The Political Consequences of Policing: Evidence from New York City

Political Behavior - This paper explores the effect that municipal policing can exert on politics, and specifically investigates the effect that Stop, Question, and Frisk (SQF) policing has had on...     

中国高等教育顾客满意度指数模型的构建

办人民满意的教育是我国高等教育的宗旨,对高等教育质量进行评估是受教育者的权利.根据我国高等学校的具体情况,在借鉴美国顾客满意度指数模型(ACSI)的基础上,尝试建立了由高校形象、顾客期望、感知质量、顾客满意、顾客忠诚和顾客信任等结构变量构成的中国高等教育顾客满意度指数模型(CHE-CSI).依据顾客满意度测量理论,设计了包括自我发展、专业课程设置、教师队伍、教学质量、图书馆、文娱活动和校园服务等质量因子和通行的满意度测量因子的指标体系,并编制了相应的问卷.总量表信度达到0.8999.因子分析表明,学生对高校教育质量的感知主要包括教学质量和校园服务两个方面.利用结构方程分析软件LISREL8.7对沈阳市六所高校的596名学生样本数据进行了模型验证分析.各项拟合系数均表明数据与模型拟合良好,其中RMSEA达到0.064.     

The Impact of Red Tape on Citizen Satisfaction: An Experimental Study

ABSTRACT

Red tape is one of the most often-mentioned nuisances citizens experience with government. However, there is a dearth of red tape research focusing on citizens. Therefore, the primary goal of this article is to analyze the effect of red tape on citizen satisfaction. The secondary goal is to go beyond testing a linear relationship between red tape and citizen satisfaction by examining individual factors that may moderate this relationship. In order to analyze the red tape/satisfaction relationship, we have designed an experiment in which 179 subjects participated. Experiments are still relatively rare in public administration, but are increasingly seen as a rigorous and useful method for theory testing and development. We found that red tape has a strong negative effect on citizen satisfaction, and that this effect is weaker when citizens have high knowledge of political processes. We conclude with implications and a future research agenda.     

An Experimental Test of the Expectancy‐Disconfirmation Theory of Citizen Satisfaction

A number of prior studies have found evidence for the expectancy‐disconfirmation theory of citizen satisfaction with public services, which holds that citizens judge public services not only on experienced service quality but also on an implicit comparison of service quality with prior expectations. But the evidence to date has been based on surveys (observational studies) and on subjective measures of expectations and performance, which are likely endogenous. Thus, the present study aimed to test the expectancy‐disconfirmation theory of citizen satisfaction with public services using an experimental method. Participants in an Internet panel (N = 964) were randomly assigned to receive either low‐ or high‐expectations statements from a hypothetical government official and to view either low‐ or high‐performance street cleanliness photographs, in an online survey experiment. The findings are in line with previous research and generally confirm the core relationships in the theory, although the effect of expectations varied by age and political ideology. Because this study is a true randomized experiment, it provides better evidence than previous studies regarding the true causal nature of these relationships.     

From Porto Alegre to New York City: Participatory Budgeting and Democracy

Because of its popularity, there is now a large literature examining how participatory budgeting (PB) deepens participation by the poor and redistributes resources. Closer examinations of recent cases of PB can help us to better understand the political configurations in which these new participatory democratic spaces are embedded, and articulate the conditions that might lead to more meaningful outcomes. Who participates? For whose benefit? The articles in this symposium, on participatory budgeting in New York City (PBNYC), highlight both strengths and challenges of the largest American PB process. They focus less on redistribution, more on the dimensions of the process itself and of PBNYC’s successful social inclusion, new dynamics between participants and local politicians, and the subtleties of institutionalization. The symposium also reminds us, however, that contestations over meaningful participation are on-going, and that of all of PBNYC’s multiple goals, equity has proven to be the most elusive.     

Citizen Expectations and Satisfaction in a Young Democracy: A Test of the Expectancy‐Disconfirmation Model

Citizen satisfaction with public services has been shown to depend on citizens’ expectations and their perceptions of performance. If performance exceeds expectations, satisfaction is likely; if performance falls short of expectations, dissatisfaction is likely. The existing evidence on this process covers the United States and the United Kingdom. The authors generalize the idea of expectation‐driven citizen satisfaction (the “expectancy‐disconfirmation model”) theoretically and empirically to an institutional context of limited accountability and widespread citizen distrust. Using a survey of a broad cross‐section of the general adult population in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2014, this article finds support for the expectancy‐disconfirmation model in this very different context. The authors also test for an effect of the type of expectation using an embedded, randomized experiment but do not find evidence of a difference between normative and empirical expectations. Findings support the usefulness of the expectancy‐disconfirmation model in a wide range of contexts.     

