Low‐trust bureaucracy: Understanding the Mexican bureaucratic experience

Latin American bureaucracies are notorious for their inefficiency and opacity, yet there is very little empirical research done on what exactly constitutes the “bureaucratic experience” for citizens and what the costs of bureaucratic dysfunction are. To improve our understanding of this topic, 5 cases of Mexican citizens' encounters with public bureaucracies are used to develop the notion of “low‐trust bureaucracy”: public organisations in which access to services is unreliable and the levels of control towards both citizens and bureaucrats are excessive. This bottom‐up analysis of administrative practices contributes to our understanding of the ineffectiveness of government programmes and services, but also of how bureaucracies in developing countries amplify social inequality rather than function as a social equaliser. Furthermore, this article adds new insights to the existing understanding of administrative burdens as a result of either political tactics or mere benign neglect. The data presented here suggest that structural and intractable characteristics of the broader administrative context, such as authoritarian legacies, can produce behavioural patterns that shift bureaucratic attention away from a fair and efficient service provision.     

Understanding evolving public motivational practices: An institutional analysis

New public management (NPM) has been the focus of research and reform practices in countries globally since the late 1970s. This article looks at NPM in historical perspective with particular attention to understanding the evolution of public motivational practices. Three different eras and motivational models common in OECD countries are discussed—the bureaucratic model, the NPM model, and the new public service model. This long‐linked historical perspective highlights the interplay between administrative theory and realpolitik. It is possible to see how certain priorities have been a result of or led to the preservation, the adaptation, or the discontinuation of practices in alignment with the values and behaviors of the successive reform eras. Additional research into the dynamics of change in the public sector is suggested.     

Public Debt,Economic Growth,and Public Sector Management in Developing Countries: Is There a Link?

The article investigates whether differences in public sector management quality affect the link between public debt and economic growth in developing countries. For this purpose, we primarily use the World Bank's institutional indices of public sector management (PSM). Using PSM thresholds, we split our panel into country clusters and make comparisons. Our linear baseline regressions reveal a significant negative relationship between public debt and growth. The various robustness exercises that we perform also confirm these results. When we dissect our data set into “weak” and “strong” county clusters using public sector management scores, however, we find different results. While public debt still displayed a negative relationship with growth in countries with “weak” public sector management quality, it generally displayed a positive relationship in the latter group. The tests for non‐linearity shows evidence of an “inverse‐U”‐shape relationship between public debt and economic growth. However, we fail to see a similar significant relationship on country clusters that account for PSM quality. Yet, countries with well‐managed public sectors demonstrate a higher public debt sustainability threshold. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Growing exports by signaling product quality: Trade competition and the cross‐national diffusion of ISO 9000 quality standards

Trade policy is an important topic in global public policy. It is recognized that trade is hampered when buyers have incomplete information about the offered products, a problem accentuated in the international markets by the physical and cultural distances between buyers and sellers. Buyers look for proxies to assess product quality, and exporters that can provide assurance about quality gain a competitive advantage. Our paper focuses on voluntary or private regulatory programs that have emerged as important instruments to correct policy failures. We examine how trade competition motivates firms to signal quality by joining ISO 9000, the most widely adopted voluntary quality certification program in the world. Methodologically, our study is novel because we observe trade competition at the bilateral and the sectoral levels. Structural equivalence, the measure of competition we introduce in this paper, captures competitive threats posed by actors that export similar products to the same overseas markets. We study ISO 9000 adoption levels from 1993 to 2002 for 134 countries, and separately for non‐OECD countries and non‐EU countries. Across a variety of specifications, we find that trade competition drives ISO adoption: The uptake of ISO 9000 is encouraged by ISO 9000 adoption by firms located in countries that are “structurally equivalent” trade competitors. Given that information problems about product quality are likely to be more salient for developing country exporters, we find that trade competition offers a stronger motivation for ISO 9000 adoption in non‐OECD countries in relation to developed countries. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Postsovereign Governance in a Globalizing and Fragmenting World: The Case of Mexico

