Corruption and Political Culture in America: An Empirical Perspective

Political culture helps define the boundaries of permissiblepolitical action. Thus, it should affect the amounts and typesof political corruption occurring in political systems, as wellas responses to corruption when it is discovered. This articlecompares the distribution of corruption convictions among federaljudicial districts over a three-year period to social and politicalcharacteristics of the districts, and to scaled measures ofElazar's moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic politicalsubcultures. Nationally, strong moralistic subcultures and highvoter turnouts are associated with numerous convictions, bothbefore and after district population is controlled. Analysisof regional patterns reveals a different model in the South,however, one suggesting ideas about the dynamics of traditionalisticpolitics. Corruption, and the impact of federal laws againstit, are best understood within their political and culturalsettings. ^* I am indebted to George Calafut and Philip Sidel of the SocialScience Computer Research Institute, University of Pittsburgh,who gave me many hours of assistance in assembling data. LeonardKuntz and William Nelson of the Universitys Office of Research,Father Bernard Quinn of the Glenmary Research Center, and WilliamNewman of the University of Connecticut helped me locate religiouscensus results. The County and City Data Book is published ontape by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and SocialResearch. Daniel J. Elazar, Michael Margolis, Bert A. Rockman,and two anonymous referees gave me extremely helpful commentson this study.     

寻租腐败:一种经济学分析视角

腐败现象,从经济学的角度讲,其性质是一种寻租活动。“寻租”是指人类社会中追求非生产性经济利益的活动。寻租活动的危害主要有:权力的滥用和腐化;社会资源的巨大浪费;社会成员是非价值传统观和对政府合法性认同感的丧失。寻租从本质上说是权力寻租行为。在我国正处于向市场经济过渡的转轨时期,制度“真空”的存在是权力寻租的主要根源。因此,遏制寻租腐败源头的根本措施在于制度创新。     

Feral Beasts: An Introduction to Tony Blair's Reuters Speech on the Media

One of Prime Minister Blair's last speeches was on his governments relationship to the media, and the at times damaging impact of the 'sensation hungry media' on every aspect of public life, many of whom were too frightened to take on the 'feral beasts'. He argued that his government had to attempt to deal with the media power, that 'spin' is an attempt to handle that power, that the media attack private life and that in the end the media must manage themselves. The piece includes his speech, the revealing questions and answers, and commentary on them by a series of distinguished journalists and academics.     

公众举报腐败意愿影响因素的实证分析

举报是发现腐败问题的重要手段之一,也是公众参与腐败治理的主要途径。目前现实中仍存在着部分公众发现贪污腐败现象,但出于各种原因不愿意进行举报的困境。本文利用湖南大学廉政研究中心2016年在C市开展的"贪污腐败的感知与态度"调查的数据,运用定性访谈数据分析、定量数据相关分析和因子分析相结合的方法对影响公众举报意愿的解释变量分别进行探索性分析和验证性分析。在数据分析的基础上提出应从完善举报制度、加大廉政教育力度、拓宽举报平台和途径等方面来有效提高公众举报腐败的积极性。     

诱发腐败的相对剥夺心理:分析与比较

公职人员腐败诱发的社会心理随着经济社会的发展而变化.在经济增长迟缓的发展中国家,福利价值的相对剥夺是公职人员腐败的主要诱因;在一国的经济高速增长阶段和转型社会,获取财富的多寡容易成为衡量权力价值的主要尺度;在发达国家和地区,诱发腐败的动机则主要在于时权力本身的地位、荣誉和影响力的追逐.处于不同发展阶段的国家或一国经济的不同发展阶段,公众心理对腐败的容忍程度有所不同.在经济增长迟缓的发展中国家,公众大多认为腐败可以容忍;在转型国家,公众对腐败的态度由容忍逐步转变为不容忍;在发达国家和地区,绝大多数公众都一致谴责腐败行为,并希望在原则的基础上对之予以惩罚.     

Strategy Content and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Analysis

This study presents the first empirical test of the proposition that strategy content is a key determinant of organizational performance in the public sector. Strategy content comprises two dimensions: strategic stance (the extent to which an organization is a prospector, defender, or reactor) and strategic actions (the relative emphasis on changes in markets, services, revenues, external relationships, and internal characteristics). Data were drawn from a multiple-informant survey of 119 English local authorities. Measures of strategy content are included in a multivariate model of interauthority variations in performance. The statistical results show that strategy content matters. Organizational performance is positively associated with a prospector stance and negatively with a reactor stance. Furthermore, local authorities that seek new markets for their services are more likely to perform well. These results suggest that measures of strategy content must be included in valid theoretical and empirical models of organizational performance in the public sector.     

