bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Black Minority Participation in the USA and Britain
Authors: Jacobs Brian 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTLittle attention has been paid to the comparative study of the politics and administration of race in the USA and Britain. There exist certain important similarities between the two countries particularly with regard to the way in which even militant leaders are willing to co-operate with centrally funded community agencies and to moderate their demands to gain political and economic returns for their organisations from government. There are, however, structural differences between American and British community bodies which affect the success of those institutions in obtaining the allegiance of community militants and in more fully integrating moderate leaderships into local level participatory processes. In the USA the system encourages an apparently high degree of ‘voluntarism’ and ‘independence’ from direct central control through relative institutional autonomy. This is more conducive to group co-operation than Britain's more centralised community relations framework with its closer direct association with government and the so-called ‘white power structure’. Because, therefore, of the American version of ‘independence’ groups there are actually more effectively integrated than the British into governmentally funded institutions.
Why Have Government Statistics? (And How to Cut their Cost)
Authors: Thomas Ray 
Published: November 2008

AbstractIntra-orgartisationally statistics are commonly perceived, both in government and in other organisations, as a tool of management. But the dominant function of statistics is to contribute to inter- and intra-organisational coordination. The value of statistics lies in their use as an instrument of self-management. The paper identifies an unacknowledged degree of participation by users in statistical systems and advocates an ought-to-know principle for the design of such systems. The ought-to-know principle should guide the distribution of statistics within governmental organisations and policy for statistical publication. Contributor and user organisations (e.g. local government and private firms) should play a greater part in deciding what statistics should be collected and how they should be distributed and could well share responsibility for meeting the costs.
Whither Environmental Regulation?
Authors: Daneke Gregory A. 
Published: November 2008

AbstractDespite all the rhetoric, efforts to reform environmental regulation in the United States offer little promise of relief. Incapacitating the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and shifting responsibilities to the states hardly insures a less burdensome situation for the business community. At best, basic reform strategies merely add on various efficiency devices (bubbles, cost-benefit analyses, etc.) without addressing issues of overall regulatory performance. Moreover, none of the reform strategies, thus far, get at the underlying statutes and processes of environmental regulation which tend to generate a highly combative milieu. This discussion explores these weaknesses, and forwards an alternative approach, which is similar to regulatory processes in Europe and Canada (involving reduced litigation and increased negotiation).
Bureaucrats and Budgeting Benefits: How do British Central Government Departments Measure Up?
Authors: Hood Christopher , Huby Meg , Dunsire Andrew 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTMany economics-based theories of bureaucracy build on the assumption that public bureaucrats reap utility from a large budget. This article examines what evidence may be marshalled for bureaucratic appropriation of budgetary funds, by reference to measurable changes in British central government departments from the early 1970s to the early 1980s, both at the civil-service-wide level and at the level of departments taken separately and severally. This evidence indicates that, while the budget/utility approach cannot be dismissed entirely, the link between budgetary increases and bureaucratic utility is neither clearly demonstrable nor universally applicable. At the least, a more refined type of budget/utility theory seems to be called for.
Market Strategies as Policy Tools: The Search for Alternative Approaches to Urban Revitalization
Authors: Hula Richard C. 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper explores a broad range of programs which claim to use market forces to generate urban development. It begins with a typology of program types based on a set of programmatic assumptions as to how markets can be manipulated. A series of alternative theoretical positions are then introduced which represent different visions of the market, urban development, and appropriate intervention techniques. It is asserted that each of the program types falls crudely into one of the theoretical perspectives. The paper concludes with the suggestion that program evaluation is relevant to issues other than whether the program ‘worked’. Evaluation can also serve as a test of internal assumptions on which the program is based. Finally, evaluation of concrete programs can be used to assess the relative power of alternative conceptualizations of development and of the market itself.
