On the Second Edition of Lukes' Third Face

In this article I argue for two propositions. The first is that Lukes has established the possibility of power's third face, but that the most interesting social science questions about it are empirical: How often does it operate and under what conditions? These are topics for empirical research, not armchair reflection. The second proposition I defend is that the most interesting normative questions about power are best thought of as questions of institutional design geared to preventing domination without interfering with the legitimate exercise of power. Examples in support of both propositions are supplied.     

Networks and problem recognition: advancing the Multiple Streams Approach

This paper responds to recent calls for more theoretically driven advancements of the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA). It does so by bringing networks theorizing into dialogue with the MSA; highlighting the inclusionary and exclusionary power of networks for determining problem frames and issue recognition. Subsequently, the paper argues that the addition of networks provides a clearer articulation of the role of institutions in steering problem stream processes, which have often been neglected within the MSA at the expense of a focus on agency. The paper puts forward two propositions. The first is that an issue is more likely to be recognised as a problem if it is considered compatible with the ‘appreciative system’ of the network's dominant coalition. The second proposition is that the more organisations a network consists of and the more varied these organisations are, the more likely it is that the dominant coalition alters a condition’s category if there are changes in the problem stream. These propositions are explored through a comparative analysis of recognition of quality of life as a problem in two local level transport sector networks in the UK. Support for these propositions in the findings suggest that the introduction of networks into the MSA can reduce ambiguity and therefore fortuity in relation to problem recognition; second, that the power of the policy entrepreneur can be facilitated or constrained by the institutional context; and third, that comparing multiple issues and their interactions is important for further advancement of the MSA.     

The untouchables of law

This paper discusses two main theses in Ronald Dworkin’s legal theory: (i) law is institutionalized political morality and (ii) there is pervasive theoretical disagreement about how to fix truth conditions for the propositions of law. The author argues that the first thesis is compatible with the distinction between the law as it is and the law as it should be. Regarding the second thesis, the author attempts to show that the need for a fulcrum of disagreement requires accepting that law contains certain institutional parts whose role makes them unsuitable subjects for a moral reading.     

What Have We Learned about the Performance of Council‐Manager Government? A Review and Synthesis of the Research

The 100th anniversary of the International City/County Management Association provides an excellent point to review and assess research on the performance of the council‐manager form of government. The development of the council‐manager form arguably has been the most important innovation in American local government over the last century, yet its impact on the performance of municipal governments is not well understood. This article reviews and assesses the empirical evidence for 10 propositions that council‐manager governments perform better than mayor‐council governments. This evidence indicates that although progress has been made on demonstrating differences in representation and functionality, the proposition that council‐manager governments are better managed than mayor‐council governments has yet to be seriously engaged in this literature. Filling this critical gap requires progress in two areas: the development of theory to explain why council‐manager governments are better‐managed organizations and the production of evidence assessing the major propositions of this theory.     

Core–Peripheral Structure and Regional Governance: Implications of Paul Krugman’s New Economic Geography for Public Administration

Paul Krugman’s work is much celebrated in the fields of international trade and economic geography, recognized with the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics. Although his work is less prominent in public administration, it has important implications for the study of political fragmentation, collaboration, economic development, and service delivery in metropolitan areas. The authors discuss how Krugman’s core–periphery model adds a critical piece to the regional governance puzzle by explaining the concentration and dispersion of economic activity and the productive advantages of spatial closeness. They summarize the central propositions of Krugman’s work to identify its policy inferences for intergovernmental coordination and strategies for successful management of urban growth, as well as its implications for public administration theories of governance, collaboration, and institutional collective action.     

