Public policy for dangerous inventions

This study explores the relationship between dangerous invention characteristics and US local, state, and federal government safety policy-making patterns and effectiveness. When an invention prototype appears and its existence is recognized, an initial policy direction is established quickly if the invention is treated by society as being similar to a previous way of doing things. In this case the invention's dangers will be regulated within the established legal and administrative framework. If an invention is perceived as being entirely new, its introduction tends to be followed by governmental inaction for years or even decades. When government finally responds it is likely to be at the federal level.     

Expenditures and votes: In search of downward-sloping curves in the United States and Great Britain

An earlier paper showed a negative relation between increases and accelerations in F, the ratio of federal expenditures to GNP and E, the reelection or defeat of the incumbent party in the White House over the last 100 years. This paper argues that there also exists a negative relation between V, the percentage of the popular vote cast for the incumbents, and F. This function is displaced by wars and depressions and can drift over time, making it difficult to discover negative curves in the data. Dividing British and US data for the last 50 years into party periods yields clearly discernable negative functions for F and V for the incumbents.     

The continued salience of religious voting in the United States, Germany, and Great Britain

Conventional wisdom on party systems in advanced industrial democracies holds that modern electorates are dealigned and that social cleavages no longer structure party politics. Recent work on class cleavages has challenged this stylized fact. The analysis performed here extends this criticism to the religious-secular cleavage. Using path analysis and comparing the current electorates of the United States, Germany, and Great Britain with the early 1960s, this paper demonstrates that the religious-secular cleavage remains or has become a significant predictor of conservative vote choice. While the effects of the religious-secular cleavage on vote choice have become largely indirect, the total of the direct and indirect effects is substantial and equivalent to the effects of class and status.     

Understanding recent trends in central-local relations: centralisation in Great Britain and decentralisation in the United States

Abstract. This article starts by noting that, whilst Mrs Thatcher and President Reagan apparently share similar conservative objectives, their policies differ radically with respect to intergovernmental relations. The author briefly reviews the trends towards centralisation and decentralisation in Britain and America respectively and suggests that the difference is because both leaders see 'intergovernmental relations' as a means to an end rather than an end in themselves. Both leaders share the same objectives of reducing tax levels and the amount of government expenditure and of rewarding their supporters: objectives which, at least in part, both have achieved. But both have used different means, reflecting the different structure of government with which both leaders have to work. This view is supported by a brief review of policy on intergovernmental grants in both countries.     

Research and Social Security policy in the United States

This article is adapted from a paper presented at a conference that investigated the role of policy research in shaping public policy. The conference focused on how studies of economic and social forces and their relationship with public problems and programs affect the decisions of public policymakers. The author contends that research has the potential to inform policy-making in any of its five stages: problem identification, option development, passage of new laws or development of new procedures, implementation, and evaluation. She notes that different players in the policy-making process use research differently, from the senior government official who needs a quick review of what is known relating to a "hot" issue to the interest group lobbyist who wants access to raw data. The article concludes that research can best achieve its potential when (1) it anticipates policymakers' information needs, (2) it is disseminated in an accessible form understandable to nonresearchers, and (3) the policy analyst is willing to engage in the policy process as an advocate for efficiency.     

Political efficacy: A comparative study of the United States, West Germany, Great Britain and Australia

Abstract. Although political efficacy is a key concept in theories of political participation and democratic governance, different studies have conceptualised and operationalised efficacy in different ways. Using comparable survey data from the United States, West Germany, Great Britain and Australia, this study builds upon previous research in an attempt to clarify our understanding of the dimensions of political efficacy and their relationship to socio-demographic factors. The results suggest that 'internal efficacy' and 'external efficacy' are distinct attitudinal dimensions which are comparable in all four nations, and that each is related to certain socio-demographic characteristics.     

Regional Government and Governance in China and the United States

A comparative analysis of regional governance policies in China and the United States is presented from multiple perspectives, including jurisdictional structure, intergovernmental relationship, and performance outcomes. Policy reviews and case studies contrast how regional approaches may assist governments to learn seminal lessons from multinational experiences.     

Measuring Party Identification: Britain, Canada, and the United States

The article proposes an empirically based reflection on how to measure party identification cross nationally, using data from the 1997 Canadian Election Study, the 1997 British Election Study, and the 1996 American National Election Study. These studies included both traditional national questions and a new common one, which allows for an assessment of the effects of question wording on the distribution and correlates of party identification. We show that the distribution of party identification is strongly affected by question wording and that the relationship between party identification and variables such as party and leader ratings, and voting behavior does not quite conform to theoretical expectations. We point out problems in the wording of party identification questions and propose an alternative formulation.     

