State structure and political representation: Comparing the views of statewide and sub‐state legislators across 14 countries

How the recent creation, re‐invention or reinforcement of regional levels of political decision making across Europe compounds political representation is one of the key issues of contemporary democratic government. Despite growing scholarly interest, the critical question as to whether the regional institutional setting has brought about distinct representational roles among sub‐state legislators has yet to be addressed. To advance research in this field, this study bridges the literature on multilevel politics and legislative studies that to date have developed in isolation. Using innovative survey data from 14 statewide and 56 regional legislatures across Europe, it provides the first comprehensive test of how the state structure affects a legislator's views on representation. The results highlight that, relative to legislators in unitary states and national legislators in multilevel states, legislators at the regional level are more constituency‐oriented. Moreover, this heightened responsiveness to constituents at the regional level is not offset by weaker collective representation operating through political parties. Beyond these findings’ immediate relevance to scholars of federalism/regionalisation and parliaments, they also speak to the wider normative debate about the quality of political representation and public policy.     

Public transit and the spatial distribution of minority employment: Evidence from a natural experiment

A recent expansion of the San Francisco Bay Area's heavy rail system represents an exogenous change in the accessibility of inner‐city minority communities to a concentrated suburban employment center. We evaluate this natural experiment by conducting a two‐wave longitudinal survey of firms, with the first wave of interviews conducted immediately before the opening of service, and the second wave approximately a year later. Within‐firm changes in the propensity to hire minority workers for firms near the station were compared with those located farther away. Also estimated was the effect of employer distance to the new stations on changes in propensity to hire minorities. Results indicate a sizable increase in the hiring of Latinos near the new stations, but little evidence of an effect on black hiring rates. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Can child care assistance in welfare and employment programs support the employment of low‐income families?

Policymakers have long recognized child care as a key ingredient in low‐income parents' employability. We examine the effects of expansions in child care policies that were bundled with a mix of employment‐related policies and implemented as part of several random assignment studies on families' child care access and cost. Almost all of these welfare and employment programs increased employment and led to concomitant increases in the use of child care, especially paid child care. Only the programs that also expanded access or affordability of child care consistently increased the use of child care subsidies and reduced out‐of‐pocket costs to parents, allowing parents to purchase center‐based care. With one exception, such programs had small effects on employment‐related child care problems, suggesting that broader and more generous targeting of child care assistance may be important for achieving the goal of enhancing the stability of employment among low‐income families. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Regulation‐by‐information in areas of limited statehood: Lessons from the Philippines' environmental regulation

This research examines conditions under which environmental regulatory disclosure is more versus less likely to work, with focus on the case of the Philippines. Two major findings arise out of a case study. First, we observe a mismatch between the nature of information and the main addressees of the disclosed information, which led the operation of the subject disclosure program to deviate from its targets. Second, this institutional deficiency has to do with the organizational culture and routine practice of the implementing agency. The second finding challenges a major justification of information‐based environmental regulation (IBER) administered in weak states and underscores the role that administrative capacity plays in making novel regulations come into effect. Contrary to the popular belief that IBER creates non‐governmental forces that offset a limited statehood, it may be less likely to work where state administrative capacity is weak.     

First‐Hand Experience and Second‐Hand Information: Changing Trust across Three Levels of Government

Little is known about how different sources of information drive citizen trust in government. To address that gap this article compares disaster evacuees to observers, noting how trust differs as attention to media coverage increases. First‐hand experience supplies information to update trust through biological and personal processes and performance assessments, while secondary sources provide information about other people's experiences, filtered through lenses that take an active role in crafting information. These two types of information have varying effects depending on the level of government being trusted. Using surveys administered a year after Hurricane Katrina, I find that Katrina evacuees have the highest trust in federal government, until they start paying attention to media coverage, and that attention to coverage has the most dramatic effect on these evacuees compared to all other groups. I also find that increasing attention to second‐hand information corresponds with higher trust in local officials, and that this effect decreases as the level of government increases. It appears media coverage creates a comparison in the mind of hurricane evacuees, causing them to update their performance assessments based on comparing their own experience to that which they observe, thereby updating their political trust.     

