City-State Ideological Incongruence and Municipal Preemption

A growing concern among municipal officials across the United States is that their policymaking capacity is under attack by state legislatures who are increasingly likely to preempt those municipalities. However, determining the extent to which municipalities are preempted is challenging. We overcome this by surveying a large sample of municipal officials from across the United States. We find that officials from municipalities that are more ideologically distant from their state overall are more likely to report being preempted by their state government. Moreover, this pattern is driven by more liberal municipalities in both Republican and Democratic states reporting higher rates of preemption. Additionally, municipalities under unified state governments are more likely to report preemption, especially those under unified Republican control. These findings have important implications for the quality of representation in our federalist system and indicate that preemption is not just an issue between Republican states and liberal urban cities.     

Is the Left-Right Scale a Valid Measure of Ideology?

In order to measure ideology, political scientists heavily rely on the so-called left-right scale. Left and right are, however, abstract political concepts and may trigger different associations among respondents. If these associations vary systematically with other variables this may induce bias in the empirical study of ideology. We illustrate this problem using a unique survey that asked respondents open-ended questions regarding the meanings they attribute to the concepts “left” and “right”. We assess and categorize this textual data using topic modeling techniques. Our analysis shows that variation in respondents’ associations is systematically related to their self-placement on the left-right scale and also to variables such as education and respondents’ cultural background (East vs. West Germany). Our findings indicate that the interpersonal comparability of the left-right scale across individuals is impaired. More generally, our study suggests that we need more research on how respondents interpret various abstract concepts that we regularly use in survey questions.     

Financial Socialization of First-year College Students: The Roles of Parents,Work, and Education

This cross-sectional study tests a conceptual financial socialization process model, specifying four-levels that connect anticipatory socialization during adolescence to young adults’ current financial learning, to their financial attitudes, and to their financial behavior. A total of 2,098 first-year college students (61.9% females) participated in the survey, representing a diverse ethnic group (32.6% minority participation: Hispanic 14.9%, Asian/Asian American 9%, Black 3.4%, Native American 1.8% and other 3.5%). Structural equation modeling indicated that parents, work, and high school financial education during adolescence predicted young adults’ current financial learning, attitude and behavior, with the role played by parents substantially greater than the role played by work experience and high school financial education combined. Data also supported the proposed hierarchical financial socialization four-level model, indicating that early financial socialization is related to financial learning, which in turn is related to financial attitudes and subsequently to financial behavior. The study presents a discussion of how the theories of consumer socialization and planned behavior were combined effectively to depict the financial development of young adults. Several practical implications are also provided for parents, educators and students.     

European Monarchies: Guardians of Democracy?

How is it possible to account for the continuing presence of monarchy in advanced social democracies? Much traditional political science assumes teleologically that monarchies inevitably transform into republics as a higher form of governance. This comparative study of the eight main European monarchies maintains otherwise: monarchy is perfectly compatible with democracy, and can help strengthen citizens’ loyalty to the system of government. Provided it delivers a politically impartial head of state, monarchy can endure indefinitely with government and popular support. In practice, the countries studied are de facto republics, but with hereditary heads of state who occupy social roles beyond the reach of quotidian politics. Monarchy’s principal danger is not republicanism, but the pressures of conflicting expectations about what is required of royal families, and the relentless intrusions of modern media in an age when royalty and celebrity are in danger of being conflated. Responses to Covid-19 show how monarchs can speak to and for their nations in ways no partisan politician can.     

The Roots of Stereotypes about Tourists

The unique characteristics of the first generation tourists and the nature of their interactions with the host community leads to the formation of enduring stereotypes. The first wave of mass tourists sees themselves as innovators, worldly, outward looking, risk takers who are different and somehow better than other members of society. Yet, in reality, they are relative latecomers to the world of international tourism, causing members of the receiving community to perceive them as laggards, inward looking individuals who are culturally and socially introverted, unworldly and resistant to change. The situation is exacerbated by package tour participation which is the typical way any new markets begins to travel. Unfortunately, packages produce a highly mediated experience between host and guest that intensify the sense of outsidedness felt by each group, which in turn create stereotypes.

Transformational Leadership and Public Service Motivation: Driving Individual and Organizational Performance

Despite growing evidence about prosocial motivations and their effects on employee behavior, how can new public service motivation research translate into more effective management practices—which, so far, regrettably remain underdeveloped? Increasingly, public service motivation studies have moved from understanding what motivates public servants to exploring how public service motives influence performance. Similarly, greater attention is now paid to the practices of transformational leadership. Drawing on concepts from transformational leadership, this essay explores how managers can harness the positive aspects of public service motivation to enhance employee and organizational performance and outlines strategies that can help managers incorporate public service motivation values across management systems.     

Advice about Life Plans from Mothers,Fathers, and Siblings in Always-Married and Divorced Families during Late Adolescence

The frequency of advice about life plans that older adolescents in always-married and divorced families received from mothers, fathers, and siblings was examined. Also, a pattern-analytic approach that grouped adolescents according to the amount of advice about life plans received from each parent and a sibling was employed to explore the connections between patterns of advice and adolescents' future occupational, educational, and family plans. The sample included 544 and 95 older adolescents in always-married and divorced families, respectively. Findings suggested that while adolescents relied on mothers for advice in both always-married and divorced families, adolescents in divorced families depended on fathers and siblings for advice less often than did adolescents in always-married families. Although there was some evidence of family context differences in the connections between patterns of advice and life plans, overall, adolescents in both family contexts who received more advice from a parent and, in some cases, a sibling compared to other adolescents were the most positive about their future life plans.     

Stretched but not snapped: constitutional lessons from the 2010 coalition government in Britain

Taking as its point of departure Matthews' (2011) ‘Constitutional stretching: Coalition governance and the Westminster model (Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 49(4), 486–509), this article draws on the experience of coalition government in Westminster to review, categorise and consider how power sharing has necessitated a rethink of what is the British constitution. Defining constitutional stretching as being about the sustained operation of two-party government within the Westminster model, it shows that traditional practices around manifestos, collective responsibility and the prerogative have been adjusted since 2010 in order to facilitate functioning administration. The article observes that some stretching is not entirely novel with precedents to be found in earlier single party administrations. It further argues that while conventions have been strained, the Cameron/Clegg government survived, suggesting a need to adjust our understanding of constitutional concepts. Given the likelihood of future hung parliaments, this could mean more permanent constitutional change and the article makes some modest suggestions for updating guidance.     

Commissioning for Health and Wellbeing: An Introduction

Local government reforms have been carried out in a number of European countries, aiming at both more effective service production and increased citizen participation in local politics. Although extensive research has been carried out analysing the content and background of these reforms, few if any, studies have considered the democratic effects of these reforms at the level of the individual citizen. This article investigates relationship between local government reforms and citizen trust in local government, focusing on individual-level data on local government reforms in Norway in 2008. The analysis shows that it is difficult to find a clear relationship between reform policies and trust in local politicians. These findings parallel other contributions in concluding that it is difficult to find substantial effects from local government re-organisations.