Financial incentives and welfare reform in the United States

This paper uses a microsimulation model to ask whether welfare recipients in the United States would work full‐time if offered an earnings supplement that was conditioned on full‐time employment. The simulations suggest that the earnings supplement would increase full‐time employment, with little additional cash transfer cost to the government. In contrast, financial incentives currently being used by many of the states are increasing employment and income, but are encouraging primarily part‐time employment. Encouraging full‐time employment is particularly important in light of new time limits on welfare receipt. Faced with a loss of welfare benefits, many recipients may find that part‐time earnings do not allow them to be economically self‐sufficient. © 2001 by the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Rights,review, and spending: Policy outcomes with judicially enforceable rights

Abstract. This paper posits that countries with a constitutional right to social security that can be enforced by courts via judicial review will show patterns of spending on social security that are distinct from countries with other constitutional and judicial arrangements. Governments in countries with enforceable rights will be constrained to spend more on transfer programs to avoid censure from the courts. The hypotheses are tested using data from 22 OECD countries using time–series cross–section analysis. The results show that enforceable rights are associated with higher growth rates in social security spending and lower fluctuation in expenditures on social programs, although the amount of GDP spent on social transfers is unaffected by rights. These results are consistent with the idea that governments' spending habits are constrained by positive rights, but rebut the argument that rights lead to economic distortions.     

Inequality and the Dynamics of Public Opinion: The Self‐Reinforcing Link Between Economic Inequality and Mass Preferences

This article assesses the influence of income inequality on the public's policy mood. Recent work has produced divergent perspectives on the relationship between inequality, public opinion, and government redistribution. One group of scholars suggests that unequal representation of different income groups reproduces inequality as politicians respond to the preferences of the rich. Another group of scholars pays relatively little attention to distributional outcomes but shows that government is generally just as responsive to the poor as to the rich. Utilizing theoretical insights from comparative political economy and time‐series data from 1952 to 2006, supplemented with cross‐sectional analysis where appropriate, we show that economic inequality is, in fact, self‐reinforcing, but that this is fully consistent with the idea that government tends to respond equally to rich and poor in its policy enactments.     

Budget Deficits in the States: Virginia

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Blogging and Environmental Advocacy: A New Way to Engage the Public?

While there is a growing literature on weblogs (or “blogs”), most studies focus on a few high profile blogs, or on blogs written by individuals. This study assesses the little‐researched area of organizational blogging through a content analysis of blogs by 40 national‐level environmental organizations. I examine the general purposes that these blogs serve and the extent to which organizational blogs differ from traditional websites. Additionally, I explore two blog features—interactivity and personalized content—that offer the potential to strengthen the connections between group leaders and their supporters. I find that groups use their blogs primarily to inform readers about policy developments and news headlines, but that the level of interactivity between blog authors and readers is low. Thus, while the potential exists for blogs to enhance grassroots support for environmental groups, that potential is far from being realized.     

Towards state activism： Long live public administration

The last two decades of human civilization has witnessed fast changing in polity, society, economy and almost every sphere of state activities. The era of new economic order and revolution in the information technology sector has compelled the public administration to adopt the new paradigms. However, the new concepts such as NPM, public choice approach and state minimalism are being questioned in the framework of welfare state and emerging needs of the regulatory administration. It has been realized by almost all the modern and democratic nations that the state and its instrumental part （public administration） are not the evils; rather they are inevitable institutions for mankind. Terrorism, cyber crimes, disaster management, economic meltdown, sustainable development, capacity building, international relations, development of heavy and basic infrastructure and protection of human rights etc. are the prime and exclusive functions of the public administration. The 9/11 attack on US and 11/26 attack on India, plus the recent recession with the global warming worries have proved that we have to move towards state activism.     

Level Two Negotiations: Helping the Other Side Meet Its “Behind‐the‐Table” Challenges

A long analytic tradition has explored the challenge of productively synchronizing “internal” with “external” negotiations, with a special focus on how each side can best manage internal opposition to agreements negotiated “at the table.” Implicit in much of this work has been the view that each side's leadership is best positioned to manage its own internal conflicts, often by pressing for deal terms that will overcome internal objections and by effectively “selling” the agreement to key constituencies. Far less frequently have analysts considered how each side can help the other side with its “behind‐the‐table” barriers to successful agreement. Following Robert Putnam's two‐level games schema, I characterize such “behind‐the‐table” or “Level Two” barriers more broadly, offer several innovative examples of how each side can help the other overcome them, and develop more general advice on doing so most effectively. As a fuller illustration of a Level Two negotiator helping the other side with its formidable behind‐the‐table challenges, I pay special attention to the end‐of‐Cold‐War negotiations over German reunification in which former American Secretary of State James Baker played a key role.     

Participation in the Knowledge Society: the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement compared with participatory development

The possibilities and limits of participation at the ‘bottom’ (represented, for example, by PRA and PLA) have been well articulated in development literature. However, the emergence of the Knowledge Society has opened up spaces for what we could call participation at the ‘top’ (free software, wiki, open access), the implications of which Development Studies is only beginning to grapple with. Building upon recent debates on the issue, we take the cases of the free software movement and participatory development, arguing that they share common ground in several ways. We aim to offer a few pointers on conceptualising development in the Knowledge Society.     

Gold mining and corporate social responsibility in the Wassa West district,Ghana

Despite a boom in gold mining in Ghana's Wassa West district (WWD), unemployment and poverty have deepened, partly due to loss of farmland to surface mining but more so because of the limited opportunities for wage employment in the district's ‘revived’ gold-mining industry. However, the large-scale mining companies are implementing some alternative livelihood programmes (ALPs) as part of their corporate social-responsibility (CSR) agenda. While the ALPs have provided some employment and income-earning opportunities and skills training, the prospects for their sustainability depend on how the challenges confronting the various programmes are addressed. This will require a well-coordinated approach involving all the key stakeholders.     

Eco-regional conservation and development in Madagascar: a review of USAID-funded efforts in two priority landscapes

The need for eco-regional or landscape-scale conservation and development has been widely recognised in Madagascar, yet implementation remains problematic. The approach was initially driven by biodiversity-conservation concerns, without enough emphasis on sustainable development, especially agriculture. Current challenges include consensus building for eco-regional visions, strengthening partnerships with government institutions, and negotiating land-use trade-offs within focal landscapes. Increased attention to revenue generation from agriculture and forest products, as well as enhanced communication and widespread participation by all stakeholders, should augment the success of broad-scale conservation and development programmes.