agency has no single general (subjective) form that might be captured by or freed from government. It is further argued that the heterogeneity of the instruments and objectives of government robs such a politics of both a general logic of power that might be resisted and any general reason for resistance.     

State,democracy, socialism: introduction

This paper argues that comtemporary developments in democratic politics mark the emergence of a new type of representative government. Current trends such as the weakening of party identification, the decline of political platforms or the increasing role of an élite of media experts may be regarded as undermining the principle of popular government. The paper demonstrates, however, that representative government was not invented as an indirect form of government by the people, but as a wholly original political system resting on principles different from those which organize democracy. Moreover, a number of institutional arrangements were established at the origins of representative government which have been virtually unquestioned since. Political representation has changed much less than is generally assumed. It is true, on the other hand, that the constant principles of representative government have had different consequences depending on the circumstance in which they were implemented. Such differences have generated various forms of political representation. The paper constructs three ideal-types of representative government. It shows that the current situation is best conceived as the rise of a new type of representation.     

Market imperfections,government imperfections,and policy mixes: policy innovations in Singapore

Proper roles for government and market in addressing policy problems may be assessed by considering the duality between market imperfections and government imperfections. The potential of government interventions or market mechanisms as core policy instruments can be eroded by fundamental deficiencies deeply rooted in either government or market as social institutions. The impacts of such deficiencies are much more extensive than postulated by the existing theories. Analysis here, based on policy innovations in land transport and health care in Singapore, suggests how policy mixes might become the norm of response for addressing policy problems found in a range of sectors. The analytical framework presented may help to distinguish among different policy mixes according to their effectiveness, but also provides some useful guiding principles for policy design.     

Contractualism, Democracy and Ethics

Contractualism, as concept and practice, may be defined in different ways (Yeatman 1995, 1998). In this article I am concerned with contracting out or outsourcing as it is otherwise known. That is, I focus upon the process whereby functions undertaken formerly by government are now performed by private or voluntary organisations in a contractual relationship with public service departments and agencies. Whereas departments and agencies once provided a full panoply of services directly, government purchasers now select providers by tendering competitively for an expanding range of employment, education, health, social welfare and local government services. Contractualism, then, involves the recon-figuation of public service provision to favour quasi-commercial rather than bureaucratic forms.     

Distance,services, and citizen perceptions of the state in rural Africa

In most poor countries, basic services in rural areas are less accessible and of lower quality than those in urban settings. In this article, we investigate the subnational geography of service delivery and its relationship with citizens' perceptions of their government by analyzing the relationship between service access, satisfaction with services and government, and the distance to urban centers for more than 21,000 survey respondents across 17 African countries. We confirm that access to services and service satisfaction suffer from a spatial gradient. However, distant citizens are less likely than their urban peers to translate service dissatisfaction into discontent with their government; distant citizens have more trust in government and more positive evaluations of both local and national officials. Our findings suggest that increasing responsiveness and accountability to citizens as a means of improving remote rural services may face more limits than promoters of democratic governance and citizen‐centered accountability presume.     

Federalism, Republicanism, and the Northwest Ordinance

The Northwest Ordinance, enacted by the Congress of the Confederationon 13 July 1787, addressed in its own way the two crises facingthe Framers in Philadelphia: the crisis of the Union and thecrisis of republican government. It gave government to the NorthwestTerritory, which had been created for the sake of the Unionand with an eye to the security of republicanism. That territorywas destined to be a matrix of new states, equal members ofthe Union and republican in form. The working out of those principles,commanded by the Declaration and foreshadowing the Constitution,is traced from Jefferson's plan of 1784 to the Ordinance of1787. The uncultivated and intractable character of the frontiersman,making his attachment to the Union and his capacity for self-governmentdubious, presented a special problem. It is seen how the NorthwestOrdinance, establishing government, procuring certain socialand economic conditions, and inducing proper habits and opinions,sought to make the expansion of the Union an extension of republicanism.