The effects of an employer subsidy on employment outcomes: A study of the work opportunity and welfare‐to‐work tax credits

Employer subsidies such as the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and the Welfare‐to‐Work Tax Credit (WtW) are designed to encourage employment by partially reimbursing employers for wages paid to certain welfare recipients and other disadvantaged workers. In this paper, I examine the effects of these subsidies on employment, wages, and job tenure using unique administrative data from Wisconsin. My ability to precisely identify the subsidy‐certified workers allows me to distinguish the effects of program participation from mere eligibility. Using propensity score matching estimation, I find some evidence of short‐term improvements in labor market outcomes, but little evidence of sustained benefits. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Declining employment among young black less‐educated men: The role of incarceration and child support

In this paper, we explore the continuing decline in employment and labor force participation of nonenrolled Black men between the ages of 16 and 34 who have a high school education or less in the 1980s and 1990s. We focus on two fairly new developments: (1) the dramatic growth in the number of young Black men who have been incarcerated and (2) strengthened enforcement of child support policies. We analyze micro‐level data from the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups (CPS‐ORG), into which state‐level data over time on incarceration rates and child support enforcement have been merged. Our results indicate that previous incarceration and child support enforcement can account for half or more of the decline in employment activity among Black men aged 25–34. Previous incarceration also contributes to the decline among those aged 16–24. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Governance conditions,roles and capacity‐building needs in the rebel‐held areas of Southern Sudan

An assessment is made of the state of sustainable human development (SHD) and the institutions of governance that are in the process of being established in the rebel‐held areas of Southern Sudan. The development roles of the main governance actors—government, civil society and the private sector—are examined and capacity‐building needs are described. The importance of good leadership, institutionalised partnerships between government and national and international NGOs, and capacity building for transparency and accountability is stressed. Most pointedly, the risks of allowing governance practices, suited to the management of a liberation struggle, to spill over into the civil administration of a peaceful state are emphasised. The conditions necessary for the institutionalisation of sound governance practices are discussed. Of particular importance are a genuine desire on the part of the leadership to establish such conditions and a willingness on the part of external donors to address issues of accountability and transparency openly in collaboration with the leadership. The data are also suggestive of broad development strategies that address the bases of SHD and empowerment. These broad strategies are designed to improve the very low levels of health and education that exist in the Southern Sudan, and thereby empower people to engage in economic activity and in governance decision‐making. Rehabilitation and maintenance of the physical infrastructure underlies all development activity. The findings highlight the governance difficulties faced by war‐torn societies, the challenges facing post‐crisis administrations and (confirming Caplan 2002) the need for such administrations to possess sufficient executive authority to be able to perform effectively in situations of ‘pre‐state, post‐imperial chaos’. Most critical of all, however, is the genuine interest of the major powers in doing more than—when it suits them—extinguishing the flames of conflict or establishing acquiescent political regimes following the military pacification of ‘rogue’ or anarchic states. Effective post‐crisis administration and development calls for much greater commitment of resources from the major powers than has been forthcoming to date, reflecting a belief among them that equitable and sustainable global development is the preferred route to the prevention of such crises. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Risk and the limits of governance: Exploring varied patterns of risk‐based governance across Europe

Risk‐based approaches to governance are widely promoted as universally applicable foundations for improving the quality, efficiency, and rationality of governance across policy domains. Premised on the idea that governance cannot eliminate all adverse outcomes, these approaches provide a method for establishing priorities and allocating scarce resources, and, in so doing, rationalise the limits of what governance interventions can, and should, achieve. Yet cursory observation suggests that risk‐based approaches have spread unevenly across countries. Based on a comparison of the UK, France, and Germany, this article explores the ways in which, and why, such approaches have “colonised” governance regimes in the UK, but have had much more limited application in France and Germany. We argue that the institutionally patterned adoption of risk‐based governance across these three countries is related to how entrenched governance norms and accountability structures within their national polities handle both the identification and acceptance of adverse governance outcomes.     

