How news content influences anti-immigration attitudes: Germany, 1993–2005

Immigration is an increasingly important political issue in Western democracies and a crucial question relates to the antecedents of public attitudes towards immigrants. It is generally acknowledged that information relayed through the mass media plays a role in the formation of anti-immigration attitudes. This study considers whether news coverage of immigrants and immigration issues relates to macro-level dynamics of anti-immigration attitudes. It further explores whether this relationship depends on variation in relevant real world contexts. The models simultaneously control for the effects of established contextual explanatory variables. Drawing on German monthly time-series data and on ARIMA time-series modeling techniques, it is shown that both the frequency and the tone of coverage of immigrant actors in the news significantly influence dynamics in anti-immigration attitudes. The strength of the effect of the news, however, depends on contextual variation in immigration levels and the number of asylum seekers. Implications of these findings are discussed in the light of the increasing success of extreme right parties and growing opposition to further European integration.     

From Policy to Practice: From Ideas to Results,From Results to Trust

Few areas of public administration have been more discouraging, over a longer period of time, than the struggle to build public trust in government's work. However, new research suggests that public administrators can build trust by improving the results they produce for citizens. Practical, practicable steps can produce big improvements: improving government's focus on citizens' needs; engaging employees; focusing on fairness; and, especially, concentrating on the delivery of public services at the “retail” level. Citizens, research shows, can discriminate among levels of government, the administration of different programs in different functional areas, and the work of individual administrators. That provides strong hope for improving trust, in an era when too often government appears too untrustworthy.     

Introduction: Understanding Public Policy through Its Instruments—From the Nature of Instruments to the Sociology of Public Policy Instrumentation

Public policy instrumentation and its choice of tools and modes of operation are treated either as a kind of evidence (governing means making regulations, taxing, entering into contracts, communicating, etc.) or as if the questions it raises (the properties of instruments, justifications for choosing them, their applicability, etc.) are part of a rationality of methods without any autonomous meaning. This paper aims to explain the significance of a political sociology approach to public policy instruments in accounting for processes of public policy change: (1) public policy instrumentation is a major issue in public policy, since it reveals a (fairly explicit) theorization of the relationship between the governing and the governed: every instrument constitutes a condensed form of knowledge about social control and ways of exercising it; and (2) instruments at work are not neutral devices: they produce specific effects, independently of the objective pursued (the aims ascribed to them), which structure public policy according to their own logic.     

Opposition Policy Influence through Agenda‐setting: The Environment in Denmark, 1993–2009

This article addresses the opportunities that the opposition has to influence policy – a topic that has been neglected in existing party policy research. The idea that is developed is applied to a remarkable environmental policy development during the Danish right‐wing government in the 2000s. Contrary to its position when it took office in 2001, the right‐wing government turned green and adopted a series of green policy initiatives. It is argued in this article that vehement and persistent criticism from the left‐wing opposition provides an explanation for this turn. Taking media coverage, public opinion, carbon dioxide emissions and the government's approval ratings into account, the empirical estimation based on unique quarterly data shows that opposition criticism had a systematic impact on the government's pro‐environmental policy development. The implications for party policy research are important. If the aim is to understand how parties matter to policy, the opposition should be taken more seriously.     

The Consummate Comparative Public Administrationist: A Tribute to Ferrel Heady, 1916–2006

Ferrel Heady died on August 16, 2006, at his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Together with Fred Riggs, he is widely known and respected as one of the founders of comparative public administration. In this tribute to our friend and colleague, we touch on the highlights of his distinguished career as a scholar, an academic administrator, and a person who lived up to his own high standards of honesty and integrity in every aspect of his life. We assess his body of work, attempt to summarize its significance, and reproduce comments about him sent to us by his friends and colleagues. This tribute is accompanied by reflections on Ferrel written by Fred Riggs.     

The Reagan Administration's Foreign Policy, 1981–1985: Learning to Live with Uncertainty?

The Reagan administration's foreign policy from 1981 to 1985 provides an intriguing test of a central problem faced by foreign-policy-makers: the need to cope with uncertainty in policy formulation and implementation. This article sets out to explore the problem and to formulate propositions about the ways in which policy-makers might respond to it. The argument has three stages: first, it identifies some sources and manifestations of uncertainty in foreign policy; secondly, it develops a framework within which policy-makers' responses to uncertainty can be located; and finally, it applies the framework to Reaganite foreign policy. Two sets of conclusions emerge: first, that it is important to identify ways in which foreign-policy-makers both accept uncertainty and adjust to it; and secondly, that the identification of shifting patterns of response leads to further questions about the 'learning processes' manifested in policy-making.     

The Danes and Europe: From EC 1972 to Euro 2000 – Elections, Referendums and Attitudes

Within Europe, the Danish electorate is the one that has most often expressed its opinion about the European Union in elections and in national referendums. Votes and attitudes are analysed for the five elections to the European Parliament between 1979 and 1999 and in the six referendums – from the first on membership of the EC in 1972 to the September 2000 referendum on acceptance of the euro, the European single currency. The article gives an overview of the development of Danish public opinion in relation to the European Union from 1960 to 2000, the turnouts at referendums, and the elections and results for the European Parliament. It is shown that since Denmark joined the EU, public opinion has fluctuated greatly, although the balance among Danish European Parliament members has remained stable. The reasons for the frequent use of referendums in Denmark and a thematic outline of the six referendums are put forward. The article concludes with a comprehensive analysis of public attitudes towards the referendum on the euro in 2000. It is shown that regional electoral patterns have vanished, but underlying attitudes are manifested in the public.     

From “New Institutionalism” to “Institutional Processualism”: Advancing Knowledge about Public Management Policy Change

Research on public management reform has taken a decidedly disciplinary turn. Since the late 1990s, analytical issues are less often framed in terms of the New Public Management. As part of the disciplinary turn, much recent research on public management reform is highly influenced by the three new institutionalisms. However, these studies have implicitly been challenged by a competing research program on public management reform that is emphatically processual in its theoretical foundations. This article develops the challenge in a more explicit fashion. It provides a theoretical restatement of the competing “institutional processualist” research program and compares its substantive findings with those drawn from the neoinstitutionalisms. The implications of this debate about public management reform for comparative historical analysis and neoinstitutional theories are discussed.     

Thomas G. West, <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Political Theory of the American Founding: Natural Rights,Public Policy,and the Moral Conditions of Freedom</Emphasis>

Review of Thomas G. West, The Political Theory of the American Founding.     

From nation-building to building identification with political communities: Consequences of political decentralisation in Spain, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia, 1978–2001

Abstract. Many multiethnic polities suffer from a deficit of citizens' support for their political communities. Hence, their governments may think of political decentralisation as a solution. This article analyses the effects of that policy on citizens' identification with their political communities in Spain: on identification with the Basque Country, Catalonia or Galicia (its most conspicuous 'nationalities') once they have become 'autonomous communities', and on identification with the overall Spanish political community. To study the processes of transformation of such attitudes, nation-building theories are interpreted from the political socialisation approach and applied to the autonomous institutions. It is also suggested that the state strictu senso , by contrast, may be developing an alternative method of forging identification with its own political community. Survey time-series evidence shows that although those autonomous communities are engaged successfully in a local but standard nation-building, the whole political system may be fostering its own diffuse support by recognising and institutionalising cultural diversity and self-government.