The life and times of Gordon Tullock

Gordon Tullock is a founding father of public choice. In an academic career that has spanned 50 years, he forged much of the research agenda of the public choice program and he founded and edited Public Choice, the key journal of public choice scholarship. Tullock, however did much more than this. This Special Issue of Public Choice honors Gordon Tullock in precisely the manner that he most values: the creation of new ideas across the vast range of his own scholarly interests.     

Gordon Tullock: His journal and his scholarship

The results presented here suggest that Public Choice is broadly cited by economists and political scientists. The journal currently ranks, approximately, in the middle of the pack with respect to various citation measures. Also, since the late seventies, the journal's ranking has improved significantly relative to both social science journals and to comparable economics journals. Some of the papers published in Public Choice are well cited and several made a significant impact on the thinking of scholars in both economics and political science. Either through his work as editor or through his articles, the thought of Gordon Tullock is well represented in the elite group of articles published in Public Choice.The analysis of citations in Section 4 shows that Tullock's ideas and writing have had considerable impact on the thinking of economists. His contributions are substantial, often multi-disciplinary, and certain to be enduring.     

The unfinished business of public choice

Over the past fifty years, the public choice research program has generated important insights into collective decision-making processes, especially as they operate within the political institutions of Europe and North America. Despite a half-century of progress, a great deal of unfinished business remains on the public choice research agenda. In the course of assessing the current state of the literature, as represented in the contributions to this special issue of Public Choice, this essay identifies some of the unanswered questions.     

Campaign finance reform and electoral competition: Comment

Campaign finance regulation is an important issue for democracies. Proponents of stricter contribution limits believe it will improve competitiveness. Opponents argue that contribution caps are just a mask for incumbency protection. This paper comments on John Lott’s 2006 article in “Campaign Finance Reform and Electoral Competition” in Public Choice.     

Peacock and Wiseman on the growth of public expenditure

This is a new initiative forPublic Choice. From time to time, the Editors will offer a point of view on a topical issue in public choice. The intent of Editor's Notes is to stimulate discussion and possibly research on such controversial and timely issues. The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation.     

Public choice in the new century

This special issue of Public Choice was designed to afford leading scholars the opportunity to summarize the current state of the public choice literature in key areas of public policy concern and to offer their thoughts about future directions of research. By laying out public choice frameworks for analyzing some of the major challenges confronting democratic governments at the dawn of the 21st century, the issue’s overarching goal is to demonstrate the vibrancy and continuing relevance of the public choice research program.     

Public choice in a local government setting

From its beginnings, public choice has always had a substantial component devoted to federalism and local government decision-making. The DeVoe Moore Center at Florida State University has made the study of local government within a public choice framework a core component of its mission. The Center held a conference February 17?C19, 2011, on public choice in a local government setting. This special issue of Public Choice contains the papers presented at that conference.     

The intellectual legacy of Gordon Tullock

Gordon Tullock is one of the world’s leading economists. Even more so than Chicago’s Gary Becker, Tullock has extended the rational choice model into areas previously judged to lie outside the realm of economics. This essay identifies Tullock’s contributions to constitutional political economy, public choice, bureaucracy, the law, and bio-economics. The essay focuses attention most especially on Tullock’s pioneering contributions to public choice, including his twenty-year editorship of Public Choice.     

An analysis of contributions and contributors to Public Choice and the Journal of Law and Economics; 1973–1987

Several conclusions may be drawn from the information we have presented here. First and without doubt, the University of Chicago is by far the most dominant force overall, and is particularly so with respect to the production of pages and papers published in the Journal of Law and Economics. The George Mason-Virginia Tech influence is strong with respect to Public Choice, but is not, in our opinion, dominant.One does not necessarily need to be located at a large, research-oriented school in order to publish in either journal, but these schools are the source of most contributions. This is particularly true of the JLE but significantly less so for PC. The source of contributions is very broad, but top 50 institutions account for the lion's share. Contributions by persons employed at foreign institutions are important, particularly for PC.     

The dual illusion of grants-in-aid on central and local expenditures: A reply

In this Journal, Chu [Chu, H. Y. (2003). Public Choice, 114: 349–359] offered corrections for “inconsistencies” in the Logan model of dual fiscal illusion.] Logan, R. R. (1986). Journal of Political Economy,94: 1304–1318]. This paper shows that Logan (1986) introduced two prevailing models of fiscal illusion and chose to follow one of them for generalization. Chu has not corrected any “inconsistencies”. He has instead offered a generalization of the other type of illusion. This paper demonstrates that the Chu generalization suffers from multiple irrational and unachievable results, which is why Logan (1986) chose the original version in the first place.     

Terrorist Attacks on Western Civilization

This special issue of Public Choice is designed to afford leading scholars the opportunity to apply the principles of public choice, law and economics, and the economics of religion in analyzing the nature and consequences of the early twenty-first century assault by Islamic terrorist groups on Western civilization. These attacks are designed to wipe out all the religious, economic, legal and political advances of more than half a millennium that have occurred in the West following the awakening in the fifteenth century of a Renaissance that broke the religious yoke imposed by the medieval Roman Catholic Church. The terrorists are motivated by hatred, intermingled with envy, of Western civilization, and by a willingness to deploy wanton mayhem as a vengeful response to their own perceived helplessness before the ruthless autocracies that dominate their Middle Eastern environments. By their actions, these terrorist groups intend to restore a fundamentalist Islamic Caliphate across the Muslim world and to eliminate all links with the advanced democracies. By successfully analyzing the rational choice nature of this serious threat to modernity, the special issue demonstrates the continuing relevance of the public choice research program in an increasingly dangerous world.     

