The consolidation of adjustment: Implications for public administration

The governments of most developing countries have been subject to pressures, especially through structural adjustment programmes, to reduce the direct role of the state in the supply of services. New forms of service supply are emerging, in which government has only an indirect role as enabler and regulator of other actors; but there has been little practical guidance on how these ‘new’ roles are to be performed in the specific context of developing countries. The danger is then of the adoption of inappropriate practices from more advanced countries. The argument of this article is that governments face several difficulties in managing the ‘post-adjusted state’: the inheritance of social and political strains, and of reforms made abruptly under pressure; the complexity of identifying the appropriate role of the state for particular services under particular circumstances; the technical difficulty of managing new administrative roles; and the contradiction, particularly in respect of systems of accountability, between the new and the old requirements on public administration.     

The public demand for smoking bans

Smoking bans are gaining widespread support in the United States and other countries. While supporters argue that bans are necessary to resolve market failures associated with negative externalities, the Coase Theorem predicts that, under various conditions, private markets internalize negative externalities. We examine the smoking issue within the framework of the Coase Theorem and hypothesize that smoking bans misallocate air space resources shared by smokers and nonsmokers. Because smoking bans shift ownership of scarce resources, they are also hypothesized to transfer income from one party (smokers) to another party (nonsmokers). Supporting evidence for these hypotheses is provided by an examination of a comprehensive smoking ban imposed in San Luis Obispo, CA.     

The information superhighway: Some public policy issues for the Commonwealth

This article examines the significance for Commonwealth governments of the emerging Information Superhighway. It reviews the nature and the scope of developments in the field of information technology, then considers policy questions raised by the existence of the Internet and eventually, of the Information Superhighway. Governments of developing countries run the risk of being excluded from the benefits of information technology unless they frame National Information Infrastructures. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

What could be achieved with greater public hospital autonomy? Comparison of public and PNFP hospitals in Uganda

The policy of hospital autonomy has been discussed for some time in Uganda. There is little evidence from Uganda or elsewhere that increased autonomy will improve hospital performance. This article compares the performance of three private not‐for‐profit (PNFP) and public hospital pairs to address this question. PNFP and public hospitals have similar management structures but PNFP hospitals had better trained managers and a church affiliated chair in the hospital management committee. Both types have problems with personnel management but these appear more pronounced in public hospitals. Drug supply management appears better in PNFP hospitals. Overall, workloads are similar, but analysis of patterns of utilisation and prices across services suggest that patient choice of facilities is influenced by relative price levels, and that willingness to pay is higher for PNFP services. PNFP hospitals are more successful at generating revenue. There are no clear differences in efficiency between PNFP and public hospitals but there is some evidence of higher quality levels in PNFP hospitals. PNFP hospitals' performance is plausibly related to three areas of managerial autonomy. First, better management of drug supply is facilitated by their freedom to purchase drugs from the open market. Second, greater success with personnel management is plausibly related to their greater autonomy over staffing. Third, higher levels of cost recovery are enabled by their freedom to set fees. However, differences in accountability and competence of hospital management, and population willingness to pay for services may also help to explain differences. Further, the use of PNFP financing strategy by public hospitals has implications for universal access to hospital services. Although there appear to be potential advantages from greater public hospital autonomy, the Ugandan government should ensure it has developed strategies to enhance public hospital management and to protect access to public hospitals before advancing further with hospital autonomy policy. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The rights of (future) humans qua humans

Human rights are rights held “simply in virtue of humanity.” In unpacking this claim, we find that theories of human rights disclose (1) something about what we understand a minimally decent human life to be and (2) who we consider to belong within a community of rights-bearers. In this article, I address two interrelated questions: When and why do future persons have standing as rights-bearing members of a shared moral community? Are the rights held by future generations best expressed in the “greening” of existing rights or in a new distinctly environmental right? I argue that human rights theorists miss an important element of the human qua human if they take ecological embeddedness to be contingently rather than necessarily relevant to human rights. I therefore argue that there are reasons to favor a new distinctly environmental human right.     

