The programme to policy linkage: The fulfilment of election pledges on socio–economic policy in The Netherlands, 1986–1998

To what extent are the contents of party election programmes congruent with subsequent government policy actions? Existing research on the fulfilment of pre–election pledges focuses on systems of government in which executives formed by a single parties are the norm. This study extends this research to coalition systems of government. Specific policy proposals made by the main Dutch parties in their recent election programmes are identified and compared with subsequent government policy actions. Hypotheses about the conditions under which pledges are more likely to be acted upon are formulated and tested. Although clear linkages between election programmes and subsequent policies are found, pledges made by prospective coalition parties in the Netherlands are less likely to be acted upon than those made by prospective governing parties in the United Kingdom. Prominent features of cabinet government, such as the allocation of ministerial portfolios and the coalition policy agreement, are found to influence the likelihood of pledges being fulfilled. In addition, consensus between parties is also found to increase the likelihood of government actions responding to election pledges.     

Intelligence Contracting: On the Motivations,Interests, and Capabilities of Core Personnel Contractors in the US Intelligence Community

In the debate on intelligence contracting, intelligence officers are grouped into two personnel categories characterized by opposing sets of motivations and interests. Government employees are assumed to be motivated by a higher goal related to national security, while intelligence contractors are said to be motivated primarily by pecuniary interests and loyal first and foremost to their shareholders. Contemporary research on human motivation, however, suggests that the two personnel categories are not all that different in that both appear to be intrinsically motivated and loyal primarily to the mission at hand, namely national security. Moreover, comparative research on public organizations and private corporations suggests that there are more similarities between the two than there are differences. This must lead us to re-examine the recent criticism fielded against the practice of intelligence contracting.     

The programme to policy linkage: The fulfilment of election pledges on socio-economic policy in the Netherlands, 1986–1998

To what extent are the contents of party election programmes congruent with subsequent government policy actions? Existing research on the fulfilment of pre-election pledges focuses on systems of government in which executives formed by a single parties are the norm. This study extends this research to coalition systems of government. Specific policy proposals made by the main Dutch parties in their recent election programmes are identified and compared with subsequent government policy actions. Hypotheses about the conditions under which pledges are more likely to be acted upon are formulated and tested. Although clear linkages between election programmes and subsequent policies are found, pledges made by prospective coalition parties in the Netherlands are less likely to be acted upon than those made by prospective governing parties in the United Kingdom. Prominent features of cabinet government, such as the allocation of ministerial portfolios and the coalition policy agreement, are found to influence the likelihood of pledges being fulfilled. In addition, consensus between parties is also found to increase the likelihood of government actions responding to election pledges.

     

Rules that Many Use: Standards and Global Regulation

Global regulation increasingly relies on alternatives to legal rules, variously termed "soft law,""best-practice rules," or "standards." Such voluntary best-practice rules can be highly effective. Standards influence users by virtue of the expertise on which they are based and because of their enforcement by public and private actors. Standards globally proliferate because they are more compatible with regulatory autonomy of states than binding directives. When global standards are effective, the question of how to subject them to democratic control often arises. The prospects for holding global standard setters accountable largely depend on how decisions on standards are made. These insights are illustrated by examples of the global regulation of financial markets. The preliminary evidence suggests that standards need to be taken more seriously by students of global regulation.     

Devolution and Innovation: The Adoption of State Environmental Policy Innovations by Administrative Agencies

Do states act as laboratories for reform? Are state administrative agencies likely to adopt policy innovations? This study analyzes the adoption of environmental policy innovations by state administrative agencies in the area of hazardous waste regulation. Four explanations are developed to explain the factors that affect innovation adoption: the severity of the problem, the importance of institutional factors, the role played by interest groups, and contextual factors. Institutional factors, such as state wealth and administrative professionalism, are important determinants of innovation adoption. State agencies are also likely to adopt innovations to deal with problems created by hazardous waste contamination. In addition, state environmental managers are not directly influenced by interest groups, and the inclusion of all stakeholders is likely to lead to greater support for new policy initiatives. Implications for practitioners are drawn based on the study's findings.     