政府部门谋位型腐败的经济学分析

分析了我国政府部门由职务变动引发的腐败问题。在我国市场经济尚未完全建立的现状之下,含有经济租金的一些政府部门职位成为一些人追逐的目标,加上目前我国政府部门的晋升制度还不够完善、政府组织的职位派生能力有限、政府组织与官员个人在实际工作能力和工作绩效方面存在着信息不对称、在补偿机制方面政府职位与经济福利待遇联系紧密等,为以谋取政府职务为目标的腐败行为提供了条件。谋位型腐败同时还成为引发谋利型腐败的一个重要根源。采用经济学研究方法,将谋位型腐败与谋利型腐败糅合在一个模型中加以分析,得出了如下一些结论:谋位型腐败发生的概率与参与同一职位竞争的人数负相关;工作能力弱的备选人相对于工作能力强的备选人更加倾向于采用行贿的手段谋取职务晋升;在两个备选人的工作能力和绩效相当的情况下,谋位型腐败发生的概率上升;谋位者个人、特别是握有人事安排决策权的部门负责人的腐败倾向性是谋位型腐败发生的关键因素;不同职位之间的经济收入差距越大,越易引发谋位型腐败。根据上述结论,提出了相应的政策建议。     

Reassessing the Impact of Civil Society: Nonprofit Sector,Press Freedom,and Corruption

The notion that a strong civil society helps to fight corruption has become a cornerstone of governance policy. Yet, a continuing dearth of empirical research, which tests this general proposition and probes the relevant causal mechanisms, feeds rising skepticism of current policy initiatives. This study theorizes the relationship between civil society and corruption, arguing that civil society's impact depends to a large extent on its ability to generate sufficient public pressure which, in turn, depends on the press being free. Analysis of cross‐national and longitudinal data shows that civil society strength is indeed inversely linked to the level of corruption, but the impact is highly dependent on press freedom. This conditioning effect affirms the importance of the public pressure mechanism. These results explain the need for policy to target both civil society and press freedom in promoting accountable governance and sustainable development.     

中国食品安全监管——基于体制变迁与绩效评估的实证研究

自新中国成立以来,中国食品安全管理体制经历了一个怎样的历史变化过程?从历史制度分析的方法论出发,如何从监管者、监管对象以及监管过程三个角度来界定这样的历史变化过程?现行的食品安全监管体制绩效如何?根据不同时期食品安全管理主体、对象以及政策工具的差异,将建国以来我国食品安全管理体制区分为指令型体制、混合型体制与监管型体制三个阶段,同时对不同阶段的发展脉络、具体特征以及体制利弊进行了归纳总结。此外,选择了四个具有代表性的指标,对1990年至今的中国食品安全变化态势进行了测量,发现我国食品安全的形势经历了一个明显的V型曲线发展过程,并据此对这一过程提出自己的解释假设,以此为中国食品安全监管的历史和现状提供一个白描式的描述图景。结合历史制度主义的分析范式,从四个方面综合分析出制约中国食品安全监管绩效优化的四大结构性因素,从而将其监管绩效的现状与历史制度根源联系起来,提出未来中国食品安全监管体制的改革方向。     

Estimating the Causal Effects of Media Coverage on Policy-Specific Knowledge

Policy facts are among the most relevant forms of knowledge in a democracy. Although the mass media seem like an obvious source of policy-specific information, past research in this area has been plagued by design and methodological problems that have hindered causal inferences. Moreover, few studies include measures of media content, preventing researchers from being able to say what it is about media coverage that influences learning. We advance the literature by employing a simple but underutilized approach for estimating the causal effects of news coverage. Drawing upon a unique collection of cross-sectional survey data, we make within-survey/within-subjects comparisons under conditions of high and low media coverage. We show how the volume, breadth, and prominence of news media coverage increase policy-specific knowledge above and beyond common demographic factors.     

Evaluation in Nonprofit Organizations: An Empirical Analysis

Many factors influence the extent to which nonprofit organizations engage in evaluation. Drawing on organization theory, nonprofit scholarship, and public administration research, we propose a set of hypotheses concerning the interrelationships between organizational characteristics and various aspects of nonprofit evaluation. We test these hypotheses using combined data from an original national survey and IRS Forms 990. Analysis reveals that although higher levels of staff compensation support many aspects of evaluation, higher levels of executive compensation exert negative effects. Additionally, evaluation culture mediates the effects of several variables on evaluation rigor and frequency. Practical implications are discussed for scholars and practitioners.     

