Museum Outreach Programs to Promote Community Engagement in Local Environmental Issues

Ideas of ‘community’ and ‘community voice’ have been mobilised in collaborative programs developed between the National Museum of Australia and the Murray‐Darling Basin Commission since 1992. This collaboration is set within a broader context of changing ideas and practice around governance, community and environmental issues. The recent Murray‐Darling Outreach Project (MDOP), a series of museum outreach projects with regional communities aiming to increase community engagement in local environmental issues in the Murray‐Darling Basin, is specifically examined. Evaluation research on the MDOP found that the approach to program development significantly shaped the types of voices, range of issues presented and the nature of the communicative forums established. The potential impacts on online audiences are discussed along with broader implications for government agencies involved in community partnerships.     

Social Equity and COVID-19: The Case of African Americans

Emerging statistics demonstrate that COVID-19 disproportionately affects African Americans. The effects of COVID-19 for this population are inextricably linked to areas of systemic oppression and disenfranchisement, which are exacerbated by COVID-19: (1) health care inequality; (2) segregation, overall health, and food insecurity; (3) underrepresentation in government and the medical profession; and (4) inequalities in participatory democracy and public engagement. Following a discussion of these issues, this essay shares early and preliminary lessons and strategies on how public administration scholars and practitioners can lead in crafting equitable responses to this global pandemic to uplift the African American community.     

Contemporary Challenges in Local Government: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities,Structures, and Processes

Editor's Note: The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2014. This article is the first of several that will appear during the next year about the council‐manager plan to commemorate ICMA's 100th anniversary. Three contemporary leadership challenges face local governments today. The first encourages department heads to more actively work the intersection between political and administrative arenas. The second promotes collaborative work, synchronizing city and county boundaries with problems that have no jurisdictional homes. The third argues that citizen engagement is no longer optional—it is imperative—and that connecting engagement initiatives to traditional political values and governing processes is an important mark of successful community building. These three leadership challenges stem from a widening gap between the arenas of politics and administration—that is, between what is politically acceptable in public policy making and what is administratively sustainable. The gap is fueled by conflicting trends experienced locally and common internationally. Failure to bridge this gap between political acceptability and administrative sustainability results in decreasing legitimacy for governing institutions and increasing challenges.     

Welfare-Consequentialism: A Vaccine for Populism?

This article is about two ideologies. Welfare-consequentialism holds that government should adopt the policies that can rationally be expected to maximise aggregate welfare. Populism holds that society is divided into a pure people and a corrupt elite, and asserts that public policy should express the general will of the people. The responses of world governments to the coronavirus pandemic have clearly illustrated the contrast between these ideologies, and the danger that populist government poses to human wellbeing. The article argues that welfare-consequentialism offers a vaccine for populism. First, it rebuts populism’s claims about who government is for and what it should do. Second, the pessimism and distrust that make people crave populism can be satiated by successful welfare-consequentialist government. Finally, welfare-consequentialism’s sunny narrative of progress can be just as compelling to people as populism’s dark story has proven to be.     

How Structural Variations in Collaborative Governance Networks Influence Advocacy Involvement and Outcomes

Collaborative governance is intended to solve complex problems and promote democratic outcomes by connecting ground‐level stakeholders with government. In order for these goals to be met, however, participants must have meaningful influence and opportunities for voice. Using national survey data from Continuums of Care (CoCs) mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, this article investigates what structural characteristics of collaborative governance networks are related to promoting stakeholder inclusion and voice through policy advocacy involvement. Specifically, it investigates which network characteristics are associated with (1) the frequency of advocacy involvement by the network, (2) providers' engagement in and influence over that advocacy, and (3) the CoC having stronger relationships with policy makers. Findings show significant relationships between greater network capacity and network advocacy, and between network governance structure and provider engagement and influence in that advocacy. Networks have stronger relationships with policy makers when providers are more engaged, providers have more influence, network capacity is higher, and direct advocacy tactics are used.     

