Assessing NASA’s Safety Culture: The Limits and Possibilities of High‐Reliability Theory

After the demise of the space shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board sharply criticized NASA’s safety culture. Adopting the high‐reliability organization as a benchmark, the board concluded that NASA did not possess the organizational characteristics that could have prevented this disaster. Furthermore, the board determined that high‐reliability theory is “extremely useful in describing the culture that should exist in the human spaceflight organization.” In this article, we argue that this conclusion is based on a misreading and misapplication of high‐reliability research. We conclude that in its human spaceflight programs, NASA has never been, nor could it be, a high‐reliability organization. We propose an alternative framework to assess reliability and safety in what we refer to as reliability‐seeking organizations.     

Pressured into a Preference to Leave? A Study on the “Specific” Deterrent Effects and Perceived Legitimacy of Immigration Detention

Immigration detention is formally not a punishment, but governments do use it to deter illegal residence. This study examines whether and how immigration detention affects detainees’ decision‐making processes regarding departure, thereby possibly resulting in de facto “specific deterrence.” Semistructured face‐to‐face interviews were conducted in the Netherlands with 81 immigration detainees, and their case files were examined. Evidence is found for a limited, selective deterrence effect at the level of detainee's attitudes: most respondents considered immigration detention a painful and distressing experience, but only a minority—mostly labor migrants without family ties in the Netherlands—developed a preference to return to their country of citizenship in hopes of ending their exposure, including repeated exposure, to the detention. In line with defiance theory, we find that eventual deterrent effects mostly occurred among detainees who also attributed some measure of legitimacy to their detention. Among some detainees, the detention experience resulted in a preference to migrate to a neighboring European country.     

Explaining civil protection cooperation in the EU: the contribution of public goods theory

Abstract

In recent years the European Union has taken a number of steps towards improving civil protection cooperation in Europe. European leaders regularly declare the importance of boosting cooperation to prepare for and respond to disasters and emergencies afflicting member states. Those declarations have been accompanied by a flourish of policy activity, the building of new structures, and even treaty changes. On the surface, this little-known area of European integration appears to be proceeding with great success. A closer look, however, reveals significant gaps between member states' general expressions of enthusiasm and problematic cooperation in practice. We draw upon public goods theory to explain why this might be the case; more specifically, we identify likely game-theoretic obstacles to cooperation in different areas of the civil protection field. We evaluate our theoretical propositions by examining the current state of cooperation in marine pollution response, chemical contamination management, and flood response. We find that cooperation success in practice corresponds generally, but not perfectly, with the predictions of public goods theory. Our findings offer a nuanced view of civil protection cooperation in Europe and illuminate options for improved cooperation in the future.     

Members of Parliament: Equal Competitors for Media Attention? An Analysis of Personal Contacts Between MPs and Political Journalists in Five European Countries

Power relations between politicians and journalists are often depicted as an ongoing tango with one actor leading the other. This study analyzes interactions between politicians and journalists not by posing the question of who leads whom, but rather by investigating which politicians are invited to dance in the first place, and which are better positioned to take the lead. Building upon theories and past research into press–government relations, comparative politics, and an economic perspective on journalist–source relations, three groups of hypotheses on a personal, party, and political system level are derived and tested using a unique survey with members of parliament (MPs) in five democratic corporatist countries (Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark). The results display a similar pattern in all five countries where parliamentary experience and institutional position increase the frequency of contacts that MPs have with journalists. While these party variables have a more modest influence on the frequency of contacts, it is also shown that there are clear differences between countries attributed to parliament size in general and higher inter-MP competition in particular.     

Prosocial Behavior and Public Service Motivation

Although research on public service motivation (PSM) is vast, there is little evidence regarding the effects of PSM on observable behavior. This article contributes to the understanding of the behavioral implications of PSM by investigating whether PSM is associated with prosocial behavior. Moreover, it addresses whether and how the behavior of other group members influences this relationship. The article uses the experimental setting of the public goods game, run with a sample of 263 students, in combination with survey‐based PSM measures. A positive link is found between PSM and prosocial behavior. This relationship is moderated by the behavior of other group members: high‐PSM people act even more prosocially when the other members of the group show prosocial behavior as well, but they do not do so if the behavior of other group members is not prosocial.     

Does organizational adaptation really matter? How mission change affects the survival of U.S. federal independent agencies, 1933–2011

Public administration scholars tend to take for granted that organizational adaptation is important. This common notion that public organizations must adapt to stay alive has not been put to the test in the field of public administration, however. Intriguingly, organization ecologists find that adaptation does not matter and might even be counterproductive for individual organizations. They argue that the absence of adaptation—which they refer to as structural inertia—actually enhances the likelihood of survival. But organization ecologists focus mostly on nonpublic organizations. This prompts the question whether adaptation in public organizations really matters. In this article, we test these contrasting claims (while controlling for design features) on a population of U.S. federal independent public agencies (n = 142). Our findings suggest a subtle narrative. We conclude that proactive adaptation increases termination hazards. But inertia does not seem to significantly enhance survival chances.     

The Media as Political Agenda-Setters: Journalists’ Perceptions of Media Power in Eight West European Countries

Studies in different countries have shown that the media can influence the attention politicians devote to different issues. However, knowledge about the cross-national contingencies of the political agenda-setting power of the media is limited. This study compares the perceptions of journalists of the political agenda-setting power of the mass media in eight parliamentary democracies with varying media and political systems: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Building on a power balance perspective, the article looks at the autonomy of the media system (audience reach and political control) and the concentration of power in the political system (number of political parties, concentration of executive power) to contextualise the role of the media in political agenda-setting. Journalists perceive most media influence in Norway and Sweden and least in Spain. The results indicate that the power balance between the media and political actors to a large extent reflects the institutional structure of the political system, but that media characteristics such as the autonomous position of television should also be taken into account.     

Public Leadership in Times of Crisis: Mission Impossible?

Crisis management (prevention, preparedness, response, and reconstruction) is a tough task for political and bureaucratic leaders. This article documents the persistent tensions between the expectations and realities of crisis leadership. It explores the popular notion that crises provide key opportunities for reform. The very occurrence of a crisis is then thought to expose the status quo as problematic, making it easier to gain momentum for alternative policies and institutions. We argue that the opportunities for reform in the wake of crisis are smaller than often thought. The prime reason is that the requisites of crisis leadership are at odds with the requirements of effective reform.     

Topic Modeling the Research‐Practice Gap in Public Administration

The possible existence of a research‐practice gap is the topic of a long‐standing debate in the field of public administration. In this Viewpoint essay, the authors examine the agendas of scholars and practitioners using the topic modeling technique of computational social science. Topic modeling a content analysis of 35 topics identified in Public Administration Review and PA Times (3,796 articles) showed that just over 50 percent of topics were common to both groups, indicating shared interests. There were, however, topics that the two groups distinctly focused on. Moreover, scholars and practitioners attached significant differences to the weights allocated to the prominent topics in their writing. Taken together, these findings indicate that topic modeling can shed new light on the research‐practice gap in public administration.