Search

Objectives: The purpose of this article is to determine whether judicial insulation influences how individuals assess the rule of law. Methods: We employ panel data models using data collected by the World Bank and other sources to differentiate the influence of two kinds of judicial insulation—designed (de jure) and implemented (de facto)—on individuals' perceptions of the viability of the rule of law in their country. Results: We find that while insulation (as designed) has no bearing on how individuals score rule of law strength, insulation (as implemented) increases individual assessments. Notably, we find that disappointment from unmet expectations—where institutional implementation falls short of design—negatively influences rule of law strength scores. Conclusions: We conclude that the degree to which expectations regarding the insulation and independence of the judiciary are met (or not met) can have important implications for how the viability of the rule of law is perceived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments play an active role in promoting corporate social responsibility and specifically environmental management system (EMS) programs, but few studies have examined the impact of such support on the decision of businesses to adopt EMS programs. We ask two questions in this paper: how does government support for EMS programs affect adoption of such programs? Second, what effect does this government support have on the pace of adoption of such programs? The answer to the first question can reveal how effective government programs are in boosting membership in EMS programs. The answer to the second reveals to what extent businesses within EU member states are converging upon particular EMS standards. We examine these questions in the context of the European Union's Eco‐Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), 2010–2014. There is significant variation in government support of EMAS across the EU and at the same time, EMAS competes for business attention with the more established ISO 14001. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses therefore reveal the effectiveness of government programs in boosting adoption, but also to the extent to which such programs cause convergence upon EMAS in the face of a competing standard such as ISO 14001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National statistical systems are enterprises tasked with collecting, validating, and reporting societal attributes. These data serve many purposes--they allow governments to improve services, economic actors to traverse markets, and academics to assess social theories. National statistical systems vary in quality, especially in developing countries. This study examines determinants of national statistical capacity in developing countries, focusing on the impact of technological attainment. Just as technological progress helps to explain differences in economic growth, we argue that states with greater technological attainment have greater capacity for gathering and processing quality data. Analysis using panel methods shows a strong, statistically significant positive linear relationship between technological attainment and national statistical capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have documented how presidents issue signing statements. A president might try to bend policy closer to his own position through shaping how bureaucrats use their discretion to implement a law. Later in time, it may serve as a defense if it shapes how judges decide whether a particular interpretation is consistent with the Constitution. A president may construct more detailed and complex statements when his ideal point is distant from Congress. I test this hypothesis and others using data from the George W. Bush administration between 2001 and 2006. Both the number of objections applied to a given bill and their complexity increase when the president is distant from Congress. [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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue involving firms' move to turn to regulatory uncertainty or risk to enhance their capital investment. It notes that regulatory uncertainty enables firms to use pricing systems for the transfer of goods and services which can be problematic when divisions engage in cross-border transactions. It also notes the effort of countries to reduce regulatory uncertainty through the use of Advance Pricing Agreements or Advance Pricing Arrangements (APAs).

