Values,conflict, and trust in participatory environmental planning

The need for greater public involvement in environmental decisionmaking has been highlighted in recent high‐profile research reports and emphasized by leaders at all levels of government. In some cases, environmental agencies have opened the door to greater participation in their programs. However, there is relatively little information on what can be gained from greater public involvement and what makes some programs work while others fail. This article presents an evaluation of public participation in several cases of environmental planning in the Great Lakes region, focusing on how effectively these efforts introduced public values into government decisionmaking, resolved conflict among stakeholders, and built trust in environmental agencies. Data for the analysis came from a “case survey” method in which the authors systematically coded information from previously written case studies. The research findings support an optimistic view of public participation—although not without important caveats—and emphasize the importance of communication and commitment in the participatory process. © 2000 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Personal Sources of Responsiveness. Introduction to a Special Section

Responsiveness is a core value in democratic politics. Individual legislators are important mechanisms for implementing this concern in real‐world settings and thus facilitating responsive government. This introduction to the special section on this topic starts out by highlighting the special relevance of individual legislators in this regard and by sketching important theoretical considerations that emerge from the political science literature on this issue. In its main part, it summarizes the key findings of the contributions in relation to its main theme, namely the personal sources of responsiveness. We end with a short conclusion that reflects on possible tensions between responsiveness and the personalization of representative systems.     

Results of the 2018 Rapid DNA Maturity Assessment

Three commercially available integrated rapid DNA instruments were tested as a part of a rapid DNA maturity assessment in July of 2018. The assessment was conducted with sets of blinded single-source reference samples provided to participants for testing on the individual rapid platforms within their laboratories. The data were returned to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for review and analysis. Both FBI-defined automated review (Rapid DNA Analysis) and manual review (Modified Rapid DNA Analysis) of the datasets were conducted to assess the success of genotyping the 20 Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) core STR loci and full profiles generated by the instruments. Genotype results from the multiple platforms, participating laboratories, and STR typing chemistries were combined into a single analysis. The Rapid DNA Analysis resulted in a success rate of 80% for full profiles (85% for the 20 CODIS core loci) with automated analysis. Modified Rapid DNA Analysis resulted in a success rate of 90% for both the CODIS 20 core loci and full profiles (all attempted loci per chemistry). An analysis of the peak height ratios demonstrated that 95% of all heterozygous alleles were above 59% heterozygote balance. For base-pair sizing precision, the precision was below the standard 0.5 bp deviation for both the ANDE 6C System and the RapidHIT 200.     

Procedural Change in the UK House of Commons, 1811–2015

Recent research has shown an increasing interest in the historical evolution of legislative institutions. The development of the UK Parliament has received particularly extensive attention. In this article, we contribute to this literature in three important ways. First, we introduce a complete, machine-readable data set of all the Standing Orders of the UK House of Commons between 1811 and 2015. Second, we demonstrate how this data set can be used to construct innovative measures of procedural change. Third, we illustrate a potential empirical application of the data set, offering an exploratory test of several expectations drawn from recent theories of formal rule change in parliamentary democracies. We conclude that the new data set has the potential to substantially advance our understanding of legislative reforms in the United Kingdom and beyond.     

Taking Fact-Checks Literally But Not Seriously? The Effects of Journalistic Fact-Checking on Factual Beliefs and Candidate Favorability

Political Behavior - Are citizens willing to accept journalistic fact-checks of misleading claims from candidates they support and to update their attitudes about those candidates? Previous studies...     

Improving the Managerial Capacity of the Federal Government: A Public Administration Agenda for the Next President

The reputation of a president can be enhanced or diminished depending on the quality of federal management. This transition memorandum draws on the insights of the fellows of the National Academy of Public Administration. It urges the next president to (1) set a tone and strengthen organizational infrastructure to promote effective management across government, (2) create an office to monitor potential major risks and ensure adequate response, and (3) pass on to his successor more capable government than he found. Only then can the incoming administration form the basis for short‐term success and longer‐term effectiveness to implement the president’s policy agenda.     

Selling favors in the lab: experiments on campaign finance reform

Campaign advertising can provide benefits to constituencies when used to fund the distribution of useful information, but voters can be harmed if candidates finance such advertising by trading policy favors to special interests in exchange for contributions. We report data from novel laboratory campaign finance experiments that shed light on this tradeoff, and that provide rigorous empirical evidence on formal campaign finance theory. Our key finding is that voters respond to advertising differently between special interest and publicly-financed campaigns, and that the nature of this difference is qualitatively consistent with formal models’ predictions.     

An effectiveness‐based evaluation of five state pre‐kindergarten programs

Since 1980, the number of state pre‐kindergarten (pre‐K) programs has more than doubled, with 38 states enrolling more than one million children in 2006 alone. This study evaluates how five state pre‐K programs affected children's receptive vocabulary, math, and print awareness skills. Taking advantage of states' strict enrollment policies determined by a child's date of birth, a regression‐discontinuity design was used to estimate effects in Michigan, New Jersey, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia. For receptive vocabulary, only New Jersey and Oklahoma yielded significant standardized impacts, though two of the three other coefficients were in a direction indicating positive effects. For math, all the coefficients were positive but only Michigan and New Jersey yielded reliable results. The largest impacts were for print awareness, where all five coefficients were positive and four were reliable in Michigan, New Jersey, South Carolina, and West Virginia. The five states were not randomly selected and, on average, have higher quality program standards than non‐studied states, precluding formal extrapolation to the nation at large. However, our sample of states differed in many other ways, permitting the conclusion that state pre‐K programs can have positive effects on children's cognitive skills, though the magnitude of these effects varies by state and outcome. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Germany

European Journal of Political Research -