现代大学治理结构：真实命题及中国语境

大学治理结构的真实命题包括多重涵义:回应"冲突和多元利益"的治理需要,建构能够体现利益相关者组织属性和委托代理关系特点的决策权结构;大学自身不是完整意义上的办学利益主体,其"组织剩余"是由社会利益来决定的公共价值,每一种利益相关者都不应单独地对大学行使控制权;大学治理结构是比管理结构更为基础的制度结构,其根本目的是建立大学决策过程与社会权利主体的合理联系,实现社会价值平衡。大学治理结构的中国语境是:办学体制的变化为政府与高校建立具有委托代理性质的契约关系提供了法律依据和操作空间;管理体制的变化使大学决策责任骤然加重、决策权处于高度集中状态,风险也随之出现;办学经费筹资结构的变化表明大学的社会基础日益广泛化,其利益相关者组织的属性正从模糊走向清晰。我国大学已跨越前治理时期,但向治理阶段迈进必须依靠上层政治权威的推动,才可能突破"制度锁定状态",破解历史性难题。     

对西方历史哲学两个命题的评析

本文论述了历史时间的三个向度--过去、现在、未来之间的相互关系,并以此为依据,评析了克罗齐的"一切历史都是当代史"和柯林武德的"一切历史都是思想史"这两个西方历史哲学的重要命题.     

Sectoral reallocation, distributional coalitions and the welfare state as determinants of economic growth rates in industrialized democracies

Abstract. This paper investigates three propositions about economic growth. It rejects the proposition that differences in the size of the agricultural sector or in opportunities to reallocate resources from this sector to other sectors of the economy significantly contribute to the explanation of differential growth rates among industrialized democracies. It supports Olson's proposition that long lasting democracies suffer from an accumulation of distributional coalitions whose rent-seeking activities retard economic growth. It also supports the proposition that the welfare state contributes to economic decline. Technically, this paper applies cross-sectional and pooled regression analyses of growth rates on employment in agriculture as a percentage of civilian employment, age of democracy, and social security transfers as a percentage of GDP. Data refer to the 1960–82 period and 19 nations.     

The Political Environment and Ballot Proposition Awareness

Studies that examine whether voters make informed decisions on direct legislation and whether direct legislation enhances civic engagement presume a basic awareness of ballot propositions, yet little is known about why some ballot propositions are more widely known than others. Despite the fact that research on awareness of ballot propositions and political awareness focus on individual factors, the political environment plays a vital role. This study seeks to advance our understanding of environmental factors in explaining awareness of ballot propositions. Using data on California ballot elections between the years 1956 and 2000, I find that the political environment has a substantial effect on voter awareness. Specifically, I find that the electoral cycle, media coverage, campaign spending, voter fatigue, the number of days before an election, and issues that concern morality, civil liberties, and civil rights contribute to ballot proposition awareness.     

Revenue Diversification in Public Higher Education: Comparing the University and Polytechnic Sectors

Financial stringency has been an increasing concern in the higher education sector, especially in the aftermath of the financial crisis. As a result, public higher education institutions have been under increasing pressure to diversify their funding sources through tuition fees and other nonpublic revenues. This article reflects on the institutional impact of those changes by analyzing a panel of 30 higher education institutions from the Portuguese public university and polytechnic sectors for the period between 2003 and 2009. The authors explore the relevance of institutional characteristics such as enrollments in undergraduate and postgraduate programs, the qualifications of academic staff, and the regional environment where institutions are located. Results suggest that certain institutional characteristics related to mission differentiation and the path of development of binary systems are important determinants of higher education institutions’ ability to earn income from tuition fees and other nonpublic sources.     

Cooperation without the Leviathan: Intergovernmental policymaking in Canadian education

A staple of policymaking in any federation is intergovernmental cooperation, which can take the form of vertical initiatives between the central and substate governments or as horizontal initiatives among the substate governments themselves. Most research has focused the former whereby the central government often deploys powerful levers to encourage the constituent members to cooperate. Such accounts, however, cannot be applied to cases occurring without the influence of the proverbial Leviathan. This article sets out to identify conditions that may be conducive to horizontal cooperation, developing a set of propositions focusing on economic, institutional, and ideational factors. These propositions are then considered on three cases of cooperation with varying results in Canadian education. While no single factor can be identified as necessary and sufficient for horizontal cooperation, institutional and ideational conditions interacted in dynamic ways and appeared to play the leading roles in the outcomes presented here.     

