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Political Salience (political + salience)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	83%

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]

The Political Economy of Postmaterialism: Material Explanations of Changing Values

ECONOMICS & POLITICS, Issue 2 2002
Robert Grafstein
This paper uses a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model of the US political economy to explore the impact of public insurance on the way individuals react to partisan changes in economic policy. In response to these aggregate political shocks, individuals rely on public insurance to insulate them from government-induced volatility in consumption. As a result, the public appears to be relatively less materialistic in its vote choices as well as in "values" surveys, but only because its underlying materialism has less political salience. Thus this insurance model provides an alternative analysis of the rise of "postmaterialist values" and their relation to unemployment. [source]

Between EU Requirements, Competitive Politics, and National Traditions: Re,creating Regions in the Accession Countries of Central and Eastern Europe

GOVERNANCE, Issue 4 2002
Martin Brusis
The article studies the impact of the European Union (EU) on the reforms of regional administration in Central and East European (CEE) accession countries. It analyzes the motives, process and outcomes of regional, or mesolevel administrative reforms in five countries,Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia,considering whether the EU has shaped these reforms to a higher degree than in relation to its incumbent member states. The article finds that the EU Commission's interest in regional self,governments with a substantial fiscal and legal autonomy has provided an additional rationale and an incentive to re,create regional self,governments. Advocates of regional self,government and an institutionalization of regions in the accession countries have referred to European trends and (perceived) EU expectations of regionalization. Thus, the Commission and the preaccession framework have become catalysts for a process in which most CEE regions have already enhanced and will further increase their political salience. However, the trajectories and outcomes of regional,level reforms can be better explained by a combination of domestic institutional legacies, policy approaches of reformers and their adversaries, and the influence of ethnic/historical regionalism. [source]

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

The Terror that Failed: Public Opinion in the Aftermath of the Bombing in Oklahoma City

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 3 2000
Carol W. Lewis
Did the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City affect the public's perception of terrorism as a political issue and their perceptions of individual risk and personal vulnerability? The author finds that the bombing in Oklahoma City altered neither the public's assessment of personal risk nor its reported behavior. Public opinion on terrorism and crime share three patterns: (1) perceived risk of victimization and the likely consequences affect public apprehension; (2) the voiced sense of personal security bears a direct relationship to the relative familiarity of the setting; and (3) the public shows resistance to the media's portrayal of risk. Opinion data indicate that domestic terrorism is likely to be seen as important in general and in the abstract, but with low personal risk, little impact on individuals' routine behavior, and, consequently, low political salience. In light of terrorism's purpose of inducing fear and the public's generally placid response on a personal level, the author concludes that the bombing failed as an act of domestic terrorism. [source]