The Shifting Roles of State Budget Offices in the Midwest: Gosling Revisited

Almost a decade ago a study of three midwestern states revealed a variety of budget office orientations, ranging from a control to a policy emphasis, including a state in transition from one to the other. This article revisits these states to examine their current orientations and whether different office orientations influence the role of budget analysts in the budgetary process. The results suggest that another stage should be added to Schick's 1966 framework to account for the evolution of some state budget offices to a policy orientation.     

Neoliberalism and Democracy in Latin America: A Mixed Record

This essay argues that neoliberalism has strengthened the sustainability of democracy in Latin America but limited its quality. Drastic market reform seems to have abetted the survival of competitive civilian rule through its external and internal repercussions. By opening up Latin American countries to the world economy, neoliberalism has exposed them to more of the international pressures for preserving democracy that intensified with the end of the Cold War. At the same time, the move to market economics has weakened leftist parties, trade unions, and other proponents of radical socioeconomic reform, reassuring elites and preventing them from undermining democracy. But tighter external economic constraints limit governments' latitude and thereby restrict the effective range of democratic choice; and the weakening of parties and interest associations has depressed political participation and eroded government accountability. The available evidence therefore suggests that neoliberalism has been a mixed blessing for Latin American democracies.     

Quality Counts: Extending the Strategic Politician Model of Incumbent Deterrence

Competitive elections are essential to representative democracy. Competition in U.S. House elections is low in part because incumbents have strategic advantages that deter strong potential candidates from running. Many observers conclude that incumbents retain their seats without full accountability to the electorate, but the mechanisms of deterrence have never been fully explored from the perspective of strong potential candidates. Based on a survey of potential House candidates designed to capture perceptions of incumbents' personal quality and reelection prospects, we find strong evidence for the "strategic politicians" thesis ( Black 1972 ; Jacobson and Kernell 1983 ). We extend the logic of the strategic model first by showing that incumbents' reelection prospects are affected by their personal quality and second by demonstrating that incumbents' personal qualities deter strong challengers from running, independent of their electoral prospects. Our findings prompt us to suggest revisions to our understanding of competition and representation in contemporary House elections .     

Public Preferences for Program Tradeoffs: Community Values for Budget Priorities

A growing literature concerns techniques to improve community-based reforms and citizen-centered governance in order to reinforce the trust in democratic government. We analyze a contingent choice technique that systematically collects information about individual citizens' relative values of a set of state public programs. Individual citizens are asked to allocate a fixed increment of public funds. Individuals reveal their marginal willingness to trade off (MWTTO) additions in one program for additions in another. MWTTO values provide program rankings and information concerning the relative strength of citizen preferences. An example of a contingent choice survey is described.     

Lösegelderpressung für die Rückgabe von Diebsgut

Der Dieb, der vom Eigentümer oder dessen Versicherer für die Rückgabe der weggenommenen Sache L?segeld fordert, verantwortet – mangels Anrechenbarkeit der Sachrückgabe auf die abgen?tigte Leistung – das Verbrechen der Erpressung.