Management Activity and Program Performance: Gender as Management Capital

Do men and women manage differently? Do their efforts have different impacts on public program performance? Building from a formal treatment of public management and performance, this study investigates how the interaction of gender and management strategies influences organizational performance. Focusing on several hundred public organizations and their top managers over a three‐year period, the analysis maps the gender question onto Mark Moore's distinction among managing upward toward political principals, downward toward organizational agents, and outward toward the networked environment. Findings indicate that women and men as top managers have different performance impacts, and these impacts vary by managerial function as well.     

Loyalty or Competence: Political Use of Performance Information and Negativity Bias

This article explores how political principals weigh loyalty and competence in public personnel decisions. Exploiting the abrupt shift in political leadership following the impeachment of President Park Geun‐hye of Korea, the authors examine how the newly elected president made the decision to retain or dismiss 118 agency heads appointed by the previous administration. The evidence shows the importance of loyalty in managerial survival: those who had a political patronage relationship with the ousted president were less likely to survive in the new administration. However, the authors also demonstrate the relevance of competence, as measured by the outcomes of agency performance evaluation. Further, the article shows the existence of negativity bias: the punishment for low performance is greater than the reward for high performance. Finally, the authors provide support for the idea that political principals reward loyalists, but only if they show acceptable levels of competence.     

The Party Faithful: Partisan Images,Candidate Religion,and the Electoral Impact of Party Identification

We argue that the factors shaping the impact of partisanship on vote choice—“partisan voting”—depend on the nature of party identification. Because party identification is partly based on images of the social group characteristics of the parties, the social profiles of political candidates should affect levels of partisan voting. A candidate's religious affiliation enables a test of this hypothesis. Using survey experiments which vary a hypothetical candidate's religious affiliation, we find strong evidence that candidates’ religions can affect partisan voting. Identifying a candidate as an evangelical (a group viewed as Republican) increases Republican support for, and Democratic opposition to, the candidate, while identifying the candidate as a Catholic (a group lacking a clear partisan profile) has no bearing on partisan voting. Importantly, the conditional effect of candidate religion on partisan voting requires the group to have a salient partisan image and holds with controls for respondents’ own religious affiliations and ideologies.     

Citizen satisfaction under changing political leadership: The role of partisan motivated reasoning

There exists a gap in our understanding of what citizen satisfaction evaluations actually represent. While recent years have witnessed a move away from performance‐based models to cognitive‐implicit models of citizen satisfaction, the inherent political nature of government, its institutions, and services has been largely ignored. Drawing on the functional responsibility chain between political principals and governmental, public‐service‐delivering institutions, we outline a theory of citizen satisfaction that accounts for the political nature of these institutions. In the context of two consecutive general elections, we find a partisan bias in citizen satisfaction with government and the legislative branch, but not for institutions that are more clearly separated from national government. These mixed findings are suggestive of a dispersion effect of the partisan bias in citizen satisfaction, namely, that citizens are less likely to use their partisan lenses in cases where the responsibility of political principals is dispersed across multiple actors.     

Antecedents of Realignments and the Case for Secular Realignment in Denmark

This study starts with the premise that political norms and structures determine national electoral propensities toward critical or secular realignments in partisan affiliation, ft is hypothesized that historical and structural characteristics of the Danish political system mitigate against rapid changes in partisan affiliations and voting patterns. Empirical evidence is presented to demonstrate that observed changes in the partisan distribution of the Danish vote in 1973–1977 resulted from a gradual redistribution of partisan affiliation with origins in the 1950s.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the study concludes that a secular, not critical, realignment occurred in Denmark during the 1970s     

Not Seeing Eye to Eye on Frontline Work: Manager‐Employee Disagreement and Its Effects on Employees

The author uses nationally representative data on matched pairs of public school principals and teachers to test whether principal–teacher disagreement about the severity of school problems is associated with teacher turnover. More specifically, the author tests a managerial efficacy hypothesis that proposes that employees will be less likely to leave their jobs when their managers perceive problems to be severe, holding employees’ perceptions of the same problems constant. The author also tests a managerial buffering hypothesis that proposes that employees’ perceptions of problem severity will be more weakly related to their turnover probability when managers perceive problems to be severe. Little evidence is found for either hypothesis, raising questions about public school principals’ ability to translate problem recognition into problem remediation. More generally, the findings suggest a reexamination of the generic claim that “management matters,” which implies that public managers have the power to do things that can help employees perform their jobs well.     

