Government-to-Government Contracting: Stewardship,Agency, and Substitution

ABSTRACT

This paper provides empirical evidence detailing the distinctive nature of service delivery provided through contracts with other governments. The results of a survey of Ohio city and county managers both confirm and stand in contrast to implications derived from stewardship theory. Consistent with stewardship, our data demonstrate that contracts with public sector service partners generate less intensive monitoring by contracting governments than do services contracted with private entities. In contrast to stewardship theory, we find that contracting governments do not use other governments for services requiring intensive monitoring. In an era of accountability and results-oriented management, reliance on trust may not satisfy constituents who seek evidence of effective service delivery. The inability of the contracting government to affect another government's service delivery reduces the attractiveness of that government as a contracting partner. If the tools of stewardship prove to be inadequate, the imposition of carrots and sticks appropriate for a principal-agent relationship could undermine the trust central to stewardship. Given these tensions, it is not surprising that governments are contracting less with other governments.     

The Effects of Continuous Application of the TASER X26 Waveform on Sus scrofa,

This study investigated and evaluated the safety margins of the continuous long duration (up to 30 min) effect of the TASER X26 waveform, using a Sus scrofa model. Long duration continuous stimulus has not been evaluated on humans or human surrogates prior to this study. Swine were used as models due to similarities with humans in their skin and cardiovascular systems. Very long duration was used to determine both exposure dose and possible adverse physiological effects of dose. The trial began with an application of 10 min, and subsequent animals received increasing exposure time up to a survived maximum duration of 30 min. At the onset of this work, it was hypothesized that there would be a time limit after which most animals would not survive consistent with increased dose response. However, this hypothesis was not supported by the experimental results. All animals (10 of 10) survived up to 3 min. Seven of the 10 animals survived up to a 10‐min exposure and 3 of 5 animals with a 30‐min target exposure survived the full exposure. Surviving animals were recovered and observed for 24 h, with no postrecovery deaths. This suggests that swine (based on physiology) will not experience a fatal event when exposed to the TASER X26 for a continuous 3 min. Conclusions regarding longer duration (10–30 min) are not as certain due to the small sample sizes at these time intervals.     

Developing a Tripartite Prevention Program for Impoverished Young Women Transitioning to Young Adulthood: Addressing Substance Use,HIV Risk,and Victimization by Intimate Partners

Little is known about the transition to adulthood for adolescent females and young women who are impoverished and homeless. Co-occurrence of drug use and abuse, HIV risk, and victimization is notable among homeless women, highlighting the need for comprehensive interventions. Unfortunately, evidence-based prevention approaches addressing these inter-related problems among impoverished women transitioning into adulthood are lacking. To address this gap, we designed an innovative prevention program by utilizing open- and closed-ended interview data from impoverished women (n = 20), focus groups with community experts and providers (2 groups; n = 9), and a theoretical framework to direct the research. Information provided by our focus groups and interviews with women supported our theoretical framework and highlighted the importance of addressing normative information, providing skills training, and utilizing a non-confrontational approach when discussing these sensitive issues.     

Decision‐making Italian style: The new code of criminal procedure

Government action in Italy is notoriously slow in most policy areas, but, when necessary, the government can act both decisively and effectively. This article is a case‐study of the decisional process surrounding such an issue, the new code of criminal procedure that was implemented in late 1989. Factors other than the alluring explanations of government longevity and coalition stability account for the success of this institutional reform. In the case of the new code, a sense of urgency was created and a champion for the cause was found in government; these two factors and public demand for changes generated a momentum towards implementation of major institutional reform that survived onslaught by interest groups and even the fall of two governments.     

The growth of racketeering

To understand why racketeering flourishes in the United States in a way that it does not elsewhere we need to understand how it differs from other kinds of professional crime. A model of the developed racket is presented which shows how it depends on relations that have been built up over time with customer-victims and with agencies of law enforcement and how it has an inherently expansive tendency. Three episodes in the history of racketeering in the United States are then discussed to show how (1) the ‘machine’ system in city politics contributed to the corruption of law-enforcement, (2) Prohibition contributed to monopoly control over markets, and (3) labour racketeering contributed to ruling-class acquiescence to organized crime.     

Why East Asia overtook Latin America: Agrarian reform,industrialisation and development

Scholars and policy makers have long debated the causes of the spectacular economic success achieved by the East Asian newly industrialising countries ( NICs ) as well as the lessons that other developing countries can learn from this development experience. Latin America started to industrialise many decades before the East Asian NICs and yet was quickly overtaken by them in the last few decades. This article explores the agrarian roots that may explain the different development trajectory and performance of the East Asian NICs, particularly South Korea and Taiwan, and Latin America. The analysis focuses mainly on three interconnected factors in seeking to understand why the East Asian NICs outperformed Latin America: 1) state capacity and policy performance or 'statecraft'; 2) character of agrarian reform and its impact on equity and growth; 3) interactions between agriculture and industry in development strategies.     

Difference unveiled: Bulgarian national imperatives and the re‐dressing of Muslim women, 1878–1989

Monique Armand and Marguerite Aymard, eds. European Bibliography of Soviet, East European and Slavonic Studies. Vol. IV — 1978. Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1983. Pp. 523.

Mary M. Kritz, ed. U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy: Global and Domestic Issues. Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1983. Pp. xxi, 415.

János M. Bak and Béla K. Király, eds. From Hunyadi to Rákóczi: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary. New York: Brooklyn College Social Science Monographs, 1982. Pp. xiv,545.     

“The past,present, and the perhaps’ is Germany a “normal” power?

Thomas Banchoff, The German Problem Transformed. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999).

Thomas U. Berger, Cultures of Antimilitarism: National Security in Germany and Japan. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).

John S. Duffield, World Power Forsaken. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); Christian Hacke, Die Aussenpolitik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Weltmacht wider Willen? 3rd ed. (Berlin: Ullstein, 1997).

Peter Katzenstein, ed., Tamed Power: Germany in Europe. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).

Andrei Markovits and Simon Reich, The German Predicament: Memory and Power in the New Europe. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).

Elizabeth Pond, The Rebirth of Europe. (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1999).

James Sperling, “Neither Hegemony nor Dominance: Reconsidering German Power in Post‐Cold War Europe,” British Journal of Political Science (forthcoming).