Tax Structure and Public Spending - Or How the Electorate Is Deceived into Paying for Bigger Public Spending than It Really Wants

It is a classical proposition that tax structure may influence public spending. Two such propositions concerning the visibility and the elasticity of the tax system are tested. Visibility is not important while highly elastic tax systems are correlated with big public spending in times of economic boom. In times of economic decline and recession, high spending countries turn to deficit financing. In both cases big spenders seem to rely more upon a dose of fiscal illusion than moderate spenders.     

A Report On Reporting: Why Peers Report Integrity and Law Violations in Public Organizations

The archives of three bureaus of integrity are analyzed in order to study the reasons for reporting integrity and law violations within public organizations. Peer reporting accounts for only a small percentage of cases; most investigations originate from routine and continuous institutional controls. What are the reasons peers choose to report or not report? A sense of justice is most important, followed by self‐protection and protection of the wrongdoer. The most important reason against coming forward is the reporter’s fear of negative consequences. One surprising rationale for not reporting is that an individual feels responsible for the wrongdoer’s punishment. Six propositions are elicited from this research as well as specific pragmatic recommendations for management procedures to improve reporting of integrity and/or law violations.     

Comparing absentee and precinct voters: Voting on direct legislation

This paper addresses issues related to how absentee voters actually cast their ballots on propositions. If the liberalization of absentee laws changed either the composition or behavior of the electorate, then the outcome of the election may be affected. This paper tests whether the electoral behavior of absentee and precinct voters differs in regards to voting on propositions. The analysis is based on a sample of actual absentee and precinct voter ballots drawn from the approximately three million ballots cast in Los Angeles county for the 1992 general election. The analysis uses a nested model of voter participation and is estimated using the weighted exogenous sampling maximum likelihood method. We find that precinct and absentee voters do differ on both the propositions on which they cast votes and in their propensity to vote Yes for a proposition. For example, absentees appear to vote on fewer bonds and initiatives than do precinct voters. They also vote on fewer propositions dealing with state taxes, food taxes, and property taxes. In addition, given that a voter casts a valid vote, the propensity for absentee voters to vote Yes is higher on initiatives and propositions related to education, welfare, and health care than it is for precinct voters.     

Support for Performance‐Based Funding: The Role of Political Ideology,Performance, and Dysfunctional Information Environments

As performance‐based mechanisms for accountability have become increasingly commonplace in the public sector, it is apparent that administrative reactions to these reforms are central in determining their effectiveness. Unfortunately, we know relatively little about the factors that drive acceptance of performance‐based accountability by administrative actors. This article employs data collected from an original survey instrument to examine the perceptions of presidents at American public colleges and universities regarding performance funding. The author finds that acceptance of performance as a basis for funding is driven by a variety of factors, including the partisanship of the state legislature, organizational performance (measured by institutional graduation rates), dysfunction in the external information environment, and the political ideology of university presidents.     

How Do Career Strategies,Gender, and Work Environment Affect Faculty Productivity Levels in University‐Based Science Centers?1

Recent studies have shown that in many science and engineering fields, almost 40% of faculty are affiliated with university‐based research centers ( Corley & Gaughan, 2005 ). As major science funding organizations continue to increase annual levels of funding for interdisciplinary science centers, it is likely that this number will increase significantly over the next decade. Moreover, some scholars have argued that the rise of university‐based science centers has already led to the development of a new institutional form for the execution of university‐based research ( Bozeman & Boardman, 2004 ). Yet, interestingly few researchers have studied the impacts of this new institutional form on the productivity of individual researchers. The purpose of this article is to begin to address how individual career strategies and perceptions of scientific work environments within university‐based science centers relate to the productivity of academic scientists who participate in these centers. In particular, this article investigates the relationships between productivity, individual career strategies, and perceptions of scientific work environment across gender. The results of the study demonstrate that university‐based science centers might serve as an equalizing mechanism for male and female productivity levels. Yet, women scientists affiliated with these centers are significantly more likely to feel discriminated against—and they are less likely to embrace the most promising career strategy for the current structure of these centers.     

