Budgetary constraints and municipal revenue forecasting

Conclusion The objective of this research has been to determine whether key budget participants see forecasting as making significant contributions to the budgetary process. The issue is important for at least two reasons. Budgetary tools will be used to the degree budget players perceive them as providing net budgettary benefits. Moreover, the continuing trend toward technological sophistication gives governments opportunities, red herrings or not, to incorporate the technology into the budget process. The issue is also very timely; with the demise of packaged budget reforms but not the values of budget reforms, there may be new opportunities for improving budgeting on a less grandiose, more piecemeal basis, such as using forecasts to analyze budgetary options. The findings here provide some insight into two questions concerning governmental forecasting. First, why do governments use complex methods? In support of previous research, since cities most dependent on intergovernmental aid tend to use complex forecasting, such methods may indeed be seen as a way to help cope with fiscal stress. Also, reflecting the ambiguity of current research, since cities tend to use relatively simple techniques regardless of the revenue source being forecasted, the source is at best a partial determinant of complexity. The most important predictor of complexity, however, was budget format; cities that emphasize reform methods, especially planning, tend to use the most complex forecast methods. The forecasting process was not as important as expected.Second, so what? Does forecasting influence budgetary choices? The evidence from the second part of the study suggest that it can, but within definable limits. Budget directors are more likely than councils to value outyear estimates, but both actors are much less likely to value long-term estimates. The survey results also indicate that revenue forecasts are not as useful for making political decisions as for making management decisions: the forecast is usually used as an internal document, is only sometimes intended to affect council decisions, and is not usually included in the budget. In short, the forecast may be most useful for making managerial decisions since that is what most cities want out of it. It also tends to be more useful if the budget format is less traditional. Finally, the findings indicate that forecasting may be more useful to management to the degree the council finds it politically useful. This is extremely important since it suggests that as powerful as technology may be, budgetary tools that do not meet political needs will be managerially confined.Clearly, more research is needed in this area. Does forecasting actually shape long-range plans? In the long run, will the forecasting effort change the ways cities budget? Can the availability of forecasting information strengthen one actor relative to another? These are important questions that need answering to clarify the impact of forecasting and other technologies on the budget process.     

GCHQ and British External Policy in the 1960s

This study examines the role played by GCHQ during the 1960s. It looks at GCHQ's overseas Sigint collection network, its relationship with the NSA and the problems caused by decolonization, economic crisis and military withdrawal from East of Suez. The paper also discusses GCHQ's intelligence targets in the 1960s, its codebreaking successes and assesses how important Sigint was for British policy towards France, Egypt and Indonesia. It concludes that while Sigint gave Britain tactical benefits in dealing with France and Egypt it was only in the case of Indonesia that Sigint helped Britain to achieve its strategic goals.     

Policy Learning and British Governance in the 1960s

Book reviewed: Hugh Pemberton. Policy Learning and British Governance in the 1960s.
Reviewed by DAVID P. DOLOWITZ     

Ideas,interest and institutions in policy change: Transformation of India's agricultural strategy in the mid-1960s

Over the last ten years, policy change in the third world has become a matter of considerable intellectual and practical importance. For the theoretically inclined, how one explains changes in the behavior of the state is the main issue. Both Marxian and liberal orthodoxies had a tendency to read off state behavior from the power relationships at the level of the society, though differing in the way they conceptualized power. The return of institutional and state-centric explanations over the last decade has attempted to reverse this bias by looking more closely at the power struggles within the state institutions. For the practically inclined, the powerful intellectual rationale behind so many policy recommendations has often been puzzlingly lost in the maze of politics. What interests impede the implementation of good ideas, what institutions block getting policies right - these are some of the key questions on the agenda of international development institutions. Responding to these varied concerns, this paper analyzes a particularly successful case of policy change. While most of third world was still experimenting with land reforms and cooperatives as the ways to develop agriculture, India in the mid-1960s switched to producer price incentives and investments in new technology, a change that is widely believed to have turned India from a food-deficit to a food-surplus country. The focus is on how ideas, interests and institutions interacted to produce the change.     

