bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Analysing Public Expenditure: (2) Operating Purposes and Statistical Design
Authors: Copeman Harold
Published: November 2008

The first of these papers (Copeman, 1981) gave a general description of the British system of public expenditure, and of the different price bases required in times of inflation, and considered recent changes and possible simplification.

The present paper considers how and why the figures (on a given price base) are designed as they are, relating this to requirements of Parliamentary or governmental control (central or local), to operational efficiency, and to the need for open exposition of intentions and restraints. Examples are given from allocations to the Health Service. There are various degrees of control and audit of money voted to non-governmental bodies; where does public expenditure end? Are their accounts in line with control requirements? The comprehensiveness of expenditure planning in the United Kingdom, compared with most other countries, and the extension beyond the year ahead, has been a severe technical challenge. There is an interesting field of research into up-to-date international comparisons. An appendix discusses figures published for public expenditure, general government, central government and local authorities and provides a guide to sources of data about all aspects of public expenditure in Britain.
Incremental Budgeting: Antecedents of Change
Authors: Greenwood Royston
Published: November 2008

The article examines the variables which preclude or facilitate shifts or change in patterns of budgeting within governments. Emphasis is placed upon the connection between systems of budgeting and underlying structures of ideas and values which constitute organisational ‘myths’. Drawing upon the literatures of political science and organisational analysis the paper identifies a combination of factors which facilitate the erosion of the legitimacy of prevailing myths and lead to their displacement. This thesis is empirically examined using data from twenty English local authorities.
The Structure and Organization of Government: Concepts and Issues
Authors: Peters B. Guy
Published: November 2008

The most basic question about the structure and organization of government is Why we should be concerned about this question at all?' Many of us trained in political science programs during the behavioral revolution were taught to believe that the structures of government were insignificant as a focus for research. The structures ofgovernment became encapsulated in an opaque black box; that part of the political system where decisions were made. Fortunately, this view no longer prevails and there is increasing interest in structural questions, in part generated by the increasing interest in the state as a focus for political inquiry (Dyson, 1980; Benjamin and Elkin, 1985). Much of the work on the state as yet, however, leaves that concept largely undifferentiated and has not dealt systematically with the structure of the state apparatus. Thus, concern for the development of state theory, as well as the concerns of those interested in public policy, has returned structural questions to a more central position in political science.
From the Dark to the Light: The Open Government Debate in Britain
Authors: Bennett Colin
Published: November 2008

The campaign in Britain to reduce official secrecy has had a number of broad and ill-defined objectives. This article argues that four basic values underpin demands for more open government: to promote more ethical conduct; to enhance executive accountability; to advance more informed policy-making; and to help individual citizens and groups advance particular rights and interests. This analytical framework is then applied to the three main strategies of open government that have so far been pursued. First, it is argued that the reform of Section 2 of the 1911 Official Secrets Act, while legally desirable, will not promote any of the above values. Second, a freedom of information act would principally satisfy the fourth objective, while providing more executive accountability on a pragmatic basis. Finally, an analysis of official publications released under the Croham Directive reveals that the British interpretation of open government, the discretionary release of consultative documents, has been designed and implemented to reinforce the dominant policy style of bureaucratic accommodation.
Local Government Reorganization and the Development of the Welfare State
Authors: Kjellberg Francesco
Published: November 2008

This article attempts to analyze the reorganization of local government, perceiving it as a general phenomenon in the modern state. While occurring in most developed societies, the reforms at the sub-national level do not seem to have followed a common pattern; they have been introduced and combined in different ways. Accordingly, two main questions have to be raised. Why have so many developed societies gone through some kind of reorganization? And why has the reorganization taken place at different stages and in different forms? A general, but somewhat unsatisfactory answer is that this trend reflects the expansion of the public sector. A more specific answer requires a differentiation between (a) various categories of reform, (b) different stages in the development of the welfare state and (c) varying ideological perspectives. After an elaboration of these analytical tools, the article illustrates such a structural approach through a description of the reorganization process in Norway and Sweden.
Keeping Kosher: The Epistemology of Tax Expenditures
Authors: Wildavsky Aaron
Published: November 2008

