Have Cities Shifted to Outcome‐Oriented Performance Reporting?—A Content Analysis of City Budgets

“Outcome” orientation has been emphasized in performance measurement and reporting in recent years. Using budgetary documents of the largest cities in the United States, this paper analyzes more than 4,800 performance measures reported by 21 cities to show that clear progress toward outcome‐oriented performance measurement has been made. It also shows that the selection of performance measures differs among types of municipal services and is driven partly by professionalism in city management and the influence of professional organizations. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings and potential future improvements of performance reporting.     

The rally 'round the flag effect in U.S. foreign policy crises, 1950–1985

We calculate the rally 'round the flag effect (Mueller, 1970, 1973) for all 41 U.S. foreign policy crises, 1950–1985, identified by the International Crisis Behavior Project (Wilkenfeld, Brecher, and Moser, 1988). The mean change in the president's approval rating is surprisingly small: 1.4 percent among all respondents. The greatest influences on the rallying effect of a crisis are whether or not the United States is involved in an ongoing war and, especially, theNew York Times's coverage of the president's major response to a crisis. When a major response is reported in the headlines, the rally is more than 8 percentage points greater,ceteris paribus, than when it is not reported on the front page. TheNew York Times's reporting is influenced by the nature of the president's response, the efforts of his administration to publicize his actions, the degree of Soviet involvement, the location of the crisis, and the willingness of opposition leaders to take a newsworthy position regarding the president's performance.     

Recklessness,depression, and reasons for living in predicting suicidality in college students

To assess the predictive value of recklessness in suicidality, 155 college students took the Sommerfeldt-Clark Adolescent Experience Scale (S-C), Zung Self-Rating Depression scale, Reasons for Living Inventory (RFL), and the Scale for Suicide Ideation (SSI). The S-C Suicidal Tendencies subscale accounted for the most variance in suicidality (26.0%) and Coping Beliefs of the Reasons for Living subscale accounted for additional variance (5.6%). Further, the S-C was moderately internally consistent (Cronbach alpha=.83) and had adequate validity, as indicated by significant correlations in the expected directions with the SSI total score (r=.25, p< .01), and RFL total score (r= –.28, p<.001). Recklessness was not a component of suicidality among those non-clinical older adolescents, but may be a factor in clinical or younger samples of adolescents.Received M.A. in Psychology from Xavier University, Ohio. Research interests include suicide, eating disorders, and adolescence.Received Ph.D. from Georgia State University. Research interest: suicide.     

RECONSTRUCTING PUBLIC BUREAUCRACIES: THE RESIDUALISATION OF EQUITY AND ACCESS*

In a recent intervention within the debate about the managerialist reconstitution of Australian public bureaucracies, the Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Finance, Michael Keating (1989, p.124), sums up what he calls the raison dêtre of the reforms "as changing the focus more to 'management for results'". He proposes that the aim in this has been "to focus management attention on the purposes of programs and the cost-effective achievement of outcomes rather than simply on inputs and processes".     

THE CONCEPT OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND THE AUSTRALIAN STATE IN THE 1980s

Abstract: The adoption of the discourse of management by Australian public services in the 1980s can be seen as a cultural revolution. Results-oriented management, subordinated to economic considerations, is the dominant approach. The upper levels of the public services have been remodelled in the form of a technically-oriented elite recruited on merit, defined in terms of higher education credentials, drawing a technical intelligentsia, or "new class", into public employment. Although "people and process" approaches, espoused in particular by women, find a place in the new culture, they are subordinated to the demands of scientific management. While the technical intelligentsia is resistant to traditional forms of bureaucratic authority and open to rational debate and new ideas, its members are not well equipped to take account of the substantive concerns of public policy and service provision. The distinctiveness of public management is submerged by inappropriate private sector models, and issues tend to be reduced to economic ones. The paradox that this culture has risen to prominence under Labor governments is explored and the developments are placed in the context of contemporary demands placed on the Australian state by private capital.