Street-level Enforcement Style: A Multidimensional Measurement Instrument

This study investigates street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style and its underlying dimensions by developing and validating a multidimensional measurement scale. Developing a measurement scale for enforcement style is relevant because the number of underlying dimensions is contested and studies developing measurement scales are scarce. This complicates cross-sector and cross-national comparisons. Using a survey among inspectors of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, street-level enforcement style is found to comprising three dimensions: (1) legal, (2) facilitation, and (3) accommodation. This study contributes to more validated measurement instruments by presenting a 13-item measure that can be used to study street-level bureaucrats’ enforcement style.     

Avoiding Theoretical Stagnation: A Systematic Review and Framework for Measuring Public Value

Public value theory has become a hot topic in public administration research, but its proponents have long recognised difficulties in empirically testing the theory's central propositions. There has been a lack of clarity about how to measure the extent to which organisations are generating public value, which has rendered researchers unable to quantitatively study the causes, consequences and correlates of public value. The current study systematically reviews the growing literature on public value measurement to identify, evaluate, and synthesise available measures. Through a qualitative synthesis of the themes present in published measures, we identify four key components for measuring public value that appear to be important across a range of policy and national contexts. Our review identifies a promising framework that could be used to structure a comprehensive measure of public value and, in doing so, provides a means to progress theoretical development and testing of the public value approach.     

Putting the Cart before the Horse: Accountability or Performance?

Conventional wisdom argues that a good set of performance measures builds accountability and that improved accountability generates better productivity in the organisation. By way of an analysis of a case study in one inland Chinese county, this article shows that the assumed relationship between performance and accountability is more rhetoric than real. In practice, the implementation of performance measurement in local China leads to an accountability paradox, in which enhanced accountability tends to hinder the improvement of government productivity. The implementation of the Chinese target-based responsibility system risks boosting the short term accountability of public employees while undermining the long term productivity of government agencies. With the deepening of China's market-oriented reform, this choice appears to put the cart before the horse.     

Measuring state fragility: a review of the theoretical groundings of existing approaches

State fragility has become a resonant term in the development discourse over the past decade. In its early days it served as a catch-all phrase used by donor organisations to draw attention to the need to assist ‘fragile states’. In response to the call for a better understanding of how to deal with these countries, there was a surge in measures of fragility. However, it was not long before academics pointed to the murkiness and fuzziness of the term, and identified several caveats to most of the proposals for quantification. This paper reviews existing approaches to operationalise this concept, distinguishing between those that offer no ranking or only partial rankings of fragile states, and those providing ordinal lists of countries. The examination of their theoretical underpinnings lends support to the critical view that most existing approaches are undermined by a lack of solid theoretical foundations, which leads to confusion between causes, symptoms and outcomes of state fragility.     

The Adoption of Outcome-Related Performance Indicators in External Reporting: An Empirical Study

ABSTRACT

Contemporary government reforms are changing how performance is measured and evaluated, by shifting the focus from inputs and processes to outputs and outcomes. This study uses agency theory, institutional theory, and organizational information processing theory to hypothesize and assess how particular organizational and institutional factors affect the disclosure of outcome information by public organizations, drawing on an empirical analysis of 214 Italian public organizations. Organizational size, mode of service delivery, and the degree of regulation are all strongly associated with the disclosure of outcome indicators in external performance reports.     

中国环境法律演化的可能路向——以西方法律演化理论为概念工具

西方转型社会时期形成了昂格尔的法律类型理论、诺内特和塞尔兹尼克的法律演化理论、哈贝马斯的法律范式理论以及托依布纳的反身型法理论。全球结构之中的中国转型社会意味着,重构上述西方法律演化理论进而据此分析和透视中国环境法律演化的前景是一项艰难的工作。本文以西方法律演化理论为概念工具,试图勾勒中国环境法律演化众多方向中的一条可能路向——程序技术法律模式。     

State and Local Prevalence of Firearms Ownership Measurement, Structure, and Trends

Of the readily computed proxies for the prevalence of gun ownership, one, the percentage of suicides committed with a gun, is most highly correlated with survey-based estimates. It is the best choice for use in cross-section analysis of the effect of gun prevalence on crime patterns across states and larger counties.Analysis of this proxy measure for the period 1979–1997 demonstrates that the geographic structure of gun ownership has been highly stable. That structure is closely linked to rural tradition. There is, however, some tendency toward homogenization over this period, with high-prevalence states trending down and low-prevalence states trending up.     

刑事科学技术专业“战训合一”模式研究——兼谈我院刑事科学技术专业建设与改革

在刑事科学技术专业的培养目标上要牢固确立“四个意识”即“证据意识、侦查意识、诉讼意识和法律意识”，做到三个“贴近”即“贴近基层，贴近实战．贴近需要”，将学生培养成为“面向公安实战，面对现场勘查，面向社会实践”的具备现场勘查技能和专门知识的专业学科人才，从而打造出学院具有特色的优势学科，以更好地为侦查破案和起诉审判提供线索和证据，为贵州公安司法实战输送和培训合格的刑事技术专业人才，对贵州公安司法实践作出应有的贡献，实现学院发展的总体目标：“将学校建设成为贵州公安司法干警的培训基地，培养21世纪新型警官的摇篮，贵州公安刑事科学技术的研究和资料中心。”     

从电脑量刑之争看科技进步对我国法制建设的影响

山东法院试行的电脑量刑在2006年的中国引起很大争议,争议主要集中在电脑量刑的采用对法官自由裁量权的影响及是否会真正改变刑事司法审判中的量刑不均衡问题。科技进步对我国法制建设的影响是多层次、多方面的,电脑量刑系统和电子表决器的应用只是其中的一个表现,我们期待,科技创新将会给我国法律制度的设立、法律的适用和执行等带来更大更多的积极影响。在将来,不论是民法还是刑法,不论是实体法还是程序法,我们都会从中发现更多的科技成果在起作用,科技进步必将进一步加快我国法制建设的步伐。