Undesigned Consequences of Purposive Legislative Action: Alternatives to Implementation
Authors: Dexter Lewis Anthony 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper is an attempt to make more specific the familiar sociological notion of the ‘unanticipated consequences of social action’. Reasons for the relative neglect by practitioners and analysts of the side-effects of legislative action are suggested. The discussion of unintended and unanticipated social action is related to the work of classic sociologists, to theorists of diffusion, and to the study of innovations and inventions. Previous studies of Congress (including those by the author) are shown to have focussed on process and representation at the expense of the legislation itself and its consequences, examples of which are considered in this paper. An economic law about the creation of demands by legislation, explaining the development of many side-effects, is proposed. The relationship between rules expressed in enactments and the whole system of formal and informal rules in the life of a society is explored. A number of considerations for future work are outlined, and the paper concludes by arguing that greater awareness of the problem of side-effects will have two valuable consequences: (1) the identification of general tendencies may help to avoid gross perversion of purposes; (2) even where there are no clear regularities of response, the observation of patterns of side-effects and their correlation with other factors may enable analysts to anticipate likely side-effects and suggest readjustments.
The Determinants of Program Success and Failure
Authors: Wolman Harold 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTRecent social science research – particularly evaluation research and cost-benefit analysis – has produced a substantial and very useful literature on the impact of public policy and on the relationship of program inputs to outputs and outcomes. However, the explicit focus of these analytic techniques on impacts and outcomes does not systematically yield useful information on why programs have been successes or failures. Policy-makers faced with an evaluation of program success or failure obviously need to know something about the why question if they are to make needed adjustments in the program or carry the lessons of one program to other areas. This article attempts to present a comprehensive framework for explaining and understanding program performance. It is meant to have two uses and to serve two clienteles. First, it presents for social scientists a set of research questions to guide research into the determinants of program performance. Second, it provides public policy-makers with a set of action questions which should be asked and answered appropriately in the actual formulating and carrying out of public policy, as a means of enhancing the chances of program success. The framework is divided into two parts, the formulating process and the carrying out process, although these two processes may overlap considerably, both in time and in terms of substantive concerns. Program success may be impeded by problems or inadequacies in one or more of the components in either the formulating stage or the carrying out stage or in both.
Macroeconomic Policy Rules Versus Discretion: Some Analytical Issues
Authors: Sayer S. T. 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTIn the extensive literature on the rules versus discretion debate three related, but logically distinct, areas of debate are frequently confused: the active versus passive policy debate, the rules versus discretion debate proper, and the open-loop (i.e. fixed) rule versus closed-loop (i.e. contingent) rule debate. Section 2 of this paper examines the nature of and interrelations between these three areas of debate. In section 3 the contributions of economic analysis to the debate are explored in an apolitical framework, in particular, the arguments for rules proposed by Friedman and Kydland and Prescott are assessed. Section 4 extends this framework to take into account the political dimension and the rules versus discretion debate is viewed as a cost-benefit problem involving both political and economic factors. A general conclusion is that since the rules versus discretion debate is an exercise in political economy, the debate cannot be properly assessed in the sterile apolitical framework of pure economic analysis.
Personal Information Policies in the United States and Britain: The Dilemma of Implementation Considerations
Authors: Regan Priscilla M. 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTThis article examines how issues of policy implementation affected the formulation and adoption of personal information policies in the United States and Britain. The analysis suggests that when implementation questions are raised during policy formulation, programmatic goals will be compromised to the interests bureaucracies have in implementation. In this case, the goal of protecting the privacy of personal information was sacrified to an implementation framework that protected bureaucratic needs. This poses a dilemma for policy analysts: when implementation questions are left unresolved in policy design, bureaucratic concerns dominate the implementation stage; yet, when implementation questions are resolved in policy design, bureaucratic concerns dominate the formulation stage.
Select Your Social Scientist with Care
Authors: Wyatt Ray 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTA public policy-oriented research project in Australia is used to point out the connections between typical social science motivations, such as moral criticism, truth-seeking and policy-guidance, and the research styles which such motivations produce, such as advocacy, impracticality and expediency. Each style's reliability, fundamentalism and policy applicability are discussed and suggestions are made for testing research validity. Finally, it is shown how policy makers can interpret advice from the different sorts of social scientist more intelligently.