Modern states increasingly rely on two means of regulating markets: public regulation (by the government) and private self-regulation (by the firms themselves). This study assesses the evolution of the state toward co-regulation by examining, across countries, the incidence of a prominent type of self-regulation: the environmental protection standard ISO 14001. It focuses on technological capabilities as a precursor to the widespread adoption of ISO 14001. Just as technological progress helps to explain differences in economic growth, markets with greater technological attainment (specifically, general purpose technologies) arguably have greater firm-level adoption of self-regulation practices. According to panel data, ISO 14001 is more widespread in countries with greater technological capabilities, but there are diminishing returns to the impact of technology. As such, limited technological attainment remains a key factor that constrains economic growth and limits not only the capacity of the market to regulate itself but so, too, the evolution of the state toward a system of co-regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous recent studies have addressed how the investment choices of firms depend on elite perceptions of the quality of national regulatory regimes. Likewise, other studies show that government structures can help to support credible commitments that protect market mechanisms. The authors provide the first analytic discussion of elite perceptions of national regulatory quality as a function of the independence of regulators in a country's political system. Their central claims are that market operations depend on perceptions of regulatory quality and that independent regulators facilitate elite perceptions of regulatory quality because they check actors in domestic political systems. Cross-national statistical evidence suggests that regulatory independence supports elite perceptions of high regulatory quality. This article also provides evidence that regulatory independence is more likely where political competition shapes incentives to intervene in business markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we offer an approach for conceptualizing and measuring government effectiveness or performance in which the focus is on the whole government's effectiveness. We examine data that portray how countries compare in terms of perceived government effectiveness using the World Bank Governance Indicators dataset, which cover 212 countries from 1996 until 2006. We also offer and interpret a new measure of perceived government effectiveness that accounts for the economic development of each country. We argue that the comparative study of government effectiveness (in terms of both multiple measures and across countries) benefits the study of public administration, public management, and public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article quantitatively investigates several possible foundations for environmental sustainability, as measured across countries with varying geography, development patterns, social customs, and political arrangements. Two central hypotheses about the roles of democracy and federalism, as well as other hypotheses about economic development, religion, and demographics, are tested. The study provides moderate evidence that sustainability levels depend on democratization, but little evidence that it depends on the presence of federalism. In addition, it is found that the effects of environmental interests, development paths, and religious orientations vary across different measures of sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the informational role of interest groups interact with institutions when politicians seek to control the bureaucracy? In 1992, Banks and Weingast argued that bureaucrats hold an informational advantage vis-à-vis political principals concerning policyrelevant variables, and that when it is prohibitively costly to audit, the agency may over- or understate the extent of a public problem. This is less likely to happen if there is a low-cost monitoring technology and if interest groups can monitor the agency's choices. I test this hypothesis using data on bureaucratic statements that estimate the importance of a number of hazardous waste problems from a group of state-level environmental agencies. The results provide evidence for the Banks-Weingast hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the forces for the descriptive representation of women in ministerial and subministerial positions. We offer a unified model in which portfolio allocation makes political forces for descriptive representation more important in the case of ministerial lines; in contrast, labor market forces determine the extent of descriptive representation in subministerial lines. We provide evidence for this claim from data for 72 countries and show that the advancement of women into ministerial posts depends on the form of electoral system and presence of women in the legislature (conditional on being in a parliamentary system). In contrast, the subministerial representation for women depends on the supply of women in the workforce. Additionally, the increased incidence of women in ministerial lines is associated with an increase in representation in subministerial lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study defines and compares three broad theories that seek to explain bureaucratic preferences. I first argue that each of these explanations is complex -- that no single measurable attribute encapsulates the entire theory. Second, I argue that these explanations are non-nested -- that al least one attribute representing a given theory cannot be expressed as resulting from attributes that representing one of the other theories. Based on the theory of comparisons of non-nested models, I assess these three competing explanations with the Likelihood Dominance Criterion, an approach for assessing the total explanatory power of a given theory relative to that offered by other theories. The comparisons take place in the context of the bureaucratic implementation of policies governing the remediation of hazardous waste at the state level in the United States. The comparisons show that bureaucratic preferences are best explained by the organizational capacity and constraints explanation rather than more proximate political and task environment theories. In total, the agency's rules, capacity, and characteristics form a better total explanation of the observed variance in bureaucratic