Red Tape,Rule Burden,and Legitimate Performance Trade-Offs: Results from a Vignette Experiment

Abstract

Goals in the public sector are complex and managers can face situations in which pursuing one legitimate goal necessitates performance trade-offs in other areas. This study tests how knowledge of legitimate performance trade-offs shapes the perception of red tape. Using a vignette experimental design and a sample of university students, between group t-tests and regression analyses suggest that, when evaluating increased rule burden, individuals that are provided with information about how objectively burdensome rules serve alternative values such as equity and effectiveness associate them with lower levels of red tape. A series of Monte Carlo simulations suggest that this effect is substantial.     

Speaking of Justice: A Qualitative Interview Study on Perceived Procedural Justice Among Defendants in Dutch Criminal Cases

Qualitative interviews with one hundred defendants in Dutch criminal cases examine whether perceived procedural justice is a relevant concern for defendants, and, if so, which procedural justice components they refer to. The study provides a point of epistemological departure from the quantitative studies dominating the field, as it assessed which components of procedural justice (if any) respondents put forward themselves rather than asking about predetermined procedural justice components. The large majority of respondents mentioned procedural justice issues themselves, and six components were at the core of their procedural justice perceptions: (1) information on which decisions are based, (2) interpersonal treatment, (3) due consideration, (4) neutrality, (5) voice, and (6) accuracy. Although these procedural justice components largely correspond with the literature, respondents thus mentioned some components more often, and others less often, than the literature would suggest. In particular, neutrality plays an important role in the Dutch legal context examined here.     

农村青年干部为何留不住——基于社会认同视角下的实证分析

青年对农村干部这一职业群体社会认同程度在入职前后出现的由高到低转变,导致了其从选择进入农村干部群体到主动从乡镇村岗位中流出,在其中,自我认同、社会及组织环境发挥了重要作用。在重构自我认同和追逐自尊的过程中,择业青年选择进入农村干部队伍。但由于现代性社会风险的压力,青年在基于追求安全感的自我认同建构中呈现出高度的危机意识和带有焦虑色彩的上进意识,并在职业的稳定性中表现出来。同时,在社会比较、体制内的政策冲突和组织隐性规则下,农村青年干部遭受了群体外部积极性构建失败和群体内部合法性的持续瓦解。在目前,构建农村干部群体的社会意义系统应成为维持农村青年干部稳定性的重要方向。     

Designing a Choice Architecture for Regulators

The emergence of behavioral public administration has led to increasing calls for public managers and policy makers to consider predictable cognitive biases when regulating individual behaviors or market transactions. Recognizing that cognitive biases can also affect the regulators themselves, this article attempts to understand how the institutional environment in which regulators operate interacts with their cognitive biases. In other words, to what extent does the “choice architecture” that regulators face reinforce or counteract predictable cognitive biases? Just as knowledge of behavioral insights can help regulators design a choice architecture that frames individual decisions to encourage welfare-enhancing choices, it may help governments understand and design institutions to counter cognitive biases in regulators that contribute to deviations from public interest policies. From these observations, the article offers some modest suggestions for improving the regulatory choice architecture.     

Defense Industries and Global Dependency

The global defense industrial sector is a remarkably accurate indicator of the distribution of power in the post-Cold War international system. However, the defense industrial sector as a policy tool has received relatively little scrutiny, even though it not only reflects the international order, but also provides the United States with the ability to influence the foreign policy behavior of other states. The defense industrial sector is a powerful, if undervalued, diplomatic tool in the United States’ political arsenal.     

论贿赂犯罪罪名体系

现行刑法贿赂犯罪的罪名体系是以犯罪主体和对象为标准建立的,存在较大的缺陷,为完善这一罪名体系,本文认为必须以犯罪客体作为划分标准,对相关规定进行重新整合,分别纳入公务贿赂罪、商业贿赂罪和行业贿赂罪中。     

孤残儿童家庭寄养政策研究

孤残儿童家庭寄养政策是我国近年来探索社会福利社会化改革中的一项重要尝试。这种新型的孤残儿童照顾模式,一方面体现了“以儿童为中心”的照顾理念,另一方面,又能整合社会资源,实现社会福利的社会化。     

The several costs of responding to the threat of terrorism

This paper describes several dimensions of the cost of the U.S. response to the threat of terrorism. Following an evaluation of the nature and magnitude of the threat of terrorism against the United States, the paper describes the restrictions on our civil liberties, the fiscal and other costs of the major homeland security measures, the fiscal cost of programs that make no contribution to the defense against terrorism but are rationalized on that ground, and the effects on our language and the potential for civil discourse of an extended defense against terrorism.     

Representational Altruism: The Wary Cooperator as Authoritative Decision Maker

What drives policymakers to put the interests of others above their own? If human nature is inherently selfish, it makes sense to institutionalize incentives that counter decision makers' temptations to use their positions to benefit themselves over others. A growing literature rooted in evolutionary theories of human behavior, however, suggests that humans, under certain circumstances, have inherent predispositions towards “representational altruism,” i.e., to make an authoritative decision to benefit another at one's own expense. Drawing on Hibbing and Alford's conception of the wary cooperator, a theoretical case is made for such behavioral expectations, which are confirmed in a series of original laboratory experiments.