Looking Back over My 45 Years of Involvement with Government Reform Efforts

This Viewpoint presents a typology of options for future government reformers to help guide the design and implementation of a reform initiative, based on the author's experiences and observations over the past 45 years. Successful reformers need to be clear up front about what they are attempting to achieve and frame their efforts in ways that maximize the success and sustainability of the effort. In this article, the author offers a series of questions and answers to help future reformers choose among various design and implementation options and to help them chart their paths.     

Unpacking a Wicked Problem: Enablers/Impediments to Regional Engagement

A case study approach is applied to review Local Government Authorities (LGA) regional engagement in the Australian context. We address the question ‘What are the key LGA enablers/impediments to regional engagement?’ by applying Leydesdorff's (2000) proposition that triple helix type network systems exhibit patterns of complex behaviour if the interaction factors that trigger enablers are reflexively declared. The three strands of the LGA triple helix network system are institutions, industry and government. In this case study the LGA's overall management of its regional stakeholder relationships resulted in impediments that limit strong regional engagement. Importantly, the findings inform practitioners, policy‐makers and research audiences of the nature of impediments and, by inference, the nature of enablers in LGA triple helix network systems.     

Network Governance and Public Participation in Policy‐Making: Federal Community Cabinets in Australia

The Australian Labor Party's (ALP) 2007 Policy Platform asserted ‘Labor will pursue new and innovative measures designed to foster greater participation and engagement of the Australian population in the political process’ ( Manwaring 2010 ). As such they seemed to have a clear commitment to a more participatory form of democracy. This commitment appeared to be reflected in two initiatives they introduced in power: the 2020 Summit (on this see Fawcett, Manwaring and Marsh 2011 ) and federal community cabinets. More broadly it could be argued that Labor were following a trend identified internationally as a move from government to governance, more specifically to ‘network governance’ (Rhodes 1997) in which governments encouraged greater participation in policy‐making, recognising that governments could at best steer, not row. Indeed, as Marinetto contends ( 2003 : 593), this idea has taken on a ‘semblance of orthodoxy’ in discussions of public policy.     

Taking Nonprofit Intermediaries Seriously: A Middle‐Range Theory for Implementation Research

The federal government often works through nonprofit intermediaries to reach and empower communities in the United States. One increasingly popular policy strategy is to offer grant funding to intermediary organizations in an effort to strengthen communities. Funded intermediaries are tasked with building the capacity of faith‐based and community organizations at the local level, but the policy theory that informs these programs does not specify how these capacity‐building efforts will lead to stronger communities. Missing is a middle‐range implementation theory that links inputs to community‐level changes through the actions of an intermediary. Derived from empirical case study evidence using process‐tracing analysis, the theory of the community‐integrated intermediary posited in this article helps fill that gap.     

Depoliticization,Citizenship, and the Politics of Community in Hong Kong

This article critically examines the government discourses on citizenship and community in Hong Kong from the 1960s to the present. By making special reference to the government's discourses on three public events—the 1966 Hong Kong Government 1966 Report of the Working Party on Local Administration Hong Kong Government Printer  [Google Scholar] Star Ferry riots, the 1981 riots, and scuffles such as those that took place at the Cultural Center, Tsimshatsui, on Christmas and New Year's Eve of 2002—it reconstructs the meaning of good citizenship as promoted by the Hong Kong colonial and Special Administrative Region (SAR) governments, respectively. These three public events are selected as cases highly indicative of what the government expects an ideal citizen to be because all of them aroused substantial public attention which subsequently invoked considerable government discourses and action. Citizenship is built upon a shared sense of community. Considered in this context, this article also traces the understanding of community of the governments, as it is intertwined with the notion of citizenship, through the development of government policies on youth and citizen education in the city from the 1960s onward. It is obvious that citizenship is constituted from both above (by the government) and below (by the civil society). By reconstructing the government discourses in this regard, this paper will shed light on part of the process of citizenship making in Hong Kong.     

