Public Pension Funds and Operating Budgets: A Tale of Three States

This article provides a normative framework for understanding the important link between public pension fund management and government operating budgets. Three aspects of pension fund management are discussed that have a significant impact on the operating budget: pension contribution, investment strategy, and the funding of pension liabilities. Three cases concerning West Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City are discussed to illustrate these three important aspects. The normative framework and the case studies demonstrate two important principles in prudently managing public pension funds: ensuring intergenerational equity and protecting the long-term health of government budgets.     

Competency, Bureaucracy, and Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis

Competency can be considered a central theme in contemporary public service reforms. This article analyzes the development of competency frameworks for senior public servants at the national–government level in three countries (the U.S., the U.K., and Germany). By tracing the development of competency as an idea, it is shown that competency reforms drew selectively on management ideas, and by tracing the nature and time-patterns of competency reform developments in the three countries, it is shown that competency came onto the reform agenda at different times and by various routes rather than by a simple pattern of international policy transfer or business-to-government transfer. It is argued that the adoption of competency frameworks took place at critical junctures for preexisting public service bargains or agreements in each case and that they were shaped by the particularities of institutional context. However, although competency is arguably central to public service reform, it is far from clear that the competency frameworks in these three cases contributed to the declared aims of many contemporary public service reformers.     

Public Subsidies for Private Schooling: A Comparative Analysis of Argentina and Chile

Argentina and Chile have long-standing policies that award public subsidies to private schools. This article compares the academic outcomes of seventh- and eighth-graders in public and private schools in each country. Three types of private schools are analyzed: Catholic schools that are subsidized by the government, nonreligious schools that are subsidized, and private schools that receive no subsidies. Ultimately, the analyses suggest a mixed portrait of private school effectiveness, in which Catholic schools have the most consistent links to achievement. Nonreligious subsidized schools in Chile, often operated by for-profit corporations, produce outcomes no different from public schools.     

A Comparative Analysis of Entrepreneurial Approaches Within Public Healthcare Organisations

This article examines the development of two distinct models of organising allied health professionals within two public sector health service organisations in Australia. The first case illustrated a mode of organising that facilitated a culture that focused on asset protection and whose external orientation was threat oriented because its disparate multiple identities operated as a fractured, fragmented and competitive set of profession disciplines. In this milieu, there was no evidence of entrepreneurial approaches being used. In contrast, the second case study illustrated a mode of organising that facilitated an entrepreneurial culture that focused on asset growth and an external orientation that was opportunity oriented because of the evolution of a strong superordinate allied health identity that operated as a single united health services stakeholder. This evolution was coupled with the emergence of a corporate boardroom model of management that is consonant with Savage et al. (1997) IDS/N model of management. Once this structure and strategy were in place, corporate entrepreneur ship became the modus operandi. Consequently, because the case study was a situation where corporate entrepreneurship existed in the public sector, it was possible to compare the factors that stimulate corporate entrepreneurship in Sadler's (2000) study with factors that were observed in our study.     

A Comparative Analysis: New Public Management — The Way Ahead?

A set of measures constituting 'New Public Management' (NPM) has been adopted worldwide (Pollitt 1995). This article describes their implementation in the State of Victoria. In particular, the article assesses the reforms within the context of Pollitt's eight elements of NPM reforms that have taken place in management in the public sector in Victoria and, to varying degrees, in all OECD countries. It argues that the evaluation of the success of NPM in Victoria should be addressed by independent evaluations of the impacts of the changes within the political, executive and operational spheres of government, and on consumers and the public service itself. The article offers some lessons for those in government following Victoria's example of the implementation of NPM.
Good governance is critical to ensuring that challenges to society are dealt with adequately (OECD 1995:5).     

The Variety of State Capital Budgets: A Survey

In 1986 the staff of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget reviewed issues concerning the possible development of a federal capital budget. As part of this study, a survey of all 50 states was conducted concerning state capital budgets. This paper summarizes the results of the survey. According to the survey responses, 42 states have capital budgets. Of these 42, 37 generally borrow to finance some public capital and 5 generally do not. Of the 8 states that said they do not have a capital budget, 4 generally borrow to finance some public capital and 4 generally do not. The survey also found that the form of a governor's capital budget, the way legislatures enact capital spending, the coverage of the capital budget, and the method of financing capital vary widely among states, making it virtually impossible to define a state capital budget in a precise way. Large amounts of state capital spending, especially for transportation, are generally not included in state capital budgets.     

Integrating Gender into Government Budgets: A New Perspective

A government's budget represents a statement of its priorities. During the past 25 years, the international community has recognized that gender equality is essential for sustainable economic growth and full social development, and it has called upon nations to use their budgets to promote genderequitable resource allocation and revenue generation. More than 60 countries have answered this call by implementing gender-responsive budgets at the national and subnational levels. However, gender-responsive budgeting is virtually unheard of among public finance scholars and U.S. public administration scholars and practitioners. Here we define gender-responsive budgeting, discuss the need for it, describe the lessons learned, and discuss its potential as a budget reform. We hope our commentary will bring gender-responsive budgeting into the mainstream of research in the U.S. public administration community and into the practice of government budgeting.     

Inside Irredentism: A Global Empirical Analysis

Although many countries have ethnic kin on the “wrong side” of their borders, few seek to annex foreign territories on the basis of ethnicity. This article examines why some states pursue irredentism, whereas others exhibit restraint. It focuses on the triadic structure of the kin group in the irredentist state, its coethnic enclave, and the host state, and provides new data on all actual and potential irredentist cases from 1946 to 2014. The results indicate that irredentism is more likely when the kin group is near economic parity with other groups in its own state, which results in status inconsistency and engenders grievances. It is also more likely in more ethnically homogeneous countries with winner‐take‐all majoritarian systems where the kin group does not need to moderate its policy to win elections by attracting other groups. These conditions generate both the grievance and opportunity for kin groups to pursue irredentism.     

