The role of actors in the policy design process: introducing design coalitions to explain policy output

Policy Sciences - Despite a renaissance of policy design thinking in public policy literature and a renewed interest in agency in the policy process literature, agency in the policy design process...     

Should the Media Be More or Less Powerful in Politics? Individual and Contextual Explanations for Politicians and Journalists

The normative question regarding whether the media should have more or less impact on politics, as viewed by politicians and journalists, is important assuming that norms about media influences can influence behaviors. The present study is the first that combines individual and structural factors that explain political actors’ and journalists’ normative views on the media’s influence on politics. Based on a conceptualization of political communication cultures, representative micro-level survey data from more than 600 political actors and journalists within 52 German cities were combined with macro-level indicators for the political and media competition in each city. Multilevel analyses show that interactions between the actors’ characteristics and their competitive working conditions help explain their normative evaluations of the media’s influence on politics. However, individual characteristics such as actors’ role conceptions influence normative views more so than media and political competition do.     

Merging county administrations – cross-national evidence of fiscal and political effects

ABSTRACT

While many central governments amalgamate municipalities, mergers of larger county administrations are rare and hardly explored. In this article, we assess both fiscal and political effects of county mergers in two different institutional settings: counties act autonomously as upper-level local governments (Germany), or counties being decentralised branches of the state government (Austria). We apply difference-in-differences estimations to county merger reforms in each country. In both cases, some counties were amalgamated while others remain untouched. Austrian counties (Bezirke) and German counties (Landkreise) widely differ in terms of autonomy and institutions, but our results are strikingly similar. In both cases, we neither find evidence for cost savings nor for staff reductions. Instead, voter turnout consistently decreases in merged counties, and right-wing populists seem to gain additional support. We conclude that political costs clearly outweigh fiscal null benefits of county merger reforms – independent of the underlying institutional setting.     

Besprechungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Is there anything Left? The politics of social spending in new democracies

The evolution of public social expenditures displays divergent patterns across non‐western countries. This exploratory article argues that in order to understand the domestic sources of this divergence, institutional and structural explanations should be complemented with an actor‐oriented perspective. Analyses of the role of party politics in non‐OECD democracies, through multivariate fixed‐effect regressions using data from 46 countries between 1995 and 2015, reveals a robust positive association between shifts towards Left party government and increases in total public social expenditures, also when controlling for structural and institutional factors. This association however seems potentially conditional on sufficient levels of economic growth. While indicating an impact of partisanship, further research is arguably needed regarding the origins, organization and policy outputs of parties in more recently democratized countries, as well as regarding the conditions under which the ideological orientation of parties in government are actually consequential.     

Aging Out of Foster Care: Homelessness,Post-Secondary Education,and Employment

Research has shown that youth aging out of the foster care system experience an increased risk for several adverse adult outcomes (e.g., homelessness, unemployment, low educational attainment). Yet, fewer studies have examined the impact of homelessness on adult outcomes. The current study uses National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) to examine the associations between homelessness and two outcomes, post-secondary education and employment status, for transition-aged foster youth (N = 4,235). This study found that youth who experienced homelessness between 19 and 21 years were less likely to have post-secondary education or full-time employment, controlling for individual and foster care characteristics.     

Sexual dimorphism in human browridge volume measured from 3D models of dry crania: A new digital morphometrics approach

Sex estimation from the human skull is often a necessary step when constructing a biological profile from unidentified human remains. Traditional methods for determining the sex of a skull require observers to rank the expression of sexually dimorphic skeletal traits by subjectively assessing their qualitative differences. One of these traits is the prominence of the glabellar region above the browridge. In this paper, the volume of the browridge region was measured from digital 3D models of 128 dry crania (65 female, 63 male). The 3D models were created with a desktop laser scanner, and the browridge region of each 3D model was isolated using geometric planes defined by cranial landmarks. Statistical analysis of browridge-to-cranium volume ratios revealed significant differences between male and female crania. Differences were also observed between geographically distinct populations, and between temporally distinct populations from the same locale. The results suggest that in the future, sex determination of human crania may be assisted by quantitative computer-based volume calculations from 3D models, which can provide increased objectivity and repeatability when compared to traditional forensic techniques. The method presented in this paper can easily be extended to other volumetric regions of the human cranium.     

Laminated safety glass as an intermediate target: a wound ballistic study

Various 9‐mm ammunitions (A1, A4, A5, ST, GS, GSb, P.E.P., SeCa, HP, PTP/s, VM, McVG, DM41, PTP, SX2, PT, and MEN frangible) were tested regarding their velocity, energy, angle of impact, and potential wound channel after penetrating a car window at 30° and 90°. Test materials were gelatine, soap, and pig cadavers. The velocities of the projectiles were between c. 288 and 430 m/ses, the energy spread between 394 and 564 J. Handgun bullets fired through vehicular side window glass lose substantial energy reducing the effectiveness of the ammunition. This effect is greater when fired at an angle of 30° compared to 90°. At a shooting angle of 90°, none of the different projectiles showed remarkable differences considering its wound ballistic features. Accuracy is maintained at a 90° angle but seriously impaired at 30°. None of the examined ammunition complied with the demanded wound channel effectiveness of 30–60 J/cm.