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Government Decisions (government + decision)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting57%
Humanities and Social Sciences28%

Selected Abstracts

Policy implementation: Implications for evaluation

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR EVALUATION, Issue 124 2009
Amy DeGroff
Policy implementation reflects a complex change process where government decisions are transformed into programs, procedures, regulations, or practices aimed at social betterment. Three factors affecting contemporary implementation processes are explored: networked governance, sociopolitical context and the democratic turn, and new public management. This frame of reference invites evaluators to consider challenges present when evaluating macrolevel change processes, such as the inherent complexity of health and social problems, multiple actors with variable degrees of power and influence, and a political environment that emphasizes accountability. The evaluator requires a deep and cogent understanding of the health or social issues involved; strong analysis and facilitation skills to deal with a multiplicity of values, interests, and agendas; and a comprehensive toolbox of evaluation approaches and methods, including network analysis to assess and track the interconnectedness of key champions (and saboteurs) who might affect intervention effects and sustainability. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc., and the American Evaluation Association. [source]

Th e Decision to Contract Out: A Study of Contracting for E-Government Services in State Governments

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 3 2007
Anna Ya Ni
Government contracting, especially for information technology products and services, has accelerated in recent years in the United States. Drawing on the insights of privatization studies, the authors examine the economic and political rationales underpinning government decisions to contract out e-government services. This article tests the extent to which economic and political rationality influence governments' contracting decisions using data from multiple sources: a survey conducted by National Association of State Chief Information Officers, a survey by the National Association of State Procurement Officers, the Council of State Legislatures, and macro-level state data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Important factors affecting the state-level contracting decision are population size, market size, the competitiveness of the bidding process, the professional management of contracts, the partisan composition of legislatures, and political competition. Political rationales appear to play a major role in state contracting decisions. Some arguments associated with markets and economic rationality are clearly politically motivated. [source]

The Budget-Minimizing Bureaucrat?

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 1 2002
Empirical Evidence from the Senior Executive Service
In a representative democracy, we assume the populace exerts some control over the actions and outputs of government officials, ensuring they comport with public preferences. However, the growth of the fourth branch of government has created a paradox: Unelected bureaucrats now have the power to affect government decisions (Meier 1993; Rourke 1984; Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman 1981). In this article, I rely on two competing theories of bureaucratic behavior-representative-bureaucracy theory and Niskanen's budget-maximization theory-to assess how well the top ranks of the federal government represent the demands of the citizenry. Focusing on federal-spending priorities, I assess whether Senior Executive Service (SES) members mirror the attitudes of the populace or are likely to inflate budgets for their own personal gain. Contrary to the popular portrayal of the budget-maximizing bureaucrat (Niskanen 1971), I find these federal administrators prefer less spending than the public on most broad spending categories, even on issues that fall within their own departments' jurisdictions. As such, it may be time to revise our theories about bureaucratic self-interest and spending priorities. [source]

La dialectique de la surveillance et le nouveau régime d'assurancemédicaments au Québec

CANADIAN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION/ADMINISTRATION PUBLIQUE DU CANADA, Issue 2 2003
Christian Boudreau
Sommaire: Les travaux sur la surveillance ont surtout mis en évidence le pouvoir administratif croissant des organisations modernes, principalement 1'État et I'entreprise privée. La présente étude prend le contre-pied de ces travaux. Elle montre que certains systèmes de surveillance, en particulier les banques de données de la Régie de I'assurance-maladie du Québec, peuvent contribuer à la transparence et a I'imputabilité des décisions gouvemementales lors de l'élaboration et de la mise en euvre des politiques publiques. C'est le cas du nouveau régime d'assurance-médicaments au Québec qui, par sa transparence, a permis à des agents de la société civile d'exercer à leur tour une surveillance sur 1'État. Comme I'indique notre étude, l'éitat peut être à la fois un puissant agent de surveillance et un agent étroitement surveillé et publiquement imputable. L'étude montre aussi que la surveillance peut être une arme à double tranchant non seulement pour les dirigeants de I'État, mais aussi pour les agents sociaux qui leur résistent, d'oú l'importance d'être vigilant dans le déploiement de la surveillance. Abstract: Work undertaken on monitoring activities has, for the most part, highlighted the increasing administrative authority of modern organizations, mainly that of the government and of private corporations. This study takes the opposing view of such work. It shows that monitoring systems, more specifically the Régie de l'assurance-maladie du Québec databases, can contribute to the transparency and accountability of government decisions in developing and implementing public policies. Such is the case with the new Prescription Drug Insurance Plan in Quebec, the transparency of which afforded civil-society officials the opportunity to monitor the government. As the study shows, the government can be both a powerful monitoring agent and a closely monitored and publicly accountable one. The study also shows that monitoring can be a double-edged sword, not only for government officials but also for social-agency officials who stand up to them, hence the importance of exercising great care when performing monitoring activities. [source]

Political Resources for Policy Terminators

POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 1 2002
Janet E. Frantz
Scholars of policy termination have long understood that there are tremendous difficulties associated with closing down public programs and facilities. This examination of one closure begins with that understanding and then, using Deborah Stone's conceptualization of politics in the policy arena, moves to categorize and analyze those difficulties. The case involves the U.S. government's policy of providing lifelong, residential care to victims of Hansen's Disease (leprosy). The investigation documents the government's decision in the 1950s to end the policy and follows the ensuing battle. The government terminators, despite the rationality of their position, were held at bay for nearly fifty years by politically savvy opponents including patients, staff, and the community that housed the leprosarium. Only when government officials reached into their own bag of political resources and skillfully employed those resources, was it possible to end the policy. [source]

EVALUATING GAINS FROM MERGERS IN A NON-PARAMETRIC PUBLIC GOOD MODEL OF POLICE SERVICES

ANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2008
Richard SIMPER
ABSTRACT,:,The merger of police services in the UK has been suggested on the grounds that efficiency improvements will be possible. This paper applies a public good model of the police service to evaluate the potential efficiency gains from mergers of police services in England and Wales. It uses a non-parametric method suggested by Bogetoft and Wang (2005). We construct a dataset that reflects the public good nature of police service and allows for the exogenous imposition by government on the level of police service budgets. Our main finding is that English and Welsh police service mergers could lead to increases in police staff resource efficiencies between 10 per cent and 70 per cent. Hence, we confirm the government's decision to merge English and Welsh police services. [source]

The Creation and Empowerment of the European Parliament*

JCMS: JOURNAL OF COMMON MARKET STUDIES, Issue 2 2003
Berthold Rittberger
Up until now we have lacked a systematic, theoretically guided explanation of why the European Union, as the only system of international governance, contains a powerful representative institution, the European Parliament, and why it has been successively empowered by national governments over the past half century. It is argued that national governments' decisions to transfer sovereignty to a new supranational level of governance triggers an imbalance between procedural and consequentialist legitimacy which political elites are fully aware of. To repair this imbalance, proposals to empower the European Parliament play a prominent though not exclusive role. Three landmark events are analysed to assess the plausibility of the advanced theory: the creation of the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, the acquisition of budgetary powers (Treaty of Luxembourg, 1970) and of legislative powers through the Single European Act (1986). [source]