Catastrophe and the Public Service: A Case Study of the Government Response to the Destruction of the World Trade Center

The destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, resulted in a rapid response by government to evacuate the area and, in subsequent days, to bring the city back to a semblance of normalcy. This article provides a case study of government action in New York City during and after the World Trade Center catastrophe. What is most striking is the skill and intensity of government's response to the emergency and the hard work, dedication, and bravery of New York City's government officials. This article presents government and public service at its finest, under some of the most difficult conditions one can imagine.     

Public Opinion on Issues of U.S. Federalism in 2005: End of the Post-2001 Pro-Federal Surge?

This article analyzes public opinion on five areas of federalism-relatedissues in 2005 and compares the results with findings from previousyears. Overall, the results indicate (1) a decline in supportfor the federal government following the increase in supportafter the terrorist attacks of 2001 and (2) an increase in supportfor state and local governments to levels typical of most pre-2001surveys. The local property tax, however, continues to be identifiedmost often as the worst tax, whereas the state income tax isleast often said to be the worst. The federal government is,by far, the level of government most often selected as havingtoo much power today, whereas local government is most oftencited as needing more power. Also evident was a decline since2002 in the public's perception of the respect given to theirstates in the federal system.     

创建高绩效政府是行政体制改革的必然要求

创建高绩效政府是世界性的政府改革趋势,是当前行政体制改革深化发展的必然要求。高绩效政府具有较高的政府绩效,体现了政府的强大能力,能够服务于当前和未来的社会需求,是政府形象建设的一个重要方面。在此过程中,需要以公众满意度作为衡量高绩效政府的最重要指标,进一步完善政府绩效管理,共同参与高绩效政府的创建,把创建高绩效政府作为行政体制改革的切入点。     

Decentralization,Local Government,and the Welfare State

Despite growing interest in decentralized governance, the local government systems that comprise the most common element of decentralization around the world have received little systematic attention. This article, drawing on the first systematic index of decentralization to local government in 21 countries, demonstrates a close relation between Social Democratic welfare states and an intergovernmental infrastructure that in important respects ranks as the most decentralized among advanced industrial countries. This empowerment of local government in these countries was less an outgrowth of Social Democratic welfare state development than a preexisting condition that helped make this type of welfare state possible.     

统筹城乡发展与地方政府——基于浙江省长兴县的研究

统筹城乡发展、建设新农村是全面贯彻落实科学发展观、构建和谐社会的重要内容和途径。其中,政府必须扮演关键性的角色,而在各级政府中,县级政府又负有最直接的责任。浙江省长兴县统筹城乡发展、建设新农村的基本经验是:政府必须承担统筹城乡发展、建设新农村的主要责任,通过建立领导机制、政府体制创新等有效地整合资源、制订规划、组织实施;政府必须在建设农村基础设施、治理和保护农村自然环境、建立健全医疗、养老等农民社会保障体系、支持农业生产、发展教育事业等方面发挥关键性作用;政府必须尊重市场规律,重视社会力量,尊重农民的主体地位、首创精神和权利,形成政府、企业、社会三者之间互补、合作的良好格局,合力解决实际进程中的困难;政府必须因地制宜,因时制宜,制订并实施基于当地现实、适应当地现实、全面、渐进解决当地现实问题的公共政策。     

South Australia: Caution and Consistency

During the 1990s public service industrial relations in South Australia have followed the state's long‐standing practice of being moderate and careful. From 1993 onwards, processes of corporatisation and privatisation that had commenced under the Bannon Labor government were continued and extended under the new Liberal government, in part as a response to financial pressures arising from the State Bank collapse, and in part as a reflection of the same trends that were widespread elsewhere. Where possible the government avoided direct confrontation with unions. There were various contests where the parties explored options in the changing environment, but the most prominent trend was that government policies of financial restraint and outsourcing tended to reduce most unions' bargaining power. Those policies were initially conjoined with agency‐specific enterprise bargaining, but the resulting variations in outcomes finally led to a Wages Parity Agreement to restore consistency.     

Some empirical evidence on rent-seeking

We tested for the capture of net gains by winners in rent-seeking competitions, using the most prominent announcements of government favors in the Canadian economy over a twelve-year period. Stockholders' returns were not significantly different from zero. One possible explanation is that government assists firms only when assistance creates political gains. Refusing to transfer economic rents to firms maximmizes the resources available to serve political purposes. This kind of behavior by government officials would imply that government has market power, which is consistent with several well-known theories of government.     