When Practice Oversteps the Limits of Theory: An Assessment of Fair Media Coverage for Political Parties in Great Britain and Mexico

Over stressing the rights‐safeguarding role of democracy has led to a widespread neglect of democracy's essential function: to ensure the legitimacy of elected rulers and by doing so, to ensure political stability. The effects of this neglect are apparent in the disputes that arise concerning media coverage of elections. This article examines the difficulties democratic statesmen face to justify and consistently implement arrangements that limit the freedom of expression of the media in order to minimize the challenges to the legitimacy of electoral outcomes that a biased coverage of elections could incite. Current democratic theory does not address this problem. Indeed its emphasis on safeguarding the rights of citizens can suggest that the freedom of expression of the media should prevail over considerations of legitimacy and stability. This study examines the justifications adduced, and the implementation of, arrangements that curtail the right to advocacy of broadcasters and limit their right to editorial discretion in order to provide political parties with what I refer to here as “fair media coverage.” In particular, the article highlights and assesses the experiences in fair media coverage of election campaigns in the British General Election of 1997 and the Mexican Federal Election of 2000. In full view of these case studies, and on the basis of the theoretical guidelines I develop at the beginning of this article, I argue for limiting freedom of expression and stress the urgent need for democratic theories to address the practical problems that trouble democratic authorities.     

Newspapers and Budgeting: The Effects of Media Coverage on Local Expenditure Decisions

The media play an important role for the political agenda. It is less clear, however, how strong the media impact is on political decisions. This article pursues a different approach from the one commonly used in the media–policy research tradition. Instead of focusing on the relationship between the content of the media agenda and the political agenda, it is argued here that from a broader policy perspective, media pressure on the incumbents is a more relevant variable. Media pressure is measured as media competition and media coverage. Furthermore, the article investigates the effect of media variables on budgetary decisions in different spending areas, and compares the relationships between media pressure and policy under various economic, political and institutional conditions. This allows the authors to investigate which factors hinder and promote media influence on policy. The units of analysis are the Danish municipalities, which are similar political units with different newspaper coverage. Coverage by local newspapers is intense in some municipalities, but absent in others. As expected, the authors find that in municipalities with intensive coverage from local newspapers, local politicians do feel a stronger media pressure. However, when it comes to budgetary decisions, almost no observable effects of media pressure are found, either generally or in favourable political, economic or institutional settings.     

Corporate Governance and Corruption: A Cross-Country Analysis

Because the empirical literature on the causes of corruption has focused primarily on the demand side of corruption, that is, the corrupt officials who receive bribe payments, the role of the private sector as the supply side of corruption has not been examined thoroughly in this literature. In this article, it is argued that corporate governance is among the important factors determining the level of corruption. Using a cross-country data set, hypotheses that explicitly link various measures of corporate governance to the level of corruption are tested. The results show that corporate governance standards can have profound impacts on the effectiveness of the global anticorruption campaign.     

State Adoption of Model Insurance Codes: An Empirical Analysis

What are the patterns of adoption of NAIC model insurance actsamong the states, and what explains the differences in stateresponse? This article provides an empirical analysis of thesequestions. State responses are analyzed comprehensively andfunctionally; two core regulatory functions—financialregulation and consumer protection—receive specific attention.The article then examines three types of explanations suggestedby the literature on model-code adoption: broad socioeconomicforces, narrow interest-group pressures, and the nature of publicinstitutions (specifically the legislature and the state insurancedepartment). The interest-group model is the most powerful,but the results it produces challenge the traditional view ofthe politics of insurance regulation.     

The Determinants of State Budget Periodicity: An Empirical Analysis

States budget for a one-year or a two-year period. Little attention has been paid to the determinants of budget periodicity decisions at the state level. This article relies on existing surveys to develop hypotheses for the factors that influence the periodicity decision at the state level. The hypotheses are tested using a sample of 300 observations of the fifty states at various times in recent history. The results suggest that overall expenditures, budget complexity, political culture, revenue variability, and frequency of legislative session are statistically significant factors in the determination of budget periodicity.     

Tax Competition and Income Redistribution: An Empirical Analysis for Switzerland

Tax competition is supposed to lead to thecollapse of the welfare state because, first, it willbecome difficult for a single jurisdiction to levy aredistribution tax upon the rich and mobile, andsecond, such a policy, if undertaken in onejurisdiction, will attract poor individuals from otherjurisdictions and erode internal redistributionpolicies. In this paper, the impact of personal incometaxes and transfers on residence decisions oftaxpayers is analyzed with Swiss subfederal data. Therelationship of tax competition and the erosion of theSwiss welfare state is tested with aggregate data onincome redistribution.     

对农村劳动力转移的实证分析

由于农村劳动力的相对过剩、地区间经济发展不平衡和城市化进程的加快,农村劳动力的转移仍然存在一个扩张期。政府要加强组织与协调,消除不公平待遇,不断提高劳动者素质,提供良好的政策平台,促进农村劳动力有序流动。