Reaching for profit in the welfare state: Patrimonial economic voting in Denmark

Economic voting has been well-studied in a number of advanced industrial democracies, including Denmark. However, that work has been almost entirely on the valence dimension, i.e., rewarding or punishing government according to whether the overall economy prospers. Recent work has looked at other economic voting dimensions, including patrimony, i.e., the impact of property ownership on the vote. A patrimonial effect has been found in the UK, the US, and France. However, it seems to differ somewhat depending on the welfare-character of the state, with the US at one end and France at the other. Here we examine patrimonial economic voting in a still more extreme welfare state - Denmark. In our analysis of voting in the 2011 parliamentary election, we establish two new findings: 1. patrimonial economic voting exists in Denmark and, 2. its effect is stronger than that for other countries studied thus far.     

Reaching for the Philosopher's Stone: Contingent Coordination and the Military's Response to Hurricane Katrina

When Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in August 2005, it immediately overwhelmed the abilities of local and state emergency management officials to respond to the ensuing disaster. Although the U.S. Coast Guard and some military units were on scene shortly after the passage of the storm, there seemed to be interminable delays before the military forces began to arrive in numbers to both provide humanitarian relief and secure the affected areas. This article analyzes the response of the National Guard, active-duty military, and Coast Guard forces through the lens of coordination. We find evidence of the successful use of both traditional hierarchical and network-based coordination; we also find support for Donald Kettl's idea of "contingent coordination."     

Reaching Migrants in Survey Research: The Use of the Global Positioning System to Reduce Coverage Bias in China

Mingming Shen Department of Political Science, School of Government, 416 Library Building, Peking University, Beijing, China 100871 e-mail: shenmm{at}rcccpku.org List-based samples are often biased because of coverage errors.The problem is especially acute in societies where the levelof internal migration is high and where record keeping on thepopulation is not reliable. We propose a solution based on spatialsampling that overcomes the inability to reach migrants in traditionalarea samples based on household lists. A comparison betweena traditional study and our sample of Beijing demonstrates thatcoverage bias is greatly reduced. The successful incorporationof mobile urban residents has important substantive effects,in both univariate and multivariate analyses of public opiniondata.     

Reaching Out or Pulling Back: Macroeconomic Conditions and Public Support for Social Welfare Spending

In economic hard-times, do Americans call for increases in governmental assistance, or do they clamor for declines in government assistance? We address this question by identifying the impact of state-level macroeconomic conditions on public support for social welfare spending. We analyze individual-level data from the 1984–2000 National Election Studies, combined with state-level macroeconomic indicators of inflation, unemployment, and productivity. We find that state-level inflation, not state-level unemployment nor state-level productivity, consistently and consequentially shapes citizens’ support for social welfare. With rising inflation, Americans become more supportive of means-tested social welfare spending. Our analyses generally reaffirm the value Americans place on the social welfare safety net, especially during times of economic duress. When the going gets tough, Americans reach out, rather than pull back.     

How politicians see their relationship with top bureaucrats: Revisiting classical images

The relationship between politicians and bureaucrats is an enduring concern in political science. Central to this debate, Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman (APR) in 1981 developed four images to characterize political-bureaucratic relations. We argue that the one-dimensional focus on roles in their images comes with important limitations. To deal with these limitations, we collect survey responses from 3,384 local politicians from four countries on seven dimensions of the political-bureaucratic relationship. We then use cluster analysis to develop six images bottom-up. Five of our images are largely consistent with APR's image II and III. Yet, they differ in the extent to which politicians trust the bureaucracy, consider them loyal, and see them as an important source of information. A sixth image is not consistent with any of APR's images. We find that both systemic (country, municipality size) and individual factors (ideology, position, seniority) contribute to differences in images. Overall, our images suggest that political-bureaucratic relations vary more between and within political systems than suggested by APR's images.     

The impact of the Texas top ten percent law on college enrollment: A regression discontinuity approach

We use regression discontinuity methods on a representative survey of Texas high school seniors to discern the impact on flagship‐enrollment behavior of the Texas top 10 percent law, which guarantees admission to any Texas public university to students who graduate in the top decile of their class. By comparing students at and immediately below the cut‐point for automatic admission, we find that the top 10 percent law affects flagship enrollment of Hispanic students eligible for the admission guarantee, as well as rank‐eligible graduates from high schools where minority students predominate and from high schools with the state average share of economically disadvantaged students. Our findings are robust to various model specifications and different bandwidth choices using local linear estimation. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Personnel practices in careers of women at the top in government and business in Nicaragua and Costa Rica

This article, which is the first empirical study of upper-level female managers in Central America, extends the exploration of similarities and differences between public and private sectors in human resource management to the context of developing countries. A comparison of work hours, recruitment and selection practices, mentoring, political pressure, gender discrimination and sexual harassment, reported by female managers in public and private organizations in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, yielded no sector-based differences and few country-based differences. We conclude, therefore, that the public sector is not a more supportive or more fair employer for women in management than the private sector in these two countries, contrary to the assumption in the women-in-management literature that the public sector is a more hospitable environment. Improvements in human resources practices are appropriate in both sectors.     