Globalization and “global governance” have become the buzzwords at the turn of the century in order to name and explain the emerging post-Cold War international order. The first one makes reference to the technological revolution that is modifying our notions of space, time, and production, while the latter attempts to illustrate how power and its regulatory practices are being transformed among polities. We discuss these two notions in the first part of this essay to argue that, in fact, the emerging “global” order will be different from that grounded on state-centered notions of territory and sovereignty. Our arguments focus on the Mexican case to highlight how this country is moving from an inward-looking, state-centered, authoritarian machinery of governance, to a postsovereign, principle-based, multilayered governance structure. This transition has mainly manifested in the governance mechanisms of corporate and human rights. This does not mean that policy tools of the “ancient regime” have completely disappeared. State-centered structures of governance will remain important during this stage of economic and political change. Areas moving into postsovereign and principled regulatory practices will overlap with those that remain under the monopoly of national bureaucracies. Though Mexico's economic and political change could be explained as a reactive movement against the collapse of the state-centered authoritarian model, an important conclusion of this essay is that the emerging pattern of postsovereign and principled bureaucratic governance will play a major role in shaping the future of those changes.     

Who Will Be the “Principled‐Principals”? Perceptions of Corruption and Willingness to Engage in Anticorruption Activism

Many anticorruption campaigns aim to encourage citizens to demand better control over corruption. Recent literature suggests that perceived high levels of corruption and government effectiveness in controlling corruption will limit citizens' willingness to actively oppose corruption. Using Transparency International's 2013 Global Corruption Barometer, we test these ideas across a 71‐country sample. We find that perceived government effectiveness tends to encourage anticorruption civic action, while perceptions of corruption being widespread tend to have the opposite impact in non‐OECD countries. Our analyses also suggest that the interaction between these perceptions is important; we find that, especially among those who perceive that the level of corruption is high, when confidence in the government's efforts grows, so does their willingness fight corruption.     

Corruption and government size: A disaggregated analysis

Using annual state-level data over 1983–1987, this paper examines the effect of government size on corruption by public officials by including both demand and supply side incentives for engaging in corrupt practices. Our objectives are twofold. First, we assess the relationship between the incidence of corruption and overall measures of the size of the federal government and the state-local sector in each state. Second, we explore what kinds of government activities are more likely to be successful in deterring abuse of public office. Our results are generally supportive of Becker's “crime and punishment” model. Regarding the primary focus of the paper, our results show that government size, in particular spending by state governments, does indeed have a strong positive influence on corruption.     

Causes of Noncompliance with International Law: A Field Experiment on Anonymous Incorporation

Using two field experiments, we probe the efficacy of international rules mandating that incorporation services establish their customers’ true identities. The standards were designed to prevent anonymous “shell” corporations central to money laundering, corruption, and other crimes. Posing as consultants seeking confidential incorporation, we randomly assigned six experimental conditions in emails varying information about monetary reward, international and domestic law, and customer risk to 1,793 incorporation services in 177 countries and 1,722 U.S. firms. Firms in tax havens obey the rules significantly more often than in OECD countries, whereas services in poor nations sometimes prove more compliant than those in rich countries. Only the risk of terrorism and specter of the Internal Revenue Service decrease offers for anonymous incorporation, but they also lower compliance. Offers to “pay a premium” reduce compliance. The risk of corruption decreases response rates but, alarmingly, also decreases compliance rates. Raising international law has no significant effect.     

When state‐level institutions cannot tell the whole story: An inquiry into municipal variations in quality of government

The lion's share of comparative research on corruption, good governance, and quality of government (QoG) has been cross‐country. However, a growing body of literature has begun to explore within‐country variations observed at the subnational level regarding corruption and social trust. The existence of such variations implies that state‐level institutions are not capable of telling the entire story and that quality of subnational‐level institutions might be important determinants of within‐country variations regarding, for instance, trust. This article delves into the Swedish case, an egalitarian country that scores high in international indices on lack of corruption and social trust; hence, a “least likely case” of subnational variations in both QoG and trust. Using two unique data sets, we find variations in both municipal QoG and social trust. In line with theory, we find that “local QoG” is associated with individual levels of community trust. This finding—in a low‐corrupt, high‐trust egalitarian society—strengthens the universality of the QoG‐perspective.     

