Local government consolidations: The impact of political transaction costs

Local government in Norway comprises a large number of small municipalities. Cost efficiency can be improved by consolidating local authorities, and central government has designed a framework to stimulate voluntary mergers. Existing theories suggest that political transaction costs will impede consolidations. (1) Generous grants compensate diseconomies of scale. Central government has promised small municipalities that grant levels will be maintained, but policy promises may not be credible. (2) Property rights to local revenues are nullified when consolidations have been implemented. High-revenue municipalities will therefore go against merger with a poorer neighbor. (3) A consolidated local council may be composed of different political parties, and it may therefore pursue other policies than an existing council. Expected changes in party strength can lead municipalities to oppose a proposed consolidation. (4) Senior politicians are less likely to support mergers, particularly if they come from small polities. We offer an explicit test of these propositions based on data for Norwegian local government. Elected politicians and administrative leaders are more interested in consolidating when efficiency gains are large. Local revenue disparities and to some extent dissimilar party preferences are significant impediments to voluntary mergers. Additionally, smaller municipalities are often prepared to sacrifice some efficiency gain to remain independent polities.     

The social networks,family involvement,and pro- and antisocial behavior of adolescent males in Norway

The focus of this study is on the ecology of pro- and antisocial behavior. The study was conducted in Stavanger, Norway, with a representative sample of ninety-two 16-year-old boys. Data collected included socioeconomic background, neighborhood risk level, amount of time spent with parents and peers, maps of social network relations, self-reports of alcohol use and criminal activity, and school reports of academic performance, truancy, school motivation, and social behavior. Analysis of results produced two models linking background and process with outcome variables: (A) higher neighborhood risk and less time spent by the boys with their parents were linked with greater propensity for self-reported alcohol use and illegal activity, and (B) more educated parents and larger numbers of nonkin adults in the boy's network were related to better school performance, less absenteeism, and more positively evaluated social behavior. Discussion of these findings centers on the neighborhood and family processes involved in social control, and on adult network members in their roles as positive models, norm reinforcers, and sources of information for adolescent boys.College of Human Ecology, MVR Hall. He is trained in psychology and sociology. His current interests are in development in context with particular reference to personal social networks, child care, and family policy.He is trained in youth development. His current interests are in youth culture, including the influences of the social network, schooling and clubs and organizations.     

Manipulation and strategic voting in the Norwegian parliament

The Norwegian parliament uses a sequential voting procedure. After some general remarks on how the legislature can avoid strategic voting by choosing an appropriate voting order, and an exposition of the rules whereby the agenda is determined in this particular parliament, voting order manipulation is examined. A manipulative actor tries to bring about voting sequences in accordance with his interests, but contrary to the putative will of other actors. An example illustrates how manipulation may take place in practice, but it is stressed that the realm of manipulation easily escapes empirical analysis. To grasp the different types of manipulation in legislative voting, models are needed that are rich in institutional detail.     

Governance in Crisis and withering of the welfare state: the legacy of the policy sciences

The introductory essay to this special issue on Governance in Crisis has three objectives. Firstly, it tries to show that current dilemmas of governance in advanced industrial Western nations can be analysed within the common framework of the thesis of the withering of the modern welfare state. Secondly, it argues that the policy sciences have a legacy of problem-oriented and value-conscious scholarship, bestowed by Lasswell and others, which can and should be taken up in the analysis of the comprehensive problems of governance confronting advanced industrial nations. Thirdly, it considers the requirement that the policy sciences go significantly beyond a managerial perspective and take up the timely but challenging task of linking up problem-orientation to contextuality. Contributions to this issue are seen to constitute a promising step in this direction.     

