STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE: THE IMPACT OF THE REORGANIZATION PROCESS IN ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Organization theory suggests that structural change has disruptive effects on managerial behaviour and organizational outcomes, and that these effects are likely to emerge in the period between the announcement and the commencement of the new structure. We evaluate the validity of this argument by analysing the performance of English county councils in the transition period before the voluntary restructuring of a sub‐set of these organizations. Disruptive effects are tested while controlling for a range of other variables, including the relative prosperity of the local population and the diversity of their service needs. The empirical results indicate that the performance of local authorities facing reorganization deteriorated prior to the onset of the new structures, and support the view that structural change has disruptive effects on organizational outcomes.     

CORPORATE CAPACITY AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE

Corporate capacity is arguably a key determinant of the success or failure of public sector organizations. However, while there is growing evidence on the extent of corporate capacity, few researchers have systematically examined whether it is linked to public service performance. Does a larger corporate centre lead to better or worse performance for the organization as a whole? To answer this question we apply seemingly unrelated regression to measures of effectiveness, cost‐effectiveness and equity in English local government. We find that the effect of corporate capacity on performance is nonlinear, following an inverted u‐shaped pattern, and that its positive effect turns negative around the mean for effectiveness and cost‐effectiveness, and above the mean for equity. The study therefore suggests that senior managers face important trade‐offs between organizational goals when deciding on the appropriate level of corporate capacity.     

Comparing blunders in government

Much attention has been paid to government ‘blunders’ and ‘policy disasters’. National political and administrative systems have been frequently blamed for being disproportionately prone to generating mishaps. However, little systematic evidence exists on the record of failures of policies and major public projects in other political systems. Based on a comparative perspective on blunders in government, this article suggests that constitutional features do not play a prominent role. In order to establish this finding, this article (a) develops theory‐driven expectations as to the factors that are said to encourage blunders, (b) devises a systematic framework for the assessment of policy processes and outcomes, and (c) uses fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis to identify sets of causal conditions associated with particular outcomes (i.e., blunders). The article applies this novel approach to a set of particular policy domains, finding that constitutional features are not a contributory factor to blunders in contrast to instrument choice, administrative capacity and hyper‐excited politics.     

VERTICAL STRATEGIC ALIGNMENT AND PUBLIC SERVICE PERFORMANCE

We report the results of a study examining the effects of vertical strategic alignment (that is, the degree to which strategic stances are consistent across different organizational levels) on public service performance. Longitudinal multivariate analysis is undertaken on a panel of public organizations over four years. We find that alignment on a prospecting strategy leads to better performance, but that no such effect is observed for a defending strategy. We also find that high levels of prospecting alignment produce stronger positive performance effects in centralized organizations and when environmental uncertainty is high. The implications of these findings for research and practice are considered in the conclusion.     

Good Government Means Different Things in Different Countries

Work on good governance implies a one‐best‐way model of effective government. This has isomorphic influences on development, whereby governments are influenced to adopt a one‐size‐fits‐all approach to get things done. This article challenges whether such an approach exists, proposing that models actually do not hold even for the so‐called effective governments. Governments look different, even if they are similarly called models of good government. This proposition is examined through a study of public financial management practices in a set of Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) and non‐OECD countries. The study shows that effective governments are not more likely to exhibit better practice characteristics implied in one‐best‐way models. Good public financial management means different things in different countries. The article concludes by suggesting that good governance models give way to menus and the development community invest more time in examining why different countries select different menu items.     

HISTORICAL CONTINGENCIES AND THE EVOLVING IMPORTANCE OF RACE,VIOLENT CRIME,AND REGION IN EXPLAINING MASS INCARCERATION IN THE UNITED STATES

This article combines insights from historical research and quantitative analyses that have attempted to explain changes in incarceration rates in the United States. We use state‐level decennial data from 1970 to 2010 (N = 250) to test whether recent theoretical models derived from historical research that emphasize the importance of specific historical periods in shaping the relative importance of certain social and political factors explain imprisonment. Also drawing on historical work, we examine how these key determinants differed in Sunbelt states, that is, the states stretching across the nation's South from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, from the rest of the nation. Our findings suggest that the relative contributions of violent crime, minority composition, political ideology, and partisanship to imprisonment vary over time. We also extend our analysis beyond mass incarceration's rise to analyze how factors associated with prison expansion can explain its stabilization and contraction in the early twenty‐first century. Our findings suggest that most of the factors that best explained state incarceration rates in the prison boom era lost power once imprisonment stabilized and declined. We find considerable support for the importance of historical contingencies in shaping state‐level imprisonment trends, and our findings highlight the enduring importance of race in explaining incarceration.