Some evidence of congressional political markets in DOD personnel allocations across states

An empirical analysis of the distribution of Department of Defense (DOD) personnel (both military and civilian) across states is developed with a commonly used Public Choice model of resource allocation in a legislative setting. The model specification employs Congressional seniority, Congressional committee representation, Presidential electoral votes, and the per capita dollar value of prime defense contract awards to explain the variation of DOD personnel across states over time. The empirical analysis is performed over the last three decades, and the results indicate that this particular Public Choice legislative model performs well in explaining the variation in DOD personnel allocations across states. The results also provide some limited evidence of a possible political market between the states for DOD personnel allocations. This analysis has implications for future testing of whether the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (established in 1988 under President Reagan), and the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission of 1990 (under President Bush) were effective in significantly decreasing the legislative politics involved in the selection and approval process for base closure and realignment.     

News and notes

Igor Primoratz, Justifying Legal Punishment Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, and London: Humanities Press, 1989, x + 196 pp.; bibliography.     

There’s no place like home: Explaining international NGO advocacy

INGO advocacy can range from cooperative to confrontational, and these tactical choices can have important repercussions for the overall success of the organization??s policy work, yet little attention has been paid to this variation. We contend that INGO advocacy strategies are shaped by the organization??s national origin. Drawing on insights from sociology and political science, we argue that there is substantial variation among wealthy industrialized democracies in the availability and structure of material resources as well as the domestic institutional environment surrounding INGO work. Together, these national-level factors shape INGOs?? choice of the level of confrontation or conciliation that they adopt in their advocacy. We first demonstrate the importance of INGO national origin using new data on the confrontational advocacy strategies of over 3000 non-governmental organizations from OECD countries that are international in focus. We then explore the relationship between national origin and INGO practice through comparative case studies of INGO umbrella organizations in the relief and development sector. Throughout, we focus on four countries in particular: the United States, Britain, France, and Japan. These countries differ significantly in terms of the material resources and institutional environments faced by INGOs and thus allow us to understand whether and how these factors influence INGO advocacy choices. These systematic differences in INGO strategies have important ramifications for understanding national and global advocacy by INGOs and demonstrate an enduring role of the state in shaping the behavior of non-state actors.     

The reputations of NGOs: Peer evaluations of effectiveness

This article explores the reputations of transnational non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and their determinants. Although the concept of reputation has received extensive treatment in international relations, NGO reputation has received less attention. Yet reputations are critical to the construction of NGO authority and to patterns of collaboration. We develop a framework for studying NGO reputation. We then provide empirical evidence on the construction of a particular dimension of NGO reputation, that of organizational effectiveness from the perspective of NGO peers. Based on a mixed-method, in-depth interview study of transnational NGO leaders, we identify specific factors associated with NGOs’ effectiveness reputations among their peers. Larger, older, more highly visible organizations, organizations adopting hybrid strategies, and organizations headquartered outside of Washington, DC enjoy higher reputations for organizational effectiveness. Our analysis provides context for understanding the influence of transnational NGOs in world affairs and offers insight into the role of reputation in global politics more generally.     

Media Coverage and EPA Pesticide Decisions

In this paper, we analyze the effect of media coverageon EPA pesticide decisions. We hypothesize that mediacoverage influences the distribution of opinions inthe general public and that EPA decision makersrespond to these opinions. We develop a revealedpreference model that includes media coverage andpublic opinion. We test the model by extending theanalysis of Cropper et al. (1992) to include mediacoverage. We find that the media coverage ofpesticides has a non-linear effect on EPA pesticidedecisions.