Determining the classics in social choice

Determination of classic papers and books in any field is of interest and importance to scholars and others interested in the subject areas. Since social/public choice is such a rapidly growing field of increasing importance it seems particularly relevant that we pay tribute to the founders. One means of doing this is to analyze citations to their most important works. This process allows us to simultaneously observe the depth and breadth to which the seminal ideas in the sub-discipline have penetrated the world of social science scholarship. My methodology produces somewhat different results than those reported in the 1981 Public Choice paper by Downing and Stafford. This is not to say that their method is inferior, but that different methods produce differing results which provide readers with a wider range of information about important works in social choice.This paper was considerably improved by comments from Jay Shogren.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this issue. The Dogs of Journalism. STEVEN BARNETT. Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies. Public intellectual: The art of making oneself up. Richard Mullender. Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers, Volume 4, by Richard Rorty. The Second Plane: September 11: 2001–2007, by Martin Amis. Planning and all that. Matthew Grant. From Dreams to Disillusionment: Economic and Social Planning in 1960s Britain, by Glen O'Hara. Let a hundred flowers bloom. Munira Mirza Provoking Democracy: Why We Need the Arts, by Caroline Levine. How to change your brains. Dick Pountain On Deep History and the Brain, by Daniel Lord Smail. ‘Clean’ torture. Caroline Fournet Torture and Democracy, by Darius Rejali. Reforming Italy. Gianfranco Pasquino Political Institutions in Italy, by Maurizio Cotta and Luca Verzichelli. Choice and competition in health care. Jennifer Dixon The Other Invisible Hand: Delivering Public Services through Competition and Choice, by Julian Le Grand, Afterword by Alain Enthoven. Who is afraid of politics?. Meg Russell Politics and the People: A History of British Democracy since 1918, by Kevin Jefferys. Why Politics Matters: Making Democracy Work, by Gerry Stoker, Palgrave Macmillan. Why We Hate Politics, by Colin Hay.     

A “review” of policy sciences: bibliometric analysis of authors,references, and topics during 1970–2017

Even as Policy Sciences celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, there is no systematic account of the research that has been published in the journal. This article reports the findings of a bibliometric analysis of 1027 publications in this journal during 1970–2017. It identifies the authors who have contributed to the journal, the works that have influenced them, and the topics they have studied.     

Assessing JPAM after 20 Years

JPAM aims to be the principal research journal for public policy scholars. A citation analysis of JPAM and competitor journals for the period 1986–1995 shows that JPAM's most frequently cited articles are cited more often than those of other broad policy journals, about as often as those in journals on specific policy areas, except for health policy, and less often than principally methodological journals. JPAM does meet its goal of serving as an outlet primarily for public policy scholars and it covers a wide range of policy topics. A survey of subscribers shows correspondingly broad interests and that members rated the journal among their most valued. However, few articles are frequently cited, very few of the citations appear in major journals, and the range of disciplines represented is narrow. Some suggestions are offered for strengthening the journal. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Editorial Report on Public Administration Review, 2006–2011: A Global Graduate Seminar,a Privilege,and a Challenge

In this final wrap‐up, PAR’s editor in chief, Richard Stillman, and managing editor, Jos C. N. Raadschelders, summarize the last six years of the journal’s objectives, contents, and accomplishments. The authors broadly discuss their editorial activities, past and present, and candidly and succinctly outline the ongoing challenges facing PAR in the future as the leading global journal for interdisciplinary public administration.     

Trends in the Study of Public Administration: Empirical and Qualitative Observations from Public Administration Review, 2000–2009

What are the apparent research and methodological trends in PAR’s content over the past decade? From the perspective of the journal’s 70‐year history, with its aim to “mesh” practitioner and academic knowledge creation, topical coverage since 2000 reflects striking continuity, emphasizing many of the “bread and butter” administrative issues such as planning, human resources, budgeting, and public management. A marked increase in coverage is apparent in the application of more sophisticated quantitative statistical methodology, as well as in the number of female authors, while the number of practitioner authors declined sharply. Throughout the first turbulent decade of the twenty‐first century, three intellectual themes stood out: evaluations of New Public Management, connections between practitioners and academicians, and responsiveness to immediate social, economic, and political challenges. Given the constant demand for usable knowledge, scholars seem to have marginalized attention to the historical context and epistemological foundations of the study. The central challenge in the years ahead will be to effectively use research methods in response to the big questions of government and society that defy measurement. Since many [empiricists], especially the younger, do not know very much about epistemology, they tend to be quite dogmatic about the one set of canons that dominate them. —C. Wright Mills, 1959     

The New Public Service Revisited

The New Public Service describes a set of norms and practices that emphasize democracy and citizenship as the basis for public administration theory and practice. This article revisits some of the core arguments of the New Public Service and examines how they have been practiced and studied over the past 15 years. The authors conclude that neither the principles of the New Public Service nor those of the New Public Management have become a dominant paradigm, but the New Public Service, and ideas and practices consistent with its ideals, have become increasingly evident in public administration scholarship and practice.     

Sequential contests revisited

In a past issue of this journal, Morgan (Public Choice 116:1–18, 2003) finds that aggregate effort is greater in sequential than in simultaneous lottery contests. We show that Morgan’s result is incorrect owing to a slip in a proof, and that aggregate effort turns out to be greater in sequential contests only if the contestants are sufficiently homogeneous. Additionally, we discuss the robustness of the corrected result to different specifications of the contest success function, and we partially restore Morgan’s case for sequential contests by showing that these contests are more desirable when maximizing only the effort of the winner, rather than maximizing the aggregate effort.