Not long ago, I found myself at an athletic breakfast. Having long supported a broader-based, lower-rate income tax, with fewer tax preferences, I was dismayed to discover a letter from an administrator requesting all present to protest against the new reform on the grounds that by weakening tax preferences it would reduce contributions to the University in general and sports in particular. To this special interest – all interests are special to those who care about them – one can add, among numerous others, museums, opera companies, and sports franchises. Indeed, until I started writing this review, I was unaware of how tax preferences help increase the salaries of athletes. These franchises make substantial income from box seats bought by corporations that can write them off as business expenses. Absent this subsidy, franchise income, hence allowable salaries, would be less. Do we want to subsidize athletes? Or owners? How is this to be avoided while protecting the busboys, waiters, and other people who depend on the ablity of businessmen to write off meals and drinks?
Contention and Compromise: a Comparative Analysis of Budgetary Politics
Authors: Cusack Thomas R.
Published: November 2008

This paper attempts to place the role of defense spending within the overall context of the budgetary process. Using an extended version of the ‘Competing Aspirations Level Model’ based on the behavioral theory of decision-making, major budgetary aggregates, total spending, defense spending, exhaustive civilian expenditures, and capital outlays, are modelled as outcomes of independently generated aspirations, based on parochial organizational and environmental influences, and a reconciliation process reflecting the bargaining power of budgetary agents. An empirical assessment of the model's performance is conducted using the experience of thirteen national governments, including seven western industrialized states and six developing states. The results of this statistical analysis suggest that the model provides a useful basis for understanding and comparing budgetary processes and outcomes.
From the Positive to the Regulatory State: Causes and Consequences of Changes in the Mode of Governance
Authors: Majone Giandomenico
Published: November 2008

Since the late 1970s European governments have been forced to change their traditional modes of governance in response to such trends as increasing international competition and deepening economic and monetary integration within the European Union. Strategic adaptation to the new realities has resulted in a reduced role for the positive, interventionist state and a corresponding increase in the role of the regulatory state: rule making is replacing taxing and spending. The paper's first part identifies three sets of strategies leading to the growth of the regulatory state as external or market regulator, and as internal regulator of decentralised administration. The second part examines major structural changes induced by changes in regulatory strategies. The institutional and intellectual legacy of the interventionist state is a major impediment to the speedy adjustment of governance structures to new strategies. It would be unwise to underestimate the difficulties of the transition from the positive to the regulatory state, but it is important to realise that international competition takes place not only among producers of goods and services but also, increasingly, among regulatory regimes. Regulatory competition will reward regimes in which institutional innovations do not lag far behind the new strategic choices.
International Games With National Rules: How Regulation Shapes Competition in ‘Global’ Markets
Authors: Vogel Steven K.
Published: November 2008

In the most global of industries, such as telecommunications and finance, international competition remains governed primarily by national regulations. When multiple national regulators govern international markets, the regulators themselves compete. But do they compete in laxity, trying to reduce regulation as much as possible, or do they compete in regulatory subsidy, trying to rig regulations to favor domestic firms? These questions are examined in Britain and Japan. In telecommunications and finance there has been no single global trend toward regulatory laxity or regulatory subsidy; national regulations still set the terms for international competition; the game of regulatory competition is so complex that it is difficult to find any single strategy for winning; and national authorities will continue to have difficulty in shifting regulation to the international level.
Direct Democracy and Public Policymaking
Authors: Wagschal Uwe
Published: November 2008

What is the impact of direct democracy, e.g. referendums, on public policymaking? The study will present data for Switzerland, the United States, Australia and Germany leading to the conclusion that direct democracy is an effective, but flexible veto player against expansive spending and taxation. The level of public expenditure and taxation is significantly lower in countries that have elements of direct democracy compared to pure representative democracies. Several theoretical arguments support this finding. For example, the social discount rate of voters is lower than that of politicians. Also direct democracy is related to the benefit principle in public finance. Taxpayers want their payments to be related to public services they receive. They are therefore inclined to veto projects not reflecting their preferences. Moreover, referenda have an implicit restraining effect on governments and the mere threat can reduce their capacity to act.
Industrial Policies in OECD Countries: An Overview
Authors: McKay David , Grant Wyn
Published: November 2008