Welfare expansion revisited: policy routines and their mediation by party, class and crisis, 1957–1982

Abstract. Post-war welfare effort (i.e., welfare spending as a share of national income) in advanced capitalist political democracies is proposed to result from policy routines emphasized in the traditional academic literatures complemented and mediated by class-linked factors stressed in the 'new political economy' literature. Both sets of factors are integrated into a single conception of state policy-making. In this, self-interested elite and administrative state personnel respond to their environments by means of relatively discretionary and relatively automatic policy routines, respectively. Left and non-Left governments mediate these routines and do so differently in different long-term institutional (strong-union versus weak-union) and macroeconomic (expansionary versus crisis) contexts. Welfare expansion is found to be amply explained by the proposed processes, differentiated by context. Left parties and militants are found to matter primarily in contexts marked by 'Left corporatism'(or strong unions) and/or by relatively 'expansionary economic climates'. Ironically, Left-party governments in Left corporatist contexts are found to be particularly sensitive to inflation where transfer spending is concerned. Where unions are strong, policy making is generally less incremental and more flexible. After 1973, policy sensitivity to real economic growth or decline looms large, and working-class-linked politics are muted where unions are weak, most especially where they are decentralized.     

Manipulability of voting by sincere truncation of preferences

A weak form of strategic voting, called ‘sincere truncation,’ occurs when a voter with a strict preference ranking does not rank all his or her choices on the ballot. A voting procedure is said to be manipulable by sincere truncation if one or more voters can obtain a preferred outcome through sincere truncation. Voting procedures that are not manipulable by sincere truncation are shown to be incompatible with the election of Condorcet (majority) candidates when they exist. A relaxation of simple majority rule, called the ‘7/12 rule,’ is also shown to conflict with nonmanipulability when additional conditions are imposed. These results are formally independent of the strategy-proofness theorems for voting and decision schemes established by Gibbard, Satterthwaite, and others. While their analyses are more inclusive in terms of the varieties of decision procedures allowed, they are also less demanding in their requirements for manipulability since voters are permitted to reverse sincere pReferences in their voting. Thus, plurality voting is manipulable in the sense of Gibbard-Satterthwaite (by preference reversals), but it is clearly nonmanipulable by sincere truncation.     

Perceptions of Immigrant Threat,American Identity,and Vote Choice in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Among the central tenets of social identity theory are the arguments that individuals’ attitudes and behavior are shaped by (1) perceptions of threat by out-groups toward individuals’ in-group(s) and (2) the strength of individuals’ identification with the in-group perceived to be under threat. In this paper we explore how American identity and Americans’ perceptions of immigrant threat work together to shape their vote choices in the 2016 presidential election. With the presidential campaign of Donald Trump characterized by strong rhetoric that emphasized immigrant threat and American identity themes, we suggest that the effects of immigrant threat perceptions are amplified by individuals’ American identity, with those who have a strong American identity more likely to translate immigrant threat perceptions into support for Trump than those with weaker levels of American identity. Moreover, we consider whether the effects of American identity on vote choice are activated and moderated by individuals’ perceptions of immigrant threat. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Study, we find that the effects of immigrant threat perceptions and American identity on vote choice are magnified by each other: the effects of immigrant threat perceptions are enhanced among individuals with a strong American identity, and the effects of American identity are activated and magnified by perceptions of immigrant threat.

     

Professional insecurities: A guide to understanding and career management

Professional insecurities include the expectation that ones job or career, and all that depends upon it, are at risk through denial of tenure, dismissal from an official position, or other sanctions for non-compliance with established practices. The expanding subdivision of work in modern society exacerbates professional insecurities by precipitating conflicts of conscience and by proliferating practices that are often ambiguous and incompatible, but nevertheless must be taken seriously because they are expected to be enforced with severe sanctions. This article suggests how the problem of professional insecurities might be understood and managed by aspiring policy scientists especially, and by others as well. There are no universal or final solutions to the problem, but there are better working solutions for particular persons and situations if we are intelligent enough to find them through applications of central theory.     