State Political Identity and Meta-Governance: Comparative Analysis of Governance Modes in Vegetable Retail in Urban China

Abstract

A government’s political identity is a key factor in meta-governance; it powerfully shapes a government’s policy aims and implementation preferences at the most abstract level and forms a stable governance mode. Dissonance between a pre-existing governance mode and the government’s evolved political identity will lead to governance failures and pose political challenges to the government. In the case of vegetable retail in Shanghai, the neoliberal developmental state transformed the hierarchical governance into market governance; but as it evolves into a corporatist welfare state, market imperfections come to be perceived as governance failures, and the government responds by reintroducing hierarchical measures.     

CASH TRANSFERS BY THE QUEENSLAND STATE GOVERNMENT TO NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS

Abstract: This is the first in a series of studies into cash transfers from the State government to non-government organizations in Queensland. It focuses particularly on transfers from the Departments of Welfare Services and Children's Services. Information has been obtained from public government documents, departmental files and records, and from interviews with representatives of eight non-government organizations in receipt of cash transfers. The study documents the pattern and process of transfers and explores existing means of achieving accountability, accessibility, effectiveness, efficiency and equity. While transfers to the non-government sector in Queensland are a well established practice, the proportion of government funds going to the non-government sector is small. The larger, well-established organizations receive the most and are best satisfied with their relationship to government. It would appear that much could be done to improve accessibility to government transfers in Queensland, where program accountability has not been emphasized. The final section of the paper questions the advisability of jumping on the program evaluation bandwagon. The need for more research into the impact of government funding on program development, efficient use of resources, social cohesion, political position and meeting the most pressing needs in the community is emphasized. Glennerster's "pluralist planning model" is suggested as a possible guide for improving the process of allocation of transfers in Queensland.     

The Impact of Political Debate on Government Trust: Reminding the Public What the Federal Government Does

Americans' confidence in government is low by historical standards. We fielded a national telephone survey to examine influences on government confidence and whether public discontent was affected by altering the salience of specific government operations. We used a question order experiment where we alternated between first asking a general question about confidence in government and first asking about confidence in specific government operations. We found that posing the specific policy questions first elevated general confidence more than the reverse. The largest and most noticeable effects were observed for Republicans and those most knowledgeable and attentive to politics. Findings of context effects and the partisan subgroup differences are consistent with existing theories on public opinion change as well as with previous question order experiments. But, evidence that the cognitive elite was especially influenced by question order challenges previous theories that presumed that its sophistication made it immune to influence. We suggest that education and political knowledge expand rather than contract the opportunities for priming.     

The Struggle For Jurisdiction: Regionalism Versus Rationalism

Territory, national versus regional, has been at the basis ofclaims to power in most federations, and Canada is no exception.But regionalism has had to contend with another perspectiveon political power in Canada: economic rationalism or entrepreneurism,which views its own conduct and that of government as the maximizationof economic profit. As advocated by the federal government,most particularly under Trudeau, economic rationalism conceivedof a division of powers that is efficient, least costly, flexible,hierarchical, systematic, and rational. This pursuit of omnicompetenceand unrestricted jurisdiction has resulted in unilateral federalisminitiated by Ottawa and rejoindered by provinces. It constitutesa major challenge to cooperative relations and an abdicationby the national government of its brokerage role between theinterests of the extensive and intensive communities in Canada.     

Same Governance,Different Day: Does Metropolitan Reorganization Make a Difference?

This commentary focuses on three points related to the debate about urban governmental restructuring: existing conflicts in the literature regarding the outcomes of local government consolidation; insights about consolidation based on an assessment of the amalgamation of twelve municipal units creating the new city of Ottawa; and, a discussion of a variety of methodological and political factors that may well account for the continuing inconsistency in academic assessments of structural change in local government. One possible explanation for the latter conflict is that governmental reorganization does not really make things substantially different in terms of taxes and services, that is, those outcomes most directly experienced by the average citizen. Over the long term other forces, such as intergovernmental relations and the economy, will tend to negate most of the initial effects of change. While there are likely to be winners and losers related to power in government or regime, it will be argued that in large part, for most citizens, governmental reorganization produces the same governance on a different day.     

Government reform in Canada

Today the Canadian federation is facing various challenges. External factors such as globalization, changing markets and the revolution in communications, as well as internal factors such as a growing deficit and debt, provinces wanting more autonomy and uncontrolled government spending are some of the pressures Canada is facing. In 1994 the government launched the most important review of federal policies and programmes since the early 1950s. This article examines how Programme Review, the most important of these activities, is helping to refocus the role of the federal government in a way that would be meaningful to all Canadians. The implementation of the combined results of policy and programme review will involve reductions in government programmes, the development of new delivery agencies, the launching of new partnerships, and the achievement of greater efficiencies. The article also looks at the important role the Public Service of Canada is playing in responding to the need for change. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

Coalition and Minority Government in Wales: Lessons for the United Kingdom?

