Public Service Motivation: A Systematic Literature Review and Outlook

Over the past two decades, research on public service motivation has seen rapid growth. Despite the relatively large number of publications to date, no systematic research overview has been created, leaving the body of literature somewhat unstructured and possibly hampering future research. This article fills this void by providing a systematic literature review of 323 publications that examines six key aspects of the literature on public service motivation: the growth of research on the concept, the most prominent studies based on a referencing network analysis, the most frequent publication outlets, research designs and methods, lines of inquiry and patterns of empirical findings, and implications for practice drawn from the publications in the study sample. Strengths and weaknesses of the existing literature are identified, and future research directions are proposed.     

Executive budget proposal,executive veto,legislative override,and uncertainty: A comparative analysis of the budgetary process

This study examines the roles of the executive budgetary proposal, the executive veto, the legislative override, and legislative uncertainty about the executive's preferences in determining the outcome of a budgetary process. A sequential model of the budgetary process with three institutional agents — a legislature, an appropriations committee, and an executive — is presented. To focus attention on the executive proposal, the veto, the override provision, and uncertainty, simplifying assumptions are made: (1) the appropriations committee has monopoly agenda power, and (2) there is a closed amendment control rule. In order to characterize sequential equilibria of various combinations of veto rules and override provisions, we examine a particular arrangement of agents' preferences and a two item budget. The results demonstrate that the final budget depends critically on the executive proposal, the executive veto rule, the override provision, and the uncertainty. We achieve three striking results. First, the executive proposal may be effective in reducing the frequency of the exercised veto. Second, for a given override provision, a movement from the item veto to the item reduction veto leaves the executive worse off in some cases. Third, with the same change in institutions, the government budget may increase.     

From rags to robes

He is author of many works about social class, including The Protestant Establishment Revisitedand Philadelphia Gentlemen,both published by Transaction Publishers.     

Accelerating Municipal Bond Market Development in Emerging Economies: An Assessment of Strategies and Progress

The advantages of using municipal bonds to finance urban infrastructure are increasingly evident to policymakers in emerging economies, some of whom are undertaking efforts to accelerate the development of municipal bond markets in their countries. Many of these efforts use the strengths of the U.S. municipal market as a guide to suggest the kinds of market characteristics necessary to attract issuers as well as investors to the marketplace. Features of the U.S. market are often difficult to recreate in these countries in the short run, but policymakers are using a variety of innovative techniques to approximate essential market characteristics. This article reviews these efforts in four emerging economies: Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, and South Africa.     

Distributive politics,ward representation,and the spread of zoning

This analysis examines two alternative explanations for the adoption of comprehensive zoning ordinances in the years immediately following its initial adoption in New York City. The market failure explanation predicts zoning adoption in cities where externality problems (represented by heavy incidence of manufacturing) exist. The distributive policymaking model treats zoning as a form of regulation that is most likely to be found in cities where local legislators are elected from geographically-concentrated constituencies (e.g., wards) and therefore try to target policy benefits to their own constituencies while spreading the policy costs over all constituencies. Some support is found for each model. Especially striking is the interactive effect of ward representation and of economic interest (i.e., levels of home ownership).     

Terrorists,Insurgents, and Criminals—Growing Nexus?

Using Iraq and Afghanistan as case studies, this article explores several critical questions. First, what is the scope of the relationship among criminal organizations, terrorists, and insurgents? The analysis is drawn from theoretical approaches but also relies on government studies and open source reports. Second, how has the transitional period between post-conflict and reconstruction/nation-building created fertile ground for strengthening the criminal–terrorist–insurgent continuum? This is a particularly important issue as the Bush administration engages international organizations. Lastly, what can the United States and its Coalition allies do to mitigate the security challenges presented by the criminal–terrorist–insurgent problem in the these two countries?     

PLANNING: LESSONS FROM THE PORTS

The National Ports Council, created in 1964 and abolished in 1982, was engaged in one of the rare sustained attempts at planning in Britain. This article explains the Council's decision not to carry out full-scale planning because of the difficulties of collecting information, assessing technological and economic changes, and reconciling rational economic planning with short term political pressures.     

Beyond Countering Iran: A Political Economy of Azerbaijan-Israel Relations

In recent years, Azerbaijan–Israel relations have come to the foreground of politics in the Middle East and Caucasus region. Ties between Baku and Tel Aviv have been directly interlinked with their relations with Iran. The nature of the Azerbaijan–Israel partnership must be analysed in order to comprehend the balance of powers and energy security in the region. Even though there have been a number of works analysing the relationship by focusing on its role in regional military security, there is a gap in the discourse in terms of understanding the economic drivers of relations and the implications of the ties for regional energy security. Particular attention will be given to discussing Azerbaijan’s emerging role as a major energy producer that has already made a profound impact on the region as an ‘alternative’ to Iran in the aftermath of the recently imposed sanctions on Tehran's energy exports. It will be argued that the Azerbaijan–Israel relationship is built on solid economic grounds and it would be reasonable to expect the strength of the ties to be further intensified in the future. The article will also demonstrate that new developments in the energy security of the wider Middle Eastern region will affect the evolution of Azerbaijan–Israel ties and their rivalry with Iran in the next decade.     

The natural sampling of airborne trace signals from explosives concealed upon the human body.

An experimental study of the natural sampling of trace signals from explosives concealed upon the human body was performed by taking proper account of the thermal behavior of the air surrounding the human body and the particles therein. Experiments were conducted in a dispersal chamber to identify variables affecting the detectibility of concealed RDX and TNT patches. Movement by human volunteers was found to enhance the available explosive trace signal above a baseline level. Clothing blocked some of this movement-generated trace signal. The detected signal levels were also found to vary significantly from volunteer to volunteer, indicating that human variability is an issue in explosive trace detection. Further, under the conditions studied here, the detectibility of RDX and TNT was dependent upon the efficient sampling of contaminated particulate matter, not the vapor phase. The present results are now being applied to the design of a practical, nonintrusive trace detection portal for aviation security screening and related applications.