Who Are the Keepers of the Code? Articulating and Upholding Ethical Standards in the Field of Public Administration

Establishing a code of ethics has been a challenge in public administration. Ethics is central to the practice of administration, but the broad field of public administration has had difficulty articulating clear and meaningful standards of behavior and developing a means of upholding a code of ethics. Although a number of specialized professional associations in public service adopted codes, starting with the International City/County Management Association in 1924 and others after 1960, the full range of public administrators did not have an association to represent them until the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) was founded in 1939. Despite early calls for a code of ethics in ASPA, the first code was adopted in 1984, with revisions in 1994, but neither code had a process for enforcement. A new code approved in 2013 builds on the earlier codes and increases the prospects for ASPA to work with other professional associations to broaden awareness of the ethical responsibilities to society of all public administrators.     

China’s ‘New-Type’ Private Think Tanks: Is ‘New’ Better?

Journal of Chinese Political Science - China’s public policy research community has long been dominated by large state-run research institutes, but in recent years financially and...     

Is China’s rise now stalling?

The variations on power transition theory so widely used to frame analysis of U.S.–China relation tend to assume the inevitability or at least strong probability of China surpassing the United States in economic power if not necessarily military power. In the terminology of social psychology’s attribution theory, China is imputed with the identity of a state that is inevitably rising. The Chinese Communist Party encourages this attribution among Chinese people and foreigners. But China’s economic rise – the foundation of its comprehensive rise – appears to have entered an inflection point in the mid-2010s and may now be stalling. In critical respects, China increasingly resembles the last two countries that ‘attempted’ a globe-level rise: the unsuccessful cases of postwar Japan and the Soviet Union. China’s labor force is shrinking; the country relies excessively on unsustainable debt increases to fuel economic growth; and pollution is seriously harming public health. But even if China’s rise conclusively stalls, it may take quite some time before the Chinese public and outside observers recognize the new reality because of intrinsic biases in the cognitive logic of attributing identities to actors.     

中国电子市场在‘收缩’吗?

最近,海外对大陆电子市场是否“收缩”表示关切。对此,记者日前走访了中国电子工业部。电子工业部新闻发言人对记者说:中国电子市场正在日益扩大,对外经济技术交流将进一步扩大不会“收缩”。     

Who Governs in God’s City?

After clearing away some misconceptions about the power of the religious right in Colorado Springs, this article will examine three areas, education, medical marijuana, and gay rights, where the city’s religious conservatives have tried to influence public policy. With each area their efforts have only been partially successful. While the reasons for this uneven success are often particular to each policy dispute, taken together these issues point to discernible changes in the political behavior and ambitions of the city’s religious conservatives. Most importantly, religious conservatives have become far less confrontational and have turned away, to a significant degree, from direct political action and are focusing much more on community outreach programs. The paper will conclude by discussing some of the reasons for those changes and how they might have national implications for religious and social conservatives.     

我们能够闯过‘廉洁关’吗?

我们目前要准备过两个关:一个是“价格关”,一个是“廉洁关”。过“价格关”是为了将我们的经济引上商品经济的大道,这个“关”虽然不好过,是改革的一大难关、险关,但我相信我们是有办法过得去的,只要把必要的准备工作(包括抑制通货膨胀)做好。比较起来,人们还是担心“廉洁关”难过,阻力太大。 “克服腐败现象,保持党政机关的廉洁”——是为保证治理经济环境全面深化     

What’s So Funny About That?

This paper argues that it is impossible to know why we laugh. There are a number of theories that attempt to explain why we laugh but they all have limitations. It is possible, however, to know what makes us laugh and 45 techniques that inform humor are listed and used to analyze a number of humorous texts. These techniques can also be used to study the humor of different nations to determine which they favor and which they neglect, thus offering insights into national character.     

Does immigration weaken natives’ support for?the?unemployed? Evidence from Germany

Using data from the 1997 and 2002 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel and from official statistics, I study whether natives are less supportive of state help for the unemployed in regions where the share of foreigners among the unemployed is high. Unlike previous studies, I use individual-level panel data, which allows a more convincing identification of a causal effect. I find that the negative bivariate association is mainly driven by observed individual differences, such as East German origin or income. While there remains some evidence of a negative association even after adjusting for observed and unobserved individual differences, the association is relatively weak.     

Who was ‘Venona's’ ‘Ales’? cryptanalysis and the Hiss case

One of the most notable messages in ‘Venona’ is No.1822, which the NKGB's Washington station sent to Moscow on 30 March 1945. As the message describes an agent of the GRU who circumstantially resembles Alger Hiss, it has strengthened the position of those scholars who have argued that Hiss was a Soviet spy. John Lowenthal, Hiss's lawyer, urges that an alternative reading of No.1822 exonerates his client. A review of the evidence shows that factual considerations exclude Lowenthal's reading of the cable. ‘Venona’ also contains another cable, hitherto unnoticed, that further strengthens the case against Hiss.     

Do Voters’ Coalition Preferences Affect Government Formation?

Studies on coalition formation assume that political parties have two major goals: they aim to maximise office and policy payoffs. This paper shows that decision-making in the government formation game is also determined by the voters’ coalition preferences. Since the coalition formation process is not a one-shot game, parties have to take the coalition preferences of the electorate into account when they evaluate the utility of potential coalitions. If parties fail to comply with the coalition preferences of voters, they are likely to be penalised in future elections. The argument is tested by an analysis of government formation in the 16 German states between 1990 and 2009. The results support the argument: the formation of coalitions – at least in the German states – is not only determined by office- and policy-seeking behaviour of political parties, but also by the preferences of voters regarding their preferred outcome of the coalition game.     

What Sort of Science is ‘Economics’?

This essay is a general defense of Etzioni’s argument in The Moral Dimension. I explore three areas that others have questioned and show them (from my neo-Etzioni position) to be false. The result is a resounding vote of confidence for socioeconomics over neo-classical economics.     

达赖是去布拉格‘坐禅’吗?

捷克斯洛伐克总统哈维尔不顾中国方面的严正交涉,执意邀请长期流亡国外从事分裂祖国活动的达赖喇嘛访捷,这是对中国内政的粗暴干涉。对此,中国政府提出了抗议,中国人民表示极大的愤慨。     

Still a ‘Male Business’? Explaining Women’s Presence in Executive Office

This article aims to account for cross-national and over-time variation in women’s participation in cabinets. Specifically, it focuses on some key political factors which have not been tested yet, such as the effectiveness of party gender quotas. Previous literature has mainly centred on structural variables, such as the degree of democratisation and economic development. Using an original longitudinal cross-sectional sample of 23 advanced industrial democracies, this article provides new evidence that some important political factors should be considered. It finds that countries with a specialist system have a higher percentage of women in cabinet than generalist systems, left-wing parties in government appoint more women, women are more likely to receive a ministerial post when the governing party has adopted gender quotas, and an increasing number of women in parliament boosts women in cabinet. Furthermore, the article shows that these political variables perform differently through time, and that political factors have become more relevant in recent decades.     

Rally ’round which flag? Terrorism’s effect on (intra)national identity

Public Choice - Exploiting a unique panel of student respondents surveyed both shortly before and after the March 2016 bombings in Brussels, this paper analyzes the effects of terrorism on social...     

A Rural-Urban Divide? Reassessing Voting in Chinese Villagers’ Committee and Residents’ Committee Elections

Journal of Chinese Political Science - While Chinese scholars, media, and writers have long reported a noteworthy rural-urban difference in political participation, the meaning of this...