preferences than either proximate state politics or the agency's task environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2003, Congress passed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, which required that in 2006 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implement a system of competitive bids to set payments for the Medicare Advantage program. Managed care plans now bid for the right to enroll Medicare beneficiaries. Data from the first year of bidding suggest that imperfect competition is limiting the success of the bidding system. This article offers suggestions to improve this system based on findings from auction theory and previous government-run auctions. In particular, CMS can benefit by adjusting its system of competitive bids in four ways: credibly committing to regulations governing bidding; limiting the scope for collusion, entry deterrence, and predatory behavior among bidders; adjusting how benchmark reimbursement rates are set; and accounting for asymmetric information among bidders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a regime-splitting process model of decentralized policy implementation to integrate two theoretical approaches rooted in the tension between local flexibility and national control. The author estimates a model that simultaneously assesses the ability of each approach to explain the outcome it is meant to map onto (case-level discretion for local flexibility and aggregate responsiveness for national control) as well as each approach's extensibility to the other approach's domain. The data for the study come from the implementation of eight primary statutes by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional offices. The results are counterintuitive: the national control approach largely explains case-level discretion, the domain of local flexibility, but retains some power for explaining aggregate responsiveness. The local flexibility perspective contributes to both case-level discretion and aggregate responsiveness. Both models work outside their traditional domains, but neither is a sufficient explanation for decentralized policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe a simple mechanism for achieving two goals: (1) to encourage firms to take environmentally friendly action, and (2) to make environmental protection impervious to political change. We assert that there is wide evidence now that firms adopting an environmental management system (EMS) like ISO 14001 improve their environmental performance. This is because ISO 14001's third-party audits reduce the chance firms will fully fail to comply with regulations, and the EMS procedure reduces the chances firms will be in noncompliance due to ignorance. Our mechanism is intended to harness the power of EMS systems within firms, while reducing the chances that political change will nullify our solution. We argue that to achieve these goals, governments should make firms' participation in public procurement programs contingent on their adoption of an EMS such as 150 14001. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Does aggregate ideological extremism reduce public participation? Does participation in governance processes fall when the social environment shifts to the extreme left or the extreme right of the political spectrum? Our main hypothesis is that the aggregate ideological orientation of the social environment constrains volunteerism in social regulatory programs. Methods. We test our hypothesis using a panel tobit analysis of data from the federal Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program. Results. Our model of public participation (expressed as volunteerism) shows that participation expands when the ideological position of a state's citizens is at the extreme left or right of the political continuum. We show the differential effects of two types of aggregate ideological orientation: of citizens and their political leaders. We further find that participation is greatest in states with extremely liberal citizen ideological positions. Conclusions. These findings paint a more complex picture of the effect of extremism in the social environment on public participation measured as production volunteerism. In sum, public participation is greatest when the social environment is ideologically polarized, and social regulation is strongest when volunteerism is greatest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on agenda setting, issue priorities and organizational maintenance in the U.S. In recent decades, political science has turned to the study of agenda setting as a central aspect of collective decision-making environments. The content of the public agenda and the issue agendas of political institutions make significant social change possible. Recent studies suggest that these political institutions are engaged in both competitive relationships, as they identify and pursue both active and latent public issues, and more complex cue-taking relationships. For separated powers, the problems of co-operation and competition with one another are entwined with internal collective decision-making dilemmas.

I examine how the legislature and the president sequentially enable and constrain agencies in a tug-of-war over the exercise of bureaucratic discretion, partly in response to past political interventions. I provide evidence from a duration analysis of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement of hazard waste law for the acceleration and deceleration of policy implementation in response to sequential interventions by multiple, competing principals. I document the use of agenda-setting and solution-forcing statutes by Congress and case clearance mechanisms by the president. Sequenced political control means that agencies face shifting political expectations, caused in part by how the agency responds to past control attempts. While previous empirical research has portrayed a largely static world in which Congress and the president have influence, this study reveals a dynamic portrayal in which there is move and countermove from these principals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claims that the organizational structure of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) failed to cope with the needs to build comprehensive environmental protection policies. Comparison of the EPA structure with other agencies in the U.S.; Structural choices at the EPA; Argument that the lack of congressional mandate created the structural failures of the agency.

