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Though we know that tax expenditures are an important component of the American welfare state, what is less familiar is how tax expenditures work. In this paper, I argue that the capacity of the state to provide goods and services through the tax code requires the work of American families. Individual taxpayers, in their role as parents, grandparents, and adult siblings, act as a "shadow" bureaucracy, by translating incentives in the tax code into actual policy results. But there are consequences to relying on family relationships especially when these relationships change. This paper explores how family members administer social policies in the tax code, how the tax code adapts to changing social practices, and finally the practical and normative consequences of relying on family relationships to carry out the policies of the social welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although UN peacekeeping has never found favour in the Bush Administration, the United States remains the most important Member State when decisions are made in the Security Council. The current war on terror has obviously changed the political circumstances in which such diplomacy is conducted, but how and to what extent? This paper will seek answers to these questions by exploring the nature and impact of contemporary US influence over Security Council decision-making on peacekeeping issues through two steps. First, it will discuss the various sources of US policy in Washington and how they interact in the policy-making process. Of primary interest in this section will be the inter-play between the executive and legislative branches of the US government. The second step will shift the focus from Washington to New York in an effort to discern the consequences of the Washington policy-process on the outcome of Council deliberations, especially in terms of the mandates and compositions of new missions. To this end, the paper will pay special attention to the cases of Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the possible mission to Sudan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an abridged version of one section of a larger research project titled, Governmental Transparency and the National Performance Review: Implementing the Freedom of Information Act. This research project addressed the unintended consequences the National Performance Review (NPR) had on implementing the Freedom of Information Act. The NPR initiatives of customer service, employee empowerment, performance management, and contracting out were analyzed. This paper focuses on the relationship between governmental transparency; Freedom of Information Act implementation; and customer service, an initiative of the National Performance Review. A survey measuring perceptions of NPR’s impact on FOIA was administered in late 2002 to approximately 400 FOIA professionals. In-depth elite interviews and a historical document analysis were also completed to gather data for this project . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 80th Congress was notable for its conduct of a distinctive type of investigation that we will designate as ?predatory? and that was initiated into issues that were, at least ostensibly, centered on internal security. In this paper we consider two questions. What were the conditions for the production of predatory investigations in the 80th Congress? And what problems did these investigations pose for the White House? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent debates over the University of Michigan’s use of race in admission decisions, much speculation has been made over how affirmative action affects minority undergraduate enrollments. This paper uses a rational choice framework to test the conventional wisdom about the effect of race-based admissions, focusing on the previous landmark judicial decision, Hopwood, along with California’s Proposition 209. This study offers a more rigorous test and more generalizable findings by incorporating all public universities that were bound under Hopwood and Proposition 209, using data that spans 1990-2000. Findings indicate that the effect of including race into admission standards is not the effect that many have predicted. Instead, shifts in minority enrollments that are attributable to affirmative action hinge on university-specific characteristics - namely, the level of selectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of federal reorganization provide an incomplete perspective on its implications for intergovernmental relations and by extension the role of the states in U.S. national policy. The literature reflects persistent theoretical and practical debates over how best to characterize the U.S. federalist system. From these debates emerge normative and empirical arguments that serve to bring into focus the fundamental role of "states’ sovereignty" in influencing U.S. national public health policy and practice. This paper presents a preliminary case study of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, with particular focus on Section 505, which governs the health and human services’ components of national counter bioterrorism policy. The goal is to illustrate through the prism of theory and public administration praxis ? how the U.S. public health system exemplifies the basic tenets of collaborative federalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Death of America, the Birth of a Sovereign? Hobbes and the War On Terrorism After 9/11 Abstract By Khalil M. Marrar This paper contends that in the age of ?the war on terrorism,? United States policy has become a Hobbesian sovereign both domestically, and internationally. After a brief synopsis of Hobbes?s sovereign, I argue that American governance on the local, federal, and international levels subjugates all political, economic, and societal actors and principles to combating terrorism. Focusing on the political sphere, I ask whether this new found American mission is actually a fulfillment of a national destiny and a forging of a new identity, or if it is merely an aberration of a fleeting order under an especially ambitious administration. I frame my argument within the context of the debate over modernity, and reread Hobbes?s theory of the sovereign and government to accommodate not only the nation-state, but its domestic and geopolitical affairs as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the recent anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, reports of a lonely young man who shipped himself as cargo from New York to Dallas, and reporters smuggling depleted uranium through security in checked baggage, questions have once again been raised about the lack of security improvements at America’s airports. The delays in training cockpit crews so that they can carry firearms, as well as first the cutting and then raising of the air marshals budget highlight serious security concerns despite the significant improvements in our aviation and transportation security in the past two years. In this paper I review both the proposed aviation and security changes proposed and implemented in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Comparisons are then made between the federalization of aviation/transportation security and law enforcement with normal state and local level security and law enforcement. I then propose an alternative policy for the creation of locally trained and deputized aviation and transportation police to provide security and law enforcement at airports, cruise ship ports, and commercial shipping ports