It Runs in the Family

What motivates citizens to run for office? Recent work has shown that early life parental socialization is strongly associated with a desire to run for office. However, parents not only shape their children’s political environment, they also pass along their genes to those same children. A growing area of research has shown that individual differences in a wide range of political behaviors and attitudes are linked to genetic differences. As a result, genetic factors may confound the observed political similarities among parents and their children. This study analyzes Swedish register data containing information on all nominated and elected candidates in the ten parliamentary, county council, and municipal elections from 1982 to 2014 for a large sample of adoptees and their adoptive and biological parents. By studying the similarity in political ambition within both adoptive and biological families, our research design allows us to disentangle so-called “pre-birth” factors, such as genes and pre-natal environment, and “post-birth” factors like parental socialization. We find that the likelihood of standing as a political candidate is twice as high if one’s parent has been a candidate. We also find that the effects of pre-birth and post-birth factors are approximately equal in size. In addition, we test a number of potential pre- and post-birth transmission mechanisms. First, disconfirming our expectations, the pre-birth effects do not seem to be mediated by cognitive ability or leadership skills. Second, consistent with a role modeling mechanism, we find evidence of a strong transmission in candidacy status between rearing mothers and their daughters.     

Show Who the Money? Teacher Sorting Patterns and Performance Pay across U.S. School Districts

Pay for performance (PFP) remains one of the most controversial policy debates in the New Public Management reform era. Skepticism about PFP in the public sector is often grounded in theories of public service motivation that suggest a misalignment between PFP's focus on extrinsic market‐based pay incentives and intrinsically motivated government workers. Frequently missing from this analysis, however, is any consideration for whether PFP leads to positive “sorting” effects on the composition of a government agency's workforce through attraction, selection, and attrition processes. Using data from two waves of the Schools and Staffing Survey, the authors examine whether PFP influences the sorting patterns of K–12 public schoolteachers across U.S. school districts. Findings show that, on average, school districts that adopted PFP secured new teacher hires who had graduated from colleges and universities with average SAT scores that were about 30 points higher than the new teacher cohorts hired by districts that did not adopt PFP.     

College Socialization and the Economic Views of Affluent Americans

Affluent Americans support more conservative economic policies than the nonaffluent, and government responds disproportionately to these views. Yet little is known about the emergence of these consequential views. We develop, test, and find support for a theory of class cultural norms: These preferences are partly traceable to socialization that occurs on predominantly affluent college campuses, especially those with norms of financial gain, and especially among socially embedded students. The economic views of the student's cohort also matter, in part independently of affluence. We use a large panel data set with a high response rate and more rigorous causal inference strategies than previous socialization studies. The affluent campus effect holds with matching, among students with limited school choice, and in a natural experiment; and it passes placebo tests. College socialization partly explains why affluent Americans support economically conservative policies.     

Is the U.S. Congress an Insurmountable Obstacle to Any “Far‐Sighted Conception of Budgeting”?

In recent years, Congress has recurrently failed to meet its minimum responsibilities in federal budgeting. This article analyzes whether it is possible to repair this problem, using concepts popularized by Allen Schick in his influential article “The Road to PPB.” His article compared the PPB reform effort to the history of budget process reforms that started with the design of the executive budget. It publicized a logical sequence of budget process improvements that started with control and then advanced through management and planning. The article did not substantially address the role of Congress, but eight years after it was published, Congress reasserted its constitutional role in the budget process. Its record of performance since then has ranged from mixed to dysfunctional. The Congress has been criticized for budgetary delays, micromanagement, myopia, procrastination, indiscipline, and an inability to prioritize intelligently. If these faults are set in stone, then an integrated system of budgeting, as described in “The Road to PPB” and related work, is unattainable. On the other hand, if reform of Congressional budgeting is politically feasible, improvements to that system can utilize the unique contributions that a legislature can make to a good system of budgeting.     

Innovation Agents in the Public Sector: Applying Champion and Promotor Theory to Explore Innovation in the Australian Public Service

Innovation is critical to organisational success and is a process steered, and potentially thwarted, by individuals. However, despite the importance of public sector innovation given the complexity of policy issues faced and the sector's specific contextual features, our understanding of innovation processes in government requires expansion. This study, using in‐depth case analyses of three Australian Public Service agencies, focuses on understanding the ‘human component’ of the innovation process by drawing on both innovation champion and promotor theories to explore, through the lens of organisational power, how multiple human agents progress public sector innovations. The results highlight the key, and often tandem, roles of individuals at multiple organisational levels who work to inspire and motivate others to progress an innovation (champions) and those with specific power bases who help overcome organisational barriers to innovation (promotors).     

Value,Nature, and Labor: A Defense of Marx

In this theoretical intervention, I argue that Karl Marx’s theory of value remains a powerful way to understand nature–society relations under capitalism. I suggest environmentalist critiques often misunderstand Marx’s value theory as a theory that “values” workers over nature. His critical theory is better understood as an explanation of how capitalist value exploits both workers and the environment. My defense of Marxian value theory is articulated through five “theses.” I provide empirical illustration based on recent research into the nitrogen fertilizer industry. (1) Value theory does not refer to all values. (2) Marx’s contention that nature does not contribute to value helps us explain its degradation under capitalism. (3) Marx’s value theory rooted in production allows for a critique of environmental economic valuation schemes (e.g. payments for ecosystem services) which are based on neoclassical value theories rooted in consumption/exchange. (4) Value is abstract social labor, but that means it also abstracts from nature. (5) Capital does value certain parts of nature and that matters. I conclude by advocating a “value theory of nature” in the spirit of Diane Elson’s powerful articulation of Marx’s “value theory of labor.”     

Understanding communication in disaster response: A marketing strategy formulation and implementation perspective

An analysis of communication disaster response in four well‐known natural disasters explores at what stage a disaster communication plan can fail. Based on a marketing strategy formulation–implementation framework, four different outcomes are used to examine what makes a disaster communication plan succeed or fail. This leads to an identification of barriers to the implementation of disaster communication plans. Very often in disaster communication plan failures the strategy formulation is blamed. However, often it is implementation at fault. This makes it hard to diagnose the reason for the communication plan failure. By taking heed of the barriers identified here, disaster response executives can hopefully overcome some of the causes of disaster communication plan failure. Avenues for future research are identified.