SOCIAL IMPACT ASSESSMENTS AND ENERGY DEVELOPMENTS

Social Impact Assessments (SIAs), prompted by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and by complementary legislation in certain states, are prepared, ostensibly, to provide expert scientific analyses of human societies; to project the probable consequences to those societies from largescale projects planned for their environments; to suggest ways to mitigate deleterious consequences; and to aid decision makers. The majority of SlAs prepared in relation to proposed energy developments have not been based on expert scientific analysis; omit crucial topics; are seldom based on primary analyses of the communities that will be affected; and often suggest ways to mitigate infrastructural problems (roads, houses and utilities) but l i t t l e else. Interests of the corporations that seek development permits are served by research houses commissioned to prepare SIAs, and by the agencies that approve the SlAs and subsequently grant permits to the corporations to commence with their energy-related projects-the interests of the community residents are not served. The responsibility of social scientists in preparing SlAs for communities that are scheduled for energy-related projects and state-of-the-art analyses of those communities are discussed.     

City-State Ideological Incongruence and Municipal Preemption

A growing concern among municipal officials across the United States is that their policymaking capacity is under attack by state legislatures who are increasingly likely to preempt those municipalities. However, determining the extent to which municipalities are preempted is challenging. We overcome this by surveying a large sample of municipal officials from across the United States. We find that officials from municipalities that are more ideologically distant from their state overall are more likely to report being preempted by their state government. Moreover, this pattern is driven by more liberal municipalities in both Republican and Democratic states reporting higher rates of preemption. Additionally, municipalities under unified state governments are more likely to report preemption, especially those under unified Republican control. These findings have important implications for the quality of representation in our federalist system and indicate that preemption is not just an issue between Republican states and liberal urban cities.     

A framework for the comparative analysis of church–state relations in Europe

This article analyses how the policies specified in EU directives are transposed by EU member states. In contrast to existing transposition studies it develops a policy-specific approach to explain how directives are transposed by national actors. In this approach the outcome of transposition depends on the institutional arena in which decision-making takes place and the interests of the domestic actors involved. These institutional arenas can vary from parliament to national ministries and agencies. Domestic actors are taken as policy-specific veto players. Their preferences may lead to two different responses to the requirements of a directive. First, they can transpose a directive literally, keeping deviations to a minimum. Second, domestic actors can adopt a non-literal interpretation of the directive, leading to more substantial deviations within the boundaries allowed by the European Commission. These responses are illustrated by two cases of transposition of EU directives, the tobacco products directive and the animal trade directive. The case analysis shows that the policy-specific approach proposed in this article helps in understanding transposition. It clarifies how the ambitions formulated in Brussels are transformed by national administrations into policies.     

The provision of public services by government funded decentralized agencies

Public services are often provided by lower level agencies that are funded by higher level government. Since markets for such services do not exist, normal pressures to minimize costs do not operate; indeed, usually these costs are unobservable. We study a principal-agent model which emphasizes the distinction between the financing and provision of public services. Two broad situations are analyzed: (i) the agencies are induced to reveal true costs; and (ii) in addition, to minimize costs, agencies must be induced to exert effort. The characteristics of the optimal funding contract and the marginal cost of public funds are derived in each case.     

The role of expectations and promises in land use decisionmaking

Land use disputes are often at their center disagreements about the expectations of different parties, public and private, concerning permissible land uses and activities. Expectations are influenced by numerous factors, from broad economic and social trends to specific public planning policies and decisions. One source of land use expectations are promises issued by public planning and decisionmaking bodies. Two types of promises arise: explicit promises (e.g. statements of intention found in an officially-adopted comprehensive plan, publicly issued resolutions, etc.) and tacit promises (e.g. created by a series or pattern of public decisions, or by the clear unwillingness of the public to take actions in the past where opportunities existed to do so). It is argued that public officials and planners should be concerned with promises and that they should be given some degree of moral consideration when debating and resolving land use conflicts. Other things being equal, public planning agencies and decisionmaking bodies ought to acknowledge that the expectations of individuals are influenced by such promises and seek to respect them. Private land use expectations based on public promises are not sacred, however, as many situations arise where land use officials are confronted with conflicting moral demands. Situations where public land use promises may need to be overruled or qualified are considered. At a minimum, public land use officials have an obligation to clarify expressions of land use policy so that the formation of false private land use expectations is minimized.     

