Driving less for better air: Impacts of a public information campaign

In the wake of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, localities across the United States initiated public information campaigns both to raise awareness of threats to air quality and to change behavior related to air pollution by recommending specific behavioral changes in the campaign messages. These campaigns are designed to reduce the health hazards associated with poor air quality and to avoid federal sanctions resulting from the failure to meet air quality standards. As in many other communities across the country, a coalition of government agencies and businesses initiated a public information campaign in the Atlanta metropolitan region to reduce certain targeted behaviors, mainly driving. A two‐stage model used to analyze data from a rolling sample survey shows that the centerpiece of the information campaign—air quality alerts—was effective in raising awareness and reducing driving in a segment of the population. When the overall information campaign was moderated by employers' participation in programs to improve air quality, drivers significantly reduced the number of miles they drove and the number of trips they took by car on days when air quality alerts were sounded. Public information campaigns can be successful in increasing awareness, but changing well‐established behaviors, such as driving, is likely to require institutional mediation to provide social contexts that support the behavioral change, as well. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Should Abused Women's Reports of Partner Substance Abuse Be Accepted as Valid?

Current research suggests that a husband's substance abuse is correlated with severity of physical abuse and the woman's decision to leave a violent situation. Often, only the battered woman's report of abuse is available. This study compares women's reports of their partners' substance use/abuse with their partners' report using a brief measure of polydrug and alcohol abuse, the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI) and the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS). Data were analyzed for 25 recovery couples and 25 nonrecovery couples. The correlations for all 50 couples between the male's reported use and the female's report of her partner's use on the SASSI and the CTS were significant on all but one of the CTS scales. They ranged on SASSI from .73 to .33 and from .31 to .06 on the CTS. This suggests that the SASSI and possibly the CTS could be used as valuable tools for assessing women's reports of their partner's substance use/abuse.     

Comprehending life and death matters

Modern capital jurisprudence places special significance on judicial instructions to guide the discretion of the capital jury in reaching a penalty phase decision. Yet, previous social science research has raised doubts about the extent to which judicial instructions are generally understood by jurors and questioned their utility in producing intended effects. The present study measured the comprehension of the capital sentencing instruction employed in California. Data suggest widespread inability to define accurately the central concepts of aggravation and mitigation in use in virtually every state that currently has a death penalty statute, as well as the inability to distinguish properly the sentencing significance of the enumerated factors jurors are directed to use in reaching their life and death verdicts. In addition, an inordinate focus on the circumstances of the crime—to the exclusion of other potentially important factors—was identified, as well as special problems in comprehending the crucial concept of mitigation in constitutionally required ways.We would like to thank Suzanne Ban, Cori Nardello, and Maryanne Tagavilla for assistance in transcribing and content-analyzing the data.     

The end of the post-colonial state in Africa? Reflections on changing African political dynamics

Examination of the political trajectory of African states sincethe terminal colonial period suggests that, by the 1990s, the‘post-colonial’ label still widely employed waslosing its pertinence. The term acquired widespread currencynot long after independence in acknowledgment of the importationinto new states of the practices, routines and mentalities ofthe colonial state. These served as a platform for a more ambitiousform of political monopoly, whose legitimating discourse wasdevelopmentalism. The colonial state legacy decanted into apatrimonial autocracy which decayed into crisis by the 1980s,bringing external and internal pressures for economic and politicalstate reconfiguration. But the serious erosion of the statenessof many African polities by the 1990s limited the scope foreffective reform and opened the door for a complex web of novelcivil conflicts; there was also a renewed saliency of informalpolitics, as local societies adapted to diminished state presenceand service provision. Perhaps the post-colonial moment haspassed.     

Is the Higher Public Service a Profession?

Professionalisation in the public services is regarded as essential but the concept is ambiguous and organisationally weak. Moreover, if not jeopardised by managerialism, public service professionalisation today faces some major barriers or limitations. Nonetheless, the public service may be able to maintain greater professional status with increased emphasis on job security, occupational closure and horizontal organisation. The prospects for such conditions may now seem remote, but with this criteria in mind Australia will neglect the professionalism of its public service very much to its cost.     

Fiscal Institutions,Credit Ratings,and Borrowing Costs

This paper investigates the impact of fiscal institutions on state government borrowing costs. We find that institutions have both a direct and indirect effect on interest costs paid by state governments. Revenue limits are associated directly with higher interest costs; expenditure limits, stricter balanced budget rules, and restrictions on state debt issuance are indirectly associated with lower interest costs because they lead to higher credit ratings. It appears that investors and bond raters incorporate information on fiscal institutions into their assessment of state government credit quality.     

It Takes a Coalition: The Community Impacts of Collaboration

Members of Congress frequently collaborate on policy initiatives, reaching out to colleagues in both parties to find common ground on solutions for the problems faced by their constituents. Using a novel dataset of over 30,000 “Dear Colleague” letters sent by members of the 111th Congress, I use the collaborative relationships that exist in the earliest stages of the policy process to measure the social influence of legislators. I demonstrate that districts represented by members of Congress who are better connected to their colleagues receive a greater share of federal grant money. I argue that this is because collaborative legislators are well‐positioned to be influential allies to strategic bureaucrats who want to maintain a broad base of support for their programs in Congress. Thus, devoting resources to building relationships with their colleagues is one way members of Congress can more effectively support the communities they represent.     

‘Making democracy a reality’? The politics of decentralisation and the limits to local democracy in Ghana

Through a case study of Ghana, this article focuses on the relationship between decentralisation and local democracy. The Ghanaian constitution emphasises decentralisation as the key means to ‘making democracy a reality’, reflecting the view common amongst international development agencies that decentralisation enhances local democracy and leads to more responsive government. This article questions such views and investigates whether decentralisation in Ghana has led to increased political participation at the local level and to downwardly accountable local government. Empirical findings are two-fold. On the one hand, relatively high levels of participation in local democratic processes are indicated. On the other, accountability mechanisms have not been strengthened, with a number of limitations and shortcomings identified at local level that undermine citizens’ attempts to hold local government and their elected representatives to account. Yet, in seeking to explain this delinkage between participation and accountability, such local issues do not provide a full explanation. Attention is thus refocused on the national context, where structural obstacles to devolved government are identified in the form of legal, political, administrative and fiscal constraints. Such obstacles are not easily overcome, however, due to the politics of decentralisation, notably central government's reluctance to relinquish control over its powers. Recent proposals for reform in Ghana's decentralisation system are considered, but political change is unlikely given the built-in advantages to the ruling party, whichever is in power. Without such reforms, though, local democracy is likely to remain more appearance than reality.