Measuring subnational democracy: toward improved regime typologies and theories of regime change

Social scientists have been limited in their work by the paucity of global time series data about subnational institutions and practices. Such data could help scholars refine regime typologies, improve theories of democratization and regime change, better understand subnational democracy, and illuminate issues of development, conflict, and governance. This article addresses the lack of data by introducing 22 subnational measures from a new dataset, Varieties of Democracy. Validity tests demonstrate that the measures’ strengths outweigh their weaknesses. The measures excel in covering all subnational levels for most countries, capturing different elements of subnational elections, and including a variety of dimensions of elections and civil liberties. The measures also offer unmatched global and temporal coverage. The article demonstrates how these strengths can provide scholars with the benefits described above.     

Intra-Campaign Changes in Voting Preferences: The Impact of Media and Party Communication

An increasing number of citizens change and adapt their party preferences during the electoral campaign. We analyze which short-term factors explain intra-campaign changes in voting preferences, focusing on the visibility and tone of news media reporting and party canvassing. Our analyses rely on an integrative data approach, linking data from media content analysis to public opinion data. This enables us to investigate the relative impact of news media reporting as well as party communication. Inherently, we overcome previously identified methodological problems in the study of communication effects on voting behavior. Our findings reveal that campaigns matter: Especially interpersonal party canvassing increases voters’ likelihood to change their voting preferences in favor of the respective party, whereas media effects are limited to quality news outlets and depend on individual voters’ party ambivalence.     

Public Service Motivation,Organizational Social Capital,and Knowledge Sharing in the Korean Public Sector

This article investigates whether public service motivation (PSM) and organizational social capital predict knowledge sharing in the public sector. The hypothesized relationships in the proposed model are verified with the online survey data of 506 public employees in Korea. The test results show that the two dimensions of PSM (attraction to public service and commitment to public values) and the trust component of organizational social capital are both positively related to knowledge sharing in the Korean public sector, and that the associability component of organizational social capital is indirectly associated with knowledge sharing through its influence on PSM. The article discusses the ways that PSM and organizational social capital may contribute to overcome the social dilemma of knowledge sharing in public organizations. It also suggests that there is need for further research on the individual dimensions of the PSM construct.     

Speaking Like Statesmen or Scientists: Differentiating Congressional and Administrative Views on Data

ABSTRACT

Do legislators and executives speak of data the same way when speaking about public sector data? Public management scholarship and public performance policies often emphasize data-driven decision making as the path to making government efficient and effective. Whether the public policy makers mean the same thing when they speak about data in discussions of data-driven performance and decision making is unknown. In this article, the authors present an analysis of the language of data in conversations about government performance. Two frameworks are identified for the role of data in public performance—the statesman’s and the scientist’s. A corpus-level analysis of over 30 years of government documents is used to demonstrate the differences between these two approaches. This research builds consciously on the work of previous scholars seeking to map the nuances of data-driven performance management policies in the U.S. federal government.     

Data Analysis and Data Visualization as Active Learning in Political Science

While data analysis and the related skills of data management and data visualization are important skills for undergraduates in the field of political science, the process of learning these skills can also be used to develop critical thinking, encourage active and collaborative learning, and to apply knowledge gained in the classroom. Drawing on our experiences using data work in upper-level courses in International Relations and American Politics, we discuss how data work and quantitative analysis can be incorporated into subject-based (i.e., nonmethods specific) courses, and how it can also enhance critical reasoning skills. An evaluation of this approach using direct and indirect assessment is included.     

Sectoral linkages at the beginning of the 21st century: The role of Polish economy in global production structures

This paper provides a first attempt in analyzing the role of Polish economy in the production structure of the global economy in the early years of the 21st century. For the purpose of this analysis, we propose a new approach in which two most important aspects of interindustry linkages in a global input-output model are examined. Contrary to previous studies focused on output-oriented key sector analyses in post-communist CEE economies, we focus on a fundamental policy target variable – income per gross output. In order to analyze the issues in question in a dynamic framework, the empirical results are based on the 2000 and 2014 global intercountry input-output tables for the 28 EU countries as well as 15 other major countries in the world.     

Addressing Information Needs in Employment Services Provision in Italy: The Role of Codesign Networks

This article examines how coproduction can contribute to information quality in support of labor-market decision-making. Data was gathered on different types of Labor Market Intelligence (LMI) as decision-support systems for stakeholders, and subsequently by analyzing a specific program, with a focus on the role of information within its coproduction process. Results confirm the importance of information systems to support employment services design, but highlight the limitations of existing channels, and outline the types of information needed for policy effectiveness: those that are gathered through continuous relations with employers and jobseekers, and that often derive from participation in policy networks.     

Managing governance complexity and knowledge networks in transparency initiatives: the case of police open data

Public organisations are often described as being subject to types of complexity that result from the interorganisational structure of governance networks. Transparency programmes add another level of complexity due to increased information openness. However, neither the nature of this complexity nor the network management approaches needed for transparency programmes has been conceptually developed. To address this gap, this article brings together governance complexity theory and knowledge management theory. An empirical model is tested using the case of police open data with regression analysis and 22 expert interviews. The results show that institutional and environmental complexity such as budget pressures, legal-normative constraints, and task complexity exert a negative influence on police information openness. However, network knowledge management practices including developing mission focus on people and communication and overcoming organisational boundaries through interorganisational collaboration can counteract these problems of complexity.     

Emancipative values in Georgia: An individual level analysis

The main interest of the study is to determine whether and how an individual's perceived economic situation is related to emancipative values in Georgia. The analysis employs individual-level survey data from nationwide public opinion surveys conducted by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) in 2010 and 2011 in Georgia. Several dimensions of emancipative values are examined: gender equality, tolerance, participation, autonomy, interpersonal trust, satisfaction with life and religion. Level of education and age are brought in as alternative factors accounting for value change. The results are ambiguous and only partially confirm validity of the emancipative theory of democracy on an individual level in Georgia.     

North Korea and diversion: A quantitative analysis (1997–2011)

In this research I propose that the concept of diversionary theory provides at least a partial explanation for North Korea's conflict activities. I examine and analyze the country's data on diplomatic and military activities from 1997 to 2011 and argue that North Korea's domestic conditions influence its willingness to engage in external conflict. I also examine the impact of such external influences as UN sanctions, leadership changes in the region, national capacities of the US, South Korea and Japan, and strategic military exercises on DPRK-initiated conflicts. This study provides insight into the activities of this reclusive state and also demonstrates useful techniques that can be applied to analyze other similarly closed nations. The findings suggest that there are identified links between internal conditions and the Kim regime's aggressive actions between 1997 and 2011 in support of the diversionary argument. Concurrently, there is less evidence that North Korea's hostile diplomatic and military activities are based on external pressures.