Collaborative environmental institutions: All talk and no action?

Many analysts view collaborative institutions that attempt to forge consensus and build cooperation among conflicting stakeholders as a potential remedy to the pathologies of conventional environmental policy. However, few analyses have demonstrated that collaborative institutions actually increase levels of cooperation, and critics accuse collaborative institutions of all talk and no action. This paper reports the use a quasi‐experimental design to compare the levels of consensus and cooperation in coastal watersheds with and without U.S. EPA's National Estuary Programs, one of the most prominent national examples of collaborative institutions in the environmental policy domain. Panel survey data from more than 800 respondents shows that while the level of consensus is higher in NEP estuaries, there is no difference between NEP and non‐NEP estuaries in the level of cooperation. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Community legal centres in Australia under a new public management regime

During the 1990s and into the new millennium the public sector in Australia has gone through a process of so-called modernisation. This has been underpinned by the New Public Management (NPM), and the financial, regulatory and administrative reforms it encompasses. An assumption that the public and private sectors are not inherently dissimilar, and can therefore be managed in much the same way including having their efficiency and effectiveness measured against the same performance criteria, is central to the NPM. This article examines the role of comunity legal centres (CLCs) in Australian society against the background of adoption by all governments in Australia of an NPM policy agenda. It then goes on to discuss the implications of this agenda for the viability of CLCs and their relationship with government and clients. The article will also consider the implications for relationships between government and citizenry.     

I Respectfully Dissent: Consensus, Agendas, and Policymaking on the U.S. Supreme Court, 1888–1999

Scholars have been intrigued by the abrupt change in the rate of nonconsensual opinions that the Supreme Court has published over time, which substantially increased beginning with the battles concerning the court's New Deal transition in the 1930s. Notwithstanding, none of the prior studies on this topic has made any link, whether theoretical or empirical, between the Supreme Court's issuance of these special opinions and the justices’ policy preferences. We utilize fractional cointegration to examine the relationship between consensus, agendas, and decisionmaking on the Supreme Court. We find that there is a systematic interrelation between the justices’ policy preferences and their issuance of nonconsensual opinions that is dependent upon the policy agenda before the court. In turn, this connection influences the court's policy outcomes, demonstrating that the justices’ behavior regarding nonconsensual opinion writing is a classic example of judicial policymaking.     

Adolescents' Intergroup Attributions: A Comparison of Two Social Identities

This study investigated the intergroup perceptions of 2 social groups. English adolescents aged 14–15 years were asked to make causal attributions for various positive and negative behaviors performed by members of an in-group and an out-group. In the first condition (n = 45), participants rated members of their own peer group and members of a peer group to which they did not belong. Participants in the second condition (n = 45) rated English adolescents and members of a national out-group (either France or Germany). Results showed that participants in both conditions reported perceptions that were biased towards the formation of a favorable in-group evaluation. However, the relationship between intergroup discrimination and identification with the in-group was in the expected direction for participants in the peer group condition only. This observation is explained in terms of the potential level of identity threat posed by the prevalent intergroup context.     

Building Consensual Institutions: Networks and the National Estuary Program

Currently, many approaches to solving policy problems seek to create community-based, less coercive solutions that are creating the conditions for the birth of new regional governmental institutions. We argue that networks form the core of these emergent structures and that federal programs can play a positive role in developing local networks. Our empirical work compares networks in estuaries included in National Estuary Program with networks in comparable estuaries that were not. We find that the networks in NEP areas span more levels of government, integrate more experts into policy discussions, nurture stronger interpersonal ties between stakeholders, and create greater faith in the procedural fairness of local policy, thus laying the foundation for a new form of cooperative governance.     

Managing contract performance: A transaction costs approach

Managing contracts is a complex process, often exacerbated by high transaction costs inherent in negotiating, implementing, and monitoring contract relationships with vendors. Through analyses of data from a 1997 International City/County Management Association survey of municipal and county governments, the way in which municipal and county governments respond to transaction cost factors inherent in contract service delivery is examined. The results of the analyses demonstrate that when governments contract for services in contexts that risk contract failure, they engage in a variety of monitoring techniques to improve their ability to monitor and correct vendor performance. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

What is Politics? The Approach of Radical Pluralism

In this article I evaluate the conceptions of politics and of 'the political' characteristic of 'radical pluralism'. I argue that in order to comprehend the radically pluralist conception of politics it is necessary to grasp the post-structuralist critique of the philosophical principle of identity. The concern with the interface between politics and ethics – which is typical of the radical pluralist approach – is also explored. Throughout the article contrast is made with the conventional pluralism of American political science. I conclude with a consideration of the importance of radical pluralism, with reference to the difficulties this may present for the methods and suppositions of political science traditionally understood.     

Ethnic politics and public sector management in Trinidad and Guyana

Representativeness and diversity in public institutions are among the principles of good and democratic governance, but a commitment to achieving ‘balance’ is far easier said than done, particularly in the context of small, ethnically divided societies in which political mobilization is based on ethnic identity. Trinidad and Guyana are two such societies in which political power was held for a long time by a dominant ethnic group and has recently been transferred to the former ‘out group’. Specifically, politics in both territories was dominated by parties that are identified with the urban African populations, whereas the main opposition parties drew their electoral support almost exclusively from rural Indian groups. In both cases the Indian ‘out group’ accused the African ‘in group’ of favouring members of the latter group—and, conversely, of discriminating against the Indians—in the allocation of resources which are in the gift of the state. Also in both countries, democratic elections have resulted in regime changes after three decades of near one‐party rule. The issue of employment in the public service has become critical as the two groups battle for scarce resources, and the public service is described as a ‘theatre of inter‐ethnic drama’. The article takes the view that managing ethnic and cultural diversity is tantamount to managing unproductive tensions that threaten to undermine confidence and morale among public officials. This impacts negatively on their levels of job satisfaction, the quality of the work environment and, ultimately, on performance and output. It breeds suspicion among co‐workers and has the potential to degenerate into ethnic strife that can cripple the public sector and affect the overall goal of national development. The article examines existing legal/constitutional and institutional provisions for conflict management and resolution, but ultimately suggests the need for well‐conceived confidence‐building measures such as public scrutiny of the personnel function and the reintroduction of ethnicity as a category on official government personnel records. The main theoretical conclusion is that while equality of opportunity must be guaranteed, the notion of a representative bureaucracy has many practical limitations that make it unworkable in Trinidad and Guyana. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.