Housing Affordability and Health: Evidence From New York City

It is generally understood that households make tradeoffs between housing costs and other living expenses. In this article, we examine the relationship between health-related outcomes and housing-induced financial burdens for renters in one of the most expensive cities in the world, New York, New York. Drawing from the Housing Vacancy Survey for 2011, a representative survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau of more than 16,000 households in New York City, we estimate the effect of housing cost burden on the overall health of renters and the extent to which they have postponed various types of medical services for financial reasons. Results show that higher out-of-pocket rent burdens are associated with worse self-reported health conditions and a higher likelihood to postpone medical services for financial reasons. This relationship is particularly strong for those households with severe rent burdens. In addition, housing cost burden is equally or more important than other physical housing characteristics in explaining the variation in self-reported general health status and health care postponement. These findings are robust across specifications with different degrees of household, unit/building, and neighborhood controls, and among longstanding and newer renters. Our findings point to the importance of considering health-related outcomes when designing housing policies, and that housing subsidies should target both renters' out-of-pocket costs and place-based repair and maintenance.     

Measuring Street Cleanliness: A Comparison of New York City's Scorecard and Results from a Citizen Survey

Public administrators at the local level often rely on citizen surveys to measure the outcomes or accomplishments of their service delivery efforts. However, many remain skeptical about the value of survey-based measures of local government performance, in large part because of the low empirical correlation between objective and subjective performance measures reported in the literature. Using data from New York City's street cleanliness scorecard, a well-established outcome measure, combined with responses from more than 4,000 respondents to a citizen survey, the authors find a clear and consistent correlation between the scorecard and citizen ratings of street cleanliness in their neighborhoods. Moreover, the street cleanliness scorecard is a much stronger predictor of citizen ratings than demographic factors, trust in government, or contextual effects. These results demonstrate that citizen judgments about government performance can correspond closely with more objectively measured outcomes—and that citizen surveys can provide valid and useful performance measures, at least for some local government services.     

Administrative decentralization of municipal services: Assessing the New York City experience

Policy Sciences - New York City's Office of Neighborhood Government was created in 1971 to coordinate renewed attempts at decentralizing municipal operations. The decentralization was primarily...     

Analysis and urban government: Experience of the New York City—Rand institute

For almost four years New York City and the Rand Corporation have been engaged in an enterprise distinctive if not unique: the subjection of a wide variety of the City's problems to the scrutiny of independent analysts. This paper* is the attempt of a participant in that enterprise to describe the background of that effort and the novel arrangements made to institutionalize it, to outline the nature and effect of the analyses produced, and then to reflect on some of the lessons this effort has taught some of its participants.     

Citizen,Customer, Partner: Rethinking the Place of the Public in Public Management

Scholars and practitioners have long debated what role the public should play in public management. When members of the public interact with the administrative side of government, should they be treated as customers, as citizens, or in some other manner? This article takes as its premise that members of the public assume three principal roles relative to public management: as customers, as partners, and as citizens. After placing these roles in the context of the history of public administration, the article draws from recent research to recommend guidelines for how public managers can work effectively with the public in these several capacities.     

The New Enclosures: London,New York City,Philadelphia, and the Transformation of Public Space

ABSTRACT

In recent years, social movements have taken to the streets to protest various forms of economic and racial injustice. However, these attempts to exploit the political opportunities public spaces afford have been compromised by the increasingly private nature of “public” spaces. What has changed is the rise of privately owned public spaces (POPS), areas that appear to be public, but in fact are owned by corporations that prohibit a range of activities, including political protest. This article argues such restrictions of public space are not limited to POPS. Rather, they are just one expression of a far more pervasive phenomenon, novel variations on centuries-old practices by which common or public land has been enclosed. I suggest that four forms of enclosure -for profit, of behavior, of community, and of the public realm- degrade the status of public institutions and insulate private interests from counter-mobilization by groups pursuing egalitarian ends.     

Reforming rent control in New York City: the role of research in policymaking

This document describes the role of the New York City Rand Institute and other research groups in the rent control reforms enacted by the New York City Council in June 1970, summarizes the major research and analytical studies performed in this connection by Institute staff members, and offers some lessons for those contemplating similar work for public agencies.Much of the material included here was presented at the November 1970 annual meeting of the Regional Science Association as part of a session devoted to the Institute's housing studies, and will appear in Vol. XXVII of the Proceedings. The section of this paper summarizing our research studies borrows heavily from a similar summary prepared by my Institute colleague, Michael Teitz, for another occasion; I am grateful for his permission to use it here.     