Children in Out-of-Home Care and Adult Labor-Market Attachment: A Swedish National Register Study

Using longitudinal national register data, we investigated labor-market attachment during the years 1993–1995 in Sweden for persons aged 25–35 years who had been in out-of-home care before the age of 18 in Sweden during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. We consider whether an immigrant background has an additional influence on labor-market attachment. Compared to majority population peers, young persons who had been in foster care had shorter educations. Fewer had a strong labor-market attachment and more were dependent on social assistance. Results from multinomial regression models indicated that having been in foster care during childhood reduced the probability of high attachment to the labor-market and increased the probability of social assistance dependency, even after making adjustments for education, marital status, parenthood, domicile, and birth country. Few signs of additive effects from being both an immigrant and a former foster child are found.     

Estimating the Impact of Education on Political Participation: Evidence from Monozygotic Twins in the United States,Denmark and Sweden

In this study we provide new evidence on the much-discussed effect of education on political participation by utilizing the quasi-experiment of twinning. By looking at the relationship between education and participation within monozygotic (MZ) twin pairs we are able to circumvent traditional sources of confounding of the relationship rooted in genes and early life family environment because MZ twins share both. The results of within-twin pair analyses based on surveys from the United States, Denmark and Sweden show that while the relationship between education and political participation is highly confounded by genes and/or familial environment in all three countries, a positive impact remains of years of education in the US and of high school completion in Denmark. No effect is found in Sweden. Robustness checks suggest that the observed effect is not confounded by within-twin pair differences in prenatal environment nor differential treatment during childhood, and, if anything, that it most likely constitutes a lower bound estimate.     

Christianity and political thought: Augusto Del Noce and the ideology of Christian Democracy in post-war Italy

This article engages with the thought of Augusto Del Noce (1910–1989), the most important Italian Catholic philosopher and political thinker of the 20th century. The focus is on how Del Noce came to elaborate a Catholic ‘modernity,’ bridging a positive encounter between Catholicism, democracy and freedom. This philosophical project had a considerable impact on modern Italian culture and politics. At the theoretical level, the argument is embedded within the larger aim of recognizing attempts within Catholic philosophy to articulate an Italian political trajectory that does not simply accept the tale of a singular path to modernity based on the Enlightenment model but instead tries to articulate an alternative vision of the modern, grounded within a transcendental perspective.     

Note on a Training Program for Brief Decision Making for Frontline Police Officers

Purpose

The present paper describes the theoretical basis for a brief decision-making training program for frontline police officers as well as an outline of the training program, officers’ evaluation of perceived relevance and perceived learning effects.

Design

A between group design was used in order to test for differences in evaluation between officers at different training levels.

Results

High scores were obtained on all four items related to the evaluation (>84% scored in the highest category). When separating the subjects into groups based on their previous training (regular police response personnel vs. SWAT-type personnel), regular police response personnel obtained higher scores on perceived learning. However, both groups showed high scores on perceived learning. Both groups scored high on their evaluation of perceived relevance of the training program and no difference was found between the two groups.

Practical implications

The brief decision making training program that expands ordinary tactical training was highly appreciated by police officers and was seen as complementary to ordinary training.

     

The criminal career of men convicted of rape: evidence from a Norwegian national cohort

The extent to which sexual offenders are a group separate from other types of offenders has been debated for many years and investigated from different perspectives. The present study investigated similarities and differences regarding socio-economic background, criminal history and recidivism involving new crimes between rape offenders and three other groups: other sexual offenders, non-sexual violent offenders and other offenders. Data came from Norwegian population registers containing information on all crimes investigated from 1992 to 2012. The sample consisted of all persons convicted in 2002 and 2003 (N = 36,951). Background characteristics and estimated recidivism risk was described using hazard models. Results indicated that men convicted of rape (n = 142) had lower levels of education and that a higher percentage of them were on social benefits compared to the other crime groups. A large majority (79%) of rape-convicted men had previous convictions. Rape offenders were considerably more criminally active and diverse than the other crime groups. Prior criminal record, irrespective of type, increased the risk of recidivism in general. Controlling for other background characteristics did not alter this outcome. Treatment of convicted rapists needs to take into consideration that this offender group has much in common with violent offenders in general.