in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable research in the public management literature looks at the implementation and evolution of electronic government strategies in municipal governments. However, there is limited empirical investigation of how members of the political community actually interact online with their local governments. Using data collected by the authors through the People, Organizations, and Information Technology (POINT) Project at the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO), we look at the actual behaviors of individuals at their local government websites in 12 geographically diverse MSAs across the United States. The probability sample includes 1200 respondents. Most e-government strategies are animated by the management model of providing efficient access to the "citizen as a consumer" of government information and services. However, these websites also contain more distinctly democratic artifacts such as ways to connect persons and government officials, provide them with the resources to engage in discussions about policy. This paper explores the relationship between the political system and members of the political Community in terms of the options available for users, the way the e-government strategies are presented to members of the political community via municipal websites and how members interact with their government in response. Our findings indicate that despite the availability of more democratically empowering options, people tend to define themselves in line with the management model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a theoretical exploration of how institutional changes/reforms are initiated and became institutionalized in our existing, decentralized, fragmented court systems. We examine the innovation and maintenance of drug courts as they institutionalize in the state of Arizona, Missouri, New York, and South Carolina. After reviewing past studies of court reform and institutional theory, we rely on DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983; Powell and DiMaggio 1991) theory of isomorphism, which predicts that organizational changes or reforms become more similar to existing organizational structures. We find evidence of DiMaggio and Powell’s three isomorphic pressures (normative, mimetic, and coercive) at work in local drug courts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

President Bush scored an important political victory with regard to the bureaucratic reorganization that led to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, but considerable leadership from the president is needed if the Department is to succeed at the mission the administration has defined for it. President Bush’s goals for the new Department include: centralizing the homeland security function, improving coordination and communication among agencies responsible for domestic security, developing new technologies capable of detecting nuclear, chemical and biological threats, and preparing state and local first responders to cope with any future terrorist attack. This paper addresses three significant challenges to the success of the Department of Homeland Security and the president’s management of it. The challenge of improving coordination and communication between agencies responsible for domestic security. The challenge of structuring a workforce capable of carrying out the domestic security function. And, the challenge of providing the necessary resources for an endeavor of such magnitude. The conclusion of the author is that while the administration excelled at articulating a vision for the new Department, its present choices regarding the operations of the Department are less convincing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the turn of the twentieth century, the U.S. system of public finance underwent a dramatic transformation. The late nineteenth century structure of indirect national taxes, associated mainly with the tariff, was eclipsed in the early decades of the twentieth century by a federal income tax that soon accounted for approximately half of all federal tax revenues. A similar, albeit less pronounced, shift occurred at the state and local level where the income tax and other levies such as an inheritance tax began to erode state and local dependency on the general property tax. Most scholars who have examined this historic shift in American fiscal policy have focused mainly on the internal political dynamics within the national government to explain how and why the federal income tax became a vital part of American public finance. The making of fiscal policy at the turn of the century, however, was also affected by the social pressure applied by institutions outside of the conventional political channels - institutions such as voluntary organizations like the National Tax Association (NTA). Founded in 1907 as a group devoted "to promoting the sound theory and efficient administration of public finance," the NTA quickly became the central organization for public tax officials, tax attorneys, and scholars of public finance. By examining the economic, political and legal discourse among some of the key members of the NTA, this paper explores how this organization created a social network of knowledge that was used to build the infrastructure of the modern, American fiscal state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

????One of the paramount empirical issues regarding the mingling of policy and administration is the extent to which this intersection occurs because of the aggrandizing tendencies of bureaucracy. A second prominent concern of both theoretical and empirical interest is administrative accountability. What are the patterns of actual influence on the public administrator from what sources (or actors) and which sources/actors does the administrator prefer to exercise influence? ????This paper addresses these central questions by examining the views of state agency heads on the extent of actual and preferred influence exercised by various actors on bureaucratic initiatives. Using data from the 1984 and 1994 American State Administrators Project surveys, we assess state agency heads perceptions of the actual and preferred levels of influence exerted on major policy decisions. State agency heads prefer a higher level of influence by numerous institutional and other actors. Of the eight policy actors whose influence is probed, only for state legislators and state courts do administrators attribute too much influence. State administrators prefer greater influence for themselves and their agencies, among other policy actors. But greater self/agency influence is not associated with decreased influence of other actors. We find consistent positive-sum patterns across two decades. When factor analysis of actual and preferred influence is used to explore patterns of administrative accountability for the eight policy actors, several readily interpretable factors emerge. These dimensions of accountability reveal striking commonalities in agency head perceptions of institutional and external actor influences over two decades. The several accountability dimensions are remarkably consistent with the conceptual characterizations of public administrators’ descriptive and normative obligations in a democratic society that have been articulated over the past six decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the development of public administration in the U.S. southern states. Definition of public administration; Reasons why the rise of modern public administration is not synonymous with the Jim Crow South; Discussion of the Progressive Era.