Since the financial economic crises of the early 1970s the debate about economic and industrial affairs has intensified everywhere with, in many countries,the focus of economic policy shifting from demand to supply side remedies. What is striking about the post-1974 pattern is the extent to which countries have diverged in economic performance. The results of attempts to explain these differences are contradictory both between and within academic disciplines, though there is general agreement that the microeconomic policies of government can, and in most cases have, affected economic performance. The objectives of the papers in this special issue are (1)to describe the nature of the industrial policy agenda in each country; (2) to describe the instruments available and the scale of assistance provided to industry directly or indirectly; (3) to provide an outline of the institutional and political context in which policy is formulated in each country. Three broad comparative conclusions can be drawn: (1) we should not be too dogmatic about inferring the preconditions (e.g. type of party competition or bureaucratic structure) for apparently ‘successful’ policies; (2) the pursuit of a coherent industrial strategy appears to depend on socio/political condition which have been present in some countries but absent in others, such as a broad acceptance among political elites on the need to play an active part in helping industry to adapt to change and the existence of good communications between political/bureaucratic and economic actors, including a broad acceptance by private investors of the need for government intervention ; (3) even in countries which meet these conditions, particular industrial strategies change over time, sometimes dramatically, though this suggests that these countries have a greater capacity to adapt to change, particularly in response to external events, than countries characterised by policy inertia or policy confusion.
French Planning and Industrial Policy
Authors: Estrin Saul , Holmes Peter
Published: November 2008

This paper deals with the contribution of economic planning to French industrial policy and performance. This was highly significant until the mid 1960s but declined thereafter due to a combination of economic and political factors. The inherent problems of across-the-board regulation in a complex industrial economy reinforced the displacement of the planners from the traditional French elite. In the late 1970s, planning had begun again to provide an informational support to other policies for restructuring industry in the face of the world market. The paper ends with an evaluation of the Mitterrand government's aspirations for more dirigiste industrial planning.
Regulation and Regime: A Comparative Analysis
Authors: Elkin Stephen L.
Published: November 2008

Two frameworks for understanding the debate on regulation are discussed. In the first, an economizing perspective, various institutional arrangements are seen as instruments and the question posed is which is the most efficient in achieving public objectives. The second, a political perspective, begins from economizers' lack of interest in the basic organizing principles of the political structure within which the choice of regulatory arrangements occurs. Conceptions of such principles in the American case are considered and the implications of each for the choice of regulatory institutions are addressed. A parallel discussion is undertaken for the United Kingdom. The paper concludes by noting, among other things, that from a political perspective, an extensive regulatory sector looks more attractive than it does from an economizing perspective.
Satellite Broadcasting Policies and the Question of Sovereignty in Western Europe
Authors: Dyson Kenneth , Humphreys Peter
Published: November 2008

The article examines the manner in which public-policy for satellite broadcasting has been made in West Germany and France, the two countries currently leading developments in satellite broadcasting technology in Western Europe. A special theme of the two case studies is that of the complex relations and potential contradictions between industrial/technological policy and broadcasting policy, between the wider economics of satellite broadcasting and its cultural dimension. The article demonstrates a common pattern, as policy makers in both countries have been constrained to develop a broker role between competing aims and between national/regional pressures and international pressures. Nevertheless, both ideological and structural differences remained of enduring importance in establishing the parameters of policy making, and produced different, as well as similar, policy outcomes in the two countries. The question of ‘sovereignty’ is also set within the wider European context and the article examines responses at this latter level, in particular the European Community.
Creeping Universalism in the Welfare State: Evidence from Australia
Authors: Goodin Robert E. , Grand Julian Le
Published: November 2008

There are good reasons to suppose that the non-poor will infiltrate welfare programmes originally targeted on the poor. This paper discusses this phenomenon of ‘creeping universalisation’ and provides a number of possible explanations for it. Evidence is used from Australia to show that creeping universalisation does indeed occur, and to test the competing explanations. It is concluded that the most likely explanation for the phenomenon is individual behavioural responses: that is, the non-poor respond to the imposition of a means-test by re-arranging their affairs, legitimately or illegitimately, so as to pass the test.
Mrs. Thatcher's Employment Prescription: An Active Neo-Liberal Labor Market Policy
Authors: Robertson David Brian
Published: November 2008

Though each of the capitalist democracies has developed a similar battery of programs for mitigating labor market problems, politically significant differences in strategy underlie superficial similarities. By the 1970s, labor market strategies could be distinguished by three models: a passive social democratic orguardianstrategy (Britain), an active social democratic oregalitarianstrategy (Sweden), and a passive neo-liberal orbusiness-centeredstrategy (United States). In response to high unemployment, the Thatcher government has resurrected a long dormant fourth strategy that combines neo-liberal principles with an active state. This active neo-liberal ormarket-centeredapproach seeks a workforce that is less organised, has greater wage disparities, and is more adaptable to business needs. The government's activism is evident in the growth of the Manpower Services Commission, both in absolute terms and relative to passive compensatory measures. Its neo-liberalism is evident in reducing structural impediments to lower wages, increasing incentives for individual initiative, and revamping employment and training schemes along neo-liberal lines. These efforts correlate with decreasing levels of union membership, increasing self-employment, and increasing wage disparities in the British economy, trends that are, by the government's criteria, improvements.
Popular Sovereignty and the Search for Appropriate Institutions
Authors: March James G. , Olsen Johan P.
Published: November 2008

