Reviews

László Csaba, ed., Systemic Change and Stabilization in Eastern Europe. Aldershot, and Brookfield, NY: Dartmouth Publishing Co., 1991, x + 141 pp. £30.00.

Christopher T. Saunders, ed., Economics and Politics of Transition. New York: Macmillan Press, 1992, x + 419 pp., £50.00.

David Lane, Soviet Society under Perestroika, Completely revised edition. London and New York: Routledge, 1992, xvi + 441 pp., £15.99.

Judith B. Sedaitis & Jim Butterfield, eds, Perestroika from Below: Social Movements in The Soviet Union. Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA, and Oxford: 1991, xii + 220 pp., $23.00 h/b.

Michael J. Sodaro, Moscow, Germany, and the West from Khrushchev to Gorbachev. London: I. B. Tauris, 1991, xiv + 423 pp., £29.95.

Örjan Sjöberg, Rural Change and Development in Albania. Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA, and Oxford: Westview Press, 1991, xi + 199 pp., £21.95 p/b.

Anthony Kemp‐Welch, ed., The Ideas of Nikolai Bukharin. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, 209 pp., £27.50.     

Verdict selection processes in insanity cases

Judicial instructions (traditional American Law Institute vs. Guilty But Mentally Ill [GBMI]) were manipulated within an insanity defense vignette portraying a highly psychotic defendant. Construals were highly predictive of verdicts in both instructional conditions. Instead of influencing case construals, the GBMI option seems to operate by increasing respondents' decisional thresholds for insanity and guilty verdicts, creating a collapsing effect such that few such verdicts are rendered. Between-instruction comparisons reveal that the construals of respondents who choose insane and guilty verdicts are considerably more homogeneous and extreme under the GBMI conditions. Results suggest that many respondents intend their GMBI verdicts to signify diminished blame and punishment, indicating that such verdicts entail cognitive compromises that reflect both the thresholdraising effects and also probable confusion about the jurisprudential meaning of a GBMI verdict.This article is an expanded version of a paper entitled Insanity case construals are not simply verdict justification effects, which was presented at the 99th annual convention of the American Psychological Association at San Francisco, August, 1991. We would like to thank Linda Roberts, Norman Finkel, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. Support for this research was provided in part by a grant from the Baldy Center on Law and Social Policy at the State University of New York at Buffalo.     

“Just give me a number!” Practical values for the social discount rate

A major reason the quality of cost‐benefit analysis (CBA) varies widely is inconsistent use of the social discount rate (SDR). This article offers guidance about the choice of the SDR. Namely, we recommend the following procedures: If the project is intragenerational (does not have effects beyond 50 years) and there is no crowding out of private investment, then discount all flows at 3.5 percent; if the project is intragenerational and there is some crowding out of investment, then weight investment flows by the shadow price of capital of 1.1 and then discount at 3.5 percent; if the project is intergenerational and there is no crowding out of investment, then use a time‐declining scale of discount rates; if the project is intergenerational and investment is crowded out, then convert investment flows during the first 50 years to consumption equivalents using a shadow price of 1.1, and then discount all of these flows at 3.5 percent, and discount all flows after the 50th year using time‐declining rates. We then compare current discounting practices of U.S. federal agencies with our estimates. Consistent use of the recommended rates would eliminate arbitrary choices of discount rates and would lead to better public sector decision‐making. © 2004 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Strategy and Accountability: Structural Reform Litigation and Public Management

Structural reform litigation involves legal action against public bureaucracies alleging that an official has violated the legal rights of an agency's client. A pattern of rights infringements raises the specter of systemic dysfunction. If the court finds for the plaintiffs, or if the defendant agency agrees to settle, the remedy reconstitutes agency operations. What are the incentives faced by public managers whose agencies are involved in structural reform litigation? How might public managers retain public accountability while strategically using the institutional arrangements present in such cases? This article examines these questions through a spatial bargaining model and discusses its analytical implications in the context of a comprehensive suit against the child welfare agency in Kansas City, Missouri.     

Building the Administrative State

Books reviewed in this article:
Daniel P. Carpenter, The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reputations, Networks, and Policy Innovation in Executive Agencies, 1862–1928
David E. Lewis, Presidents and the Politics of Agency: Design Political Insulation in the United States Government Bureaucracy, 1946–1997     

The Rise of 'New' Policy Instruments in Comparative Perspective: Has Governance Eclipsed Government?

Governance is a term in good currency, but there are still too few detailed empirical analyses of the precise extent to which it has or has not eclipsed government. This article explores the temporal and spatial characteristics of the governance transition by charting the deployment of new policy instruments in eight industrialised states and the European Union. The adoption and implementation of ('old' and 'new') policy instruments offer a useful analytical touchstone because governance theory argues that regulation is the quintessence of government. Although there are many 'new' environmental policy instruments in these nine jurisdictions, this article finds that the change from government to governance is highly differentiated across political jurisdictions, policy sectors and even the main instrument types. Crucially, many of the new policy instruments used require some state involvement (that is, 'government'), and very few are entirely devoid of state involvement (that is, pure 'governance'). Far from eclipsing government, governance therefore often complements and, on some occasions, even competes with it, although there are some cases of fusion. Future research should thus explore the many complex and varied ways in which government and governance interact in public policy-making.     

Editorial

Liverpool Law Review -     

The Retreat from Government Support for Social Dialogue in the Australian Public Service

This article explores the impact of the Coalition government's federal public sector reforms since 1996 in the Australian Public Service (APS). Under the Labor governments from 1983 to 1996, a range of measures operated to facilitate the development of social dialogue practices in the APS. There were also various mechanisms for consultation, information sharing and employee participation in decision-making, such as the Joint Council and Departmental Councils, statutory provisions for Industrial Democracy Plans, award provisions for consultation over business restructuring and support for consultative structures under enterprise bargaining and health and safety legislation. Nearly all of these measures have been dismantled or downgraded since the Coalition government came to office, especially those requiring consultation with trade unions or providing unions with a central role in participative mechanisms. It is argued here that the government's reforms have involved a substantial reduction in formal support for social dialogue in the APS, and a rejection of the benefits that such an approach offers.