The Importance of Social and Political Context: The Case of AIDS Activism

We utilize a 1992 survey of approximately, 2500 AIDS activists to analyze their degree of participation. Activity levels were affected by several traditional predictors, but the inclusion of contextual measures indicating the activists' connection with AIDS, especially the pain and loss incurred, led to a much fuller and more complex explanatory model. We argue that a richer comprehension of political participation requires more studies of issue-specific activists and the specification of contexual features that serve to motivate more intensive degrees of participation.     

Recovering,Restoring, and Renewing the Foundations of American Public Administration: The Contributions of Herbert J. Storing

Public administration continues to face an identity crisis that turns on the question of whether the animating principles of the discipline are to be discovered in the political foundations of a given regime, or whether they are to be found in more universal and transcendent principles of scientific management. Herbert J. Storing reframed the identity crisis as a problem arising from America’s constitutional system of governance. In doing so, he created an important role for public administration in democratic governance. This role took the form of “closet statesmanship” and, in practice, requires the exercise of prudential judgment that looks more like judicial decision making than scientific management. In summarizing Storing’s writings, the authors convincingly argue that he has much to teach us about the ongoing debate regarding the role of the bureaucracy within America’s 87,576 systems of government.     

Decentralization's Nondemocratic Roots: Authoritarianism and Subnational Reform in Latin America

This study challenges the common view of authoritarianism as an unambiguously centralizing experience by investigating the subnational reforms that military governments actually introduced in Latin America. It argues that the decision by military authorities to dismiss democratically elected mayors and governors opened a critical juncture for the subsequent development of subnational institutions. Once they centralized political authority, the generals could contemplate changes that expanded the institutional, administrative, and governing capacity of subnational governments. This article shows how cross-national variation in the content and consistency of the generals' economic goals led to quite distinct subnational changes; in each case, these reforms profoundly shaped the democracies that reemerged in the 1980s and 1990s.     

Technology transfer of computer-based applications in law enforcement

As the use of computer-based technology has expanded in law enforcement, one of the central questions is how technology transfer has contributed to this development Drawing on a range of past and current research studies, the paper notes that the expectations of transfer have often exceeded the realities. Factors which both inhibit and enhance technology transfer in law enforcement are therefore outlined, and recommendations for the future are set forth.