Recent research has shown that, at the federal level, new or amended programs typically create networks consisting of multi-actor structures spanning governments, sectors, and/or agencies. This study examines the kinds of implementation structures that are stipulated in the regulatory process. Key questions examined have to do with the extent to which the regulatory process affects the complexity of the networks already created and the role of regulations in clarifying the structures that are designed by Congress. The evidence shows that in a majority of cases, the regulatory process adds to the complexity of implementation patterns; previously simple implementation structures are often made more complicated and new actors are brought into the process. Rules also serve a key function in clarifying the general language that is often used by Congress. These findings have implications for the study and practice of public administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what degree was the shift to direct taxation in the WWI period intentional, to serve a party program and meet popular political calls for equity? To what degree was this shift strategic, to permanently increase state capacity and the power of national government to intervene in economic affairs? These are large and complex questions, and this paper is an initial effort to examine whether or not the Wilson Administration and Democratic congressional leaders sought to advance goals other than expedient war financing. Some scholars have attributed to Democratic leaders goals of wealth redistribution (or retribution) and building national capacity for economic policymaking, both fiscal and monetary. Economic historian Elliot Brownlee claims Wilson oversaw the creation of a "democratic-statist tax regime" (2000). Did the Wilson Administration seek to build state capacity while retaining democratic accountability via party government in the area of public finance, particularly taxation? An affirmative answer would require evidence of clear goals and a legislative agenda to remake taxation policy, as well as consensus on policy and state building within the Democratic Party and its leaders.Alternate explanations could include functional, evolutionary, or expediency explanations for the rise of direct income taxation as efficient, flexible and politic to raise revenues, especially in times of crisis. Political Scientist John Witte focuses on pluralist politics as the best explanation of the tax policy formulation and implementation. that "no one controls tax policy" and politicians tend to "confer as many benefits on as many groups as is politically feasible" (1985).World War I was financed in the U.S. with what Elliot Brownlee calls a "soak the rich" approach to taxation as part of "Wilson's program of party government" (1993, 2000). President Wilson and Democratic leaders in Congress did seem to share a belief in progressive income taxes as generally desirable, but this paper demonstrates that there was no policy consensus between the Administration and Leadership in the House or a Democratic Party program concerning the purposes of taxation. Revenue acts were secured through negotiations with regular Democratic leaders in Congress, enabled by strong powers of committee chairs and prerogatives of the House. These rules or customs made extraordinary finance possible but empowered the legislative over the executive.Southern Democrats in the House led by Claude Kitchin perhaps sought permanent redistribution, even taxing wealth as sectional retribution. Although at least one scholar narrows Kitchin's intention on excise profits taxation to paying for war debts after hostilities end, not indefinitely (Arnett 1937). Senate Finance Chair Simmons was a fiscal conservative sympathetic to business concerns over the 1917 revenue legislation, which triggered a confrontation between the houses of Congress. Wilson and McAdoo shared those views to some degree, but did not develop a zealous program to achieve tax justice. Tariff revision, banking reform aimed at the trusts was a greater imperative; specific tax initiatives were only developed by McAdoo directly in response to war needs. Initial war finance proposals from the Administration included regressive taxes and provisions to broaden the bases of income taxation, which appear more expedient than Democratic. Wilson and McAdoo were initially cautious and then embraced progressive taxes primarily for their efficiency in funding war, along with a broad array of other taxes that could quickly deliver revenue. Income taxation became appealing to them on equity and efficiency grounds... ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]