Citizen Participation in Budgeting: A Trade‐Off between Knowledge and Inclusiveness?

Research on citizen participation has noted a tension between fostering an inclusive policy‐making process and simultaneously maintaining a competent pool of participating citizens. This article investigates the implications of this trade‐off by testing the impact of measured levels of inclusiveness and participating citizens’ knowledgeability on two performance metrics: citizen engagement and process efficiency. Results indicate that although inclusiveness may be negatively associated with the level of engagement, both knowledgeability and inclusiveness are positively associated with process efficiency. Overall, the findings suggest that policy makers can pursue the democratic ideal of opening policy making to the citizenry while still maintaining an efficient process.     

Transition in Post-Communist States: Triple or Quadruple?

When the study of transitions moved from Latin America and southern Europe scholars initially assumed that transition in these two regions would be regime-based 'double transitions' of democratisation and marketisation. Gradually, it was accepted by scholars that many post-communist states inherited weak states and institutions, thereby adding a third factor to the transition process of stateness. This 'triple transition' has been largely accepted as sufficient to understand post-communist transitions and, in some cases, includes nationality questions. This article builds on the 'triple transition' by separating the national and stateness questions within its third aspect and argues that although both processes are interlinked they should be nevertheless separated into separate components (democratisation and marketisation are treated separately but are also closely related phenomena). This article argues two points. First, stateness and the nationality question were until recently ignored by scholars because these were not factors in earlier transitions. Secondly, they were ignored because the relationship of nationhood to the civic state is still under-theorised.     

Growing Grassroots Democracy: Dynamic Outcomes in Building New York City’s Participatory Budgeting Program

Within five years of its launch, Participatory Budgeting in New York City (PBNYC) spread from four to thirty-one of New York’s fifty-one council districts, enabling city residents to directly allocate thirty-eight million dollars in public funds. During this period, PBNYC’s neighborhood-level forums remained largely unchanged, but, in order to sustain growth, administrative shifts altered the institution’s basic design. This article examines how and why this transition affected the degree of popular control afforded by PBNYC, specifically within its cross-district Steering Committee. Analysis of original interviews and organizational documents indicates that the transition brought important, if modest, gains but impeded aspects of community empowerment through bureaucratic resistance and imbalanced governmental-civil society roles. Key players responded by reforming PBNYC’s internal governance. This case sheds light on the factors that shape participatory institutions and their impacts, emphasizing the dynamic interactions between actors and the resulting gains and losses that aggregate toward longer term outcomes.     

The Online Citizen: Is Social Media Changing Citizens’ Beliefs About Democratic Values?

Social media websites are rapidly changing the way that Americans live and communicate with one another. Social media sites encourage individuals to constantly share information about one’s self (and constantly seek information about others) that would have been private in the past. This experience can alter how an individual views the world in ways that political scientists have not been able to fully capture. In a cross-sectional survey of the American public I find a strong correlation between the use of Facebook and personal blogs and support for civil liberties. Individuals who spend more time self-publicizing on the Internet seem to value freedom of expression more, but also value the right to privacy less than individuals who use social media less often. This pattern suggests that technology may be altering American attitudes on basic democratic values and highlights the need for dynamic research designs that account for the causal effect Internet use may have on individual political development.     

Budgeting and Rebudgeting in Local Governments: Siamese Twins?

The literature on budgeting in the public sector has traditionally focused on the annual budgetary process. Much less attention has been paid to rebudgeting—that is, what governments do to revise and update their budgets during the fiscal year. Because of its potentially large impact on appropriations, rebudgeting seemingly deserves more attention than it has been granted so far. This article uses data from a sample of Italian municipalities to test hypotheses on the main drivers of budget revisions. According to the results, rebudgeting is strongly affected by the degree of incrementalism in the initial budgeting process, as well as by several internal and external determinants, such as political variables, organizational features, financial conditions, and the local socioeconomic environment.     

Liberalism and Religion: Amplifiers of War between Democratic and Non-Democratic States?

This study tests the association between liberalism and religion on militarized disputes in the politically and religiously similar and mixed state dyads. The analysis (1980–2001) integrates the Correlates of War and World Religion Datasets. The findings suggest that while religious makeup of state dyads does not vitiate the impact of democracy, religious similarity amplifies the impact of liberalism. The results also suggest that Christian–Muslim dyads, especially Christian–Sunni and Christian–Muslim other than Shia and Sunni dyads, are more likely to engage in militarized disputes, and regime differences increase the chances of conflict in the joint Muslim dyads.     

New Labour in Britain: New Democratic Centralism?

This article uses a case study - the introduction in 1997 of new policy machinery - to analyse competing claims about the nature of the Labour Party's organisational transformation. It aims to demonstrate that whilst the new policy process was presented as a move towards greater democracy, both its general design and its modes of operation rendered inevitable the production of a general election manifesto in 2001 (the culmination of the process) whose contents coincided very closely to the leadership's tastes. The article then seeks to account for the form Labour's transformation took, drawing on the work of Michels and Lipset and his colleagues.     

Combating Domestic Abuse in Jordan from the Top-Down: Liberal and/or Democratic Statebuilding?

ABSTRACT

This article explores how liberal statebuilding can produce unexpected results by examining Jordan's campaign against domestic abuse. Jordan's Family Protection Initiative exemplifies the executive's implementation of externally-supported measures promoting women's empowerment. However, ambiguities over its central mission have resulted in the state pressuring victims to reconcile with abusive family members. I argue that the Initiative reflects regime survival strategies, designed to deflect international calls for democratic reform, co-opt the Jordanian women's movement, and circumvent Islamist and tribal opposition. Critics' accusations that the Initiative is ‘foreign’ are largely veiled criticisms of the executive for politically marginalising them and/or usurping their authority in family matters.     

