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We examine the flow of federal grants-in-aid from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the states. We simultaneously model two dependent variables (the flow of EPA funds, and state environmental and natural resource budgets) to identify the independent roles of state political institutions, political preferences, economic and demographic characteristics, and the task environment. Our central focus, though, is on the relationship between grants and state spending after taking into account those direct effects. We examine the evidence for positive association (a flypaper effect) and negative association (crowding out). We show the different roles for political institutions, political preferences, demographic and economic characteristics, and the task environment in each spending context. Most importantly, we find evidence for a flypaper effect between federal funds and state spending: Federal spending and state spending are positively correlated after accounting for the contribution of the unique factors. (Contains 2 tables and 1 footnote.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the policy process that led to the passage of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in the United States and the Bush Administration's role in this process. Design/methodology/approach: The research design is historical and archival. A description of the NCLB Act is given and the major provisions and implementation are focused upon. How the Bush Administration helped create the opportunity to pass the NCLB Act by building coalitions, and how public opinion affected the evolution of the policy process is focused upon. Finally, a description is given on how policy ideas like the concept of "accountability" shaped the policy process, and both inspired and constrained the Bush Administration. Findings: The paper argues that the Bush Administration helped create the opportunity to pass the NCLB Act by building coalitions, and public opinion affected the evolution of the policy process. Policy ideas like the concept of "accountability" shaped the policy process, and both inspired and constrained the Bush Administration. Research limitations/implications: The case is limited to the United States and NCLB, although those cases are particularly important in North America and in evaluation-based research. Practical implications: The paper shows how a policy designer can be limited both by political initiatives and his or her own conceptual grounding. Originality/value: This paper is one of the first to connect the policy process that guided President Bush's design of the NCLB legislation with the concept of "accountability". Accountability is a foundational concept in the design of quality assurance systems. (Contains 5 figures and 8 notes.)

We trace how privacy-encroaching technologies have unfolded over the course of human history and how such technologies have influenced human societies and economies; governments have been central to this evolution. We maintain that surveillance is inevitable: that the future of public administration will depend on how administrators and others navigate deep rifts in public fear (yet acceptance) of surveillance and other means of data collection. Finally, we argue for coordination among governance scholars, public administrators, public technologists, and civil society advocates in order to improve the institutions that govern the collection and use of data from surveillance activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies argue that law affects behavior 'expressively'--such as when states create focal points that overcome the coordination difficulties firms face. We argue that governments help firms overcome coordination dilemmas by explicating a preferred strategy for firms weighing investment in voluntary regulation. Firms would prefer to coordinate on a common strategy as a way of reducing the costs of voluntary regulation and increasing its benefits. We test our hypothesis about the efficacy of focal point selection with the European Union's (EU) advocacy of the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) over a rival environmental management system, International Standards Organization (ISO) 14001. EU nations have statistically significantly lower rates of ISO 14001 certification than comparable countries at least in part due to their advocacy of EMAS. These results emphasize the role the state plays in coordinating business behavior even when such policy is simply expressive. KEY WORDS: voluntary regulation, environmental management, expressive law, seemingly unrelated regression (SUR), Introduction Substantial recent attention has been paid to numerous ways that law affects behavior indirectly--'expressively'--that is, independent of direct deterrence (Cooter, 1997, 1998, 2000; McAdams, 2000a, 2000b; Posner, 1998, 2000a, [...]

This article examines the relationship between political veto points, credible commitments, and regulatory compliance costs. Its central purpose is to assess whether different types of political veto points credibly constrain regulatory change and thus lower compliance costs. The authors conceptualize veto points broadly, including legislative oversight, gubernatorial powers, and direct democracy. We analyze state-level environmental compliance costs from 1988 to 1994 as a function of the structure of state political institutions and state political and economic characteristics. The results suggest that a key veto point, the authority for legislators to review bureaucratic behavior, consistently reduces compliance costs. Keywords: veto points; credible commitment; environmental regulation; compliance costs; bureaucracy

Governments continue to embrace the market-like mechanisms of auctions and bidding. This essay considers how governments (as bid-takers) and firms and nonprofits (as bidders) strategically interact in the design and implementation of these systems. I assess with regard to the uniqueness of bidding in government four principles on the role of: credible commitments, rational collusion, the setting of reserve prices, and heterogeneity among bidders. I also address recent calls for expanding the use of dynamic pricing in government., Introduction Recent studies have highlighted key dimensions in the decision to contract out government services and its implementation (e.g., Besselman, Arora, & Larkey, 2000; Boyne, 1998; Brown & Potoski, 2003; [...]

It is widespread conventional wisdom that presidential pardons--the only way for offenders to remove or eliminate all disabilities that arise from a federal or military offense--are political. We move beyond this belief and assess five broad ways that federal pardons may be systematically influenced by the policy agendas present in a separated powers system. We model the aggregate dispensation of clemency appeals (requests for pardons) using Prais-Winsten regression and find that the probability of denials for executive clemency reflects the president's own agenda and ideological position, congressional attention to criminal justice issues, and the homicide rate. In sum, both policy signals and the political processes they signify permeate the presidential pardons process. Keywords: presidency; executive branch; pardons; clemency; executive privilege; criminal justice; separated powers; policy signals; policy agendas

Simple changes are discussed to help the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overcome those aspects of its organizational structure that obstruct its attempts to build comprehensive environmental protection policies. The EPA fails to meet its obligations as its structural DNA is not designed to achieve those goals, and the structure is not likely to change in the future.

The judicial models that use toxic release inventory (TRI) are tested to verify whether the judicial policies toward companies that pollute the environment are severe or not. The results suggest that factories that border other states have high emissions thus a staying consistent with the hypothesis that jurisdictional considerations are an important determinant of pollution incidence.

We assess the link between a program's volunteer support and state social capital in the case of the joint implementation of the federal Long-Term Care (LTC) Ombudsman Program by state and federal authorities. This program, which is designed to prevent elder abuse and ensure quality care in long-term facilities, is implemented at the state and local levels and relies heavily on volunteer staff. First, we find that volunteerism is vital to the efficacy of the program's monitoring and investigative functions. Second, we find that volunteerism in this program is tied to broader level conditions of a state's social capital. Last, we discuss the implications of our findings for volunteer-based programs devolved to the states. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com> Website: KEYWORDS. Social capital, volunteerism, policy implementation, long-term care, federalism

Scholars call for "adaptive governance" to balance concern about technology uncertainty with the need for innovation in the governance of emerging technologies. Yet, empirical assessment of such governance systems remains sparse. Do the actors interested in the potential regulation of an emerging technology focus on their own interests and opportunities, or do they think in terms of the collective interest? We focus on the actors who embed such systems from a novel landscape perspective that combines two dimensions of governance: the nature of the regulatory target, and the nature of the process they advocate for governing the target. We present data from over 70 actors in the area of cryptocurrencies for evaluating this new logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this twin study we show that the penchant for a particular sector of employment has a genetic element: monozygotic twins evidencing a greater similarity of sector choice than dizygotic twins. The findings provide interesting evidence of a genetic basis for the choice to track together into the same sector. The effect sizes, though relatively small, raise the practice-based possibilities that management- or nurture-based approaches might be complemented with nature-based applications of recruitment and selection. Thus, while the research on public employee attraction, selection and attrition focuses nearly exclusively on managerial and behavioral approaches, our findings invite researchers to explore genetic aspects of public service attraction as a complementary approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MENDELSON, ELLIOTT. 2004. Introducing Game Theory and Its Applications. Chapman and Hall/CRC, Boca Raton, FL. 259 pp. $69.95. In one view, games are situations in which one person's actions affect [...]