The political economy of childcare in OECD countries: Explaining cross-national variation in spending and coverage rates

If childcare policy has become topical in most OECD countries over the last ten years or so, actual developments display huge cross-national variations. Countries like Sweden and Denmark spend around 2 per cent of GDP on this service, and provide affordable childcare places to most children below school age. At the other extreme, in Southern Europe, only around 10 per cent of this age group has access to formal daycare. Against this background, this article aims to account for cross-national variations in childcare services. It distinguishes two dependent variables: the coverage rate and the proportion of GDP spent subsidising childcare services. Using a mix of cross-sectional and pooled times-series methods, it tests a series of hypotheses concerning the determinants of the development of this policy. Its main conclusion for the coverage rate is that key factors are public spending and wage dispersion (both positive). For spending, key factors are the proportion of women in parliaments (positive) and spending on age-related policies (negative).     

Poverty — A Precarious Public Policy Idea

The mixed economy of the welfare state armed with the new science of public administration was going to eradicate poverty. But it hasn't and the policy influence of the idea of poverty has fallen away. I explain this by looking at the conditions under which good ideas are likely to make it to policy status. Good ideas tend to be simple to understand; resonate with people's experiences of life; have leadership and a policy community around them; fit into program and resource structures of governments and seem capable of solving immediate problems. The idea of eradicating poverty has lost these features. For example, for the past 20 years poverty ideas have been knocked off their perch by economic reform ideas. Not only are there these competing economic ideas (which are claimed to be a solution to poverty), there is also a raft of new social capital ideas making claims on policy resources. The idea of poverty has been obfuscated such that we can't agree what it means any more or how to measure it or who is responsible for tackling it. Which, of course, means no one can be held accountable. Out of the muddle I suggest a way forward to make the idea influential again. For example, having some national goals and agreeing some basic language and targets would be a good start.     

Urban local government finance in Nigeria: The case of Lagos municipal area

One of the most important results of the global reform of local governments in Nigeria in 1976 was to initiate a progressive increase in the amount of monetary transfers to local governments (LGs) by federal and state governments (especially the former). The proportion of federally collected revenues devoted to LGs increased rapidly from less than 2 per cent in 1976 to 15 per cent in 1990. This has enabled Nigerian LGs to play a more visible role in total public expenditures. On the other hand, huge federal transfers have led to sharp declines in absolute and relative terms in locally generated revenues. The two Lagos municipalities are able to generate up to 50 per cent of their total revenues. In contrast, the average for all local governments in the country is 4–5 per cent. The relatively large internal revenue sources in the two Lagos municipalities results in generous surpluses, which they are able to channel into capital development or special project expenditures. The single most important internal revenue source is the property tax, which is not even collected in some other large cities, such as Kano, Ogbomosho and Sokoto.     

MYTHS ABOUT PUBLIC WELFARE: POVERTY, FAMILY INSTABILITY, AND TEEN ILLEGITIMACY

To rationalize federal cutbacks in spending for public welfare, President Reagan charged that public welfare programs are responsible for leading to a "national tragedy involving family breakdown, teen-age illegitimacy and worsening poverty." Yet analysis of 1980 and 1982 census data for the 50 states suggests that if this is so, it is because of low, not high, spending for public welfare. While low state spending for public welfare is predictive of high teen illegitimacy rates and directly linked to high state poverty and divorce rates, higher state spending for public welfare is predictive of lower teen birth rates, and linked to lower rates of family breakup and poverty. Despite limitations inherent in the analysis, the findings challenge the contention that spending for public welfare contributes to family breakup, teen illegitimacy and poverty.     

Awareness of Corruption in the Community and Public Service: a Victorian Study

Corruption hurts the public and undermines government. This study of perceptions of corruption in Victoria shows that the community believes corruption is on the increase, yet this view is not shared by public servants. In general corruption is not on the radar of senior Victorian public servants. There are more perceptions of corruption in line agencies than in central agencies. Behaviours most commonly suspected and observed were hiring family and friends, conflict of interest, abuse of discretion and abuse of information. One‐ third of public servants surveyed thought there were opportunities for bribery, yet only 4% had suspected bribery and less than one per cent had personally observed it. Almost half do not believe they would be protected from victimisation should they report corruption. The data reported here poses challenges in thinking about corruption when devising integrity standards in the public service.     

For fear of popular politics? Public attention and the delegation of authority to the United States executive branch

Legislators are thought to delegate policymaking authority to administrative actors either to avoid blame for controversial policy or to secure policy outcomes. This study tests these competing perspectives and establishes that public attention to policymaking is a powerful predictor of the extent to which significant United States statutes delegate authority to the executive branch. Consistent with the policy‐concerns perspective, by one calculation statutes dealing with high‐attention issues entail 48 percent fewer delegating provisions than statutes dealing with low‐attention issues – a far stronger relationship than is typically found in the delegation literature. As per the blame‐avoidance perspective, a number of additional analyses yield results consistent with the notion that fears about future public attention motivate statutory delegation if legislative conflict is sufficiently great. Overall, however, the results suggest that conflict typically is not sufficiently great and that legislators are generally more inclined to limit statutory delegation when the public is paying attention.     

