The Present Challenges to ASPA as an Association That Promotes Public Professionalism

What is ASPA's place among core public professional organizations as well as public official associations? All public organizations are affected by tough competition for membership. Relatively few members of other public associations join ASPA, and vice versa. Only a minority of faculty members who teach in public affairs programs belong to ASPA, and at top schools, the proportion is even lower. When comparing ASPA to other public official associations, it is smaller in size and broader in scope, yet it remains a uniquely pan‐generalist organization. Its pan‐generalist character puts it at a disadvantage, but also offers distinct advantages. Like all public associations and nonprofits, ASPA faces stiff competition from increasingly specialized associations for membership. Its key future challenge, the authors suggest, will be to match its membership benefits effectively to the rapidly shifting expectations and needs of current and prospective members.     

Public servants or police soldiers? An analysis of opinions on the militarization of policing from police executives,law enforcement,and members of the 114th congress U.S. house of representatives

Despite the dramatic rise in use of militarized weapons, equipment, and tactics by police departments across the nation, no study has examined the opinions of those responsible for designing, funding, and implementing police militarization in the United States. Therefore this study collected and analyzed opinion data from 465 key stakeholders from the 114th Congress U.S. House of Representatives, law enforcement executives, and local police officers regarding police militarization. Results suggest that while most practitioners and policymakers favor police militarization, Congress and law enforcement differ in support of critical issues such as oversight of military procurement programs, use of surplus military weapons and vehicles, and overall support for the militarization of policing in the United States.     

Passing and Strategic Voting on the U.S. Supreme Court

Analyzing strategic aspects of judicial decisionmaking is an important element in understanding how law develops. In this article, we examine sophisticated voting on the U.S. Supreme Court by empirically modeling justices' decisions to pass when it is their turn to vote during conference discussions. We argue that, due to the opinion assignment norm, the chief justice may pass when one of the key conditions necessary for sophisticated voting—certainty about the views held by other justices and the agenda—is lacking. By passing, the chief can view his colleagues' votes in order to determine which vote will allow him to assign the majority opinion and, ultimately, forward his policy preferences. Using data from Justice Lewis F. Powell's conference notes, we show that the chief passes for this purpose, and that doing so is an effective strategy. In addition, we show that the senior associate justice in a case, who has a nontrivial chance of assigning the majority opinion, also passes for strategic reasons. As we expect, the data indicate that the remaining associates seem not to pass for strategic purposes.     

Another look at anti-scalping laws: Theory and evidence

This paper investigates the impact of anti-scalping laws on the face value of tickets in professional football and baseball. Previous theoretical models have suggested that scalpers might cause an increase in prices at the ticket window because they represent an increase in demand. This paper provides a model in which ticket scalping has an ambiguous impact on ticket window prices, making the actual impact an empirical question. Empirical analysis suggest that in cities with anti-scalping laws average per-game season ticket prices are approximately $2 greater in baseball and $10 greater in football. Anti-scalping laws actually increase team revenues, as the laws have no adverse effect on attendance. Thus, event promoters might have sufficient pecuniary incentive to tacitly or explicitly support anti-scalping legislation.