Big Data and U.S. Public Policy

This paper examines the growing recognition of the phenomenon called “Big Data” and the policy implications it poses. It is argued that a core policy issue is personal and organizational privacy. At the same time there is a belief that analysis of “Big Data” offers potentially to provide public sector policy makers with extensive new information that would inform policy at unprecedentedly detailed levels. Despite this potential to improve the policy‐making process data often contain individual identifiable information that would negatively impact American core values such as privacy. This makes the use of these data almost impossible. The paper recognizes that there may be a way to strip individual data from Big Data sets thereby making their analysis more policy useful. This approach is not at this time technically feasible but research is ongoing.     

公共政策活动中的公共利益与政府利益

公共利益是公共政策的灵魂和目的,公共决策者面临的首要问题就是确定并实现公共利益.公共政策主要是政府的政策,政府在制定政策时通常选择那些与社会整体利益一致的方面,同时也要考虑自身的利益,在此基础上综合平衡和协调各种利益关系,通过公共政策为实现公共利益而在各个社会成员间进行利益分配.这种利益分配须立足于组织使命的完成和最高目标的实现,因而也是有代价的,为此,必须使政策符合法律的基本要求.达到政策行为规范化,而要做到这些必须使政策尽可能做到社会公正,并努力使政治决策系统接受,这样,政府的政策才有合法性和权威性.     

Homeland Security and the U.S. Public Management Policy Agenda

The U.S. has been described as an "uninteresting laggard" in comparative public management policy. The passage of the Homeland Security Act in 2002 demands a reevaluation of this label. The Act created the Department of Homeland Security, but also marked a dramatic shift toward greater public personnel flexibility, both for the new Department and the entire federal government. It is tempting to suggest that the Act is an effort to "catch up" with the New Public Management benchmark countries. However, such an argument is overly simplistic and misleading. This article argues that the Act represents a triumph of a preexisting management agenda that was successfully tied to the issue of security during a political window of opportunity. The management agenda of the Bush administration pursues many of the concerns of the Clinton era, but does so with a more top-down and centralized interpretation of flexibility, reflecting an executive-centered philosophy toward government and a willingness to tackle the dominant stakeholder in this area, public service unions.     

Campaign Contributions and U.S. Foreign Policy Outcomes: An Analysis of Cuban American Interests

To what extent are ethnic minority interest groups able to influence U.S. foreign policy? Current case study research has identified several factors that may condition the ability of diasporic groups to influence foreign policy toward ancestral “homelands.” To this point, existing studies have been unable to isolate the impact of campaign contributions from other factors that may influence U.S. foreign policy decision making. The current study uses a combination of conditional and standard logistic regression to examine the impact of Cuban American interest group and individual campaign contributions on a series of votes on key amendments in the 108^th and 109^th Congresses. Results from the study support the idea that the Cuban diasporic community in the United States has had an impact on U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba. However, there are significant limits to this influence conditioned in part by issue salience.     

The International Economic Interests of U.S. States

During the 1970s, global interdependence penetrated deeply intothe U.S. economy, drawing state governments into novel internationaltrade and investment activities. State promotional programssought to capture revenue and job creation benefits from exportexpansion and foreign investment inflows, while other stateactions attempted to minimize costly local disruptions associatedwith import competition and foreign control of resources. Asforeign and domestic economic factors intertwined, nationaljurisdiction in matters of foreign affairs increasingly overlappedtraditional state government prerogatives concerning economicdevelopment and citizen welfare. State governments began directlobbying on international issues, leading to both complementaryand conflictual national-state positions. As the United Statesadjusts to an interdependent global economy, a new internationaldimension will be added to federal relationships. National andstate officials must fashion creative new instruments to accommodatediverse domestic political and economic needs while still exertingpositive leadership in international economic forums.     

试论公共政策的公共利益取向

中外学者从不同角度论述了政府公共性的含义 ,认为政府的公共政策只能以公共利益为价值取向 ,政府及其公共政策是致力于实现社会公共利益 ,还是仅仅为少数人、少数集团的特殊利益服务 ,政府及其公共政策实现公共利益的能力和程度 ,是制定和评价政府及其政策的正当性、有效性的基本标准。     

Policy voting in U.S. House primaries

ABSTRACT

This paper uses exit surveys of voters in four House primaries to ask how well voters are able to use primaries for the purpose of giving policy direction to their congressional parties. The surveys found that nearly half of voters could not recall the names of any candidate and that 11% were uncertain or could not recall for whom they had just voted. The surveys also found that nearly 40% of voters could not offer a political evaluation – that is, a like or dislike having political content – about any candidate, and that fewer than a quarter could offer political evaluations of as many as two candidates. The surveys found no evidence of policy-motivated voting in three of the four primaries, but substantial evidence of it in one. Yet even in that one race, voters split their support among three candidates sharing majority voter opinion on the key election issue and thereby opened the way for nomination of a candidate not sharing majority opinion. The paper concludes from this evidence that voters in these House primaries, and probably more widely, made little use of them for the purpose of giving policy direction to their parties.     

