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Government Bureaucracy (government + bureaucracy)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences50%

Selected Abstracts

OF POLITICS AND PURPOSE: POLITICAL SALIENCE AND GOAL AMBIGUITY OF US FEDERAL AGENCIES

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 3 2009
JUNG WOOK LEE
As scholars have observed, government agencies have ambiguous goals. Very few large sample empirical studies, however, have tested such assertions and analysed variations among organizations in the characteristics of their goals. Researchers have developed concepts of organizational goal ambiguity, including ,evaluative goal ambiguity', and ,priority goal ambiguity', and found that these goal ambiguity variables related meaningfully to financial publicness (the degree of government funding versus prices or user charges), regulatory responsibility, and other variables. This study analyses the influence of the external political environment (external political authorities and processes) on goal ambiguity in government agencies; many researchers have analysed external influences on government bureaucracies, but very few have examined the effects on the characteristics of the organizations, such as their goals. This analysis of 115 US federal agencies indicates that higher ,political salience' to Congress, the president, and the media, relates to higher levels of goal ambiguity. A newly developed analytical framework for the analysis includes components for external environmental influences, organizational characteristics, and managerial influences, with new variables that represent components of the framework. Higher levels of political salience relate to higher levels of both types of goal ambiguity; components of the framework, however, relate differently to evaluative goal ambiguity than to priority goal ambiguity. The results contribute evidence of the viability of the goal ambiguity variables and the political environment variables. The results also show the value of bringing together concepts from organization theory and political science to study the effects of political environments on characteristics of government agencies. [source]

National AIDS Commissions in Africa: Performance and Emerging Challenges

DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 2 2009
Erasmus Morah
This article consolidates and expands on evidence on how National AIDS Commissions (NACs) in sub-Saharan Africa are measuring up to expectations that drove their rapid adoption across the continent. While their overall performance seems reasonably good, most NACs still lack adequate power and incentive structures to hold line ministries accountable, a key requirement for co-ordinating activities and mainstreaming HIV-AIDS across the public sector. Second-generation African NACs urgently need the authority and institutional stature to effectively co-ordinate the channelling of the larger funds now available through government bureaucracy. The evolution of the epidemic also imposes requirements different from those when the current NAC architecture was crafted. [source]

From privatized to government-administered tax collection: tax farming in eighteenth-century France1

ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 4 2004
EUGENE N. WHITE
The establishment of a government bureaucracy to collect taxes is regarded as one of the essential features of a modern economy. While Britain is considered a pioneer, France has been treated as a laggard because of continued reliance on tax farming. Focusing on the largest tax farm, France's late transition from private to government tax collection is explained in a principal-agent context by the difficulties of monitoring employees and borrowing at low cost in the capital market. Tax farmers continued to earn high returns, absorbing the risk of fluctuating collections, leaving the Crown with lower revenue. [source]

Building Material Flow Accounts in the United States

JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY, Issue 5-6 2008
A Case Study in Public Sector Innovation
Summary Building a national system of material flow accounts in the United States could be an important step toward natural resource sustainability. But the task will not be as simple as "If you build it, they will come." The key to understanding the status of and prospects for official material flow accounts in the United States is to see the picture from the point of view of public sector and environmental innovation generally, rather than from the point of view of building the details of the accounts themselves. A simple model of public sector innovation helps explain what is happening and what needs to happen to make further progress. The model used here has four principal elements: methods, organizational capacity, demand, and actual use. The details and sequence of these elements vary in different situations, but all four must be present for successful innovations. Although aspects of culture, innovation, and government bureaucracy differ from country to country, the basic model appears to be similar across borders, at least in countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Seen this way, recent events in the United States indicate that (1) there is significant potential for such accounts; (2) the United States is moving toward creating them, although not in a systematic manner, which means that the progression and eventual outcome are uncertain; and (3) there are ways for the research community to participate very positively in the public process. [source]

Religion, Historical Contingencies, and Institutional Conditions of Criminal Punishment: The German Case and Beyond

LAW & SOCIAL INQUIRY, Issue 2 2004
Joachim J. Savelsberg
Religion and historical contingencies help explain cross-national and historic variation of criminal law and punishment. Case studies from German history suggest: First, the Calvinist affiliation of early Prussian monarchs advanced the centralization of power, rationalization of government bureaucracy, and elements of the welfare state, factors that are likely to affect punishment. Second, the dominant position of Lutheranism in the German population advanced the institutionalization of a separation of forgiveness in the private sphere versus punishment of "outer behavior" by the state. Third, these principles became secularized in philosophy, jurisprudence, and nineteenth-century criminal codes. Fourth, partly due to historical contingencies, these codes remained in effect into post,World War II Germany. Fifth, the experience of the Nazi regime motivated major changes in criminal law, legal thought, public opinion, and religious ideas about punishment in the Federal Republic of Germany. Religion thus directly and indirectly affects criminal law and punishment, in interaction with historical contingencies, institutional conditions of the state, and other structural factors. [source]

"A Chasm of Values and Outlook": The Carter Administration's Human Rights Policy in Guatemala

PEACE & CHANGE, Issue 4 2010
Jason M. Colby
Scholars have often depicted Jimmy Carter's human rights policy as naïve and counterproductive. In doing so, many have pointed to Guatemala, where Carter's policies seemed to alienate the military government without ending its abuses. Yet such critics have failed to acknowledge the obstacles Carter's policy faced as well as its long-term influence on U.S. policy and on Guatemala itself. Drawing upon recently declassified documents, this article explores the challenges the administration's human rights advocates encountered in their attempt to implement Carter's policies. In particular, it emphasizes the resistance of both the U.S. government bureaucracy and Guatemala's military. But it also argues that, despite these difficulties, the Carter administration achieved a shift in U.S.-Guatemalan relations. The legacy of Carter's human rights policy limited Washington's role in the counterinsurgency war and helped push Guatemala toward civilian rule and peace negotiations. [source]