This paper is about criteria for assessing alternative political institutions in a society committed to popular sovereignty. The issues are classic, and we do not attempt a comprehensive review of the ways in which they run through political and economic thought since Aristotle. An aggregative perspective on political institutions, which describes politics in terms of aggregating exogenous, prior preferences of citizens, is contrasted with an integrative perspective, which describes politics more in terms of the development of preferences within a framework of rights and norms. The evaluation of aggregative processes and institutions highlights questions of efficiency, preferences, and endowments. The evaluation of integrative institutions focuses on questions of competence and integrity. Many of the most influential contemporary discussions of political institutions are based on an aggregative framework that is relatively inattentive to issues of political integration. This contemporary emphasis on metaphors of aggregation, however, represents a phase in a history of oscillation between aggregation and integration in politics and political theory, and there are signs that the emphasis may shift in the next few decades to a greater consciousness of integration. Although the cyclic process is not escaped through awareness of it, such awareness may provide a basis for a more thoughtful approach to the search for appropriate institutions within a political system dedicated to popular sovereignty.
The Middle Classes and the Welfare State under Conservative and Labour Governments
Authors: Grand Julian Le , Winter David
Published: November 2008

The Conservative Government elected in Britain in 1979 wished to change the extent and pattern of government expenditure. We use econometric techniques to investigate whether it did so in the period up to 1984, concentrating attention on the welfare state. We also test the hypothesis that the observed changes favoured the middle classes. After discussing the channels by which the middle classes influence government policy, a model of government behaviour is outlined. The theoretical model indicates the forms of specification error that we might expect in our econometric results, which, in turn, suggest that the Conservatives tended to favour the middle classes, while the previous Labour administrations did not. However, the estimates for the Labour period appear to be misspecified, but those for the Conservative period survived tests of misspecification.
Income Security Policies in the United States: The Inevitability and Consequences of Retrenchment
Authors: Palmer John L.
Published: November 2008

During the 1960s and early 1970s, strong economic growth and highly expansionary income security policies led to considerable progress for the entire American population with respect to major income security goals. However, in the last fifteen years much of this progress has been either arrested or reversed, particularly for the non-aged, as economic growth slowed and income security policies ceased to expand and, in some cases, contracted. This retrenchment was the inevitable consequence of numerous phenomena which preceded, and were reinforced by the Reagan era. American income security policies are not likely to contract generally in the future, nor to resume expanding in a direction characteristic of many Western European welfare states. Rather, the prospects are for slow economic growth, higher targetting of programs by income in some areas, and marginal expansions requiring minimal new commitments of public resources in others. Major income security problems, especially among the lower income population, will remain.
INTRODUCTION The Politics of Unemployment
Authors: Keman Hans
Published: November 2008

One may wonder why political scientists would bother about the analysis of questions relating to rates of unemployment. In effect, should not this be part of economic science? Economists are generally seen as better equipped with theories on the micro and macro level to deal with issues regarding labour market performance, the development of employment and the explanation of volatile rates of unemployment and inflation. This view is held by the majority of the economic science guild and by many policy-makers.
Outcomes of Nuclear Technology Policy: Do Varying Political Styles Make a Difference?
Authors: Rüdig Wolfgang
Published: November 2008

The paper looks at the outcomes of nuclear technology policies in five advanced Western industrialised countries which have developed major nuclear construction industries. The genesis, development and dissemination of thermal nuclear reactors is examined and found to be influenced by a range of non-technical factors. Various concepts of ‘political styles’ are explored. Different styles of technological development are identified with reference to the networks of actors relevant to the development of thermal reactor technology, taking particular account of the resources of different actors and their interrelationship. Three distinctive styles are found, associated with three different technological outcomes, two of which are associated with policy success. We conclude that political styles do make a difference, but that their applicability to the explanation of outcomes of technology policy is dependent on the resources of individual actors and the specific demands set by the technological, economic and political context.
Lumpy Goods and Cheap Riders: An Application of the Theory of Public Goods to International Alliances
Authors: Thompson Fred
Published: November 2008