The issue of standing in cost-benefit analysis

Insufficient attention has been given in cost-benefit analysis to whose benefits are to be counted. Foreigners, illegal aliens, fetuses, and criminals are problematic cases. Persons or entities may be given “standing” by participation in decision processes; by having their preferences counted, if meaningful preferences exist; by having their welfare counted, if they cannot express their preferences; or by representation by others whom they do not choose. Problems of standing arise in the valuation of life, the consideration of future generations and nonhuman entities, and equity weighting. These problem may be treated by altering the scope of the expert community or by interaction between that community and the political community. They are not always resolvable, but should be treated more explicitly.     

Market Visions: The Interplay of Ideas and Institutions in Chinese Financial Restructuring

In studies of transitional systems, negative economic outcomes are often associated with 'partial' or 'stalled' reform – a reform that signifies an institutional departure from standard market operation. Such departures are often traced to socio-political contestation or political preferences. Focusing on China's intertwined financial and enterprise reforms, this paper challenges that approach on two fronts. First, it argues that institutional change and resultant economic outcomes are driven less by contestation than by societally held assumptions regarding the nature of economic causation in market contexts. The analytical lenses that actors employ to understand their environment shape expectations about how markets function, influence the manner by which economic problems are diagnosed, and profoundly affect the ultimate institutional evolution of the system. Second, such lenses are necessitated by substantial uncertainties at the theoretical level regarding market function – uncertainties that make characterizations of economic behavior as 'irrational' highly problematic.     

Social Ties and the Incidence of Homelessness

Although almost all homeless people are poor, most poor people do not experience homelessness. We use a detailed national survey to explore the role of social ties—including connection to relatives, friends, and religious community—in explaining why only a subset of poor adults fall into homelessness. We find that lifetime incidence of homelessness is reduced by 60% for individuals with strong ties along each of these dimensions. Ties to relatives are most important, followed by ties to religious community, whereas ties to friends are not associated with reduced incidence of homelessness. We also find that among currently low-income individuals, social ties are not associated with income, providing evidence that our results are not explained by unobserved variation in historical depth of poverty that is potentially correlated with our measures of social ties.     

Rights,review, and spending: Policy outcomes with judicially enforceable rights

Abstract. This paper posits that countries with a constitutional right to social security that can be enforced by courts via judicial review will show patterns of spending on social security that are distinct from countries with other constitutional and judicial arrangements. Governments in countries with enforceable rights will be constrained to spend more on transfer programs to avoid censure from the courts. The hypotheses are tested using data from 22 OECD countries using time–series cross–section analysis. The results show that enforceable rights are associated with higher growth rates in social security spending and lower fluctuation in expenditures on social programs, although the amount of GDP spent on social transfers is unaffected by rights. These results are consistent with the idea that governments' spending habits are constrained by positive rights, but rebut the argument that rights lead to economic distortions.     

Privatization and cost reduction

In this paper several examples of government contracts with private firms are examined to see how experience conforms to a principal-agent model of cost minimization via competitive bidding and how important are the many qualifications to the model. Fifteen cases of local government contracting are examined.The course of private contracting is not always smooth — as judged by the many contract disruptions observed and by the number of cities that believe they are no longer saving money by contracting and those which have resumed public production. It also seems to be the case, however, that competition generally reduces initial costs, that in many cases cost savings persist, that it is possible to stimulte competition, and that providing for continual interaction, as contrasted with simply monitoring performance, can prevent disruption.     

State Wildlife Policy and Management: The Scope and Bias of Political Conflict

State wildlife policy and management are often characterized by divisive political conflict among competing stakeholders. This conflict is increasingly being resolved through the ballot-initiative process. One important reason the process is being used so often is the way state wildlife policy and management decisions are often made by state wildlife commissions, boards, or councils (the dominant way these decisions are made in the United States). These bodies are often perceived by important stakeholders as biased, exclusive, or unrepresentative of nonconsumptive stakeholder values. As a result, unsatisfied interest groups often try to take decision-making authority away from these institutions and give it to the public through the ballot initiative. Cases and examples from Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, and Idaho are examined in this context. The article finishes by outlining four broad alternatives that may be debated in the future: the no change alternative, the authoritative expert alternative, the structural change alternative, and the stakeholder-based collaborative conservation alternative(s).