The disadvantaged incumbents: estimating incumbency effects in Indian state legislatures

This paper estimates the incumbency effects using a large dataset on state legislative elections in India during 1975–2003. I use a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) that estimates the causal effect of incumbency by comparing candidates in closely fought elections. I find that there is a significant disadvantage to incumbency in Indian State legislative elections, and the adverse effect of incumbency has increased after 1991. Also, the incumbency disadvantage is higher in states that have lower availability of public goods such as health centers, and lower employment, poverty and per capita income.     

Something about young people or something about elections? Electoral participation of young people in Europe: Evidence from a multilevel analysis of the European Social Survey

Abstract.  Turnout at general elections across Europe is in decline as it is in other established democracies. A particular cause for concern is that young people are less likely to participate than older voters. Evidence presented in this article, based on national election results and the 2002–2003 European Social Survey, shows the overall turnout rate for 22 European countries in elections between 1999 and 2002 was 70 per cent compared to 51 per cent for electors aged less than 25. The authors examine national variations in turnout for young people across Europe, and use multilevel logistic regression models to understand these variations, and to test the extent to which they are attributable to the characteristics of young people and the electoral context in each country. Variations in turnout among young people are partially accounted for by the level of turnout of older voters in the country and partly by the characteristics of young voters, including the level of political interest and civic duty. The authors conclude that both individual-level and election-specific information are important in understanding the turnout of young electors.     

The impact of European economic integration on business associations: The UK case

This article presents the results of new survey research that assesses the routes and activities used by UK business associations in gathering and exchanging information with European institutions. All major UK business associations are covered, ranging from trade and professional associations to associations of the self‐employed and federations. A representative sampling framework allows general conclusions for the whole association sector to be drawn. The chief findings are that there are multiple routes for European activities employed by most associations. The most important route for all categories (except federations) is the national route, using meetings with UK ministers, officials or agencies as an attempt to get them to influence the EU. The second most important route is through European associations (which is the chief route for federations), which are also seen as the most open to influence. A ‘Brussels strategy’ of direct lobbying, or a Brussels office, is the third most important route. It is the main route for 16 per cent of respondents, which is surprising given its costs but demonstrates the increasingly important light in which the European institutions are seen. The use by associations of individual member companies to lobby for them is also surprisingly high (for 10 per cent it is the main route). Association size, resources and sectoral circumstances are shown to be important influences on an association's European strategy.     

Motivational dilemmas in collaborative learning activities: The case of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)

Complex social and environmental problems—such as climate change, rural poverty, and over‐fishing—defy simple policy solutions. An increasing number of scholars, practitioners, and policy makers now agree that coming to grips with such problems requires more collaborative and adaptive forms of learning and decision‐making. Such approaches seek to involve a variety of stakeholders to learn about system‐level effects of past human decisions and adapt future management decisions to the lessons learned. While there are plenty of success stories at the local level, the collaborative learning approach has turned out to be difficult to implement at broader scales—in large public organizations and in society at large. This article provides an explanation for such shortcomings, arguing that the creation of collaborative learning systems is plagued by several motivational dilemmas. By systematically mapping out the institutional incentives of the potential participants in collaborative learning activities, it is argued that one can gain a better understanding of the likelihood that adaptive systems will actually work. These ideas are tested on the case of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida). It is found that most Sida staff face conflicting incentives to engage in collaborative learning, but there are opportunities for management to strengthen such incentives. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Myth and reality: The causes and persistence of poverty

Policies directed at alleviating poverty rest on a set of assumptions regarding the demographic composition of the poor and the psychological dispositions of poor individuals. Evidence from a long-term study of a representative sample of low-income individuals shows that poverty is very widespread but not usually very persistent, and that the characteristics of the persistently poor do not conform to the conventional wisdom. Furthermore, the economic status of the poor does not appear to have been caused by psychological dispositions. Intergenerational data from the same study show generally weak links between the poverty or welfare status of parents and that of their children. Public policies for dealing with poverty can be properly devised without attempting to resocialize poor people and without undue concern that poverty programs will generate dependency among the majority of those they help.     