The training and development of top executives in developing countries: A tanzanian approach

The training and development of public service employees is now accepted to be a major contributor to organizational performance. In the Third World, however, much of the training effort has been directed at junior, supervisory and middle-level personnel. Top personnel were, for a long time, presumed to be ‘above training’. There is now, however, an awakening to the need for training all categories of personnel. The major constraint in most countries remains the lack of facilities and trainers able to handle senior personnel. Tanzania has recently embarked on a concerted effort to train its top public service personnel through the mobilization of all management/administrative training capabilities in a joint, concerted endeavour, under the aegis of the Ministry of Manpower Development and a body known as the National Standing Training Team on Top Executive Development (NSTT). More than 20 6-week courses have been run and a recent evaluation of the programme suggests that they are popular and have reactivated an interest in training among top executives. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that the training has resulted in improved performance in public organizations although some executives have introduced some innovations in their organizations which they derived from the training programme.     

从世界现状看中国发展模式的正确性

当今国际局势错综复杂,以美国为首的西方国家四处兜售其发展理念和价值观念,给世界带来的不是和平与稳定,而是动荡与不安。从当今世界发展现状和中国改革开放的成功实践出发,阐述了中国发展模式的正确性以及对世界的深远意义和影响。     

论新时期的党群关系问题

密切党群关系是党的十六大关注的一个十分重要的问题 ,它对巩固和发展党的执政地位具有重要的意义。本文首先从理论和实践上分析了新时期加强和改进党群关系的必要性 ,然后从分析影响党群关系的因素入手 ,系统阐述了建立互动合作型党群关系的措施和办法     

关于信念、价值和利益之关系的思考

在信念问题的研究中,存在着脱离经济基础、脱离价值和利益等因素,去单纯地谈论信念问题的倾向。从根本上说,这种脱离经济基础来谈论上层建筑,脱离社会存在来谈论社会意识形态的做法,显然是错误的。但是,批驳这种错误倾向,从而帮助人们树立正确的信念观,则要求我们必须对信念、价值和利益的关系做出令人信服的回答。     

贫富差距影响社会稳定的三个因素

改革开放以来,我国在“让一部分人、一部分地区先富起来,逐步实现共同富裕”政策的指导下,社会各阶层总体生活水平有较大的提高,这是让世人瞩目的成就。但是,由于种种原因,也出现了收入差距拉大和贫富分化的问题,并为人们所关注。就目前的贫富差距对社会稳定构成的影响来说,要引起重视的主要是以下三个因素。     

中国现阶段贫富差距扩大问题分析

中国现阶段的贫富差距问题可以用贫富差距扩大这一概念来概括,而不宜用别的概念,无论是从基尼系数还是从五等份法来看,中国社会的贫富差距扩大现象已经到了比较严重的程度。造成这种情形的原因既有属于历史的原因,也有属于非正常的因素所起的作用,不宜一概而论。缓解中国贫富差距扩大问题的对策在于实现充分就业、健全社会保障制度以及建立起合理而有效的税收制度等等。     

对社区体制存续成因的解析——基于物、关系和观念的分析逻辑

社区结构是行为主体为满足居民需求而选择的获取和利用资源的方式及由此形成的相互关系。物质资源对行为主体的相互关系的决定性影响以及主体观念对相互关系的能动作用共同改变着社区的结构,透过物、关系和观念审视社区结构生成和演变所揭示出的内在的规律和发展的逻辑,为解释当前社区体制改革所面临的问题提供了理论依据。     

加强对党政"一把手"的监督

目前对党政"一把手"的监督困难重重,问题多多.必须从加强教育,提高思想政治素质,完善监督体系,拓宽监督渠道,强化对"一把手"权力授权过程、权力运行过程、权力运行结果的监督制约,确保"一把手"掌权以人民的意志为本源,以人民的利益为归宿.     

论法官与法律的关系--并及法律的未来

应该说,法官与法律的关系是以司法为视角进行法学研究时所应当关注的核心问题之一。本文在对已有相关理论进行评析的基础上得出了以下两个基本结论:其一,理想的法官与法律的关系应当是:法官乃法律的有限诠释者;其二,为了更好地保证法官与法律之间的这种理性互动关系,应当创制原则性法律。