Political polarization, congressional redistricting, and trade liberalization

During the last 50 years, political polarization in the US House of Representatives has intensified. One explanation for this trend emphasizes the importance of congressional redistricting. This paper analyzes the relationship between political polarization and redistricting in the context of two trade liberalization bills. The results of the paper indicate that redistricting has not contributed significantly to party polarization over trade policy although it has produced a partisan shift in favor of trade liberalization. Redistricting does not appear to impact political polarization largely because district-level characteristics currently are dominated by broader, national factors such as party affiliation. The results of the paper clearly demonstrate this point by showing that changes in party affiliation have a much greater impact on voting behavior than changes in district characteristics. The paper also finds, however, that institutional control of the redistricting process at the state level has influenced political polarization with respect to trade policy.     

Candidate Choice Without Party Labels:

In the absence of party labels, voters must use other information to determine whom to support. The institution of nonpartisan elections, therefore, may impact voter choice by increasing the weight that voters place on candidate dimensions other than partisanship. We hypothesize that in nonpartisan elections, voters will exhibit a stronger preference for candidates with greater career and political experience, as well as candidates who can successfully signal partisan or ideological affiliation without directly using labels. To test these hypotheses, we conducted conjoint survey experiments on both nationally representative and convenience samples that vary the presence or absence of partisan information. The primary result of these experiments indicates that when voters cannot rely on party labels, they give greater weight to candidate experience. We find that this process unfolds differently for respondents of different partisan affiliations: Republicans respond to the removal of partisan information by giving greater weight to job experience while Democrats respond by giving greater weight to political experience. Our results lend microfoundational support to the notion that partisan information can crowd out other kinds of candidate information.     

Party Identification and Core Political Values

Party identification and core political values are central elements in the political belief systems of ordinary citizens. Are these predispositions related to one another? Does party identification influence core political values or are partisan identities grounded in such values? This article draws upon theoretical works on partisan information processing and value‐based reasoning to derive competing hypotheses about whether partisanship shapes political values or political values shape partisanship. The hypotheses are tested by using structural equation modeling techniques to estimate dynamic models of attitude stability and constraint with data from the 1992–94–96 National Election Study panel survey. The analyses reveal that partisan identities are more stable than the principles of equal opportunity, limited government, traditional family values, and moral tolerance; party identification constrains equal opportunity, limited government, and moral tolerance; and these political values do not constrain party identification.     

Does Choice Bring Loyalty? Electoral Participation and the Development of Party Identification

Party identification is known to influence almost all aspects of political life. How this attachment develops across the adult life cycle, however, remains unknown. I argue that people reinforce their partisan predispositions by voting for their preferred party. Voting entails a choice over a set of alternatives. This choice is likely to induce rationalization. In so doing, it provides signals of group identity, which in turn strengthens people's partisan ties. Testing this hypothesis is made difficult because it implies a reciprocal relationship between partisanship and vote choice. I address this problem by using vote eligibility as an instrument of vote in a sample of almost equally aged respondents. The results indicate that elections fortify prior partisan orientations. Moreover, they do so not by increasing political information. Rather, it is the act of voting for a party that, itself, bolsters partisan attachment. This act leaves a long‐lasting imprint on people's partisan outlooks.     

