The Politics of “Entrepreneurial” Economic Development Policy of States in the U.S.

“Entrepreneurial” economic development strategies at the state level in the United States, which focus on nurturing home‐grown, high‐growth businesses, lack immediate payoffs for politically powerful constituencies, a condition that would seem likely to limit their appeal compared to the alternative “locational” strategy of attracting large investments from elsewhere. Nonetheless, many U.S. states have added programs with entrepreneurial attributes to their economic development portfolios in recent years. This paper explores how the political obstacles to such programs have been overcome. In a few cases, an institutional innovation in the policy‐making process drew in new participants who provided ideas for and support to programs with entrepreneurial attributes. More commonly, the preferences of executive branch officials, especially governors, appear to have been critical to the enactment and implementation of such programs. This finding suggests that economic development policy making may be more technocratic than is commonly believed.     

Measuring Financial Condition: A Study of U.S. States

This study tests a measure of financial condition using government‐wide information as required under the new financial reporting model set forth in GASB Statement No. 34. The measure consists of four financial condition dimensions in cash, budget, long‐run and service‐level solvencies, and 11 financial condition indicators. Results show that the measure is relatively reliable and valid and that government‐wide information reported under the requirements of GASB Statement No. 34 provides a useful reporting framework to evaluate financial condition of a government. Additionally, financial condition among states varies greatly and there is much room for improvement.     

Group Components of U.S. Presidential Voting Across the States

Examinations of the sociodemographic group foundations of presidential voting and electoral coalitions rely on national samples (e.g., the American National Election Studies). However, recent developments in the state party and electoral change literature suggest variation across the United States in the group bases of political coalitions and in the process of electoral adjustment. Moreover, the strategic implications of the electoral college suggest a focus on state electorates. We estimate multivariate, group-based logit models of presidential vote choice using 1988 CBS/ New York Times and 1992 Voter Research and Surveys exit poll data from each of the largest states. Our results reveal noteworthy variation in the nature of group influences on presidential voting, in the composition of presidential electoral coalitions, and in cleavage structures across the states. This mapping exercise suggests limitations in theoretical and empirical accounts of presidential voting, political cleavage, and electoral change that do not accommodate the geopolitical diversity of the United States.     

Primacy Implementation of Environmental Policy in the U.S. States

Environmental regulation is frequently implemented through asystem that allows states to choose whether to assume primaryauthority, or "primacy," for implementation and enforcement.This study looks at what causes states to assume this authorityin two important areas of environmental policy: air and waterpollution. It finds that in each policy area, primacy assumptionis unrelated to the "greenness" of state environmental policygenerally and negatively related to indicators of policy innovationwithin that area. Rather than being driven by commitment tothe environment, primacy assumption appears to be driven predominatelyby other factors, which differ substantially across the airand water policy arenas. These findings call into question thewidely held view that primacy assumption is an indicator ofstate environmentalism and indicate that a more nuanced viewof what causes states to assume primacy is necessary to fullyunderstand the dynamics of intergovernmental policy implementation.     

International social security agreements: the U.S. experience

International social security agreements are advantageous both for persons who are working now and for those whose working careers are over. For current workers, the agreements eliminate the dual contributions they might otherwise be paying to the social security systems of both the United States and another country. They also favorably affect the profitability and competitive position of American companies with foreign operations by reducing their cost of doing business. For persons who have worked both in the United States and abroad, and who are now retired, disabled, or deceased, the agreements often result in the payment of benefits to which the worker or the worker's family members would not otherwise have become entitled. Credit for social security coverage the worker earned in the United States and the other country can be combined, if necessary, to meet eligibility requirements, and partial benefits can be paid by one or both countries. Because international social security agreements benefit both workers and employers, the agreements program is supported by organized labor and the international business community. Since the first agreement was signed 15 years ago, every Presidential administration has endorsed the program. In view of this support, and the fact that the agreements enhance the image of the United States as a socially progressive member of the international community, it is expected that totalization agreements will be concluded with additional countries in the future.     

Bottom-Up Federalism: The Diffusion of Antismoking Policies from U.S. Cities to States

Studies of policy diffusion often focus on the horizontal spread of enactments from one state to another, paying little or no attention to the effects of local laws on state-level adoptions. For example, scholars have not tested whether local policy adoptions make state action more likely (through a snowball effect) or less likely (through a pressure valve effect). This study conducts the first comprehensive analysis of vertical policy diffusion from city governments to state governments, while simultaneously examining the influence of state-to-state and national-to-state diffusion. Focusing on three different types of antismoking laws, we find evidence that policies do bubble up from city governments to state governments. State politics are crucial to this relationship, however, as local-to-state diffusion is contingent on the level of legislative professionalism and the strength of health advocates in the state.     

