HYBRIDS AND PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITIES: COMPARING UK REFORMS IN HEALTHCARE,BROADCASTING AND POSTAL SERVICES

Many countries use state‐owned, for‐profit, and third sector organizations to provide public services, generating ‘hybrid’ organizational forms. This article examines how the hybridization of organizations in the public sector is influenced by interaction between regulatory change and professional communities. It presents qualitative data on three areas of the UK public sector that have undergone marketization: healthcare, broadcasting, and postal services. Implementation of market‐based reform in public sector organizations is shaped by sector‐specific differences in professional communities, as these groups interact with reform processes. Sectoral differences in communities include their power to influence reform, their persistence despite reform, and their alignment with the direction of change or innovation. Equally, the dynamics of professional communities can be affected by reform. Policymakers need to take account of the ways that implementation of hybrid forms interacts with professional communities, including risk of disrupting existing relationships based on communities that contribute to learning.     

INTERROGATING INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: ACTORS' ATTITUDES TO COMPETITION AND COOPERATION IN COMMISSIONING HEALTH SERVICES IN ENGLAND

Since the beginning of the 1990s the public healthcare system in England has been subject to reforms. This has resulted in a structurally hybrid system of public service with elements of the market. Utilizing a theory of new institutionalism, this article explores National Health Service (NHS) managers' views on competition and cooperation as mechanisms for commissioning health services. We interrogate the extent of institutional change in the NHS by examining managers' understanding of the formal rules, normative positions and frameworks for action under the regime of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Interviews with managers showed an overall preference for cooperative approaches, but also evidence of marketization in the normative outlook and actions. This suggests that hybridity in the NHS has already spread from structure and rules to other institutional pillars. The study showed that managers were adept at navigating the complex policy environment despite its inherent contradictions.     

How Honest Do Politicians Need to Be?

This article reports findings from a recent survey of citizens' attitudes towards standards in British public life. It provides further evidence that people hold their political leaders to high standards, yet are often disappointed by the reality, and suggests that many citizens tend to blame the practice and institutions of politics for making politicians less honest and trustworthy than they would ideally like. The article argues that reforms to the political system are needed to regain the confidence of the population, but that the manner in which the most recent round of ethics reforms in the House of Commons were introduced may lower the prospects of their achieving this goal.     

Social Structure and Citizenship: Examining the Impacts of Social Setting,Network Heterogeneity,and Informational Variables on Political Participation

In this study, we develop a model of the interplay between sociostructural determinants of an individual's discussion behavior, such as the setting of primary discussion networks (work, church, and volunteer groups) and the nature of discussion (i.e., level of exposure to non-like-minded ideas), and individual-level outcomes, such as hard news media use, political knowledge, and participation in political processes. In doing so, we synthesize many of the different and sometimes competing models that political communication scholars have used to examine the link between more macroscopic sociological variables and the individual-level behaviors that political scientists often focus on. Data to test our theoretical model come from a national telephone survey conducted in October and November 2002. Our analysis showed that the social setting in which citizens discuss politics is an important antecedent of political participation. Discussion networks as part of volunteer groups, for example, indeed serve as important networks of recruitment. In other words, discussing politics frequently in this setting is positively and directly linked to political activity. The impact of conversational networks in church and work settings on participation, however, is only indirect. In fact, our data show that the impact of church and work networks on political participation is to a significant degree mediated by the different viewpoints that individuals are exposed to when they discuss politics in these settings.     

FROM PROVIDING TO ENABLING: LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND THE MIXED ECONOMY OF SOCIAL CARE

Government policy seeks to introduce competition into the supply of social care through the separation of purchasing and providing responsibilities. A study of 24 local authority social service departments has explored the initial steps taken to prepare for the new enabling role, including the creation of a mixed economy of care. Very few were seeking to create a market in social care. Most argued that the inherent nature of social care rendered the introduction of service specifications and price mechanisms neither approriate nor feasible. Many authorities interpreted the enabling role in ways significantly different from that of the government. The study raises questions about the extent of local discretion in a context where the range of values and interests of implementing agencies may differ from those of the centre.     

THE CERTAINTY OF PUNISHMENT: A REFERENCE GROUP EFFECT AND ITS FUNCTIONAL FORM

The 1970s witnessed a renewal of interest in deterrence theory. Examining the functional form of the relationship between certainty of punishment and crime rate, Tittle and Rowe (1974) and Brown (1978) report a threshold effect: Below a certainty level of about .30 (the tipping point), they observed no relationship and above that level they observed a strong negative relationship. Unfortunately, few large cities achieve that level for most crimes. This interesting finding has rarely been followed up. Drawing on reference group theory, we extend this research by disaggregating the analysis by crime and race. While racial majorities may not experience certainty levels above the tipping point, some research suggests that racial minorities do experience such levels. Supporting this, our analysis shows a reference group effect for racial majorities and minorities and a curvilinear relationship, reflecting tipping and ceiling points, between certainty of punishment and crime rates for only racial minorities.