Showing papers on "Government published in 2003"

The effects of e-government on trust and confidence in government

Abstract: Arguments that e-government may improve citizen trust in government have not been sufficiently tested. We are interested in exploring the potential for e-government to influence citizen attitudes about government, across various population groups, including those with limited technology access and skill. This paper surveys literature relevant to e-government and its effect on civic trust, and summarizes our previous research on citizen attitudes on e-government. We propose further research using an Internet-based experiment that will expose a random sample of respondents to government web sites that are chosen to represent best practices for different types of sites. Surveys administered before and after exposure to the sites will measure any significant changes in attitudes about government in general, as well as perceptions of e-government. Oversampling of low-income and minority respondents will allow us to explore any differential impact across demographic groups.

Evaluation, Policy Learning and Evidence-Based Policy Making

Abstract: The increasing emphasis on the need for evidence-based policy indicates the continuing influence of the "modernist" faith in progress informed by reason. Although the rationalist assumptions of evidence-based policy making have been subject to severe challenge from constructivist and post-modernist perspectives, it is argued that the attempt to ground policy making in more reliable knowledge of "what works" retains its relevance and importance. Indeed, its importance is enhanced by the need for effective governance of complex social systems and it is argued that "reflexive social learning" informed by policy and programme evaluation constitutes an increasingly important basis for "interactive governance". The expanded use of piloting of new policies and programmes by the current UK Government is considered to provide limited scope for evaluation to derive reliable evidence of whether policies work. There is a need for greater clarity about the role of evaluation in situations where piloting essentially constitutes "prototyping". More emphasis should be placed on developing a sound evidence base for policy through long-term impact evaluations of policies and programmes. It is argued from a realist position that such evaluation should be theory-based and focused on explaining and understanding how policies achieve their effects using "multi-method" approaches.

Policy without polity? Policy analysis and the institutional void

Abstract: How should policy analysis respond to the changing context of policy making? This article examines three aspects of policy analysis in this changing context: polity, knowledge and intervention. It argues that policy making now often takes place in an ‘institutional void’ where there are no generally accepted rules and norms according to which politics is to be conducted and policy measures are to be agreed upon. More than before, solutions for pressing problems transgress the sovereignty of specific polities. Furthermore, the role of knowledge changes as the relationship between science and society has changed: scientific expertise is now negotiated rather than simply accepted. And, with the weakening of the state, it is far less obvious that the government is the sole actor to intervene in policy making. This article calls for a reconsideration of the analysis of policy making in the light of this changing context. Based on a contextual perspective it calls for a revitalization of the commitments of Harold Lasswell toward a policy science of democracy by proposing a new ‘deliberative’ policy analysis.

Consumer Privacy: Balancing Economic and Justice Considerations

Abstract: Consumer privacy is at the center of an ongoing debate among business leaders, privacy activists, and government officials. Although corporations face competitive pressures to collect and use personal information about their customers, many consumers find some methods of collection and use of their personal information unfair. We present a justice theory framework that illustrates how consumer privacy concerns are shaped by the perceived fairness of corporate information practices. We describe a set of global principles, fair information practices, which were developed to balance consumer privacy concerns with an organization's need to use personal information. We conclude by discussing three alternatives for implementing fair information practices with particular attention to the Internet: government regulation, industry self-regulation, and technological solutions.

Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration: Final Report

Abstract: This review of business-university collaborationin the United Kingdom has three objectives: (1) to illustrate opportunitiesarising from changes in ways that business undertakes RD (2) to recognizebusinesses already collaborating with university departments, which are rolemodels for those without university links; and (3) to offer ideas andrecommendations to shape policy. Points out two new trends shaping business world-wide: Firms are doing lessresearch and development (RD and business RD (2) that government mustbetter support business-university collaboration; and (3) that business mustlearn to exploit innovations being developed by universities. Comparatively, UK businesses have low research intensity. Analyzesthedemand for research from business, identifying the need to raisebusiness demand for research from all sources. Some proposals for buildingnetworks among research-intensive businesses and supporting business-universitycollaboration are offered. Also offers recommendations for encouragingcommunication between business people and academics, to support knowledgetransfer. Universities have the potential to transfer knowledge from their strongscience base to business in the form of intellectual property (IP). However, anumber of barriers to commercializing IP are discussed. First is lack ofclarity of IP ownership in collaborations; second is variable quality ofuniversity technology transfer offices; third, more emphasis should be put onlicensing technology and less on developing university spinouts. Because universities play increasing roles in regional economic development,this analysisrecommends English Regional Development Agencies shouldchange their targets to creating relationships between business anduniversities across regions and nations. The current dual support system of university funding had strengths andweaknesses. The analysissuggests that this system offersdisincentives to business-university cooperation. A number of principles toencourage business research are presented, and the UK government is urged toconsider the balance and fill the research funding gap. A voluntary code of governance for university management is suggested, asare strategies for improving professional and entrepreneurial skills forstudents. Overall, the report concludes that despite much good collaborativework, more remains to be done. Four appendixes identify the goals of thereport, give the draft code of governance, summarize its recommendations, andlist contributors to the report. (TNM)

Are You Being Served? Political Accountability and Quality of Government

Abstract: This paper explores, both formally and empirically, the political accountability mechanisms that lie behind the varying levels of public corruption and of effective governance taking place across nations. The first section develops a principal-agent model in which good governance is a function of the extent to which citizens can hold political officials accountable for their actions. Although policy-makers may have strong incentives to appropriate parts of the citizens' income, well-designed institutions (those increasing both informational flows and elite competitiveness) boost political accountability and reduce the space left for the appropriation of rents. The following sections of the paper test the model. The presence of democratic mechanisms of control and an increasingly informed electorate, measured through the frequency of newspaper readership, explain considerably well the distribution of corrupt practices and governmental ineffectiveness in three types of data sets: a large cross-section of countries in the late 1990s for which an extensive battery of governance indicators has been recently developed by Kaufmann et al. (1999a); a panel data set for the period 1980-95 and about 100 nations on corruption and bureaucratic quality based on experts' rankings; and corruption data for the cross-section of US states in the period 1977-95.

Making Plans that Matter: Citizen Involvement and Government Action

Abstract: Plans that are, as the cliche goes, “dead on arrival” and languish on local government shelves long have contributed to skepticism about the value of comprehensive plans. In this article, I show that if plans are to matter and have an impact on local government actions, planners must involve a wider array of stakeholders in plan making than is usually the case. Evidence from 60 plan-making processes in the states of Florida and Washington indicates that with greater stakeholder involvement, comprehensive plans are stronger, and proposals made in plans are more likely to be implemented. Planners can stimulate broader involvement by stakeholders by directly inviting more groups to take part in the planning process and by providing opportunities for dialogue in which planners both inform citizens about planning issues and listen to citizen concerns.

Interpreting British Governance

Abstract: How is Britain governed? Have we entered a new era of governance? Can traditional approaches to governance help us to interpret 21st century Britain? This book develops the argument that we can understand political practices only by grasping the beliefs on which people act. It offers a governance narrative as a challenge to the Westminster model of British government and searches for a more accurate and open way of speaking about British government.

Public Attitudes toward Welfare State Policies A Comparative Analysis of 24 Nations

Abstract: Morten Blekesaune Norwegian Social Research – NOVA, Oslo, Norway Jill Quadagno Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy, Florida State University, USA To be presented at the first annual conference of The Network for European Social Policy Analysis (ESPAnet), Copenhagen November 13-15 2003. To be published in European Sociological Review, vol.19, no.5, December 2003. Abstract The paper investigates public attitudes toward welfare state policies as a result of both situational, i.e. unemployment, and ideological factors, i.e. egalitarian ideology, at both the individual and national level. The dependent variables are public support for the sick and the old as well as for the unemployed as target beneficiaries of welfare state policies. Data from the ISSP-study «Role of government» are analyzed using a multi-level regression technique. Findings indicate that the nation level is important in shaping public attitudes toward welfare state policies in industrialized nations, and that both situational and ideological factors play a role. Apparently, various nations generate different public beliefs about national social problems and about the relationship between individuals, the state and other institutions. Eventually, these understandings and beliefs influence popular attitudes regarding what kind of policies the state should pursue, and who should benefit.

