How to increase citizen coproduction: replication and extension of existing research

ABSTRACT

The value of coproduction—the joint productive efforts by regular producers, such as teachers, and consumer producers, such as parents, in helping children to learn—has been recognized for some time. However, strong empirical evidence of how these benefits can be achieved is scarce, and recent research has found mixed results. A new randomized field trial replicates elements of previous studies and extends them by using an additional age-appropriate outcome measure. Methodologically, the results illustrate the challenges of carrying out replication studies because when target groups change, outcome measures also often change. Substantially, the findings suggest that a government initiative providing parents with materials and information to enhance parents’ coproduction efforts can be extended to a broader target group of parents. Together, the findings illustrate how findings from single studies should be generalized with caution and the value of working systematically with replications and extensions.     

Economic Conditions Affect Support for Prime Minister Parties in Scandinavia

Previous research has not been able to identify a relationship between objective economic indicators and support for governing parties in the Scandinavian countries. This is potentially problematic, as it suggests that political leaders are not held electorally accountable for the economic conditions they provide for their electorates. In this article, it is suggested that this null‐finding is a result of the particularities of the Scandinavian electoral context, which makes it difficult to identify the effects of the economy on electoral support. To bolster this argument, the relationship between unemployment, economic growth and support for prime minister parties is re‐examined in two datasets. The first is a dataset of Scandinavian elections, and the second is a yearly Danish vote function, which was constructed using election polls. Across both datasets, it is found that if one simply correlates support for the prime minister's party with economic conditions, there is no relationship; however, if one specifies a statistical model, which takes the Scandinavian context into account, it is possible to identify a statistically significant effect of economic conditions on electoral support. Based on this finding, the article concludes that economic conditions do shape electoral support for prime minister parties in Scandinavia.     

Performance Management and Public Sector Reform: The Norwegian Hospital Reform

This article addresses the development of new performance management systems related to public sector reforms. One such system is Management by Objectives and Results (MBOR), based on an official OECD model. Such a system tries to establish unambiguous goals, objectivity, and incentive elements into often traditionally trust-based systems embedded in a complex political-administrative context. To analyze such performance management systems and how they work in practice, we focus on a recent reform of the hospital structure in Norway. Using a broad institutional perspective, we argue that the MBOR-system in Norway is a mixed and complex system encompassing different kinds of logic. These include instrumental elements from the new performance management systems combined with ad hoc preventive efforts by the political leadership, the influence of cultural constraints, elements of rather inappropriate self-interested action, and pressure from the environment. The study reveals that the hospital reform in Norway in practice can be seen as an integrated model, combining informal trust-based approaches and formal performance management measures. It also shows that negative side effects and dysfunctions might occur.     

Development: The devil we know?

Post-development theories have been accused of not having a future programme, and a number of authors has concluded that we are better off pursuing development as we know it. But the lack of instrumentality is not in itself a weighty argument against the analysis. At its best, 'post-development' offers an explanation of why so many development projects seem to fail. Two contributions are emphasised here: that transformation through development is linked to the agencies of elites, and that technical constraints imposed on developers shape the way in which they construct the problem. There is a need for extending the analysis, however. Including how development interventions are transformed in encounters with target populations gives a less rigid picture of the power of development, and can expose some of the problematic premises on which development interventions are based. In this way, post-development can offer a contribution to the practitioners of development.     

The Effects of Mixing Offenders with Non-Offenders: Findings from a Danish Quasi-Experiment

This study examines the effects of mixing offenders with non-offenders at Skejby half-way house in Denmark. Skejby half-way house constitutes an outstanding social experiment, as offenders are deliberately mixed with non-offenders in order to reduce their risk of recidivism. The treatment group consists of offenders who have stayed at Skejby half-way house while the controls are selected from residents of four other half-way houses. A Cox regression analysis reveals that the probability of reoffending is 21% lower for the treatment group than it is for the control group.     

Why negotiate a legally binding mercury convention?

The purpose of this paper is to explain how and why consensus was reached on a legally binding approach given the opposition of powerful actors. Why did the United States and key emerging economies change their positions? We apply tools from the regime formation literature—classical perspectives on power, interests and knowledge—and the use of different leadership tools to shed light on the issue. Knowledge-based intellectual leadership was exercised by the UNEP Secretariat, providing new information on the seriousness and scope of the problem. Power-based leadership through unilateral action was provided by the United States. When the United States changed position after change in domestic leadership, political costs increased for other opponents. Finally, interest-based instrumental leadership was provided by many proponents, with UNEP and among others the EU in the lead. Still, conflicts remain on control measures and the form of financial mechanism.     

Decoupled Implementation of New-Wave Land Reforms: Decentralisation and Local Governance of Land in Tanzania

Decentralisation is a key element in the new wave of land reforms that have been introduced in sub-Saharan Africa. However, not much research has been carried out into their implementation at the local level. Consequently, reforms are described in old-fashioned terms. Through comparative case studies in Tanzania, this article unpacks implementation as a process consisting of multiple administrative layers and potential actors. It concludes that implementation is slow and uneven due to the decoupling of layers within the formal land administration. Greater attention should be directed towards the local level as a part of the land administration structure.     

Value Dynamics: Towards a Framework for Analyzing Public Value Changes

This paper presents a preliminary framework for analyzing how values in the public sector change over time. The specific dynamics are conceptualised as three types of change mechanisms: a teleological, a conflictual and a value-internal change mechanism. Choice of governance systems – hierarchy, clan, network or market - is an example of designing control systems to promote particular values. Another change mechanism is rooted in conflicts between values and the actors carrying these values leading to various organisational responses. Finally, influenced by basic properties of a value changes may follow several distinct patterns such as life cycles, pendulum dynamics, enlargement of scope, refinement and turbulence. The possible outcomes of value dynamic processes are basically changes in value configurations: crowding out, sedimentation, the core-periphery hypothesis, division of labour, and re-interpretation. The paper uses examples from a Danish context, but argues that the value dynamics identified have a more universal scope.