Candidates,Campaigns, or Partisan Conditions? Reevaluating Strategic‐Politicians Theory

According to strategic‐politicians theory, political elites help ensure electoral responsiveness even when the mass public is deficient. Testing this theory requires measuring the effects of candidate experience and campaign spending, but one must confront endogeneity problems, because the theory requires potential candidates and campaign contributors to be responsive to district partisan conditions and national partisan tides. By applying an instrumental‐variable method to control for selection bias, we found that challenger experience only matters indirectly, through its effect on campaign expenditures, but partisan context matters both directly and indirectly. We theorize that challenger experience is best understood as an informational shortcut: it signals incumbent vulnerability to potential campaign contributors.     

National Government Policy Options for Contributing to Regional Economic Stability: The US Department of Energy's Major Nuclear Weapons Sites

We have conducted economic simulation, historical, and survey research that considers the national government's obligation to the regions that surround the places where it developed and tested nuclear weapons. The research shows that the strongest case for an obligation is at four site regions: Hanford (Washington), Idaho, Oak Ridge (Tennessee), and Savannah River (Georgia, South Carolina). These four are dependent on the Department of Energy (DOE), have relatively low incomes, are expected to grow less economically than their counterparts and the nation as a whole, and suffer from environmental stigma. We reviewed and simulated the impacts of a variety of tools, including severance packages, onsite projects, and offsite economic investments. In essence, investments in severance packages, education, and recreation are more effective per dollar invested than high technology, but all investments are less effective in these dependent regions than in larger metropolitan areas because of the economic leakage out of these dependent regions. The national government needs to begin a process of working with these regions to help them deal with the shock of shrinking their dependency on the DOE.     

COMPARING BUSH–CHENEY AND CLINTON–GORE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES: ARE THEY MORE ALIKE THAN DIFFERENT?

Successful performance management strategies are intrinsically linked to the political environment in which public policy‐making occurs. Since the mid‐1990s, many governments have re‐examined how to simultaneously reduce costs, increase performance and achieve results. Public agencies are experimenting with performance measurement and management systems designed to meet public policy goals and respond to citizen demands. Various reform models have been proposed and public administrators now expend considerable time, effort and resources exchanging ‘best practices’, finding ‘best value’, and ‘rethinking’ government operations. Although equally important, less effort has been devoted to performance management (PM) within increasingly complex, ideologically charged and politicized decision‐making environments. Despite significant increases in productivity, more theoretical and empirical research is needed to assist public managers in applying private market‐based alternatives to public service delivery structures. This article compares the PM initiatives of the Clinton–Gore Administration in the United States, known as the National Performance Review (NPR), with President Bush‘s Presidential Management Agenda (PMA). Following the comparison, a theory‐based research agenda is proposed to determine which of many approaches best ‘fits’ the varied and often contradictory systems for delivering public services in a decentralized governance system.     

Dyzenhaus on Positivism and Judicial Obligation

Abstract
The author criticizes the argument in Dyzenhaus (1991) that a study of South African judicial decisions establishes the superiority of Dworkinian anti-positivism over legal positivism. Among the claims criticized are: (1) Positivism and anti-positivism each imply a specific theory of judicial duty, and the decisions of South African judges are explained by their adherence to one or the other of these theories; (2) resistance to South African government policy was morally required of judges; (3) the only theory which supports this resistance (anti-positivism) is therefore the correct one; (4) the cases establish that judges do not have discretion in hard cases; (5) Dworkin's theory does not imply that South African judges are required to apply the wicked principles embedded in their legal system; (6) positivism involves a pragmatic contradiction.     

Postrelease Depression and the Importance of Familial Support

Depression is a widely noted reaction among persons confronted with dramatic life changes. Those released from total institutions (mental patients, prisoners of war, hostages, ex-convicts) are especially susceptible to these symptoms. A model, based on extensive field experience and a broad review of literature, is first presented. Data from a cohort of persons released from prison, gathered at three points in time during the first year following release, are then discussed. The results suggest: (1) support for Irwin's model of "reentry," (2) that depression may accompany positive as well as negative life events, and (3) the importance of "bridging networks" in modifying the intensity of depressive symptoms.     

The Social Scientist and Rehabilitative Crime Policy

Social scientists are in a quandary about crime policy. On the one hand, the tools of their discipline incline them naturally toward a search for the causes of differences in delinquent behavior, an inclination which appears to be supportive of the potential for rehabilitative components to crime policy. Both the premise of determinism and the methodology of differentiation are intellectually compatible with the prospects for rehabilitation, because both are requisites for a crime control strategy that seeks the impact of purposeful changes in the lives or attitudes of delinquents on subsequent behavior. On the other hand, social scientists are being confronted with a number of arguments that question the utility for social policy of adherence to these assumptions. The validity of some of these arguments is explored briefly in this article. They are found to suffer from an erroneous conception of the logic of determinism, an underdevelopment of the notion of deterrence, or an artifactual conception of the requisites for rehabilitation.