Two Cheers for the Welfare State: Public Opinion and Private Welfare
Authors: Taylor-Gooby Peter 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTIn a democratic society, public policy must claim to provide what people want. One clue to this is the evidence of opinion surveys. Yet, in the field of welfare, surveys set policy analysts a puzzle: evidence about attitudes to what government should be providing displays an ambiguity. Some surveys demonstrate popular preferences for market provision, suppressed to a considerable extent by the coercive system of tax-financed state welfare, and others reveal a high level of satisfaction with and support for existing public welfare services. Both sets of opinions are tinged with a moralistic concern about the regulation of state services for stereotyped undeserving scroungers. The paper suggests that this ambivalence in findings is not simply the result of methodological difficulties: it may reflect an ambiguity in many people's attitudes in this area that is founded on the contrast between the ideology of individual self-interest prevalent in a market society and awareness of common needs for collective provision. Both aspects contribute to people's framework of ideas about the proper role of the state. Evidence from a recent survey is analysed to highlight the contradiction, and support this interpretation.
Strike costs and public policy
Authors: Enderwick Peter 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTStrike costs provide incentives for bargaining parties to seek agreement by effective negotiation. To perform this role efficiently both the magnitude and distribution of such costs are crucial. Despite the apparently low aggregate costs of strikes the extreme concentration of stoppages indicates that costs may be sufficient. The burden of such costs appears inefficient in certain situations. In such cases government intervention may be required. Impending legislative changes in Britain contribute little to strike containment and are likely to manifest their effect in bargaining outcomes as opposed to the bargaining process. Increases in the strike costs suffered by one side in wage negotiations serve only to increase the relative bargaining power of the other side. Reductions in state subsidies to the strike costs suffered by labour appear more effective as a device for controlling wage growth than strike activity. A poor level of understanding of the strike process makes this an area where public policy must incorporate gradualism and pragmatism.
The Home Office and Race Relations Policy: Coordinator and Initiator?
Authors: Nixon Jaqi 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTThis article attempts to analyse why, to quote a recent report from the Home Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons, ‘in the vacuum caused by the Home Office's reluctance to be seen to be interfering, ethnic minority concerns go by default’. It first examines the reasons for placing responsibility for race relations policy with the Home Office and then goes on to detail events within the Home Office in the two years following the introduction of the 1976 Race Relations Act. The article concludes by suggesting that a lack of preparedness for the implementation stage of the policy, together with a diminution of political commitment and the limitations on special funding, discouraged the Home Office from playing a more active and more effective role in coordinating and initiating within central government policies for racial disadvantage.
Management of Industrial Change in a Small Country: The Netherlands
Authors: Tulder Rob Van 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTThe awareness of the structural rather than cyclical nature of economic problems caused a fundamental rethinking of the institutions and instruments of industrial policy in most OECD countries. However, studies have concentrated on a limited number of large countries, with only marginal use being made of the experience of the smaller OECD countries. The need for comparative material becomes relevant since the large economies are increasingly facing the same structural problems as the smaller ones. This article analyses the experience of the Netherlands in comparison with other small European economies. The Netherlands economy is highly intertwined with the other economies of the European Community, particularly Germany. Multinationals (many home-based in the case of the Netherlands) dominate certain sectors of the economy and exports, but smaller companies provide the bulk of employment. The loss of employment since 1970 has mostly resulted from the restructuring of large firms. Government subsidies grew considerably, and proliferated in form, in the 1970s and most went to industries experiencing structural problems. Large firms have tended to benefit most. Criticisms have been made of rescue operations, the risky nature of development credits, the obstacles to the use of schemes by small firms and the cost and ineffectiveness of the investment subsidy account. Because of declining domestic investment, public subsidies accounted for 82 per cent of all private investment by 1982. In the 1980s there has been a move away from tripartite arrangements for discussing and administering industrial subsidies to commissions of ‘independent’ experts, and the degree of organisation in labour unions in the Netherlands, already low, has declined considerably in recent years. The prevalence of centre-right governments in recent years has made it easier to reduce support for individual firms, though large grants for modernisation are made to large firms. The Netherlands appears to be one of the small open countries in which the basic linkages in the model proposed by Cameron have been broken.
Public Expenditure and Economic Performance in OECD Countries
Authors: Saunders Peter 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTThis paper presents data on the size and growth of general government expenditures and receipts relative to GDP in OECD countries over the 1960–81 period. A feature of these trends is the widespread appearance of budget deficits in the mid-seventies, following the sharp increase in government expenditures relative to GDP in the two years immediately after the first oil shock in 1973. Having presented these data, the paper tests several hypotheses relating the size and growth of government to macroeconomic performance using an international cross-section framework. The economic performance indicators used are the rate of economic growth, the rate of consumer price inflation and private sector employment growth. Overall, the results provide little evidence that government size and growth have been detrimental to economic performance, particularly in the period since 1975, although an inverse relation existed in the sixties between government size and economic growth.