The New Face of Government: Citizen-Initiated Contacts in the Era of E-Government

Abstract: Dramatic developments in information technology are transforming society, challenging our nation’s many governments to keep pace. As e-governance grows in popularity, Web pages could well become the new face of government. But how are citizens responding? We suggest that government Web sites may provide a new vehicle for citizen-initiated contacts with government, and, drawing from the literature on those traditional contacts, we propose a number of hypotheses on citizen interaction with government via the Web. To test those hypotheses, we examine data from a survey concerning how Georgians are contacting government via the Web. We find that citizen visits to governmental Web sites are increasingly common, and as such appear to have become a major new form of the traditional citizen-initiated contact. To date, however, most of these Web contacts have been made only to obtain information, thus lacking the interactive quality crucial to other citizen-initiated contacts. As an encouraging finding for government, visitors to governmental Web sites appear to be mostly pleased with their experiences, rating those sites as at least comparable in quality to other Web sites. A discouraging finding, however, is that the demographics of these visitors suggest cause for concern, since the digital divide is even more pronounced among government Web site visitors than among Internet users in general. In the concluding section, we discuss the implications of the findings for government and for future research. One of the most remarkable and dramatic changes in recent decades has been the explosion of interest in the Internet, with the phenomenon of e-commerce—unheard of only a decade ago—becoming in just a few years a principal growth area in the American economy. As use of the Web by the private sector has grown, the public sector has followed closely behind, and virtually all large U.S. governments and their agencies—federal, state, and local —now having their own Web sites. As public-sector Web sites proliferate and expand in function, they are rapidly becoming a new aspect of government. Many citizens who previously would visit or call gov

Joined‐up Government: a Survey

Abstract: This paper first identifies the varied meanings and objectives of joined-up government (JUG) Subsequently it explores the costs and risks involved, and briefly reviews some of the relevant academic literature Having thus clarified the key concepts and situated the current fashion for a ‘holistic approach’ within the broader literature on co-ordination, the paper also considers a range of approaches to the assessment of progress with JUG

Building Consensual Institutions: Networks and the National Estuary Program

Abstract: Currently, many approaches to solving policy problems seek to create community-based, less coercive solutions that are creating the conditions for the birth of new regional governmental institutions. We argue that networks form the core of these emergent structures and that federal programs can play a positive role in developing local networks. Our empirical work compares networks in estuaries included in National Estuary Program with networks in comparable estuaries that were not. We find that the networks in NEP areas span more levels of government, integrate more experts into policy discussions, nurture stronger interpersonal ties between stakeholders, and create greater faith in the procedural fairness of local policy, thus laying the foundation for a new form of cooperative governance. A wide range of policy domains are characterized by political and administrative jurisdictions that are poorly suited for solving many emerging problems. This is particularly true in the area of environmental policy, where the physical boundaries of watersheds, airsheds, fishing grounds, and other natural systems typically cross local political and administrative boundaries. The need to deal with problems that transcend established governmental structures has intensified at the same time that the zeitgeist of American politics has increasingly spurned anything that smacks of “big government.” In turn, approaches that rely on hierarchical commandand-control are being replaced by policies that seek to create more community-based and less coercive solutions to policy problems. This has created the conditions for the birth of new regional governmental institutions that differ dramatically from traditional large-scale governmental organizations.

Educating the national citizen in neoliberal times: from the multicultural self to the strategic cosmopolitan

Abstract: The paper is a broad, comparative investigation of shifts in the educational rhetoric and policy of three countries over the past two decades. Using England, Canada and the United States as case studies, I argue that the spirit of multiculturalism in education has shifted from a concern with the formation of tolerant and democratic national citizens who can work with and through difference, to a more strategic use of diversity for competitive advantage in the global marketplace. This shift is directly linked with and helps to facilitate the entrenchment of neoliberalism as it supports a privatization agenda, reduces the costs of social reproduction for the government, and aids in the constitution of subjects oriented to individual survival and/or success in the global economy.

Do Government Grants to Private Charities Crowd Out Giving or Fund-raising?