A Multiple–Indicator Approach to Municipal Service Evaluation: Correlating Performance Measurement and Citizen Satisfaction across Jurisdictions

Early work on municipal service–quality assessment recommended multiple measures of performance from both providers and users. Citizen satisfaction surveys have rivaled their more quantitative counterpart, administrative performance measures, in adoption, but the implication of survey results for action is not well understood by managers or scholars. To achieve meaningfully integrated multiple measures of service quality, we need to explore the dimensions of citizen satisfaction and review patterns of satisfaction across localities. We also need to understand the relationship between administrative performance measures and citizen perceptions. This cross–sectional analysis of municipal citizen satisfaction and performance benchmark data suggests that citizen satisfaction survey results are useful to managers in conjunction with performance–measurement programs as part of a multiple–indicator approach to evaluating municipal service quality. However, understanding citizen perceptions requires a different perspective than that applied to administrative service performance measurement.     

Roadblocks in Reforming Corrupt Agencies: The Case of the New York City School Custodians

Reformers have traditionally assumed that agencies can combat corruption through controls such as tighter oversight, increased regulation, internal audits, reorganizations, and performance accountability mechanisms. But this case study of the New York City school custodial system shows how a corrupt agency can derail these devices. New York City's $500,000,000 custodial system, responsible for maintaining its 1,200 schools, has been unleashing scandals since the 1920s despite decades of regulations, multiple reorganizations, and layers of oversight. Its history shows that a deviant culture—a management "captured" by special interests—and an infrastructure enmeshed in abusive policies will resist controls, no matter how well-crafted. True reform requires tackling institutionalized corruption through strategies like overhauling management, eradicating special interests, and aggressively punishing misconduct.     

Quantum Change in the Fragmented Metropolis: Political Environment and Homeless Policy in New York City

The dominant paradigm for understanding urban policy change has long been that of “incrementalism.” The incrementalist argument is that institutional fragmentation reduces coordination, and thus discourages what might be called “nonincremental” or “quantum” change. This article seeks to test the incrementalist understanding of urban political change. Is it possible that under certain circumstances fragmentation can encourage quantum change? We will test this possibility with an analysis of homeless policy in New York City. Briefly put, over the last 25 years homeless policy in New York City has developed in a series of quantum jumps with dramatic, short‐term changes in funding, administration, and policy “philosophy.” Policy change followed this trajectory even though New York City's political environment is notoriously fragmented. This pattern contradicts what incrementalism would predict, and therefore suggests that that paradigm must be modified. Urban politics, this study suggests, can sometimes display the nonincremental, entrepreneurial, and “ideational” characteristics that have been identified as typical of the national “new politics of public policy.”     

Determinants of Performance Measurement: An Investigation into the Decision to Conduct Citizen Surveys

This article develops and tests a comprehensive framework explaining the decision to measure performance, specifically the decision of local governments to conduct citizen surveys. It is structured around a fundamental distinction between subjective performance measures obtained for use in decision making and those that are produced solely for their symbolic value. The author suggests that the field of public administration may be taking a simplified view concerning the promotion and adoption of citizen surveys, overlooking important aspects of the decision-making process of performance-oriented public managers and neglecting the impact of politics and symbols. Political rationality may undercut managerial rationality in the decision to adopt citizen surveys, and symbolic adoption may be the underlying cause of low levels of information use. This study identifies policies to increase adoption of citizen surveys but cautions that simply promoting the adoption of surveys as inherently good may be a naive and wasteful course of action. Practitioners who have already made the decision to measure subjective performance through citizen surveys, or are facing such a decision, can find in this analysis a structure to assess past decisions or guide future decisions.     

Aligning Ideologies and Institutions: Reorganization in the HIV/AIDS Services Administration of New York City

How effective was organizational reform implemented inside one critical New York City health agency? Specifically, we examine the extent to which the reorganization of the HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) into the Medical Insurance Services Administration (MICSA) achieved three goals: (1) realizing synergies among the component MICSA programs; (2) cross‐fertilizing ideas among MICSA agencies; and (3) facilitating HASA operations through the lens of organization change theory. Qualitative methods including interviews, site visits, and document analysis triangulate the effects of the reorganization. Implications for organization change literature are explored, especially highlighting where more theoretical and empirical studies are needed.