Enhancing the Legitimacy of Local Government Pandemic Influenza Planning through Transparency and Public Engagement

Ethical issues in an influenza pandemic often require local government officials to make unprecedented, complex decisions. Effective planning with significant input from key community stakeholders is required well ahead of time in order to anticipate and mitigate a serious health crisis. The author evaluates the pandemic plans of 28 large cities across the United States using criteria derived from guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The analysis reveals that planning legitimacy can be enhanced by wider transparency and civic engagement, greater opportunities for the inclusion of all stakeholders in decision making, mock community‐wide exercises and drills, as well as more public access to comprehensive emergency planning information.     

The Health Care Safety Net and the Affordable Care Act: Implications for Hispanic Immigrants

There are currently more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States; the majority of them are of Hispanic origin. This article shows that Hispanic immigrants in the Greater Richmond, Virginia, area rely heavily on free clinics for basic health care services. Free clinics do not receive any public funding and thus face reduced government regulation. As a result, these clinics typically present fewer barriers to undocumented immigrants seeking care. Although free clinics function outside the mainstream of government funding for health care services, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 is so broad and far‐reaching in its scope and potential application that free clinics cannot escape its grasp once the new law is fully implemented. Because the ACA does not provide insurance coverage to undocumented immigrants, free clinics will remain their primary sources of care and treatment. Consequently, those responsible for implementing the ACA should consider the impact on free clinics.     

Measuring the Impact of Community Engagement on Policy Making in the UK: A Local Case Study

Innovative attempts to involve citizens in policy making have been one of the defining features of the New Labour government in the UK. In this article, we examine the nature and impact of community engagement mechanisms within the flagship regeneration programme—the New Deal for Communities. Through interviews with practitioners, analysis of survey data and participant observation of governance boards we examine the methods and impact of initiatives to engage residents in policy making. While it is apparent that innovative strategies have been put in place to engage and empower communities in local policy making, this has not always been matched by the development of tools for measuring the impact of involvement or for scrutinizing the policy development and decision-making process. More people may have got involved, but little is known about precisely what effect their involvement has had upon policies at the local level. Consultation, or just publicizing what is happening and community involvement in decision-making are often conflated, and there is only a limited attempt to delineate and quantify the impact of each. It is also evident that information gathered as a result of some community engagement initiatives is not easily linked to policy development and is not always utilized in the policy process. For community involvement to become a meaningful and sustainable aspect of local policy making, an appropriate infrastructure needs to be developed to ensure that the decision-making process is transparent and accountable, and that the input from citizens genuinely informs decision-making.     

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.     

State of the field: What can political ethnography tell us about anti-politics and democratic disaffection?

This article adopts and reinvents the ethnographic approach to uncover what governing elites do, and how they respond to public disaffection. Although there is significant work on the citizens’ attitudes to the governing elite (the demand side) there is little work on how elites interpret and respond to public disaffection (the supply side). It is argued here that ethnography is the best available research method for collecting data on the supply side. The article tackles longstanding stereotypes in political science about the ethnographic method and what it is good for, and highlights how the innovative and varied practices of contemporary ethnography are ideally suited to shedding light into the ‘black box’ of elite politics. The potential pay-off is demonstrated with reference to important examples of elite ethnography from the margins of political science scholarship. The implications from these rich studies suggest a reorientation of how one understands the drivers of public disaffection and the role that political elites play in exacerbating cynicism and disappointment. The article concludes by pointing to the benefits to the discipline in embracing elite ethnography both to diversify the methodological toolkit in explaining the complex dynamics of disaffection, and to better enable engagement in renewed public debate about the political establishment.     

A Comparative Assessment of Elite Policy Recruits in Canada

Recent case studies and large-N survey evidence has confirmed long-suspected shortages of public sector “policy capacity”. Studies have found that government policy workers in various jurisdictions differ considerably with respect to types of policy work they undertake, and have identified uneven capacity for policy workers to access and apply technical and scientific knowledge to public issues. This suggests considerable difficulties for government’s ability to meet contemporary policy and governance challenges. Despite growing attention to these matters, studies have not examined the “elite” policy workers many governments recruit to address these capacity shortages. Using an established survey instrument, this study of two Canadian recruitment programs provides the first comparative analysis of elite policy recruits, as policy workers. Three research questions anchor the study: (1) What is the profile of these actors? (2) What types of policy work do “elite” policy analysts actually engage in? (3) How does their policy work compare by recruitment program? The article provides fresh comparative data on the nature of elite policy work and policy analytical capacity, but, more importantly, a crucial baseline for future comparative study of how elite recruitment may facilitate “supply-side” capacity gains expected from recruitment programs.     

