Measuring the efficiency of Spanish municipal refuse collection services

The aim of this article is to analyse the technical efficiency of the refuse collection services in 75 municipalities located in Catalonia, Spain. The analysis has been carried out using a great variety of techniques, both parametric and non‐parametric. Although the results naturally differ according to the technique used, they nevertheless are consistent in ranking the units analysed. Finally, we have looked into the relation existing between efficiency and the public or private management of the service. The results seem to support the idea that the framework for competition in which the service is provided could be more relevant than the private‐public management dichotomy.     

A political economy model of market intervention

We argue that political competition based on income redistribution à la Lindbeck and Weibull (Public Choice 52:273–297, 1987) may cause distortive regulation in a competitive sector. For this purpose, we propose a model in which imposing a production quota allows the extraction of rents that are then used for vote-buying purposes. Our model permits us to analyze the response of regulatory policy to political factors, such as the size of a group of informed voters and the accuracy of their information about the incumbent. We also show that the extent of voter influence on policy outcomes is shaped by the state of market demand. In particular, if demand becomes weaker, market intervention increases in a magnitude that depends positively on the electoral weight of informed voters.     

Intergovernmental fiscal transfers as pork barrel

This paper uses a simultaneous equations model to analyze increases in intergovernmental fiscal transfers and associated vote changes in Portuguese legislative elections. The results suggest that election year increases in transfers by the central government to municipalities secure added votes, and that these transfers are targeted at jurisdictions where the government faces the risk of losing support.     

Participation and Earnings of Older People in Argentina: Nice Work if You Can Get It?

The article explores the potential contribution of better labour market participation among older people in Argentina to address old age poverty and vulnerability. The acute financial crisis in 2001 led to a steep rise in poverty and renewed concerns over the deterioration of old age support. Broadly, two main strategies took shape: to strengthen pension provision for poorer and vulnerable older people, and to improve their labour market participation. Using data from a dedicated survey of older people, the article tests the feasibility and effectiveness of the second strategy through a detailed analysis of the labour market participation and earnings of older people in Argentina.     

Book reviews

Transnational Citizenship: Membership and Rights in International Migration by Rainer Bauböck. Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1994. Pp. x + 348; references, index. £39.95. ISBN 1 85278 942 5

Postmetaphysical Thinking (translated from Nachmetaphysiche Denken: Philosophische Aufsatze by M.W. Hohengarten) by J. Habermas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992; Oxford: Polity Press (paperback), 1995. Pp.xx + 241. £12.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 7456 0734 9 and 1412 4

Economic Democracy: The Politics of Feasible Socialism by Robin Archer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Pp. xii + 264. £30 (hardback). ISBN 0 19 827 891 8

Global Society and International Relations: Sociological Concepts and Political Perspectives by Martin Shaw. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. Pp.197: index. £12.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 7456 1212 1

Great Revolutions Compared: The Outline of a Theory by Jaroslav Krej?í. London and New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994. Pp. x + 302. £13.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 7450 1408 9

From Chaos to Order: The Politics of Constitution‐Making in Uganda edited by Holger Bernt Hansen and Michael Twaddle. Kampala: Fountain Publishers and London: James Currey, 1995. Pp.194; index. £9.95 (paperback). ISBN 9970 02 044 7 (Fountain); 0 85255 393 5 (James Currey)

Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience by Martin Shefter. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. Pp. xiii + 292; index. £40 (hardback); £14.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 691 03284 X and 00041 1     

The international drug control regime’s straight jacket: are there any policy options?

All societies have to control individual behaviors that are considered as socially damaging. The use of mind altering drugs is one such behavior. These controls have always been determined locally but in the 20th Century an international drug control regime was developed that established a globally unified normative control system formulated in the three United Nations drug conventions. The global normative system is based on a prohibitionist paradigm. The international norms are very difficult to change and impose strong restrictions on the ways in which countries may manage addictive mind altering drugs. The essay surveys the development of the international drug control regime, identifies its main characteristics and makes a naïve proposal to manage the consumption of those drugs through an insurance system aimed at minimizing the sum of the social costs generated by drug addiction and anti-drug policies.     

Programmatic actors and the transformation of European health care States

In France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, the decades from the late 1980s to the present have witnessed significant change in health policy. Although this has included the spread of internal competition and growing autonomy for certain nonstate and parastate actors, it does not follow that the mechanism at work is a "neoliberal convergence." Rather, the translation into diverse national settings of quasi-market mechanisms is accompanied by a reassertion of regulatory authority and strengthening of statist, as opposed to corporatist, management of national insurance systems. Thus the use of quasi-market tools brings state-strengthening reform. The proximate and necessary cause of this dual transformation is found in the work of small, closely integrated groups of policy professionals, whom we label "programmatic actors." While their identity differs across cases, these actors are strikingly similar in functional role and motivation. Motivated by a desire to wield authority through the promotion of programmatic ideas, rather than by material or careerist interests, these elite groups act both as importers and translators of ideas and as architects of policy. The resulting elite-driven model of policy change integrates ideational and institutionalist elements to explain programmatically coherent change despite institutional resistance and partisan instability.     

In Search of Paradise

<正>When winter rolls over northern China and endless days of smog have you wandering around in a comatose state,there is only one remedy—and it doesn’t come in a bottle.It’s sunshine,blue skies,and beaches.I conducted a survey amongst my friends regarding the best place to catch some waves and the same location kept coming up.     

Spillover Effects: Immigrant Policing and Government Skepticism in Matters of Health for Latinos

To what extent do people become less trusting of the government under threatening policy contexts? The authors find evidence that Secure Communities, a bureaucratic program that enhances immigrant policing through collaboration between local law and immigration enforcement agencies, spurs mistrust among Latinos but not non‐Latinos. This article focuses on the politics of immigration and health, two issue areas marked by large‐scale bureaucratic developments over the last 50 years. The authors argue that a major consequence of expanding immigrant policing is its trickle‐down effect on how individuals view public institutions charged with the provision of public goods, such as health information. The results indicate that Latinos in locales where immigrant policing is most intense express lower levels of trust in government as a source of health information. Through a policy feedback lens, the findings suggest that the state's deployment of immigrant policing conveys more widespread lessons about the trustworthiness of government .