Municipal Expenditures Through Thick and Thin

This article examines changes in the revenue and expenditurepatterns of twelve major cities (six fiscally healthy; six fiscallydistressed) from fiscal years 1964 to 1979. The purpose of theexaminatin is to determine whether resource scarcity resultsin significantly different expenditure patterns, especiallyfor essential services (police, fire sanitation, and sewerage),social services (welfare, health, hospitals, and public housing),capital spending, and personal sevices (salaries). The resultsshow that changes inrevenue patterns are not significantly relatedto changes in expenditrue patterns, with the exception of capitalspending. The results support the theory that cutback budgetarystrategies are not significanely different from expansionarybudgetary strategies. Incrementalism (decrementalism) prevails.     

Equality and differentiation: Effects of group structure on allocations

Two studies using vignettes explore some conditions under which equity, equality, and need as allocation rules are taken into account by an outside allocator. Independent variables include information about success or failure of a work group, level of morale of the group, relative contributions of work group members, responsibility for outcome, and influence of one individual on others. Results suggest that differentiation based on both equity and need results from a focus on individual deserving while equality among status equals results from focus on group level factors. An interaction between outcome and contribution appears when group level factors are included; these effects also appear when there are two rather than only one target person differing from the rest of a group; an overreward effect depends on attributions of responsibility for outcome; and an influential member is seen as deserving even if a low contributor. No gender differences were found.     

Juvenile post-adjudication dispositions

Six socio-demographic and graphic and diagnostic and evaluation center (D&E) variables which influence juvenile post-adjudication disposition into one of two treatment modalities, group home or institution, are examined. Data employed in this study were gathered from completed case history records for 133 randomly sampled male juveniles processed over a six-month period by a department of youth services (DYS) facility in a southern state. Discriminant function analysis was used to determine statistical distinction between the two disposition groups. The discriminant analysis yielded five variables of statistical significance (p<-.001, canonical r =−40) which included a D&E behavior measure, age, number of past offenses, full scale IQ score, and seriousness of admitting offense. Eighty-one percent of all cases were correctly classified using the selected socio-demographic and D&E variables. Race was not found to be significant in the decision-making process at this level.     

Germany and the new Europe

where he directs the Europe-America and Global Security Projects. He has been Director of Studies of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and taught on the faculty of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He served the first Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and was staff member for Western Europe on the National Security Council. This article is a condensed version of his forthcoming book, America, Germany and the Future of Europe.     

THE PECULIAR TASKS OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: TOWARD CONCEPTUAL DISCRIMINATION

Abstract: Recent contributions to AJPA have suggested new conceptual directions for public management in response to the stand-off between managerialists and their critics. In emphasising the inherent political dimensions of public management, this article seeks to build on these contributions. It does so by combining some of the insights of previous contributors with a simple matrix devised originally by American scholar James Q Wilson. The central proposition is that attempts to render public management more like private management have been too far-reaching, and do not adequately appreciate the intractable difficulties that stem from the types of task that are peculiar to public organisations. It is suggested that there should be less reliance on dubious metaphors borrowed from the business domain. Instead, a greater degree of theoretical eclecticism and conceptual discrimination should be used in understanding and developing public management.