The Munsinger affair: Images of espionage and security in 1960s Canada

Using the Gerda Munsinger affair of 1966, this article explores Canadian attitudes in the 1960s concerning the nature of security threats to Canada, the proper role of government in protecting Canadian security, and espionage and spies generally. Initial findings suggest that the RCMP was out of step with much of the Canadian public in determining what constituted a legitimate security threat and that, regardless of how Munsinger herself was variously assessed as a security risk by the actors in the public inquiry or by outside observers, there clearly existed a widely shared perception of the ‘typical profile’ of the female spy which was likely heavily influenced by contemporary popular culture.     

The Politics of Studying Politics: Political Science Since the 1960s

The field of political science has undergone significant change since the 1960s. The major shift was toward far greater quantification in the scholarly analyses. That movement sparked enduring controversies. These include disputes pitting scientific detachment against political relevance; specialization against accessibility; and quantitative against qualitative analysis. This article traces the contours of these controversies and offers some reflections on the discipline’s possible future.     

Conflict,Cooperation, and Institutional Change on the Commons

Rational choice scholarship posits two principal theories to explain why political institutions emerge and change: cooperation theory and conflict theory. We evaluate cooperation theory and conflict theory to explain the emergence of common property institutions among a group of Maasai pastoralists in southwestern Kenya. Our empirical results show that the change to common property is best explained by conflict theory.     

Norms, Interests and Institutional Change

This paper provides a norms-based account of institutional change. It compares two cases of attempted change, one successful and one unsuccessful. The argument advanced is that norm-based change occurs when the norms are congruent with the perceived interests of the actors who have the power to take on the decision. Norms affect the process of institutional change not only by providing legitimacy to some forms of political action, but also by shaping the actors' perception of their interests as well their strategies. It is argued that norms, in that sense, help political actors combine Max Weber's zweckrational (goal-orientated) and wertrational (value-orientated) categories of behaviour. Empirical evidence drawn from the context of the evolving European Union supports this argument.     

Oil Wealth and Regime Survival in the Developing World, 1960–1999

This article examines contrasting claims made by scholars of oil and politics that oil wealth either tends (1) to undermine regime durability or (2) to enhance it. Using cross-sectional time-series data from 107 developing states between 1960 and 1999, I test the effects of oil wealth on regime failure, political protests, and civil war. I find that oil wealth is robustly associated with increased regime durability, even when controlling for repression, and with lower likelihoods of civil war and antistate protest. I also find that neither the boom nor bust periods exerted any significant effect on regime durability in the states most dependent on exports, even while those states saw more protests during the bust. In short, oil wealth has generally increased the durability of regimes, and repression does not account for this effect. Future research focused on the origins of robust coalitions in oil-rich states is most likely to provide fruitful explanations to this puzzle .     

人性、权力与制度反腐

人性中的恶是腐败的深层基础,但权力的异化和滥用则是导致腐败的根本原因。必须正视人性中的恶及善恶互变现象,以外在的刚性制度约束和内在的文化心理约束激发人性的正能量;必须加强权力制约和监督,把权力关进制度的笼子里,防微杜渐、惩恶扬善,这是人性向善和政治走向文明的内在需求;必须加强制度设计,提高制度执行力,规范权力运用,防止制度虚置,形成不敢腐的惩戒机制、不能腐的防范机制、不易腐的保障机制,提高制度反腐的科学化水平。广大领导干部必须习惯于在监督下谨慎用权,为民掌好权,自觉抵制形式主义、官僚主义、享乐主义和奢靡之风的侵蚀,为全体人民的全面而自由的发展营造民主、平等、公正、和谐的社会氛围和精神乐土。     

Organized crime and the 1960 presidential election

It has been asserted that, based on a pre-election agreement promising them favorable federal treatment, the Chicago Mob (known as the “Outfit”) was responsible for John Kennedy’s election in 1960. An examination of these claims indicates that the sources generally lack credibility and their accounts are implausible. Additionally, there is no evidence Outfit controlled wards/suburbs around Chicago or members of Outfit influenced labor unions voted unusually heavily Democratic in the 1960 presidential election. Therefore, if anything the Outfit “double crossed” the Kennedys by not delivering the promised votes, as opposed to vice-versa. “Someone forgot to tell the horse.” – An old saying in horse racing.