Collective and individual economic judgments and voting in West Germany, 1961–1984

Abstract: : This article attempts to provide individual-level support to findings of longitudinal macro-level studies of the relation between economic variables and electoral outcomes in the Federal Republic. The theoretical framework is one of incumbency-oriented vs. policy-oriented political responses to collective vs. individual economic judgments (Kiewiet, 1983). The data base consists of 25 surveys from 1961 through 1984. Empirical analysis comprises three steps: First, the relation between economic judgments and partisan sympathies is analyzed, since it appears likely that part of the covariations between voting and such judgments is spurious due to a common dependence upon partisan orientations. Second, the impact of both kinds of economic judgments upon voting over time is investigated with and without controls for partisan affiliation. Finally, the impact over time of macropolitical and macroeconomic variables on individual political response patterns to economic judgments is estimated at the longitudinal macro-level. The analysis demonstrates that collective economic judgments are generally a more potent predictor of electoral choice than individual economic judgments, and that there is clear empirical evidence both for the incumbency-oriented and the policy-oriented hypothesis linking such judgments to the vote.     

The IRI in Italy: Strategic role and political constraints

The ‘IRI‐formula’ (which describes the situation whereby a public body owns private firms) was originally based on a delicate balance of powers between political guidance and managerial autonomy. Towards the end of the 1950s, this balance was upset and replaced by a strong politics‐business connection: public managers and political groups exchanged financial support for political protection. The present IRI management is trying to regain its autonomy, but is constrained by a system framed by the former politics‐business connection. It is in a very delicate political situation, created by the attempts of the PSI to replace the DC in the central role of Italian politics.     

Trading policy: Constituents and party in U.S. trade policy

Studies of US trade policy legislation focus on the effect of constituents on trade policy voting and give less weight to institutions such as political parties. To demonstrate that political parties affect voting, I compare the votes of politicians who share constituency characteristics but differ in political party affiliation. This approach requires less reliance on assumptions about, or empirical measures of, constituents’ trade preferences. The results demonstrate that political parties play a significant role in legislative voting on trade policy. Theories of political economy therefore should incorporate how constituency interests and partisan pressures affect legislative voting.     

Seeing a crisis through colored glasses: How partisan media leads to attribution of crisis responsibility and government trust

This study uses a real national crisis, South Korea's 2014 Sewol ferry disaster, to examine how publics exposed to partisan media perceive the attribution of crisis responsibility and government trust differently. The study also investigates the mediating role of the attribution of crisis responsibility on the relationship between partisan media and government trust. The results demonstrate that citizens' partisan selective exposure influence their polarized perceptions of crisis responsibility and their trust in government. The attribution of crisis responsibility partially mediated the effects of partisan media on government trust. This study suggests the importance for government public relations to understand partisan media users so that public relations managers can engage and communicate effectively with all citizens during a national crisis.     

How and when do presidents influence the duration of coalition bargaining in semi‐presidential systems?

How and when do presidents influence the government formation process in semi‐presidential systems? Presidents have both a formal role and vested interest in the formation of the cabinet, yet their influence has been overlooked in studies of the duration of government formation. In this article, it is argued that the president's influence over government formation can be explained by his or her perceived legitimacy to act in the bargaining process and their partisanship. In this first case, it is argued that the legitimacy to act derives from a president's constitutional powers and more powerful presidents simplify cabinet bargaining, leading to shorter government formation periods. In the second case, it is proposed that presidents and their parties have overlapping preferences. Therefore, when the president's party holds greater bargaining power in government formation negotiations, the bargaining process is less uncertain and less complex. Thus, government formation processes will be shorter. Using survival models and data from 26 European democracies, both propositions are confirmed by the analysis. The results enhance our understanding of the dynamics of cabinet bargaining processes and contribute to the wider study of semi‐presidentialism and executive‐legislative relations. One broader implication of these results is that the president's party affiliation is an important motivation for them as political actors; this contrasts with some previous studies which conceive of presidents as non‐partisan actors.     