Mancur Olson and Richard Zeckhauser's ‘An Economic Theory of Alliances’ has been described as ‘the best known application of the theory’ of collective (or public) goods. In that article, Olson and Zeckhauser advanced the claim that America's Western European Allies (and by implication, Japan as well) are all, more or less, ‘free riders.’ Yet, more than twenty years later, the meaning of this claim remains very much in doubt. This article outlines Olson and Zeckhauser's basic argument and conclusions and the evidence against their argument; explains how application of the ‘free rider’ thesis to the problem of collective security can be revised in the light of contemporary thinking about the provision of collective goods; presents some preliminary tests of this formulation; and suggests a few of the implications of this analysis for the formulation of United States defense policy.
Political Conflict and Lesson-Drawing
Authors: Robertson David Brian
Published: November 2008

Political adversaries have reason and opportunity to use foreign lessons to gain advantage in political conflicts. Political factors strongly affect the way public policy lessons are drawn and transformed into public policy. Political opponents contest the value, practicality, and transferability of policy initiatives in order to bias the outcome. The paper hypothesizes that (i) the politicization of lesson-drawing induces issue experts to emphasize the descriptive and technical aspects of programs; (2) gives an incentive to advocates of change to use lessons to advance their position during the agenda-setting process; and (3) gives opponents of change an incentive to draw counterbalancing negative lessons from foreign experience when a proposed lesson reaches the point where adoption is entirely possible. The 1988 Congressional debate over mandatory plant closing prenotification provides evidence supporting hypotheses. The paper further hypothesizes: (4) most polities will not adopt both conservative and liberal programs even when theoretically they could do so; and (5) the degree to which a population of polities adopt a particular lesson will be a function of the program's economic and politicial feasibility. The diffusion of labor market and income maintenance policies across the American states supports both of these claims.
Military Expenditures Worldwide: Determinants and Trends, 1972–1988
Authors: Hewitt Daniel
Published: November 2008

This paper examines trends in world military expenditures and offers an econometric examination of their determinants in 125 countries from 1972 to 1988. A simultaneous equation framework based on a public choice model shows military expenditures as a ratio of GDP to be influenced by the level of GDP, central government expenditures, other financial indicators, the form of government, and geographical characteristics of countries. The study also examines the opportunity cost of military expenditures and analyzes the budgetary trade-off between military, social, and development expenditures. Although military expenditures may benefit a given country, they may also have a negative impact on the welfare of rival nations. Hence a coordinated reduction in military expenditures that does not alter the strategic balance will increase economic wellbeing in the world.
Labor Force Attitudes in the Transition to the Market: the Czechoslovak Case
Authors: Večerník Jiří
Published: November 2008

Changes of labor market attitudes in a post-centrally planned economy are examined on the basis of survey data in terms of the production and utilization of human capital; work incentives and rewards; private ownership and job allocation; work perspectives and unemployment; and the role of the state. The transitory period is confused. The transformation of post-communist countries is being carried out when the era of market regulation is over in the West and state guardianship in the labor market is being eroded, but in Central and Eastern Europe the inheritance of institutions and attitudes from the era of central planning remain palpably present, and surveys show that the population of working age has not yet fully perceived the extent of what is required to achieve the transformation to a market economy.
Inequlity, the National Health Service and Health Policy
Authors: Maynard Alan , Ludbrook Anne
Published: November 2008

The National Health Service (NHS) was founded in 1948 to replace an inefficient, ill-coordinated and financially unstable health care system and to reduce the barriers to the consumption of health care. In this article, it is argued that the geographic and social class equity objectives of the NHS have been poorly specified and that attempts to achieve them through government policy have been inadequate. The renewed interest in inequalities in health and health care and the problems of formulating and implementing policies aimed at reducing inequalities are discussed in general terms in section 1. Section 2 examines the inequalities of health care provision that were inherited in 1948, the development of policies to mitigate the problem and the current situation. Alternative demand and supply side policies to reduce inequalities in health and health care are presented in section 3. A summary of the proceeding arguments is set out in section 4.
Policy Learning and Failure
Authors: May Peter J.
Published: November 2008

