Central‐local relations in the people's Republic of China: Trends,processes and impacts for policy implementation

Central–local relations are a matter of great importance to developmentalists because they highlight an intriguing puzzle in public administration especially in large states: how policies decided at higher echelons of the formal system can possibly be implemented by the multitude of intermediary and local actors across the system. In the case of China—the most populous nation in the world, the contrast between the authoritarian façade of the Chinese regime and yet the proliferation of implementation gaps over many policy arenas adds additional complexity to the puzzle. This article reviews changes in central–local relations in the 60 years of history of People's Republic of China (PRC) as the outcome of four co‐evolving processes, and clarifies the roles of each process: state building and national integration, development efficiency, career advancement and external influences. It points out the continuous pre‐dominance of administrative decentralization from 1950s to present time, and the new emphasis on institutionalized power sharing in the context of new state‐market boundaries since 1980s. In conclusion, the article suggests going beyond the traditional reliance on the compliance model to understand central–local interactions and the abundant implementation gaps in a context of central–local co‐agency, thereby improving policy implementation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Buffalo tales: interest group policy stories in Greater Yellowstone

Wicked policy problems—those that resist resolution and continuously cycle through different administrative jurisdictions—are time-consuming for the practitioner and expensive. In these wicked policy environs, interest group narratives contribute to this intractability through the continued construction of a policy loser’s tale. Central to our study is the analysis of group maturation with that of policy narrative elements. We explore whether there is a relationship between lobby tactics, financial resources, and professionalization of authorship of narratives and policy narrative elements. We content analyze the policy stories of the Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) over a 10-year period (1999–2008), using the Yellowstone National Park bison and brucellosis controversy as case material and track how this new interest group’s fundamental policy story has changed over the course of its lifespan. As demonstrated through their choice of lobby tactics, the group does evolve from an unconventional to a conventional interest group, with two out of three of their constructed policy beliefs remaining unchanged and their political tactics consistently focusing on spinning the loser’s tale aimed at expanding the policy arena. Suggestions on the importance of this work to scientists, administrators, and academics are included.     

Framing blame: toward a better understanding of the effects of populist communication on populist party preferences

Although previous research has argued that the media play a crucial role in populism’s success, we know too little about how populist messages affect preferences for populist parties. To advance this knowledge, we conducted an experiment in which the core of populist rhetoric – constructing the people as innocent in-group opposed to the establishment as culprit out-group – was manipulated in news articles. The findings indicate that when political elites are blamed for a salient national problem, people are more likely to vote for a populist party and less likely to vote for the largest party in government. Populist vote intentions are indirectly affected via blame perceptions. These findings offer important insights into the media’s role in the electoral success of populism.     

Priming Issues,Party Visibility,and Party Evaluations: The Impact on Vote Switching

Voter volatility has become a hallmark of Western democracies in the past three decades. At the same time short-term factors—such as the media’s coverage of issues, parties, and candidates during an election campaign—have become more important for voters’ decisions. While previous research did look at how campaign news in general affects electoral volatility in general, it has omitted to explicitly test the mechanisms underlying these effects. Building on theories of agenda setting, (affective) priming, and issue ownership, the current study aims to explain why certain news aspects lead voters to switch their vote choice. We theorize it is the visibility of a party, the evaluation of a party, and the attention for issues owned by a party that primes voters to switch to a certain party. We use national panel survey data (N = 765) and link this to an extensive content analysis of campaign news on television and in newspapers in the run up to the 2012 Dutch national elections. The results show that issue news leads to vote change in the direction of the party that owns the issue. Even stronger is the effect of party visibility on vote switching. Our results, however, find the strongest support for the effect of party evaluations on vote change: More favorable news about a party increases switching to that party.     