Setting the Regulatory Agenda: Statutory Deadlines,Delay, and Responsiveness

Congress imposes statutory deadlines in an attempt to influence agency regulatory agendas, but agencies regularly fail to meet them. What explains agency responsiveness to statutory deadlines? Taking a transaction cost politics approach, the authors develop a theory of responsiveness to deadlines centered on political feasibility to explain how agency managers map rulemaking onto calendar and political time. This theory is tested on all unique rules with statutory deadlines published in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions between 1995 and 2012. The argument and findings about the timing and ultimate promulgation of rules have implications that reorient the study of the regulatory agenda from legal and political into more managerial terms.     

Co‐production: Option or Obligation?

Co‐production is an idea being discussed in the international public management literature but less so in New Zealand and Australia. Co‐production rejects the idea of service delivery to passive users, proposing instead they be treated as active participants in the production of outcomes. As partners in delivery, users bring resources, skills and capabilities to their interactions with providers. Co‐production requires providers to share power and negotiate the interaction. There are strong managerial reasons for adopting co‐production to improve effectiveness and efficiency. But the political reasons for adopting co‐production are even stronger because of trends of many decades towards greater citizen participation. These reasons oblige public managers in Australasia to adopt co‐production in many fields of policy as part of the future.     

The Effect of Problem Severity,Managerial and Organizational Capacity,and Agency Structure on Intergovernmental Collaboration: Evidence from Local Emergency Management

Like most public managers nowadays, local emergency managers operate within complex, uncertain environments. Rapid changes in the scope and severity of the issues increase the extent of intergovernmental collaboration necessary to address such challenges. Using a large data set of county emergency management agency directors, variations in intergovernmental collaboration reflect influences from problem severity, managerial capacity, and structural factors. The results demonstrate that public managers who perceive problems as severe, possess specific managerial skills, lead high‐capacity organizations, and operate in less complex agency structures collaborate more often and more effectively across governmental boundaries.     

Technical Management in an Age of Openness: The Political,Public, and Environmental Forest Ranger

Modern bureaucracy faces trade‐offs between public and congressional input and agency expertise. The U.S. Forest Service offers an opportunity to quantitatively analyze whether an agency that is required to be more open to the public and congressional input will be forced to ignore its technical expertise in managing resources. This study uses data on 83,000 hazardous fuels reduction activities conducted by the Forest Service from 2001 to 2011. Although the results show that managers are responsive to public and congressional considerations, this has not prevented them from utilizing their technical knowledge to restore lands most deviated from natural conditions. This suggests that managers can balance responsiveness to public and political principals with technically sound management.     

Reliable and unreliable partisan appointees to the Board of Governors

Every new appointment to the Board of Governors in recent years has triggered speculation as to how the new Governor will vote in FOMC meetings. While several studies have hinted at partisan voting behavior by Governors, no study has yet attempted to identify reliable and unreliable partisan voting behavior and to pinpoint the background characteristics of Governors that distinguish between the two. This paper indicates that Board members with a background in economics consistently voted in line with the economic ideology of the appointing President. Noneconomists on the Board, however, displayed no such partisan voting behavior and were seen to be influenced by pressures emanating from the Administration and by the monetary environment prior to their appointment. Over the 1951 to 1987 period, most Presidents have appointed reliable Governors earlier in their Presidential terms (when the returns from being able to influence subsequent monetary policy are great) and have chosen unreliable Governors later in their terms (when election support from the interest groups that these unreliables represent is important).The results of the present paper suggest skepticism toward the recent spate of rational expectations — game-theoretic models which feature a dictatorial policy maker gaming atomistic market participants whose only political activity, voting, generates monetary surprises followed by convergence to an equilibrium. Because of their obsession with the ceremonial formalism of their genre, these models ignore a vast complementary literature and, as a consequence, display conspicuously flimsy institutional and historical premises. Instead, the present paper argues for the greater relevance of models of uncoordinated interaction between multiple political and private principals and Federal Reserve agents.