Measuring multi‐level regulatory governance: Organizational proliferation,coordination, and concentration of influence

As regulation increasingly results from the interplay of a wide array of different actors operating at different levels, it has become crucial to focus on how these constellations of regulatory actors operate. Although this research field presents huge potential for theoretical development, we still lack the measurement techniques to allow systematic comparative research. We contribute to filling this gap with four indices measuring crucial characteristics of multi‐actor regulatory arrangements: (i) the scope of organizational proliferation; (ii) the extent of coordination between regulatory actors; (iii) the amount of influence that each individual regulatory actor has on the sector regulation; and (iv) the extent to which the regulatory influence is concentrated in the hands of one or a few actors. We argue that our indices are sufficiently systematic, reliable, and flexible to be applied in a variety of research contexts relating to multi‐level and multi‐actor regulatory governance.     

Monitoring across Sectors: Examining the Effect of Nonprofit and For‐Profit Contractor Ownership on Performance Monitoring in State and Local Contracts

What is the effect of contractors' nonprofit and for‐profit ownership on the scope and nature of performance measurement used by government agencies? Quantitative and qualitative data were generated through semistructured interviews administered to a sample of state and local public agencies and private contractors across five jurisdictions. The findings of this study suggest that monitoring officers working with nonprofit rather than for‐profit contractors are more likely to rely on qualitative performance data and examine equitable access to services, contractors' reputation, and compliance with industry rules and regulations. Although organizational ownership may not be well understood by practitioners, performance appears to be conceptualized differently across sectors. The author calls for a better understanding of the impact of the identified differences in performance measurement on the effectiveness of contract monitoring.     

The “brand” of the Catholic Church in England and Wales: Challenges and opportunities for communications

This paper considers the concept of “brand” in relation to religious organisations and, in particular, the Catholic Church in England and Wales. It explores the application of marketing and branding concepts to the Church and reports on perceptions of the Church's brand and identity. The findings show that the Catholic Church in England and Wales has very strong brand equity and high levels of brand loyalty among its members, although conventional marketing language should be avoided due to the sensitivities involved. The findings suggest that the Church could usefully be regarded as a “brand community,” akin in many key respects to brand communities in the commercial sphere. It recommends that Church communications could be enhanced by leveraging the brand more effectively as within a true “brand community” for the purpose of encouraging brand loyalty and energising Church members.     

Politics of E‐Government: E‐Government and the Political Control of Bureaucracy

This case study reports an innovative e‐government experiment by a local government in Seoul, South Korea—Gangnam‐gu. A new local political leadership in Gangnam made strategic use of e‐government applications to exert greater political control over the local civil service bureaucracy. The authors find that e‐government applications possess political properties that can be applied effectively by the political leadership as instruments to improve control over the government bureaucracy as well as to enhance essential government accountability and transparency. The political circumstances underlying e‐government development as well as its impact on local government are reported, along with key variables associated with this innovation and directions for future research.     

With a little help from my neighbours: A spatial analysis of the impact of local campaigns at the 2010 British general election

This article examines the electoral impact of spillover effects in local campaigns in Britain. For the first time, this is applied to the long as well as the short campaign. Using spatial econometric modelling on constituency data from the 2010 general election, there is clear empirical evidence that, in both campaign periods, the more a party spends on campaigning in constituencies adjacent to constituency i, the more votes it gets in constituency i. Of the three major political parties, the Liberal Democrats obtained the greatest electoral payoff. Future empirical analyses of voting at the constituency scale must, therefore, explicitly take account of spatial heterogeneity in order to correctly gauge the magnitude and significance of factors that affect parties' parliamentary performance.     

Confidence and Caretakers: Some Less‐Obvious Implications of the Fixed‐Term Parliaments Act

This article explores the 2011 Fixed‐term Parliaments Act's less‐obvious implications. First, it discusses why Theresa May found calling the 2017 election so straightforward, and notes what this implies for how FTPA works. Second, it looks at executive–legislative relations. FTPA removed the government's ability to designate controversial parliamentary votes as matters of confidence, and introduced a fourteen‐day cushion between a no‐confidence vote and Parliament's dissolution. In the process, it shifted the balance of power from ministers to backbenchers, to an extent potentially greater than most observers recognise. Third, it considers the more outlandish possibilities raised by FTPA's imposition of a fourteen‐day waiting period after a government's defeat on a no‐confidence motion before a new election can be called. It is possible, for example, for rebel MPs from the governing party to use the no‐confidence procedure to force concessions from the cabinet. Finally, it assesses FTPA's long‐term survival prospects, and what repeal would involve.