The U.S. National Security Strategy: Policy, Process, Problems

Since 1986, presidents have been required to submit an annual National Security Strategy (NSS). Recent years have seen a proliferation of national strategies of other kinds, linked in part to the NSS. The National Security Council, led by the national security advisor and employing its committee system and the interagency process, develops the NSS. The integration of all the necessary elements within the NSS involves an opaque and irregular set of rolling negotiations among national security principals. The 2006 NSS is best viewed in comparison to the 2002 version, which was issued in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. It stipulates that the United States is at war with transnational terrorism fueled by a perversion of Islam and proposes stable democracy as the primary solution, supported by aggressive efforts to control the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the option of taking preemptive military action. Criteria for assessing national security strategies can be process oriented or results based.     

Introduction: Immigration and U.S. Integration, Policy Reforms, and Economic Change

The economic and political ramifications of immigration will become increasingly evident in the United States during the coming decade, particularly in view of recent immigration policies that guarantee that the magnitude and diversity of the inflow will continue to grow. This symposium presents research that examines the role of immigrants in industrial restructuring and evaluates the effects of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. The importance of English language skills for economic advancement, and of government-supported training for refugees, are also examined. Together, this body of research directs our attention to the need for a more active public and private sector role in assisting all U.S. workers prepare for the demands of the labor market of the future.     

The Auditing of Public Policy and the Politics of Auditing: The U.S. GAO and Israel's State Comptroller

A purist conception of audit independence appears to be obsolete. A survey of audit activities of the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) and Israel's State Comptroller describes pressures on audit bodies to examine sensitive policy issues and to enter partisan and personal squabbles between elected officials. The critique of the GAO by the National Academy of Public Administration recommends that legislators refrain from asking the audit body to deal with politically sensitive issues. In order to salvage something from the principle of audit independence, it appears more realistic to urge diligence on the part of the supreme auditor.     

Europeanisation,Public Goals and Group Interests: Convergence Policy in Greece, 1990-2003

After prolonged stagnation in the 1980s and early 1990, Greece during the past decade or so has experienced a change from its post-war statist economic policy paradigm towards a liberal model. Focusing on political and political-economic aspects, this article gives an account of the reform of state interventionism in the 1990s. Different hypotheses are consistent with explaining distinct aspects of this policy change. The general interest and Europeanisation hypotheses are mainly borne out by macroeconomic stabilisation measures, but they cannot explain failure or delay in structural adjustment. The latter are better understood on the basis of public choice institutionalism and approaches emphasising uncertainty.     

Leadership and Public Service Motivation in U.S. Federal Agencies

ABSTRACT

This analysis of over 6,900 federal employees’ responses to the Merit Principles Survey 2000 examines the influences of leadership and motivational variables, and especially public service motivation, on the “outcome” variables job satisfaction, perceived performance, quality of work, and turnover intentions. CFA confirms a factor structure for transformation-oriented leadership (TOL), public service-oriented motivation (PSOM), transaction-oriented leadership (TSOL), and extrinsically oriented motivation (EOM). Multivariate regression analysis shows that TOL and PSOM, as well as interaction effects of TOL-TSOL and TOL-PSOM, have strong relations to the outcome variables. SEM analysis examines direct and indirect effects of the main variables. Overall, the results indicate that TOL and PSOM have more positive relations to the outcome variables than do TSOL and EOM. The combination of high TOL and high PSOM has the strongest positive, and hence desirable, relation with organizational outcomes. Among this very large sample of federal employees, those who perceived their leader as displaying TOL (i.e., leadership that is encouraging, supportive, informative, and that emphasizes high standards) also expressed higher levels of PSOM and higher levels of job satisfaction, perceived performance and work quality, and lower turnover intentions. The SEM analysis further indicates that TOL has these effects by way of empowerment, goal clarification, and PSOM, and is distinct from TSOL (transaction-oriented) leadership, which shows no such relationships.     

How Public Opinion Constrains the U.S. Supreme Court

Although scholars increasingly acknowledge a contemporaneous relationship between public opinion and Supreme Court decisions, debate continues as to why this relationship exists. Does public opinion directly influence decisions or do justices simply respond to the same social forces that simultaneously shape the public mood? To answer this question, we first develop a strategy to control for the justices' attitudinal change that stems from the social forces that influence public opinion. We then propose a theoretical argument that predicts strategic justices should be mindful of public opinion even in cases when the public is unlikely to be aware of the Court's activities. The results suggest that the influence of public opinion on Supreme Court decisions is real, substantively important, and most pronounced in nonsalient cases.     

The Armenian-American Lobby and Its Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy

Most of the few studies and press articles dealing with the U.S. Armenian lobby have tended to insist on this lobby’s successes, regarded as impressive and disproportionate. This has generated a few problems in its global understanding, especially with regards to its impact on U.S. foreign policy, and has contributed to shape a generalized perception of a “small” lobby, capable of considerable influence on U.S. foreign policy. The main goal of this article is to question this common perception in order to propose a more accurate evaluation of this lobby. Mostly thanks to its influence in Congress, it has succeeded in getting positive results, particularly concerning U.S. financial assistance to Armenia. However, it has also experienced some failures, particularly on issues related to Turkey or American energy policy.