Multiple knowledges are available for utilisation in policy choice. The rank ordering of knowledges for use in decisionmaking is thus a fundamental predecision. This article shows how this predecision necessarily constrains the processes associated with a politics of ideas, using cases from American international commodity policy. Even when the supposed preconditions of this sort of politics are present, policy change did not occur when the proposed ideas arose from a knowledge accorded secondary status in policymaking circles. Several implications are discussed for the influence and the study of ideational politics. Ultimately, the politics of ideas, so often portrayed through cases of innovation, may be quite conservative, contained by knowledge hierarchies which reflect prior politicaxl circumstances.
Corporatism, Pluralism and Political Learning: A Systems Approach
Authors: Stewart Jenny
Published: November 2008

Whether corporatism matters or not is one of the most difficult and intriguing questions confronting policy analysts. One approach to the problem not previously adopted is to use systems analysis as a means of teasing out the implications of general structural differences between corporatist and pluralist polities. By using a framework derived from the systems analysis of Easton but incorporating elements of political competition and accountability, it is shown that corporatist and pluralist states differ significantly in the ways in which they process information and generate support. The combination of centralisation and consensus proves to be the key to the apparently greater learning capacity of corporatist systems. The analysis suggests that policymaking may itself be better understood as a learning mechanism rather than as an allocative process.
The Influence of Financial Measures on UK Railway Policy
Authors: Lapsley Irvine
Published: November 2008

This paper explores the tension between social and commercial criteria and the importance of the nature of available information in influencing policymaking towards commercial or quasi-commercial activities such as transport undertakings. The importance of financial criteria as key indicators which influence railway policy is established by reference to significant landmarks in the corporate existence of British Rail. An underlying conflict between this information and the declared policies of successive governments is exposed. This reveals that, not only are policy-makers constrained by the difficulties of providing more appropriate information, but they are also the victims of their own reluctance to implement effectively policies which would actually improve existing sources of information.
The Transition to Democracy in Central Europe: A Comparative View
Authors: Ágh Attila
Published: November 2008

The collapse of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe has also caused the collapse of old-fashioned studies of Communist systems that subscribed to a simple notion of totalitarian uniformity, or a static belief in the continuance of self-equilibrating cycles within socialist states. To understand what is happening in Central and Eastern Europe today we need to be discriminating in a choice of paradigms. European conceptions of democracy as having a socio-economic as well as political dimension are more relevant than formalist American definitions. Moreover, Europe, in the form of the European Community, is also a much more immediate influence than the United States upon what is happening in Central or Eastern Europe. The transition to democracy in Southern Europe provides encouraging models for ex-Soviet satellites. The failure of Latin American countries to democratize provides warnings, such as the risk that Presidential government can produce dictatorship or instability, a risk that is present in new democracies in Europe too.
Reconsidering Policy Design: Policies and Publics
Authors: May Peter J.
Published: November 2008

One of the emerging areas in the public policy literature concerns new modes of thought about the construction and analysis of public policy. This article extends notions about politics within the ‘policy design’ literature by considering the implications of different political environments for policy design and implementation. Two different political environments – policies with and without publics – that form ends of a continuum of policy publics are discussed. A contrast is drawn between these two polar political environments with respect to differing policy design and implementation challenges, as well as with respect to differing opportunities for policy learning.
Public Choice Theory Applied to National Energy Policy: The Case of France
Authors: Feldman David Lewis
Published: November 2008

Public choice theory offers a conceptually important means of examining policy decisions and their social and economic consequences in the field of natural resources. Through a public choice analysis of France's ambitious program to nuclearize its electrical industry by the year 2000, I examine the origins, merits and deficiencies of French nuclear policy. Public choice theory's major assumptions – that a policy's costs and benefits are a function of resource abundance and level of development and that a resource's management is shaped by its character and availability – are largely valid. However, the need to reconcile competing social values and to distribute policy benefits fairly may be insufficiently accounted for by current public choice approaches, a fact exemplified by French experience with nuclear power.
Privatization: Towards a Concept for Comparative Policy Analysis
Authors: Lundqvist Lennart J.
Published: November 2008

Affected by the ideological symbolism and political controversy surrounding privatization, much of the work on this subject is marred by definitional uncertainty; what should be included in the concept? To get away from this, and to prepare the ground for meaningful comparative analysis of the phenomenon, I propose both a definition and a taxonomy. I argue that it is the active and conscious transfer of reponsibility from the public to the private realm that should form the core of the concept. Furthermore, I argue that neither the principles for, nor the level of, provision of goods and services should be included in the definition. Finally, I propose that the taxonomy should be based on the public/private dichotomy of responsibility allocation included in the definition, as well as on three main activities in goods and services production which the government could privatize; regulation, financing, and production.
The Economic Content of Security
Authors: Luciani Giacomo
Published: November 2008

