The 1982 transition in power in Saskatchewan: the Progressive Conservatives and the public service

Abstract: The 1982 assumption of power by the Conservative party in Saskatchewan provides material for an unusually interesting case study of the impact of a government transition on the public service, given the differences in ideology between the outgoing NDP and the incoming PC'S, the long tenure of the previous government and the lack of executive experience in the new administration. This article examines the two parties' views of the public service and crown corporations, the electoral campaign leading up to the transition, as well as the nature of the transition with respect to dismissals and structural changes in the bureaucracy. Reasons for these changes are assessed. It is argued that the political imperative - that is, the need to demonstrate that the new government is in control, and the related need to establish leverage over the bureaucracy — were the primary motives for the Devine government's actions. The 1982 Saskatchewan transition may mark the beginning of a trend away from the tradition of a neutral career public service in Canada. Sommaire. La prise du pouvoir par le Parti conservateur en Saskatchewan, en 1982, fournit le sujet d'une étude de cas fort intd?ressante sur les répercussions qu'entrainent, au niveau de la fonction publique, un changement de gouvernement. L'auteur situe son étude dans le contexte des différences idéologiques entre les Néo-Démocrates (qui ont perdu le pouvoir) et les Conservateurs (qui I'ont gagné), de la longue période durant laquelle les Néo-Démocrates ont gouverné la province et du manque d'expérience des nouveaux dirigeants dans le domaine de I'administration. L'auteur examine la position des dew partis sur la fonction publique et les sociétés d'État, la campagne électorale qui a précédé la transition gouvernementale, ainsi que la nature de cette transition du point de vue des licenciements et des changements structuraux apportés à l'appareil administratif. Il évalue les raisons de ces changements et avance que les impé ratifs politiques, dont la nécessité de montrer que le nouveau gouvemement est bien en charge et la volonté de faire preuve d'autorité sur les fonctionnaires, ont constitué la motivation principale des décisions prises par le gouvernement Devine. La transition qui a eu lieu en Saskatchewan en 1982 indique peut-être l'avènement d'une nouvelle tendance qui s'éloigne de la notion traditionnelle d'une fonction publique neutre au Canada.     

Economic Perceptions and Executive Approval in Comparative Perspective

Controversy exists over whether people use retrospective or prospective economic perceptions when evaluating their political leadership. In this article, I argue that the structure of the political-economic system affects which type of economic perception people employ. Specifically, in established democracies with developed economies, people will employ prospective assessments. In contrast, in nations with less well-established democratic systems and less developed economies, people will employ retrospective reasoning. They do so because under such conditions uncertainty about the future is too high for them to make reliable prospective assessments. I test this hypothesis on aggregate survey data taken from 41 nations in 2002. Support for the hypothesis is found. The conclusion puts the findings into perspective and discusses directions for future research.     

Being Certain Versus Being Right: Citizen Certainty and Accuracy of House Candidates' Ideological Orientations

Research on voting behavior has been reinvigorated by focusing on citizens' certainty of candidates' issue positions and ideological orientations. According to this perspective, citizens are inclined to support candidates whom they are confident possess attributes they deem important. Analysis of citizens' perceptual certainty and perceptual accuracy of 1994, 1996, and 1998 House candidates' ideological orientations reveals that many candidate characteristics (incumbency, fiscal resources) that enhance certainty fail to improve perceptual accuracy. The electoral consequence of this fact is that candidates endowed with these resources benefit from the importance of certainty to citizens without paying the electoral costs of clarifying their issue positions and ideological orientations. Similarly, several characteristics of citizens that lead to certainty reduction—gender and caring about the outcome of the election, for example—fail to improve perceptual accuracy. The implications of the empirical findings for the role of citizens' assessments of certainty in the voting decision for producing an informed electorate are considered here.     

Local Government Finance in Hungary: Okun Revisited

Fundamental change in the economic systems of the nations-of central Europe is now taking place. The economic transition has broad social and cultural consequences, among these the alteration of local government service provision and financial management. In this article, the authors describe some of the fiscal characteristics of local governments in Hungary with an analysis of the dilemmas of transition. Efforts to create and enhance local government financial management capability are detailed. This article portrays the difficulty of developing a fully operational market economy within a democratic context in the post-Communist era while, at the same time, maintaining social protection for citizens through the continued provision of a wide array of social benefit programs. The essential dilemma for local government social program managers and budget officials is that service demand far surpasses the financial resources available to continue services at the levels to which people grew accustomed under the Communist regime.     

Assessments of group influence,subjective political competence,and interest group membership

This research examines the relationship between citizens' assessments of how much influence the group they identify with is able to exercise in American politics and their subjective political competence and political participation. Appraisals of group influence have a powerful effect on subjective political competence, fulfilling theoretical expectations outlined by Leon Festinger many years ago. Moreover, assessments of group influence affect individuals' decision concerning membership in an interest group that promotes the interest of one's reference group. The work reported here is an improvement over past efforts in that it explicitly defines and assesses the causal importance of a concept that has been featured in prior research.     

Contraceptive use,sensation seeking,and adolescent egocentrism

The relations between contraceptive use, sensation seeking, and adolescent egocentrism were examined among 145 high school juniors and seniors (all female) attending high school in the Atlanta area. Sex without contraception was found to be significantly related to scores on the Sensation Seeking Scale, including the total score and two out of the four subscales. Sex without contraception was also found to be related to egocentrism, in particular to subjects' estimates of the probability of becoming pregnant as a result of engaging in sex without contraception. No significant relationship was found between sensation seeking and egocentrism.The author is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago. He obtained his masters and Ph.D. at the University of Virginia, in developmental psychology. His major interest at present is in reckless behavior among adolescents.     

Examining 19 years of officially reported child abduction incidents (1995–2013): employing a four category typology of abduction

Child abduction has generated extensive media attention due to deep-seated fear elicited by infamous incidents. Perceptions of an abduction epidemic during the 1970s and 80s entrenched a perception of ‘stranger danger’. Limited research on child abduction overemphasizes stranger abductions, which account for fewer than half of all abductions. As a result, less is known about the victim/abductor relationship across other abduction types. Prior work has emphasized simplistic stranger vs. family dichotomies, and similar trichotomies. This study, drawing on officially reported child abductions employing NIBRS datasets (N = 29,293), emphasizes differences across abductors/victims in a four category relationship-based typology, including a newer category – ‘intimate partner abductions’. Findings contribute baseline knowledge about child abductions by countering misplaced media driven fears and placing empirical findings in a more accurate context. Findings also reveal that intimate partner abductions have a unique victim/offender/incident profile and are the most serious and most consequential to adolescent female victims.