Administrative Growth and Grant Payouts in Nonprofit Foundations: Fulfilling the Public Good amid Professionalization?

The Tax Reform Act of 1969 remains the core governing policy for the U.S. foundation sector, primarily for its qualifying distributions mandate, which ensures a baseline spending of foundation assets toward charitable purposes. However, implementation of this policy required additional foundation administrative resources and contributed to significant professionalization of the foundation sector. This article focuses on the payout requirement's potential paradox of accountability, as administrative expenses can be counted toward fulfilling foundations’ qualifying distributions. Using a 14‐year panel of grantmaking foundations, the analysis seeks to understand whether professionalization, measured by operating and administrative expenses, contributes to or crowds out grantmaking. Findings indicate that professionalization of the foundation sector has a small yet practically and statistically significant positive association with foundation grantmaking. From a policy perspective, the current structure of the qualifying distributions mandate does not appear to lead to a crowding out of grant allocations as administrative expenses grow.     

Opinion Backlash and Public Attitudes: Are Political Advances in Gay Rights Counterproductive?

One long‐recognized consequence of the tension between popular sovereignty and democratic values like liberty and equality is public opinion backlash, which occurs when individuals recoil in response to some salient event. For decades, scholars have suggested that opinion backlash impedes policy gains by marginalized groups. Public opinion research, however, suggests that widespread attitude change that backlash proponents theorize is likely to be rare. Examining backlash against gays and lesbians using a series of online and natural experiments about marriage equality, and large‐sample survey data, we find no evidence of opinion backlash among the general public, by members of groups predisposed to dislike gays and lesbians, or from those with psychological traits that may predispose them to lash back. The important implication is that groups pursuing rights should not be dissuaded by threats of backlash that will set their movement back in the court of public opinion.     

The Quality Assurance Agency and the Politics of Audit

Audit is an increasingly ubiquitous feature of academic life with the Quality Assurance Agency to the forefront in its implementation. This article argues that, far from being an objective assessment of the quality of learning and teaching in universities, the Quality Assurance Agency's audit role relates to political attempts to change the educational agenda of universities and alter the nature of academic life.     

The county administrator and productivity improvement: An examination of contrasting styles

The study examines productivity improvement efforts among a sample of United States County Administrators. Administrators' actions were divided into “tough” and “soft” approaches which were then examined in light of external and internal environment, governmental actors, duties of the office, management and policy actions and roles, and personal and demographic characteristics. Strong correlates were found in the areas of external environment, managerial role, and personal characteristics.     

Efficiently Taking Soundings in a Sea of Change: Two Histories of Public Budgeting and Finance

Books reviewed:
Irene S. Rubin, Class, Tax, and Power: Municipal Budgeting in the United States.
Donald R. Stabile, The Origins of American Public Finance: Debates over Money, Debt, and Taxes in the Constitutional Era, 1776–1836.