Local-level law enforcement: Muscovites and their uchastkovyy

The uchastkovyy, or beat officer, is at the front lines of Russian police work. This article investigates the general environment in which the uchastkovyy functions, using Moscow as an example. More specifically, this article examines the institutional structure within which the beat cop operates, his/her duties and resources, the quota system used to evaluate his/her performance, and the nature of the interaction between the uchastkovyy and the public. In so doing, the study disaggregates the monolith that is the Russian police, focusing on that component of the force (uchastkovyy) that interacts most directly with the citizenry. It relies on data from a survey of 1500 Muscovites and four focus group encounters organized by the author to elicit a broad range of public attitudes regarding the performance and conduct of uchastkovyy, exploring particularly what measures might be taken to enhance the level of public trust in their local beat officers.     

On the political economy of state highway expenditures: Some evidence of the relative performance of alternative public choice models

This paper explores the extent to which the public demand for roads and/or power of special interest groups determines road expenditures at the state level using an extension of the methodology developed in Congleton and Shughart (1990). Reduced form models of median voter demand, special interest group equilibria, and a combined model are estimated using cross-sectional state data from the United States. We generally find support for the hypothesis that voting matters. The pure median voter models have a better fit than the pure special interest group models. Moreover, in our combined model, we find that variables from the median-voter model can not be dropped without significantly reducing the combined model's fit.     

Understanding Ripple Effects: The Cross–National Adoption of Policy Instruments for Bureaucratic Accountability

This article examines different explanations for the cross–national diffusion of three recent innovations in bureaucratic accountability—the institution of the ombudsman, freedom of information legislation and data protection (information privacy) law. The first two explanations are based on the assumption that these innovations are by–products of modernization, either the growth of the state or democratization. The third assumes that policy is shaped through processes of international communication. A combination of methodologies is employed to conclude that while the growth of government and liberal democratic values are necessary conditions for the adoption of all three policy instruments, they are not sufficient conditions. The pattern of adoption observed is best explained by examining how evidence about these respective policies flows from adopting states to non–adopters. In the case of the ombudsman, this process can be characterized as one of lesson–drawing; for freedom of information, evidence is used for legitimation purposes; for data protection, the diffusion is attributable to harmonization through international organizations. Policy transfer is hence a multi–faceted concept that embraces a number of distinct processes of transnational learning and communication.