Evangelical Protestantism and foreign policy in the United States after September 11

Much that has been written on evangelicals in the United States concerns their impact on domestic politics. But the election of George W. Bush has resulted in a new importance for the relationship between evangelicals and US foreign policy. This has become particularly clear following the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Three issues deserve further study. One is evangelicals’ attitude to Islam. The second involves the relationship between evangelicals and Israel. The third concerns the stance of evangelicals towards war with Iraq. Through an examination of these three issues, Durham explores a number of important ­questions, ranging from the relationship of evangelicals’ theology and their politics to their partly supportive, partly critical attitude towards an administration itself led by an evangelical. Many evangelicals see the ‘war against terror’ as a war against Islam and unreservedly approve of Israeli policy, and many supported the launch of war in Iraq. Yet evangelicalism is not a monolith and, with regard to its disputes over how to respond to the ‘threat’ of Islam or what view to take of the Israel–Palestine conflict, Durham offers new insights into a powerful voting bloc and source of pressure within US politics.     

Regulating the computer: comparing policy instruments in Europe and the United States

Abstract. The introduction of information technology to governmental agencies has raised considerable concern for the erosion of personal privacy in most advanced democratic states. This article compares and tries to explain the choice of policy instrument in four key countries (Sweden, the United States, West Germany and the United Kingdom) to enforce the protection of personal data. Five options were available from the 'international repertoire' of solutions: voluntary control, subject control, licensing, a data commissioner and registration. The Swedes opted for licensing, the Americans rely on subject control, the Germans established a data commissioner and the British chose a registration scheme. In no state, however, were these decisions made from a synoptic analysis of all possible options. Nor did a process of policy diffusion occur. Rather, a combination of domestic constraints seemed to filter out unacceptable options and produce a bias in favour of the resulting policy instrument. In the United States and Sweden, this bias resulted from perceived constitutional imperatives; in West Germany and Britain, the position and power of the respective national bureaucracies produced stiff resistance, a conflictual policy process and resulting policy instruments with few, if any, precedents in their respective systems.     

Competitive Government in the United States: Policy Promotion and Divided Party Control

Divided party control of the executive and legislative branches of American government has traditionally been thought to contribute to the system's tendencies toward policy stalemate and paralysis. Based on a series of brief case studies over the past twenty-five years, this article argues that, under certain circumstances, divided party government may promote rather than hinder the enactment of legislation. It sketches an analytical framework that suggests a range of policymaking outcomes may result from party competition under conditions of divided government, including stalemate, neglect, accommodation, and promotion.     

Inflation,unemployment and government popularity—Dynamic models for the United States,Britain and West Germany

There has been numerous attempts to model the relationship between unemployment, inflation, other economic variables and government popularity in a variety of industrial countries. However, there is conflicting evidence about the magnitude and significance of effects both between different countries, and within the same country at different points of time. The purpose of this article is to examine the existing literature, to provide a critique of the theoretical and statistical validity of many existing studies, and to specify and estimate a dynamic model of the relationship between inflation, unemployment and government popularity in three countries over the post-war period. This model is a multivariate transfer function with an autoregressive-moving average error structure which has been developed in its general form by Box and Jenkins. The results demonstrate significant relationships between inflation, unemployment and government popularity, but relationships which are relatively weak and unstable over time.     

Child Poverty,the Great Recession,and the Social Safety Net in the United States

In this paper, we comprehensively examine the effects of the Great Recession on child poverty, with particular attention to the role of the social safety net in mitigating the adverse effects of shocks to earnings and income. Using a state panel data model and data for 2000 to 2014, we estimate the relationship between the business cycle and child poverty, and we examine how and to what extent the safety net is providing protection to at‐risk children. We find compelling evidence that the safety net provides protection; that is, the cyclicality of after‐tax‐and‐transfer child poverty is significantly attenuated relative to the cyclicality of private income poverty. We also find that the protective effect of the safety net is not similar across demographic groups, and that children from more disadvantaged backgrounds, such as those living with Hispanic or single heads, or particularly those living with immigrant household heads—or immigrant spouses—experience larger poverty cyclicality than those living with non‐Hispanic white or married heads, or those living with native household heads with native spouses. Our findings hold across a host of choices for how to define poverty. These include measures based on absolute thresholds or more relative thresholds. They also hold for measures of resources that include not only cash and near‐cash transfers net of taxes but also several measures of the value of public medical benefits.     

Factors Underlying the Growth of Local Government in the 19th Century United States

Early in the 19th century local governmentsspent less than either the federal or stategovernments. By the end of the 19thcentury local governments spent more thanthe federal and state governments combined. This growth is obviously related to thegrowth of cities, but cities continued togrow in the 20th century, while the localgovernment share of total governmentexpenditures fell, so the growth of citiescannot be the complete answer. Anexamination of expenditures and revenues intwo cities – Boston and Baltimore –suggests that no one component ofexpenditures was responsible for increasesin total spending. Rather, it appears thatthe primary causal factor was revenuegrowth. Cities rely heavily on propertytaxes, and the increasing value of taxableproperty allowed cities to raise increasingamounts of revenue, leading to increasedgovernment spending.