The Penetrability of Policy Systems in a Developing Context
Authors: Hofferbert Richard I. , Erguder Ustun 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTDrawing primarily from the Turkish example, this essay examines the fit of the input-output policy model, widely used in West, to less developed countries (LDCs). Three hypotheses are explored. In LDCs, compared to the West: (1) Policy patterns are more subject to political penetration; (2) once implemented, policies have a higher probability of penetrating social conditions; and (3) implementation structures and practices are less penetrable by policy directives.The major bottleneck to innovative policy formation and delivery in LDCs is the implementation process. Bureaucratic resistance and hesitancy to innovate are due to a control rather than service orientation, stemming from the peculiar sequencing of development of state apparatuses vis-a-vis the marketplace. These historical-institutional peculiarities do not appear to detract from the input-output model's ability to spot targets of opportunity for useful policy inquiry in LDCs.
Citizens Strike a Balance: Discontent With Taxes, Content With Spending
Authors: Hadenius Axel 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTThis article presents the findings of a public opinion survey of the level of taxation in Sweden. The study demonstrates that opinions depend to a large extent on the framing of the problem. On general questions regarding taxes, the answers are usually negative. But when asked about both taxes and benefits, people normally express a positive attitude to both. The opinions about different kinds of taxes vary greatly, but the variation does not correspond to the predictions of the fiscal illusion theory. Opinions about taxes can be assigned to three underlying attitude dimensions. A comparison with an earlier Swedish survey shows that discontent with the level of taxation has not increased since the 1960s, with but one exception, marginal taxes.
Comparative Public Policy at the Crossroads
Authors: Heidenheimer Arnold J. 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to acquaint the reader with the intellectual landscape of comparative policy studies, and to raise the level of self-consciousness of scholars active in the field. To this end it discusses why comparative policy studies emerged when and where it did in the 1970s. Then it grapples with the reasons and possible effects of the fact that the very term ‘comparative policy’ is so difficult to translate into non-English languages, and links this to a discussion of problems of conceptual cohesion. The last part assesses the prospects of a field which is seeking to gain and retain intellectual coherence and respect, though not nestled comfortably within a single discipline, and is subject to contending pulls from national and international academic, political and bureaucratic forces.
National Styles and Policy Sectors: Explaining Structured Variation
Authors: Freeman Gary P. 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTA vigorous tradition in comparative politics argues that national policymakers develop characteristic and durable methods for dealing with public issues, that these can be linked to policy outcomes, and that they can be systematically compared. More recently, a number of scholars have suggested reversing the direction of causality, claiming that the nature of political issues themselves causes the politics associated with them. This policy sector approach implies that there should be cross-national similarities in the way issues are treated, whatever the styles particular nations adopt. The two approaches need to be integrated into a common framework built around a research strategy that investigates policymaking within specific sectors across multiple national cases. Such an approach can transcend the often sterile debate over whether the policies of nations are unique or are converging by seeking to explain how the nature of issues structures the variation among the policies of nations.
State-owned Enterprises Between Autonomy and Dependency
Authors: Anastassopoulos Jean-Pierre 
Published: November 2008

ABSTRACTThe relationship between the state and its own enterprises may be analyzed at three different levels: a rational-economic level, where what is good for the state-owned enterprise may oppose what is good for the state as a whole; an organizational level, where such conflicts are aggravated by a power struggle; and a political level, where the arbitrating authority is seen as an individual member of the government. If state-owned enterprises are to serve national goals and be efficiently managed, their relationship with the state must be improved. First, the state should set the state-owned enterprise's general objectives, approve its proposed strategy, and refrain from intervening any further in its management. Second, the state-owned enterprise should report to one authority only for an approval, and submit to effective strategic control. Third, political interventions should be few, and should consist of middle-range agreements signed between a member of government and the state-owned industry's top manager, avoiding partisan or too detailed considerations.