The economic content of security, i.e. to what extent security is influenced by economic variables, is a difficult and widely debated one. There has been a tendency, to broaden the concept of security to include certain purely economic interests. The paper is concerned with a precise understanding of the difference between a narrow and territorial definition of security, and a broader definition of security encompassing economic interests. The first section defines security and its economic ramifications and the second discusses the subject within the context of a general equilibrium model. The policy dilemmas of security are then considered at the conceptual level, including the dilemmas in the general equilibrium model.
Explaining Policy Failure: Japan and the International Economy, 1969–1971
Authors: Angel Robert C.
Published: November 2008

This paper examines the determinants of Japan's most serious postwar blunder: failure to define and implement effective and timely counter-measures to deal with its change from deficit to surplus international monetary status during the 1969–1971 period. It concludes that intense bureaucratic compartmentalization and a lack of supra-ministerial leadership of national policy were key determinants of this failure, leaving Japan's political system dependent upon irresistible external pressure (gai-atsu,) in this case from the United States, to define and force implementation of necessary policy changes. This critical but largely ignored episode illustrates a negative aspect of the traditional insulation of Japan's national bureacracy from political (as opposed to administrative) interference in the definition and pursuit of basic national policy objectives.
Path Dependency, or Why History Makes It Difficult but Not Impossible to Reform Health Care Systems in a Big Way
Authors: Wilsford David
Published: November 2008

The idea of path-dependency is applied to an examination of health policy reform in Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States. In the path-dependent model, actors are hemmed in by existing institutions and structures that channel them along established policy paths. Therefore, in any system, big (non-incremental) change is unlikely. However, sometimes we do observe big change. Why? By developing the interplay of structure with conjuncture, the occasional accomplishment of big change - in spite of path dependency - can be systematically understood.
Policy Networks and Industrial Revitalization: High Speed Rail Initiatives in France and Germany
Authors: Dunn James A. , Perl Anthony
Published: November 2008

Using Atkinson and Coleman's typology of policy networks, this article shows how many of the differences in policy outcomes can be traced to the structure of the policy environment in each nation. French and Germany policy makers adopted a strategy of investing in high speed passenger transport to revitalize their declining railway sectors. The French TGV was developed in a state-directed policy network which insisted on cost containment and commercial viability. In Germany a corporatist style of policymaking in the rail sector led to delays and higher costs for the ICE train. A separate clientele pluralist network led by the Research Ministry developed the Transrapid maglev option, but in order to finance and deploy an operational system, the Chancellor and cabinet had to create a concertation network. The policy network approach provides a useful framework for conducting comparative analysis. In addition, these detailed cases suggest that it is useful to add a dynamic, cross-temporal dimension to the static typology.
Creeping Competence: The Expanding Agenda of the European Community
Authors: Pollack Mark A.
Published: November 2008

The article attempts to explain the expansion of the European Community (EC) policy agenda to new policy areas such as the environment, regional development and research and technological development, and the variations in policy development from one area to another. Lowi's classification of policy types-regulatory, redistributive and distributive-is adapted for use in the EC context. Each policy type, it is argued, deals with a distinct arena featuring different actors, different institutional decision rules, and different types of Council bargaining, and each therefore corresponds to a distinctive pattern of task expansion. Thus, regulatory policies can be explained in terms of functional spillover from the Internal Market, while redistributive policies can be understood as side-payments in larger intergovernmental bargains, and distributive policies are the result of the Commission's policy entrepreneurship and log-rolling Council bargaining. These three patterns of task expansion are examined in an empirical study of policy development across six areas.
Convergence in Policy Outcomes: Social Security Systems in Perspective
Authors: Overbye Einar
Published: November 2008

A central question in the welfare state debate has been whether or not social policies in industrialized countries converge. Originally linked to the logic of industrialism perspective, this idea has been criticized by researchers focusing on differences in timing and differences in the institutional set up of social security schemes across countries. Nonetheless, I argue that social security arrangements in European as well as Anglo-American countries may gradually become more similar. Using pension politics as the primary example, the article locates similar social and political mechanisms at work in different countries, pushing toward convergence in policy outcomes, despite persistent variation in institutional arrangements. In the final section of the article, I extract a model from the analysis, aimed at explaining political change while maintaining a connection between the micro and macro level of analysis.
Don't Toss Coins in Garbage Cans: A Prologue to Policy Design
Authors: Dryzek John S.
Published: November 2008