The Rise and Fall of Radical Civil Service Reform in the U.S. States

Initiated by a 1996 Georgia statute, “radical” civil service reform quickly swept the United States. This article explains the wax and eventual wane of state efforts to increase the number of at‐will employees at the expense of the population of fully protected merit system employees. Using an event history approach to explain this policy diffusion with state‐level variables, the author shows that electoral competition and gubernatorial powers are the most significant determinants of this kind of policy diffusion. Whereas previous literature concluded that these reforms ceased spreading because the new programs were failing to create the promised governmental efficiency, this article argues that the institutional conditions for these human resource management policies have been less propitious in recent years. The article signifies an important contribution in that it brings civil service reform back into the scope of policy diffusion literature and identifies political insights into a perpetually important question.     

Economic performance and U.S. Senate elections: Reply

Major criticisms made by Chressanthis and Shaffer (C-S) are addressed: the authors' failure to include noneconomic variables in the regression model, the inclusion of open elections in the sample, and the use of variables other than the state unemployment rate as economic performance measures. Errors in C-S's interpretations are noted. Additional regression results are reported using modifications of the authors' original model. These suggest that the change (notrelative change as in C-S) in state unemployment rate is superior, and that the authors' model yields a stronger effect of state economic performance on election outcomes than does the C-S model.John Beck contributed helpful comments.     

美国防止利益冲突的经验及其对我国的启示

防止利益冲突法是国家为了厘清公益与私利的界限,约束公职人员的行为,防止公职人员公权私用、以权谋私（或以职谋私）,保证其廉洁从政的法律规范。美国是防止利益冲突立法较早并取得良好成效的国家。美国成功的秘诀是：法律可操作性强,监督有效、到位,相关配套制度完备。虽然我国在建立防止利益冲突制度方面也进行了探索,但由于停留在党纪政纪层面,缺乏权威性、强制性和威慑力。我国的防止利益冲突制度设计粗糙,可操作性差,加之监督不力,相关制度不完善,因此,成效甚微。为了有效遏制和预防腐败,我国应当尽早出台《防止利益冲突法》,同时应当完善相关法律,如《公职人员财产申报法》、《政务公开法》、《行政程序法》、《新闻法》等。     

Economic performance and U.S. Senate elections: A comment

This paper investigates the issue of economic performance and U.S. Senate elections analyzed by Bennett and Wiseman (1991) in a work published in this journal. Our study analyzes the electoral margins and election outcomes of U.S. Senate elections using state-level data involving only incumbents up for reelection in the 1976–1990 period (212 elections). The ordinary least squares and logit estimation results suggest that the effects of economic performance variables on incumbent senatorial elections are in general overshadowed by other factors known to be important in determining electoral margins and outcomes. In addition, the empirical results of the entire model are in general consistent with prior findings noted in the public choice and political science literature concerning the analysis of U.S. Senate elections. Therefore, we suggest that the findings raised in our study provide enough theoretical and empirical evidence to raise sufficient doubt regarding the robustness of the results suggested by Bennett and Wiseman (1991), and thus call upon other researchers to study further the relationship between economic performance and voting behavior in U.S. Senate elections.     

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 impact of the U.S. war on terrorism upon U.S.-China relations

Using a framework of geopolitical analysis. Oliver Lee argues that the fundamental geopolitical relationships between the United States and China, namely the relationship between the world’s strongest naval and air power and the world’s strongest land power, would not be upset even after the American military presence in central Asia since September 11, 2001. The relationship would remain essentially unaltered because — American initiation of the use of nuclear weapons against China being ruled out for fear of Chinese retaliation — China would be able to withstand any U.S. military offensive conducted with conventional land, sea, and air forces, regardless of whether the U.S. possesses permanent air bases in Central Asia or not, and regardless of how many troops it may station on them. His teaching and research interests include domestic and foreign policies of China and power in America and U.S. foreign policy.     

Permitting States to Rescind Ratifications of Pending Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

Among the troublesome questions still surrounding the U.S. constitutionalamending process is whether states should be allowed to rescindratifications of pending amendments. The Constitution is silentabout this issue. Arguments from fairness and contemporary consensus,and concerns about hasty changes, support the acceptance ofrescissions. Arguments for finality, the desirability of encouragingstate legislatures to make serious decisions, and the difficultyof the current process suggest that rescissions should not bepermitted, but these concerns are not as weighty as they mightappear at first. A law accepting or rejecting all rescissionsis preferable to a system where Congress makes partisan judgmentsin individual cases.