When do governments trade domestic reforms for external rewards? Explaining policy responses to the Millennium Challenge Corporation's eligibility standards

Journalistic reports and case study evidence suggest that governments have made policy and institutional reforms to achieve or maintain eligibility for assistance from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC). However, the empirical scope of the “MCC Effect”—across countries, policy domains, and time—remains a subject of speculation and debate. There is also little rigorous evidence about the conditions under which the MCC eligibility standards have influenced the reform efforts of developing country governments. To address this challenge, we construct an original data set that measures whether, when, and how governments in low‐income and lower‐middle‐income countries responded to the eligibility requirements for MCC assistance between 2004 and 2010. Our econometric analysis of the data set calls attention to an underappreciated factor that shapes the adoption and implementation of externally influenced reforms: the presence of a technocratic reform team with executive authority to introduce disruptive changes to the status quo.     

Policy Adoption and the Redefinition of Operating Procedures: Comparison Cases at UMTA

Political scientists often consider the place of standard operating procedures (SOPS) in shaping bureaucratic responsiveness to “top-down” direction, but our writing only infrequently considers the processes and ease by which bureaucratic routines, decision standards, and SOPS adjust to produce nm outputs. This article explores the change of routines, decision standards, and SOPs from a behavioral perspective to portray bureaucratic behavior and policy as something other than a static function of extant SOPs or a fully and fluidly malleable function of internal preferences and external incentives. In particular, the role of two organizationally “bottom-up” factors — careerists' policy approval and their policy-relevant working schema — are explored to suggest how readily “top-down” preferences for policy translate into pragmatic working arrangements. The empirical basis for the article is a structured set of cases in the Urban Mass Transportation Administration through the latter 1970s and early 1980s.     

Patriotism, taxation and international mobility

Patriotic citizens intrinsically prefer living in their native country compared to living in the Diaspora. In this paper, we analyze the consequences of such a “patriotic lock-in” in a world with international migration and redistributive taxation. One implication is that countries with more patriotic populations are associated with higher redistributive taxes. We then combine ISSP survey data with OECD taxation data and provide empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis. Our results provide a word of caution: the Treasury’s inherent interest in patriotic taxpayers may strengthen the political push for patriotism in an age of globalization and increased mobility.     

Gender and Corruption: The Mediating Power of Institutional Logics

Scholars have argued that recruiting more women to office is an effective way to curb corruption; however, the more precise mechanisms underlying why this may be the case have remained unclear. We use meso‐level theories to elaborate on the relationship and suggest that institutional logics mediate the effect of gendered experiences on corruption. We make two propositions: First, we suggest that the relationship between more women and lower levels of corruption is weaker in the state administration than in the legislative arena, because the bureaucratic administrative logic absorbs actors’ personal characteristics. Second, we refine our institutional argument by claiming that the stronger the bureaucratic principles are in the administration, the less gender matters. We validate our theory using data provided by the European Commission (EC) covering the EC countries and original data from the Quality of Government Institute Expert Surveys, covering a larger set of countries on a worldwide scale.     

State Capacity,Bureaucratic Politicization,and Corruption in the Brazilian State

Responding to recent articles in Governance highlighting the need for improved measurement of bureaucratic characteristics, this article describes efforts to map Brazil's federal agencies on three dimensions—capacity, autonomy, and partisan dominance—derived from data on more than 326,000 civil servants. The article provides a “proof of concept” about the utility of agency‐level measures of these variables, demonstrating how they relate to an output common to all agencies: corruption. The article provides a first step in the direction of building a comparative research program that offers objective evaluation of bureaucracies within nation‐states, with the intent of better disentangling their impact on governance outcomes.     

Black and (thin) blue (line): Corruption and other political determinants of police killings in America

Police violence is not uncommon in America, and the risk of civilians' being killed by police is considerably higher here than in similar countries, making it a major public health issue. For Black Americans the risk is significantly higher. In this study, we analyze the political determinants of police killings of Black Americans, with a specific focus on corruption in American states. Our evidence suggests that police can kill Black Americans with impunity because of a lack of accountability—exemplified by corruption—that is largely determined by political influences. Our findings point to ways in which the responsibility for police violence and killings is deeply rooted and influenced by the values of the wider society.     

