Medicaid's Role in Moves Toward Universal Health Care

This paper considers the problems currently facing the Medical Assistance (Medicaid) program in light of the major problems confronting the American health care system. Actual and proposed Medicaid reforms are reviewed, their merits noted and their shortcomings detailed. It is argued that substantial Medicaid reform can take place only in the context of radical reform of the entire U.S. health care system. Similarly, Medicaid should be incorporated into any plan aimed at providing universal health care coverage.     

Variation in central bank independence across countries: Some provisional empirical evidence

In this paper seven hypotheses to explain variation in central bank independence across countries are tested. The predictions based upon the theory that delegation of authority by politicians to the central bank is used as a commitment device are not supported: central bank independence is not higher the larger the employment motivated inflationary bias, the higher political instability or the larger the government debt. Central bank independence is positively related to historical inflation experience and negatively with political instability. We do only find limited support for the view that countries with a universal banking system and countries whose central banks do not regulate financial institutions have more independent central banks.     

POLICY AS A MOVING TARGET: A CALL FOR CONCEPTUAL REALISM

Since the early 1970s, policy scholars have paid great attention to issues of policy implementation, treating it as the "missing link" between policy formulation and results. Most often, policy problems have been seen as static phenomena that can be corrected by carefully specified programs. This paper, drawing upon examples from Swedish energy policy, argues that this is not the case, that political and social conditions are so prone to change that implementation must be a dynamic process if it is to be effective. This has distinct conceptual and practical implications for the study and design of policy implementation.     

Japanese foreign policy: Inaction and reaction

Japan's tendency to simply react to international trends rather than to formulate its own policies is as prevalent today as during the Meiji period when the country was trying to catch up to the West, says Gerald Curtis, professor of political science at Columbia University. When international trends are murky, such as before World War II, this tendency can easily lead to disaster, Curtis says. Japan must break with the past and define its international role in the post‐Cold War era, Curtis argues, but the public debate required to achieve this is unlikely until Japan's domestic politics become more sharply defined.     

WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION IN THE USA: LESSONS LEARNT AND TO BE LEARNT

Abstract: In the 1970s, both Australia and the United States instituted legal reforms aimed at promoting greater accountability among public servants. Prompted by growing awareness of the need to encourage and protect federal government whistleblowers, Congress enacted whistleblower protection measures in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Although the notion of open government in Australia has never been extended to include whistleblowing by public servants, probing the issue of whether or not United States whistleblower protection can serve as a reform model in the search for more effective legal mechanisms for ensuring government accountability can provide lessons and insights of value to Australian public administrators. Analysis of the role and impact of the Office of the Special Counsel and the Merit Systems Protection Board as established under the Civil Service Reform Act reveals many difficulties associated with whistleblower protection. Research has substantiated the jurisdictional ambiguities, administrative and procedural deficiencies and lack of sanctioning power which plague this reform effort. Similar deficiencies also impede the protection of parliamentary witnesses in Australia. Evaluation of whistleblower protection leads to the conclusion that reform models in either country for ensuring government accountability must not be judged solely through examination of statutory provisions. There must also be in place strong stabilising factors such as political unity, economic comfort, social discipline, civic virtue and public service ideology in order to achieve the common public service goal of rendering governmental decision-making more accountable to persons affected by it and open to review by independent decision makers.     

Voting for ‘Sin’ in Kansas

We would like to thank our colleagues Nancy Snyder and William Terrell for comments and suggestions. The assistance of Ron Farha and Michael Webb is gratefully acknowledged, as is the patience of the staff in the Elections Office of the Office of the Secretary of State, Topeka, Kansas. Any errors or omissions are, of course, the responsibility of the authors.     

Correlates of romantic attachment: A path analysis study

A path-analytic study was undertaken to investigate the proposed relationship between physical attractiveness, need for intimacy, self-disclosure, thought about one's dating partner, and reported romantic love. Extrapolations from theories by Murstein (1971) and I. Reiss (1960), and conclusions from other empirical work, provided the background for the assessment of the relationship between the four proposed predictive factors and the development of romantic affect. During the winter of 1977-78 656 college students responded to a survey assessing each of the four predictors and romantic love. Path structures were initially estimated for male and female subsamples. Since few significant sex differences were noted, coefficients were compared for groups of students involved in dating relationships of varying durations. All four predictors were significantly associated with the subjects' self-reported romantic affect toward their dating partner. In all analyses, thinking about one's partner was found to be the most potent predictor. The data suggest the earlier work by Murstein and Reiss offer both testable and productive theoretical foundations for the study of romantic involvement. However, in future work it would be beneficial to (a) search for more numerous and powerful antecedents to romantic love; (b) delineate the specific role of cognitive processes in influencing romantic attachment; (c) compare relationships on criteria other than months of involvement; and (d) seek to examine love from the perspectives of both individuals involved in the dyadic relationship.Received her Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State UniversityReceived his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University.