Pursuing performance and maintaining compliance: Balancing performance improvement and accountability in Ontario's public health system

This article examines the compatibility between performance improvement and compliance‐based accountability in the implementation of a new system of public health performance management in Ontario. Findings from this mixed‐method study show that only minor elements of performance improvement get incorporated into pre‐existing compliance‐based accountability structures, that reinforcement of accountability structures works to the detriment of performance improvement intentions, and that limiting managerial influence in developing performance measures and targets diminish the utility of information for improvement. The study concludes that achieving a better balance requires an alternative to top‐down decision making that goes beyond consultation to include partnership.     

Who Is Helping the Homeless? Local, State, and Federal Responses

This article examines the sources of support for services forthe homeless. It delineates the extensive role of the privatesector in both funding and actually delivering shelter, meal,and other services for the homeless. It also indicates the extentto which certain states are providing financial support forhomeless services, and the relation of new federal efforts throughprograms funded by the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless AssistanceAct to state and private activities.     

How to vote,whether to vote: Strategies for voting and abstaining on congressional roll calls

This paper develops and tests a theory of voting and abstaining on Congressional roll calls. The theoretical model assumes that the voting behavior of legislators is oriented toward reelection, and that constituents vote retrospectively. Among the predictions of the theory are that supporters of a program are more likely to abstain than opponents, that conflicted legislators are more likely to vote on the losing side (but will abstain when the vote is very close), and that indifferent legislators will abstain when votes are not close but trade their votes when the outcome is uncertain. The empirical test is based on a series of votes on appropriations for the Clinch River Breeder Reactor from 1975 to 1982. We estimate a nested logit model of, first, the probability of voting for Clinch River, and second, the probability of abstaining from the vote, conditional on preferences regarding the program. All of the empirical results are consistent with the theoretical predictions, and most are statistically significant by conventional standards. The implication is that the abstention decision, as well as yes or no votes, can be purposive, and that the pattern of abstentions is not random among supporters and opponents.The authors gratefully acknowledge research support from the Brookings Institution and the University of Michigan School of Law, and useful comments on an earlier draft by Randall Calvert, Morris Fiorina, Rodney Fort, Amihai Glazer, Keith Krehbiel, Thomas Romer, Kenneth Shepsle, Rodney Smith, Barry Weingast, the UCI Public Choice Study Group, and the Hoover Workshop on Collective Choice.     

Political determinants of population dynamics

The hypothesis that political development, involving a massive transformation of the political system, is responsible for the movement from high to low birth and death rates in national populations is discussed. The nature of the relationship between political change and changes in vital rates is first described, and a new empirical measure of the capacity and effectiveness of political systems is presented.