Threats to effective policy-making arising from ubiquitous circumstances of complexity and uncertainty are often taken as reasons to eschew both the attacking of social problems through public policy and cogitation, such as policy analysis, in the policy process. It is suggested here that, as complexity and uncertainty increase, more cogitation is required, not less; but it is crucial that cogitation be of the appropriate sort. Greater use should be made of policy design, as opposed to methods emphasising selection among prespecified alternatives. The required design task varies with the level of difficulty – defined by complexity, uncertainty, and lack of feedback – in any case at hand. A taxonomy of levels of difficulty is developed, together with a preliminary outline of the design task required at each level.
Appraising Selective Financial Assistance to Industry: A Review of Institutions and Methodologies in the United Kingdom, Sweden and West Germany
Authors: Grant R. M.
Published: November 2008

The ability to forecast and evaluate the impact of selective financial assistance is crucial to the formulation of effective policies of selective industrial intervention. A survey of institutions and methodology across the three countries reveals inadequacies in the quality and the extent of governments’ appraisal of industrial assistance measures. The principal problems of quantitative appraisal are identified and discussed and suggestions are made for improvements in the procedures and methods of appraisal, with the purpose of improving the formulation and the implementation of policies of selective industrial assistance.
The Impact of Old Politics and New Politics Value Orientations on Party Choice – A Comparative Study
Authors: Knutsen Oddbjørn
Published: November 2008

Relationships between five central value orientations and party choice are examined in a comparative West European setting by using the second wave of the European Values Study from 1990. These orientations comprise two central conflict lines related to the Old Politics model for political cleavages, namely religious/secular and left-right materialist value orientations, and three new sets of value orientation which, according to theories of New Politics, should become important in advanced industrial society. The research problems are: To examine the comparative strength of the impact of the various value orientations on party preference in a comparative West European setting; To examine how voters of different party families are grouped along the various value orientations. Which parties have the most secular or religious, leftist materialist and post-materialist electorate, and are there consistent comparative patterns concerning where the voters for given party families are placed?; To focus upon the impact of the New Politics value conflicts.
The Declining Role of Western Powers in International Organizations: Exploring a New Model of U.N. Burden Sharing
Authors: Kwon Gi-Heon
Published: November 2008

Collective-action theory suggests that a country's economic size determines its contribution to international organizations, with large economies paying a disproportionate percentage of their GNP for maintenance of these organizations. This paper argues against this reigning paradigm, finding that it fails to predict current contribution patterns in the United Nations (UN). Instead, the paper offers a more elaborate model of burden sharing that takes into account the domestic political setting and international setting that helps determine a nation's contribution to international organizations.
Paradigm Shifts and Policy Networks: Cumulative Change in Agriculture
Authors: Coleman William D. , Skogstad Grace D. , Atkinson Michael M.
Published: November 2008

This article presents an alternative trajectory to policy paradigm change to that outlined by Peter A. Hall's social learning model, in which unsuccessful efforts by state officials to respond to policy failures and anomalies in the existing paradigm eventually trigger a broader, societal, political partisan debate about policy principles. From this society-wide contestation over policy goals, problems, and solutions, a new policy paradigm emerges. Drawing on the conceptual tools of policy feedback and policy networks, this article describes an alternative route to paradigm shift in which change is negotiated between state actors and group representatives. Discussions of change are largely confined to sectoral policy networks and the result is a more managed series of policy changes that culminate in a paradigm shift. This argument for a second, cumulative trajectory to paradigm shift is developed by examining agricultural policy change in three countries: the United States, Canada, and Australia.
Instruments of Government: Perceptions and Contexts
Authors: Linder Stephen H. , Peters B. Guy
Published: November 2008

Government uses a wide variety of instruments to reach its policy goals, ranging from indirect methods, such as moral suasion and cash inducements, to more direct ones involving government provision of services. Although there has been a fair amount of writing on the nature and use of various policy instruments, there is very little work on either the meaning ascribed to these instruments by the decisionmakers who use them (or the experts who design them) or the processes by which some come to be favored over others. Characteristics of the political system, such as national policy style, the organizational setting of the decisionmaker, and the problem situation are all likely to have some influence over the choice of instruments. The relative impact of these variables, however, is likely to be mediated by subjective factors linked to cognition. Perceptions of the proper ‘tool to do the job’ intervenes between context and choice in a complex way. Efforts to account for variation in instrument choice, then, must focus not only on macro level variables but on micro ones as well.