Local government and urban protest in Colombia

This article examines how urban conflict in Colombia is highlighting important features of local government in that country. Four interrelated questions are asked: (a) What is the role of local government in the provision of public goods and services in urban communities? (b) To what extent has local government been the target of urban community protest? (c) Has local government taken on a petitioner role by being a participant in urban community protest? (d) Does urban protest threaten the system of political domination of which local government is an integral part? The article points to certain key features of local government in Colombia that may be built upon in order to create a more progressive, democratic and community-based system of local government. There are, however, powerful political constraints on this occurring.     

A Whole of Government Strategy for Family Violence Reform

The Family Violence Reform strategy in Victoria is one of a number of contemporary government initiatives that have been framed within a whole of government model of policy reform. This article shows how the principles and processes of the whole of government approach were applied to the social problem of family violence. We examine the reasoning behind the adoption of this approach, what it was intended to achieve, the processes and activities that took place and stakeholders’ views about the outcomes and impact of this approach. The choice of a whole of government strategy reflected the need to address philosophical and organisational cultural differences about family violence and responses to it. Key elements were: the demonstrated commitment to reform and leadership provided by ministers, agency heads and senior managers; the involvement of community sector representatives; and the role of the Department of Planning and Community Development (DPCD).     

Simulation of a Constitutional Spending Limit for a Conservative State: With Dynamic Adjustment and Sensitivity Analysis

Longstanding concern about the rate of state and local government spending growth, strengthened by “Great Recession” economic and fiscal conditions, sustains advocacy of constitutional amendments to cap the growth of state and local taxes or spending. For some states, interest recently changed to necessity, and current constitutional limits—most notably the California experience with the Gann Spending limit (1979–1990) and the Colorado experience with its Taxpayer Bill of Rights (1992‐present)—contain numerous valuable lessons for fiscal restraint proponents. We use those lessons, and others, to develop a constitutional spending limit (CSL) for Utah, and describe a CSL simulation for the state for 1990–2009. In contrast to what an “Institutional Irrelevance Perspective” suggests for a politically conservative state such as Utah, we find that Utah would have seen large and robust CSL impacts from setting the spending growth rate at school‐age population plus inflation for K‐12 education funding, and at population plus inflation for remaining nonexempt state spending.¹ Those impacts include a reduced tax burden, sizable reserves to cope with emergencies, elimination of fiscal crises, and expanded personal income. Extensive sensitivity analysis identifies the key underlying factors and demonstrates the robustness of those findings. We compare the Utah results to a 1990–2009 CSL simulation for California, and a 1995–2009 CSL simulation for Ohio.     

Political allegiance and European integration

Under what conditions and to what extent do national publics come to accept the increasing efforts of state elites to build new political institutions that transcend the constitutional frontiers of the nation-state and affect their interests beyond their direct control? This paper explores the role of national publics and social policy in the process of national and European integration. A theory of allegiance is proposed as particularly useful for analyzing this topic. Allegiance is defined as the willingness of a national public to approve of and to support the decisions made by a government, in return for a more or less immediate and straightforward reward or benefit. National publics accept the efforts of their national state elites to build new trans- or supranational political institutions on the condition that this guarantees or reinforces economic (e.g. employment) and social (e.g. income maintenance) security in the national context. European integration depends on a double allegiance, consisting of a primary allegiance to the nation-state and its political elite and a secondary or derived allegiance to the EC or EU. Secondary allegiance, however, exists only to the extent that European integration facilitates nation-states to provide the resources upon which primary allegiance hinges. The theory of double allegiance specifies theoretically the mechanism explaining the link between national economic and social conditions, and public support for the European Union.