The overstated economy: Implications of positive public economics for national accounting

Current national income accounting, which is based on the ‘comprehensive production concept’, is criticized on the basis of the ‘modern transfer’ view of government activity, which is based on a positive theory of bureaucracy and representative government, and is shown as ‘overstating’ the size of the national economy. Such mismeasurement inevitably leads to misunderstanding the macroeconomic effects of nationalization, redistribution and stabilization policies. An alternative concept, the ‘restricted market production concept’, is shown as providing a consistent and economically meaningful measurement of the size of the national economy and of the relevant effects of various government policies. qu]The underlying assumption is that [government] services are worth their costs, i.e., that they are produced and supplied after a proper balancing by the authorities (or the electorate itself on given occasions) of their social advantages and social cost. [A footnote continues!] This assumption may be correct in societies that are well governed but would be incorrect in those that are not. Paul Studinsk; The Income of Nations, 1961 (bracketed words added)     

Entrepreneurship-driven public management reforms in Southeast Asia: Critical implications for public accountability

In recent decades, public management has been restructured worldwide for greater efficiency and innovation based on entrepreneurship-driven models such as Reinventing Governance, New Public Management, and post-NPM frameworks. The primary intent of these business-like models is instilling entrepreneurship, which would encourage risk-taking innovation, managerial autonomy, performance orientation, and customer choice. Such entrepreneurial orientation is embedded in organizational-managerial reforms related to human resource management, budgeting framework, performance benchmarking, and so on. These entrepreneurship-driven reforms have significant impacts on administrative structure, procedures, and norms affecting the process of public sector accountability. In line with such global trends, most countries in Southeast Asia have embraced some of these pro-market business-type reforms in public management to enhance its entrepreneurship, innovation, and competition, which have implications for managerial control, neutrality, regulation, and integrity required for public accountability. This article explores these entrepreneurship-driven reforms in the region and evaluates their critical implications for the long-established institutions, structures, and procedures of public accountability.     

Pricing public sector services: The tuition gap

The large gap between the tuition charged by public colleges and universities and private ones is likely to cause severe disruptions to the private sector institutions of higher education. If it continues, private sector institutions may once again become bastions for students who can afford their services, rather than for those who merit them, and these institutions will diminish in size and diversity as well. Public sector institutions will become relatively stronger - not solely for reasons of effectiveness, efficiency, or equity - but because of the competitive advantage that the tuition gap affords them. This paper explores the feasibility and desirability of the three methods of correcting this problem, using real cost and demand data from the University of Massachusetts for illustrative purposes. It concludes the subsidization of students (rather than institutions) and raising public sector tuitions are two possible alternatives to the present tuition gap.     

The policy process in Washington: a conceptual template for public affairs programming

Professional and scholarly literatures are rich at individual steps within Washington policy formulation. But a single, guiding template for the entire process—from start to finish—is absent. This creates two difficulties: practitioners toil additionally to explain process intricacies to senior business managers, and educators labor to teach students the public affairs process. This article fills the void. As the policy process unfolds, options to mold policy outcomes in Washington change and increase substantially over time. Knowing what stage one faces within the policy process prescribes communication strategy and tactics. What begins narrowly ends broadly with a virtually universal right to make the government listen and respond. The United States virtually stands alone among democracies globally in the organization of its policy process. This study offers a single, holistic approach to the US public policy process and ways to influence it. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Environmentalism undercover: The environmental dimension of public support for domestic water charges

Research shows that environmental attitudes can affect support for environmentally-beneficial policies. However, it is unclear whether environmental attitudes can influence support for such policies when they are not being primarily framed through an environmental lens. Using data from the 2011 Irish National Election Study, this paper examines the issue using the case of support for the reintroduction of water charges. This was a contentious issue with debate largely focusing on the proposal as an austerity measure, but the proposal also had environmental implications. The results find that while individuals' willingness to prioritise environmental protection over economic growth did not affect their support for water charges, their willingness to make individual sacrifices for the environment did. Moreover, voters’ position on this policy impacted their vote choice. The findings are particularly important given the struggles that governments are facing in implementing environmental taxes and charges.     

Policy failure and public support: The Iran-Contra affair and public assessment of President Reagan

The Iran-Contra affair is an example of the type of event that is expected to give rise to a rally of public opinion behind the president. However, the public's response to this event, uncharacteristically, was a sharp decrease in support for President Reagan. This case study constitutes an attempt to explore the sources of the public opinion response to foreign policy events. Statements of political elites, news coverage and commentary, and public opinion assessments are examined to test the patriotism, priming, and opinion leadership explanations of the rally phenomenon. The actions of opinion leaders appears to provide the best explanation of the differential public response to the Iran-Contra affair.