China's Hybrid Adaptive Bureaucracy: The Case of the 863 Program for Science and Technology

Portrayals of China's bureaucratic behavior tend to emphasize either streamlined central control via top‐down directives emanating from a Leninist system, or a highly fragmented organization characterized by continuous horizontal bargaining. While both views have merit, they miss important but little‐recognized dynamics of Chinese bureaucratic behavior. Examination of the 30‐year evolution of a single organization, China's 863 Program, allows us a unique look inside the “black box” of decision making. First, we highlight a largely unrecognized mechanism of top‐down control: a signal‐response process that fosters substantial uncertainty for officials in the system. Second, our case highlights a circumstance in which reformers made radical moves—deployed as a “band‐aid” layer of rational‐instrumentalism—to meet a perceived external security threat. These moves demonstrate efforts to incorporate Weberian norms, and suggest sources of dynamism and learning in a “hybrid adaptive” bureaucracy.     

Policy entrepreneurship and institutional change: Who,how, and why?

In the past three decades, “policy entrepreneurship” has emerged as a key analytical concept helping to explain institutional and policy change. Despite this, however, the literature on policy entrepreneurship remains theoretically vexed, producing limited theoretical knowledge or explanatory models able to draw firm conclusions. Theory building on policy and institutional change, for example, how policy entrepreneurs institute and navigate change agendas, using what tools, strategies, resources, and capacities remains opaque. This is especially the case in developing country contexts, where most analytical investigation of policy entrepreneurship has addressed “first world” case examples. This special issue seeks to address this analytical gap in the literature, focusing on cases specific to developing country contexts, deepening our empirical knowledge of policy entrepreneurship in developing countries, but also exploring theoretical and conceptual debates as they relate to developing countries.     

The OECD and “The Rest”: Analyzing the Limits of Policy Transfer

Abstract

Prompted by the rise of the emerging economies and the growing importance of the G20, the OECD has formally announced its intention of establishing itself as a key actor in global policy coordination. As part of this ambition, it has embarked on cultivating closer relations with five G20 countries it designated as key partners through the so-called “Enhanced Engagement” programme: Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa. This article mobilizes concepts from the policy transfer literature to explain why the OECD’s attempts to increasingly involve all five countries in its policy have fallen short of its original ambitions, and also why the transfer of its policy work has been uneven across policy and country issue.     

Corruption and Anti-Money-Laundering Systems: Putting a Luxury Good to Work

Systems of laws, regulations, and institutions developed to counter money laundering provide powerful tools for fighting corruption. Currently, however, the potential benefits anti‐money‐laundering (AML) systems can provide in fighting corruption go largely unrealized, especially in developing countries. This mismatch poses a puzzle: Why are developing countries failing to best capitalize on their expensive AML systems by using them to fight corruption? The article is built on three core claims. The first claim is that it is logical to use AML systems for anti‐corruption purposes because of a pronounced overlap in the standards required for each and the rising costs of the former. The second section demonstrates specifically how AML systems could significantly augment anti‐corruption efforts, focusing on the importance of financial intelligence, asset confiscation, and international cooperation. Finally, although powerful outsiders have successfully diffused AML systems among developing countries, a lack of “ownership” in the latter explains why these systems are often established only as tokens to enhance international legitimacy and reputations.     

Fighting corruption in developing countries: Some aspects of policy from lessons from the field

Corruption persists in developing countries despite the proliferation of legal, institutional, and other measures that have been put in place to fight said corruption. The cancer of corruption has therefore spread exponentially in most developing countries with devastating socioeconomic and governance consequences. This practitioner perspective draws on the author's field experience and backed up by the research literature. It identifies, outlines, and discusses some aspects of policy in 3 areas—institution strengthening, the development and implementation of national anticorruption plans/strategies, and political will and leadership—and the conclusions that can be drawn from them for policy development and implementation in the ongoing quest to fight corruption in developing countries.