Experiential Learning and Presidential Management of the U.S. Federal Bureaucracy: Logic and Evidence from Agency Leadership Appointments

Presidents become increasingly effective at managing the bureaucracy because of the information and expertise that they acquire from on‐the‐job experience. In their appointment choices, this theory predicts that presidents become better at reducing information asymmetries incurred from the bureaucracy (Agent Selection Learning), improve the vertical balance of leadership agent traits between top supervisory positions and subordinates directly beneath them (Agent Monitoring Learning), and place a greater relative premium on loyalty in response to horizontal policy conflict between the White House and the Senate (Common Agency Learning). This logic obtains empirical support from the analysis of bureaucratic agent traits for Senate‐confirmed presidential appointees serving in leadership positions covering 39 U.S. federal government agencies from 1977 to 2009. Presidents’ appointment strategies reflect their increasing effectiveness at managing the bureaucracy, thus complementing their increasing reliance on administrative mechanisms to achieve policy objectives as their tenure in office rises.     

Military Socialization: A Motivating Factor for Seeking Treatment in a Veterans’ Treatment Court

The veterans’ treatment court movement is just beyond the nascent period, and given the rapid proliferation of these courts in recent years it is imperative that the scientific community understand their operational procedures and assess whether they are meeting a unique need beyond those addressed by other problem-solving courts. This paper provides an in-depth examination of veteran culture and how it helps to distinguish veterans’ treatment courts from other courts that focus on similar populations (e.g., drug, DWI, and mental health courts). Using in-depth semi-structured interviews and focus group data collected from veteran participants, veteran mentors, and court team members in Pennsylvania, we employ content analysis to explore the veteran culture as a motivator for participants to enroll in a veterans’ treatment court and engage with others throughout participation in treatment. The results of this exploratory study suggest that a shared culture serves to motivate justice-involved veterans to seek out the veterans’ treatment court over other treatment options and remain engaged in this problem-solving court, while inspiring a sense of obligation to do well in treatment for them and their fellow veterans. The shared experiences of military service and across-the-board support for fellow service members suggest that the veterans’ treatment court creates a unique environment for pursuing treatment.     

Hawaiian Sovereignty

The movement for national sovereignty among persons of Hawaiianancestry has burgeoned during the last several decades, withsome seeking secession of the State of Hawai'i from the AmericanUnion. The movement's roots are multiple, among which figuresprominently the overthrow of Queen Lili'uokalani in 1893 withthe connivance of the armed forces of the United States, forwhich the U. S. Congress recently apologized. Some indigenousHawaiians dismiss the annexation of Hawai'i and its subsequentstatehood as having occurred without their independent choice.The Hawaiian sovereignty movement may be roughly divided intothree categories: "Hawaiian Nation Separatists" supporting anindependent Hawai'i nation; "Nation-within-a-Nation" advocatesdesiring a status comparable to that of American Indians; andthose Hawaiians supporting the status quo but with redress inmany forms. Steps are underway to hold constitutional conventionof all Hawaiians to propose a native Hawaiian government. Whetherthe U.S. Congress can respond to the thrust of the movementwithin the constraints of the American federal system remainsproblematical.     

Admissions appeals in 1999: the impact of the 1998 regulations and R,v. Birmingham city council ex parte M 1998

School admission appeal committees hearing appeals in 1999 will have to grapple with two main changes. Firstly, they will have to identify which of the three tests available applies to the appeal before them. The Education Act 1996 (Infant Class Sizes) Modification Regulations 1998 (SI 1998/1948) have replaced the ‘standard’ prejudice test with a ‘new’ and much narrower prejudice test for certain admission appeals. The third test applies to appeals relating to the admission of a pupil who has been permanently excluded from a school on two or more occasions. Secondly, the recent decision of the High Court in R. v. Birmingham City Council x parte M 1998 requires an appeal committee to give specific grounds for their decision in the letter informing parents of the committee's decision. This goes beyond the broad grounds hitherto considered adequate and has implications for both the appeal hearing and for the form of letter used by local authorities.     

Minimizing the social cost of drug abuse: An economic analysis of alternatives for policy

The use of heroin, with its concomitant social problems, is facilitated by an illicit market process which functions similarly to economic markets in general. The analysis of this process, incorporated in a model embodying the interacting relationships of crime generation and control, permits evaluation of three fundamentally different strategies for social control. These are controlling supply through law enforcement and other strategies, controlling demand by detaining addicts, or reducing illicit market activitity by introducing an effective substitute for the services of that market. When all the social costs of addiction are taken into account and when minimizing the total of those costs is taken to be the objective, the authors conclude that the best solution will lie with the establishment of a drug maintenance program. Properly administered, such a program would undermine the illicit market by reducing demand. Furthermore, it can be expected to reduce levels of drug related crimes and to moderate factors encouraging addiction.The authors wish to acknowledge the helpful comments of Perry Shapiro and an unnamed referee and the support of the Russell Sage Foundation during the writing of this analysis.     

U.S. Power and the Politics of Economic Governance in the Americas

This article examines the nature of the emerging regional economic regime in the Americas and argues that the dominant approach to economic governance is one defined by the assertion of U.S. power in the region and oriented toward distinctively U.S. interests and preferences. This has been clearly evident in the evolution of the Free Trade Area of the Americas but also, with the deceleration and fragmentation of that process during 2002 and 2003, in the growing prioritization of bilateralism. The leverage afforded by the bilateral negotiation of trade agreements acts to situate primary influence in shaping the rules that constitute the regional economic regime, and the primary functions associated with governing in this context, firmly within the agencies of the U.S. state. This essay therefore explores how the hegemonic power of the United States manifests itself in the substance of the hemispheric project and the shape of the economic regime associated with it.