Co‐production: Option or Obligation?

Co‐production is an idea being discussed in the international public management literature but less so in New Zealand and Australia. Co‐production rejects the idea of service delivery to passive users, proposing instead they be treated as active participants in the production of outcomes. As partners in delivery, users bring resources, skills and capabilities to their interactions with providers. Co‐production requires providers to share power and negotiate the interaction. There are strong managerial reasons for adopting co‐production to improve effectiveness and efficiency. But the political reasons for adopting co‐production are even stronger because of trends of many decades towards greater citizen participation. These reasons oblige public managers in Australasia to adopt co‐production in many fields of policy as part of the future.     

Cyberbullying: What's the problem?

Cyberbullying has been a difficult problem for policy makers and observers to define. For some, cyberbullying is understood as a public health problem, while others view it largely as an education issue, and still others see it as a justice problem. In Canada, while the definition of cyberbullying continues to evolve, a nascent approach assumes that it is similar to traditional face‐to‐face bullying with computer‐mediated communication as a new element. This definition is at odds with recent research on cyberbullying, which may have significant implications for policy makers seeking to design effective interventions.     

The Influence of Aid Changes on African Election Outcomes

Many African democracies experience highly variable aid flows. This article examines the influence of aid changes on presidential incumbent advantage in Africa. Aid changes influence the odds of incumbents winning reelection, with aid increases helping incumbents, but this effect is only present when the aid change occurs in the year before an election. Aid changes in earlier or later time periods have no influence. Case studies of elections in Ghana and Malawi reveal causal mechanisms linking aid changes to incumbent advantage and support the finding that aid changes have a limited window of influence.     

Lobbying and lending by banks around the financial crisis by

Despite the unprecedented levels of liquidity provided by the Federal Reserve to banks during the 2007–2008 financial crisis, lending by banks slowed dramatically during and after that global episode. In this study, we propose that, given capital constraints, the lobbying expenditures by banks to combat Dodd-Frank might have crowded out lending activity. A variety of univariate and multivariate tests show that while lending by banks fell significantly around the financial crisis, lobbying rose dramatically. Our results also show that bank lobbying and lending are imperfect substitutes during non-crisis periods. Such substitutability likely is explained by the value perceived in the political connections gained through lobbying, such as the ability to influence regulation, preferential treatment on supervisory or enforcement decisions, and protection against adverse shocks in the form of government bailouts.