Views of public health leaders in English local authorities – changing perspectives following the transfer of responsibilities from the National Health Service to local government

This paper reports on the findings of a research project that examined the changes to the public health system in England introduced in 2013. Drawing on case study research and two national surveys the findings explore the impact of organisational change on the composition and role of public health teams. Views and experiences were obtained from public health leaders involved in the transfer of staff and functions from the National Health Service in England to local authorities. National surveys at two points in time aimed to compare and contrast views on the evolving changes. The new organisational and managerial arrangements had enabled public health professionals to widen their work and influence, and public health skills and budgets were welcomed by those in local government. Initially, in some areas, directors of public health were less certain of the benefits of the transfer to local government compared to high levels of confidence expressed by elected members, but perspectives changed over time and moved closer together. National headline figures were found to mask high levels of turbulence and churn being experienced by individual authorities identified in the case study research, and the trend of reducing capacity through cuts to staff, budget and services was a cause for serious concern.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Hanging On</Emphasis>: Reflections on visual reproduction and the UK Abortion Act 1967

This is a reflection on the visual installation piece, Hanging On, produced collaboratively for the Feminist Legal Studies ‘At the Kitchen Table’ zine in 2016. The author and co-artist considers the research that informed and helped conceptually drive the aesthetics of the piece, including academic research on abortion within literary aesthetics. How these concepts ‘translated’ into hands-on artistic practice and physical materials is discussed, including the difficulties and knowledge gained from the process. The author finally considers the benefits of such interdisciplinary, aesthetic encounters within contemporary feminist knowledge production.     

Youth Engagement and Suicide Risk: Testing a Mediated Model in a Canadian Community Sample

Suicide is a leading cause of death among adolescents in many industrialized countries. We report evidence from a mediation model linking greater youth activity engagement, spanning behavioral and psychological components, with lower suicide risk through five hypothesized intrapersonal and interpersonal mediating factors. Self-report survey data (15% French, 85% English) were gathered from a community sample of 5,015 Canadian adolescents participating in a mental health promotion program. Youth (M _age = 15.77, SD = 1.42, 50% female) were from two urban centers in southern Ontario, Canada. Youth engagement (youth’s most important type of activity, frequency of involvement, and psychological engagement), suicide risk predictive factors (self-esteem, current concerns, depressive symptoms, coping ability, and connections with others), and suicide risk (ideation and attempts) were assessed. Consistent with the hypothesized mediation model, enjoyment and stress in youth’s most important activity and various activity types were associated with the various hypothesized suicide risk predictive factors, which in turn were related to suicide risk. Implications for conceptualizations of youth engagement as a multidimensional construct and for suicide risk prevention efforts are discussed.     

The Stress Response and Adolescents’ Adjustment: The Impact of Child Maltreatment

Experience with and management of stress has implications for adolescents' behavioral and socioemotional development. This study examined the relationship between adolescents' physiological response to an acute laboratory stressor (i.e., Trier Social Stress Test; TSST) and anger regulation and interpersonal competence in a sample of 175 low-income urban adolescents (51.8% girls). Findings suggested that heightened reactivity as indicated by cortisol, heart rate, and blood pressure was associated with increased interpersonal competence and anger regulation. However, these findings were context dependent such that, for youth high in self-reported child maltreatment, heightened reactivity was associated with decreased interpersonal competence and anger regulation. Results highlight the importance of considering how context may condition the effect of stress reactivity on functioning during adolescence.     

Examining Connections between the Police and Prosecution in Sexual Assault Case Processing: Does the Use of Exceptional Clearance Facilitate a Downstream Orientation?

After several decades of research on how the criminal justice system handles reports of sexual assault, the attrition of cases at the police and prosecutor stages continues to draw the attention of policy makers, victim advocates, and academics. Such attrition has implications for thousands of victims and their alleged offenders each year. Current estimates show that significant rates of attrition persist and vary across jurisdictions. Recent work in two jurisdictions reveals a pattern of exceptional clearances being used to close sexual assault cases reported to the police and that prosecutors are weighing in at the arrest stage. Broadening this analysis we use incident data from a multitude of jurisdictions that report to the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in combination with data from other law enforcement sources to investigate how legal and extra-legal incident factors as well as agency factors differentiate the decision to clear cases by exceptional means from clearance by arrest. We find that agency, legal, and extra-legal factors predict the use of exceptional clearance relative to arrest and discuss how these findings suggest a downstream orientation in case processing.