Few issues are more contentious for local communities than industrial pollution. When local industries pollute, lawmakers and regulators must balance two primary concerns: economic prosperity and the environment. The role of political pressure is well documented in environmental policy. What is less clear is the role jurisdictional or boundary considerations play in determining the implementation of environmental laws. Anecdotal evidence suggests that local regulators are more lenient in their treatment of polluters when the incidence of pollution falls partially on those outside the state. One explanation for such behavior is that regulators take actions to maximize political support. This paper tests this jurisdictional model using toxics release inventory (TRI) data from 1987 to 1996. We find that facilities’ emissions into the air and water are systematically higher in counties that border other states. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that jurisdictional considerations are an important determinant of pollution incidence. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

One consequence of the president's use of rhetoric to shape the public agenda, the media, and congressional attention is less recognized: Presidential rhetoric shapes the priorities of the administrative agents over whom he seeks managerial control. We present statistical tests of the managerial power of presidential policy signals in the case of the United States Attorneys’ implementation of the federal “War on Drugs.” We find that presidential policy signals shifted the composition of the Attorneys’ caseload, although not to the exclusion of other pertinent local, national, and internal factors. Yet, the consequences of presidential rhetoric for executive governance remain real and substantial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues that the ability of bureaucracies to choose appropriate actions can be explained under an alternate model of rational choice under uncertainty. Discussion on the rationality of decision making during catastrophes; Details on reserved rationality, collective choice and common pool resources; Interplay between rational decisions and supporting social institutions in Singapore's regulation of water.

In contrast to principal--agency theory, the possibility of the political control of the bureaucracy depends on bureaucratic structure. In this article, I argue that the functional decentralization of responsibility and authority for policy formulation and implementation involves a net loss of political control. I show that the choice by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to transfer responsibility to its Regional Offices changed the ability of national political superiors to intervene in policy implementation in the field. Examining Regional Office data on the enforcement of reactor regulations from 1975 to 1996, I present statistical tests of the changing influence of national political institutions, local policy preferences, and the Regions' task environment. I find that decentralization insulated the NRC from national political oversight, and that the Regions were more responsive to local oversight post-devolution and deviated from a 'natural rate' of enforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The canonical principal--agent problem involves a risk-neutral principal who must use incentives to motivate a risk-averse agent to take a costly, unobservable action that improves the principal's payoff. The standard solution requires an inefficient shifting of risk to the agent. This article, however, summarizes experimental research that throws doubt on the validity of this conclusion. Experimental subjects were routinely able to achieve efficiency in agent effort levels without inefficient risk-sharing. These experimental outcomes, while anomalous from the standpoint of principal--agency theory, are quite consistent with other experimental data testing notions of trust-based implicit contracting. Such contracting within a hierarchy may allow an outcome preferred, by both principal and agent, to that deemed possible by principal--agency theory. If this is true, then the lessons to be learned from principal--agency theory are all the wrong ones. Concentrating on incentives can crowd out the very qualities in a relationship that make social efficiency possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have assessed the consequences of reorganization on the perceptions of employees. The article examines the effects of the reorganization of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on employee perceptions. It is based on the Federal Human Capital Survey, an important dataset prepared by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to improve the performance of federal agencies. The article assesses changes by comparing measures using t-tests and analysis of variance. The results show that the reorganization of the agency had a statistically significant effect on employee perceptions of performance, goal communication, internal communication, and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst calls for more scrutiny of the failure of infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs), uncertainty about how we can measure failure remains, and little systematic evidence illuminates its likelihood. Our mixed‐methods design explores the notion of failure and identifies the conditions under which it happens. The first phase of our research employs documentary analysis and semistructured expert interviews, and identifies project cancellation as capturing the most severe occurrences of failure. A second phase statistically analyzes a unique World Bank data set capturing the provisions of over 4,000 infrastructure PPPs launched between 1990 and 2015 in 89 countries. We find robust evidence supporting the theoretical claim that PPPs are less likely to be canceled in countries with more veto points among their political institutions to restrain politicians from intervening in policy implementation. Cancellation is a rare, but valid indicator of failure, and the importance of veto players clarifies how political risk operates in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]