Governance for sustainable poverty reduction: the social fund in Nicaragua

Like other social funds, the Nicaraguan Emergency Social Investment Fund (FISE) has been created on the initiative of the donors to alleviate the social consequences of adjustment policies. It finances small infrastructural projects in education, health, water and other sectors and focuses on poor communities. FISE accounts for approximately 11% of public investment and 48% of public investment in the social sectors. The size of FISE and its apparent permanent character raise questions of its contribution to sustainable poverty reduction and on institutional development in the country. The article concludes that there are serious doubts on whether maintaining a social fund as a separate agency enhances effective governance for sustainable poverty reduction. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Comparative Perspectives on Childcare Expansion in Germany: Explaining the Persistent East‒West Divide

Abstract

Germany’s family policy responded to the European Union’s Barcelona targets by expanding publicly funded childcare, especially for children under the age of three, throughout the country. While overall nearly 33 per cent of all children in that age group had access to public childcare by 2015, there is still a large difference between the situation in the eastern and the western part of the country. This paper documents and explains this development of two persistently different childcare regimes in the two parts of the country. It shows that supply factors such as local administrative capacity and resources interact with demand factors such as parental need and demands for public childcare to produce the divergent development. It then discusses the conceptual challenges involved in engaging in this type of subnationally comparative analysis.     

Subjective racism,objective racism: the French case

Drawing on a recent survey on xenophobia and racism in France (autumn 2000), Mayer and Michelat compare answers to questions about minorities (measuring objective racism) with answers to a question on a respondent's own feeling as to his or her own racism (subjective racism), and to an open question about what it means to be 'racist'. The results show that, for three-quarters of the sample, the objective and subjective dimensions overlap: the level of subjective racism goes up with scores on the objective racism scale. But there are two deviant groups. The scrupulous (10 per cent), often to be found among principled Catholics or Communists, feel themselves to be racist in spite of their low scores on the objective scale, while the deniers (14 per cent) do not think of themselves as being racist in spite of their high scores. In line with theories of 'subtle racism', members of this latter group seem to be aware of an anti-racist norm and do not consider themselves to be racist, in contradistinction to racists, who admit being so, and are even proud to transgress the norm.     

Does Urban Public Housing Diminish the Social Capital and Labor Force Activity of Its Tenants?

This paper investigates the effect of urban public housing on the social capital and labor force activity of its tenants using cross‐sectional survey data from the Multi‐City Study of Urban Inequality (MSCUI). A structural equation model of the hypothesized direct and indirect effects of public housing and neighborhood disadvantage on social capital and labor force activity is specified and fitted to these data. The modeling results suggest that urban public housing is strongly associated with neighborhood disadvantage but has little or no direct effect on either social capital or labor force activity. And while public housing may have indirect effects on social capital and labor force activity through neighborhood poverty, these indirect effects appear to be small. These findings have implications for the current emphasis in urban public housing policy on moving residents into the private housing market and reducing poverty concentration. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Will the Government Catch the Wind?

The government's Renewable Obligation system aims to supply 10 per cent of UK electricity from renewable sources by 2010. Although the headlines suggest that planning controversies hamper these objectives, by the summer of 2004 enough capacity had been given planning consent to supply 4 per cent of UK electricity from new renewable energy sources. Enough renewable capacity to supply 7 per cent of UK electricity from renewables will probably be operational by 2010. The bulk of this is coming from onshore wind power, especially based in Scotland, and also offshore wind power. The offshore schemes are more expensive and need additional support outside the Renewable Obligation. The Conservatives have promised to bring in planning curbs for onshore wind power. There is pressure for more nuclear power, but this is likely to be impossible to finance without a very large subsidy from the Department of Trade and Industry.     

Disparities in the Spending Needs of Highland Municipalities

A certain rough consensus holds that highland municipalities have higher spending needs than others, because of the particularly adverse conditions in which they provide essential public services. However, there is no empirical evidence to support this assertion. This study examines whether any relevant differences actually exist in the spending policies of highland and lowland municipalities. To this end, we make logarithmic estimations of per capita municipal spending in order to determine whether the indicators selected, which are based on local government powers, adequately reflect spending needs. Our results point to the special circumstances of highland districts as a key explanatory factor for higher municipal spending, along with demographic factors, locational population patterns, economic activity, subsidies, and local fiscal capacity.     

Alphabetic bias in partisan elections: Patterns of voting for the Spanish Senate, 1982 and 1986

Recent research has suggested that, in partisan elections, candidates derive no special advantage from being placed first or as high as possible on the ballot, and that, consequently, measures to neutralize this alphabetic or positional bias are unnecessary. We warn against these conclusions, and analyse one case of particularly clear alphabetic voting: the 1982 and 1986 Senate elections in Spain. The aggregate alphabetic advantage that candidates enjoyed over their party's next lower candidates on the ballot ranged from 1.7 to 3.7 per cent. And, in both elections, more than 10 per cent of the 188 senators elected in four-member districts can be shown to have been elected as a result of their alphabetic advantage.