Democratic Quality in Stable Democracies

The major predecessor to Ringen’s and my own efforts to measure democratic quality in terms of the purpose of democracy is Robert Dahl’s seminal book Polyarchy (1971). Measuring the quality of democracy requires two prior judgments: (1) making sure that, in terms of institutional characteristics, a country is sufficiently democratic, and that, as a minimum, it has universal suffrage, and (2) that its democracy has been uninterrupted for a minimum number of years. To an important extent, higher democratic quality can be attributed to institutional characteristics of consensus democracy, especially proportional representation.     

新中国70年机关事务治理的制度变迁:一项历史制度主义的考察

机关事务治理制度是国家治理体系的一项重要内容,有机融汇于新中国成立70年来的历史叙事之中。如何理解我国机关事务治理制度的历史变迁,是影响国家治理体系和治理能力现代化的一个重要命题。我国的机关事务治理从以"后勤服务"为主要表现形态的传统机关事务管理向以"运行保障"为主要表现形态的现代机关事务治理转型,经历了雏形渐成、改革发展、深化改革三次重大的制度变迁。基于历史制度主义的分析范式,机关事务治理制度变迁过程中制度背景、政治变量、路径依赖和关键节点的"混合体"模式深刻影响着机关事务治理制度的变迁历程,国家治理范式下的政治、经济、文化、社会因素则是制度变迁的动力所在。展望未来,机关事务治理现代化要正视新时代赋予的新要求,加强制度创新消解路径依赖逆向张力,推进机关事务治理职能法定化,完善多元协同的机关事务治理模式,从而推进新时代机关事务工作高质量发展。     

TURBULENT TRANSITION AND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANCE: RELATING POLICY OUTCOMES TO STRATEGIC ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITIES

Much of the literature on public policy with its institutional and legislative emphases conveys the view that organizational effectiveness is primarily dependent on actors external to the agency. That is, laws prescribe programs and operating procedures; overlapping jurisdictions restrict innovative behavior; and the politics o f fund budgeting encourage complacency and incrementalism. This article proposes an alternative set of propositions explaining policy outcomes and agency performance as a function of internal administrative considerations. The propositions are empirically evaluated using data from Pacific Coast port authorities during the "container revolution" and environmental movement. The results suggest that variance in strategic performance can be attributed to (1) perceptions about intergovernmental relations and performance gap, (2) an agency micro-structure for strategic planning and policy analysis, and (3) a set of intervening administrative variables.     

Debt intolerance and the 90 per cent debt threshold: two impossibility theorems

Abstract

Two propositions underpin the retreat from post-crisis fiscal expansion instituted by several G7 governments in the summer of 2010. One is that the threat of debt intolerance is general: the reasoning is that the sharp rise in government debt levels caused by post-crisis fiscal expansion will force investors to abandon government bonds in favour of some other asset class. The other proposition is that there is a one-size debt threshold: the reasoning is that no government, those of the G7 countries included, can escape the serious consequences of debt intolerance and the threat of exit should its debt to GDP ratio reach 90 per cent. This paper argues that neither of these propositions can have credibility at a time of continuing global economic slowdown and consequent contraction in the global supplies of investable assets. At such a time investors cannot possibly hold up the threat of intolerance to core economy governments because they have no choice but to store substantial portions of their wealth in the latter's bonds, a fact which in turn means that the debt thresholds for core economy governments cannot possibly be the same as the average for other governments.