Post‐devolution Wales has had experience of a variety of different types of government and a variety of different parties in government; single party rule with one party gaining an overall majority of the seats (Labour, 2003–05), minority administrations (Labour, 1999–2000, 2005–07) and coalitions between Labour and the Liberal Democrats (2000–03) and Labour and Plaid Cymru (2007 to date). This article explores the experiences of both minority and coalition government in Wales, focusing most notably on the convoluted process of coalition formation in 2007, before proceeding to draw lessons for the United Kingdom coalition government based upon developments in Wales.     

Government approval in Italy: Political cycle,economic expectations and TV coverage

This paper analyses government approval in Italy – which has become a key aspect for electoral support in the new party system of the Second Republic – exploring the influence that TV coverage exerts on approval net of traditional accounts of government support. Relying on both aggregate time series and pooled individual-level surveys analyses, it is shown that communication has a sizable impact on government approval. The popularity of Centre-Left and Centre-Right governments is affected evenly by the economy but differently by the news coverage of their activity. People with lower political interest are the most reactive to news coverage of government performance.     

Urban Government Innovation: Identifying Current Innovations and Factors that Contribute to Their Adoption

This article presents two new sets of information regarding local government innovation. Using survey techniques, the research establishes a list of 22 modern local government innovations and identifies what are considered by local government professionals to be the top three mainstream local government innovations and cities leading in their usage. The research uses statistical techniques and previous research on the topic to test what effect factors related to the 100 most populated U.S. cities have on innovation usage. Among other variables, consistency, the population size, size of the advantaged population, and number of Democratic voters are found to be positively related to innovation on usage by cities.     

Public Opinion and American Federalism: Perspectives on Taxes, Spending, and Trust--An ACIR Update

The research reported here updates for 1999 some public opiniondata previously provided by the U. S. Advisory Commission onIntergovernmental Relations. The 1999 survey results indicatea general continuation of opinion trends established by thelate 1970s to the mid-1980s. Local government is viewed as givingcitizens the most for their money, followed by state governmentand the federal government. Americans still regard the federalincome tax as the worst tax, followed by the local propertytax. Likewise, Americans express the most trust and confidencein local government and the least trust and confidence in thefederal government, although confidence in all governments increasedover comparable data for 1992. Race and party identificationand, in one case, region are significant factors differentiatingopinions about the federal, state, and local governments andtheir taxes.     

John Stuart Mill's Theory of Bureaucracy within Representative Government: Balancing Competence and Participation

The relationship between bureaucracy and representative government has been a subject of concern to public administration since its inception. John Stuart Mill addressed this question in an 1861 essay, in which he explained his theory of government. Mill suggests a role for public administration that is not only legitimate, but also necessary for good government. His writings contain remarkable references to the concerns addressed in current theories of public administration. Mill worked to balance the spirit of popular government with governance by the most educated, skilled, and experienced of the nation, whether they were citizens, elected representatives, or administrative officials. This article examines Mill's theory and the contribution it makes to current public administration discussion.     

马克思主义利益视角的社会稳定及政府控制

从利益的视角审视,社会不稳定的最大诱因是利益分化所造成的利益对立与利益冲突.政府维系和实现社会稳定最为有效的手段就是通过利益调控弱化和消解利益的冲突和对立.当代中国政府控制的主要任务是通过制度、政策以及思想政治教育等利益调控手段的综合运用,为中国的小康社会建设构筑一个良好的社会稳定机制.     

Relationships between government size and economic growth: Japan's government reforms and evidence from OECD

This paper examines the relationship between government size and economic growth of 21 industrialized countries. Government size is measured by government final consumption expenditures and transfer payments. The relationship between government consumption is expected to increase GDP growth for developing countries, and reduce it for industrialized countries. Government consumption can contribute to increased economic growth. However, government consumption is likely to expand beyond an efficient level in industrialized countries. In contrast, transfer payments, and social welfare programs are likely to reduce economic growth for most countries. These programs reduce work incentives and encourage tax avoidance activities. Work disincentives and tax avoidance reduce economic growth. These expected relationships are consistent with economic performance and government size for the countries considered here. Inefficiency and excessive government growth are checked by voter feedback as tax burdens exceed the associated benefits. Unfortunately, government program costs and benefits are asymmetrically distributed. The resulting tendency is to expand government programs, particularly programs that benefit a majority of voters at the expense of a minority. This tendency becomes even more acute as the tax system becomes more progressive (i.e., tax burdens become concentrated. Reductions in government size are more likely with stagnant or declining economic growth, and in government programs whose costs are widely shared, compared to programs with widely shared benefits and narrowly shared costs.