Public Law Litigation: Lessons and Questions

The practice of using courts to foster social change, once confined to the USA, has emerged as a worldwide phenomenon. Foreign practice reflects indigenous forms but faces criticisms similar to that in the USA: that it is ineffective, antidemocratic, and counterproductive. The essay meets these criticisms, first, by recasting US public law litigation as a form of politics that challenges the status quo by forging alliances, changing discursive frames, and disciplining private and public decision making. Looking abroad, the essay emphasizes public law litigation as a meditative institution that facilitates political action and aids in regulatory enforcement where administrative mechanisms are weak or regulation requires ongoing elaboration. Finally, the essay suggests that criticisms of public law litigation tend to neglect three factors: the actual and not assumed comparative advantages of different institutional actors, the role of temporal conditions in affecting social change, and the ubiquity of complex, not dichotomous, relations.

Graduates' Views on Working in the Public Sector: A Comparative Analysis of the Three Tiers of Government

Why do university graduates choose to work for one level of government but not the others? This article examines the comparative appeal of government jobs across the three tiers of government – federal, state and local – in Australia. When asked to indicate their employer of choice, a majority of graduates in this case study ranked the federal and state governments close to each other. This article also compares and analyses the pre‐employment views and motivations of the graduates with varying interests in working for the different tiers of government.     

Public Spheres and Urban Space: A Critical Comparative Approach*

China's mounting unemployment in recent years is an unintended but predictable consequence of the economic reform with an open labor market. It has turned into a major political crisis in a "socialist state" where not only security but also sovereign dignity of labor remain central to the constitutional mandate and, however lingering, to popular expectation as well. This article traces the origins of the crisis, explores linkage between participation and recognition, explains mutual relevance of the EuroAmerican "future of work" debate and the Chinese experience, and argues for creative adaptation toward an alternative. It concludes with an observation that participatory activities beyond salaried jobs would require guaranteed social security; and only institutional innovations in public policy that enable democratic control by citizens over resources and management can forge a new social contract for overcoming unemployment.     

Knowledge Construction in Public Administration: A Discourse Analysis of Public Value

Public administration is a relatively young field with a growing academic community. Against the background of enduring discussions about theory and increasing research output and diversification within the field, the authors apply the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse that combines discourse theories and a social constructionist tradition to the exemplary case of “public value” research. The authors scrutinize 50 articles from 12 journals over 18 years to trace the development of public value as a concept in public administration research. Drawing from this exemplary case, they develop propositions and propose a framework for knowledge construction that is uniquely characterized as public administration. From the anchor points of manageability, economization, and democratic accountability, the authors develop a framework for analyzing and investigating knowledge development in other concepts such as network governance, representative bureaucracy, and coproduction.     

当代公共管理研究的范式观--一项经验研究

以经验事实为依据,勾画出了指导当代美国公共管理研究的范式观.在经验分析的基础上,作者认为,有关公共管理领域是否具有知识核心及其与学科的发展之间的相关性的争论正越来越不重要,因为答案已经显现.重要的是从事公共管理研究的学者应具有清醒的学科自我意识以及对现有的范式有更为清晰的把握.公共管理学科对本领域的常规科学研究活动的自觉意识能够给本学科提供更为清晰的研究焦点,能够提升澄清谬见的敏锐性,进而推动公共管理理论的发展.     

Corporatism, Public Policy and the Labour Movement: A Comparative Study

This article identifies two dimensions which distinguish corporatism, especially as defined by Philippe Schmitter, from pluralism. Noting that most discussions of corporatism have emphasized one dimension and neglected the second, the article seeks to determine, empirically, whether the two dimensions are as closely associated as the concept suggests. The finding, for the cases studied, is that they are inversely rather than positively correlated. The search for an explanation of why this might be the case leads to two conclusions. First, that the management of labour-capital conflict in advanced capitalist countries has relied less on inter-group and group-state interaction than corporatist theory would suggest. Second, that Schmitter's conceptualization of corporatism is seriously flawed and that other corporatist writers avoid these flaws only at the cost of drastically reducing the concept's distinctiveness from pluralism.     

Public Employees as Swing Voters: Empirical Evidence on Opposition to Public Reform

Reform offers economic gains for society atlarge, but can represent a threat to theinterests of public employees. Publicsector reform faces opposition from votersemployed in public sector. Norwegian dataallow for an analysis this interpretation.Survey data show that public employeesprefer less reform than the rest of thepopulation. The voting behavior of publicemployees is more sensitive to reform thanis that of other voters (the swing voterhypothesis), and hence: shares of publicemployees in a local jurisdiction have anegative impact on the probability ofreform.     

A Longitudinal and Comparative Analysis of the Funded Status of State and Local Public Pension Plans

Although state and local public pension plans hold approximately one-third of the $3 trillion asset total of U.S. pension funds and represent sixteen million workers, relatively little research has been done on their funded status. This article presents the results of a longitudinal and comparative analysis of the funding condition of state and local public pension plans. The study includes 205 plans representing 91 percent of the total assets and approximately 94 percent of the members of state and local public pension plans. By examining the period from 1988 through 1992, the article provides a general 'assessment of the funded status of state and local public pension plans and concludes that, as a whole, the plans are adequately funded and have improved in their funded condition over time.