Mission or Empire,Word or Sword? The Human Capital Legacy in Postcolonial Democratic Development

Why are some former colonies more democratic than others? The British Empire has been singled out in the debates on colonialism for its benign influence on democracy. Much of this scholarship has focused on colonialism's institutional legacies; has neglected to distinguish among the actors associated with colonialism; and has been nation‐state focused. Our subnational approach allows us to isolate the democracy effects of key actors operating in colonial domains—Christian missionaries—from those of colonial powers. Missionaries influenced democracy by promoting education; education promoted social inclusivity and spurred social reform movements. To make our case, we constructed colonial and postcolonial period district datasets of India and conducted panel analysis of literacy and democracy variations backed by case studies. The findings challenge the conventional wisdom of the centrality of the effects of British institutions on democracy, instead also highlighting the missionaries’ human capital legacies.     

Local E‐Government in the United States: Transformation or Incremental Change?

In this article, the authors address the recent trajectory of local e‐government in the United States and compare it with the predictions of early e‐government writings, using empirical data from two nationwide surveys of e‐government among American local governments. The authors find that local e‐government has not produced the results that those writings predicted. Instead, its development has largely been incremental, and local e‐government is mainly about delivering information and services online, followed by a few transactions and limited interactivity. Local e‐government is also mainly one way, from government to citizens, and there is little or no evidence that it is transformative in any way. This disparity between early predictions and actual results is partly attributable to the incremental nature of American public administration. Other reasons include a lack of attention by early writers to the history of information technology in government and the influence of technological determinism on those writings.     

Paternalistic or Participatory Governance? Examining Opportunities for Client Participation in Nonprofit Social Service Organizations

Nonprofits represent a substantial group of third-party agents that deliver public services, yet little is known about the extent to which these organizations embrace participatory governance practices. Using survey data from nonprofit social service agencies in Michigan, the author examines how these organizations provide opportunities for client participation and identifies factors that contribute to these practices. Four methods of securing client involvement are examined: participation in agency work groups, client feedback surveys, advisory boards and committees, and client service on the agency board of directors. The results indicate that government funding plays a systematic role in promoting these activities within nonprofits. These findings carry important implications for the government–nonprofit contract relationship by demonstrating that government funding shapes the practices of nonprofits in ways that promote democratic governance.     

Corrupted Estimates? Response Bias in Citizen Surveys on Corruption

Political Behavior - Measuring corruption has become a global industry. An important and commonly used data source are several large-scale multi-country projects that survey citizens directly about...     

Qarase v. Bainimarama: the End of Democratic Rule in Fiji?

The judgment in Qarase v. Bainimarama provided a legal basis for the 2006 military coup in Fiji and stated that the President was entitled to grant authority to the military to act outside of the powers prescribed by the written Constitution. According to the ruling, the Royal Prerogative powers that remained in government following British rule could be utilised by the President at any time that he considered it necessary. This paper explores the rationale for that judgment and the role that Royal Prerogative powers may play in the governance of countries that were previously subject to British rule. It further considers the impact of this judgment upon democracy in Fiji and the future protection of human rights for its citizens.     

External Pressures and Internal Dynamics in the Institutionalization of Performance-Based Budgeting: An Endless Process?

The well-known practice of performance-based budgeting (PBB) is a relevant component of the New Public Management (NPM) reform agenda and has become widespread, with varying approaches and results across countries. However, its variation within specific countries has remained largely unexplored. This study analyzes three organizations operating within the same context—three ministries in Italy—to contribute to a new understanding of PBB variation by illustrating why the same PBB practice can or cannot be implemented and internalized similarly across these organizations and thus become (or not) fully institutionalized. The study adopts and enriches the institutional approach by extending beyond isomorphic convergence toward PBB and explaining practice variation, linking the interactions between external pressures and internal dynamics at the organizational level to PBB institutionalization. The empirical analysis shows how a lack of alignment between external pressures and internal dynamics contributes to an unfinished and apparently endless process of institutionalization.     

Beyond Truth and Integrity in State Budgeting: Why State Governments Use Budget Balancing Maneuvers (or Gimmicks)?

This study investigates the influence of political, structural, economic, and other factors on state governments’ use of maneuvers to balance budgets and eliminate deficits from FY 15 to FY 18. Budget maneuvers are unsound and nonsustainable strategies, such as using borrowed funds to finance operations and underfunding pensions. These practices were documented and graded by The Volcker Alliance for all states and years in collaboration with faculty and students at multiple universities. Consistent with prior research that uses an adaptation framework to explain the strategies government officials use to balance budgets, this research finds that state financial condition has the strongest effect or one of the strongest effects on states’ use of such budget gimmicks.     

Citizen forecasting: Can UK voters see the future?

The leading approaches to election forecasting have been statistical models, prediction markets, or vote intention polls. This paper explores a different, little used approach - citizen forecasting - a method never yet tried for the case of the United Kingdom. Citizen forecasting simply asks voters in a scientific pre-election survey who they think will win. This aggregated (averaged) result is then assessed for its accuracy in forecasting the overall election outcome. This assessment is carried out on UK general elections from 1951 to 2005, and then applied to 2010. We find, among other things, that generally speaking the majority of the electorate can foretell the winner in advance.