Abstract: Economists have long observed that crowding out of government grants to private charities is incomplete. The accepted belief is that givers treat the grants as imperfect substitutes for private giving. We theoretically and empirically investigate a second reason: the strategic response of a charity will be to reduce fund-raising efforts after receiving a grant. Employing panel data from arts and social service organizations, we find that government grants cause significant reductions in fund-raising. This adds a new dimension to the policy discussions - analysts should account for the behavioral responses of the charity, as well as the donors, to government grants.

Reviving Leviathan: Fiscal Federalism and the Growth of Government

Abstract: This article revisits the influential "Leviathan" hypothesis , which pos- its that tax competition limits the growth of government spending in decentralized countries+ I use panel data to examine the effect of fiscal decentralization over time within countries, attempting to distinguish between decentralization that is funded by intergovernmental transfers and local taxation+ First, I explore the logic whereby decentralization should restrict government spending if state and local governments have wide-ranging authority to set the tax base and rate, especially on mobile assets+ In countries where this is most clearly the case, decentralization is associated with smaller government+ Second, consistent with theoretical arguments drawn from wel- fare economics and positive political economy, I show that governments grow faster as they fund a greater portion of public expenditures through intergovernmental transfers+

Public Service Performance and Trust in Government: The Problem of Causality

Abstract: Concerns for restoring citizens' trust in government are at the core of public sector modernization. Public distrust is often blamed on the bad functioning of public services, and in political discourse well‐functioning public services are said to create trust in government. This is a very rational and mechanistic reasoning, only part of which corresponds to reality. The link between performance and trust can only be made when very specific conditions are present. The core of the discussion deals with causality: it is obvious that performance of the public administration has a certain impact on trust in government, but existing levels of trust in government may also have an impact on perceptions of government performance. In this article, we outline a framework for research on this performance–trust relation.

Comparing measures of citizen trust and user satisfaction as indicators of good governance: difficulties in linking trust and satisfaction indicators

Abstract: Until recently, public administration mainly used so-called ‘hard indicators’, such as resources and outputs, to monitor performance. Increased attention on accountability and issues around impacts and outcomes have stimulated the introduction of ‘soft’ indicators — e.g. citizen and user satisfaction targets. Moreover, there is increased demand for information on performance in relation to ‘governance’ as a whole, including ‘quality of life’ indicators. Politicians, journalists and citizens increasingly express their worries about a decreasing level of trust in government and the detrimental effects this has on government and on the cohesion of society — they appear to assume that more trust and more satisfaction equal better governance. Increasing the quality of governance will thus also lead to citizens who are more satisfied and more trusting. This article shows that current attempts to measure trust and satisfaction in government are misleading if they claim to be measuring good governance for two reasons. First, satisfaction is difficult to measure and very servicespecific. Second, trust in government is easier to measure but its linkages with good governance are far from clear. Even when trust in government can be measured, it is not at all clear whether changes in the level of trust are actually influenced by government-related factors. We suggest, finally, the hypothesis that trust could be insufficient but necessarily part of a set of indicators which are unnecessary but sufficient for good governance.

The Extent and Determinants of the Utilization of University Research in Government Agencies

Abstract: This article addresses three questions: To what extent is university research used in government agencies? Are there differences between the policy domains in regard to the extent of use? What determines the use of university research in government agencies? The data analysis is based on a survey of 833 government officials from Canadian government agencies. Comparisons of the magnitude of uptake of university research show large and significant differences across policy domains. The results of the multivariate regression analyses show that the characteristics of research and the focus on the advancement of scholarly knowledge or on users’ needs do not explain the uptake of research. Users’ adaptation of research, users’ acquisition efforts, links between researchers and users, and users’ organizational contexts are good predictors of the uptake of research by government officials.

Tourism management : Managing for change

Abstract: Stephen J. Page, ‘Tourism Management: Managing for Change’, (UK: Routledge, 2009), ISBN 9781856176026.

The State and the Politics of Knowledge

Abstract: Formal schooling by and large is organized and controlled by the government. This means that by its very nature the entire schooling process-how it is paid for, what goals it seeks to attain and how these goals will be measured, who has power over it, what textbooks are approved, who does well in schools and who does not, who has the right to ask and answer these questions, and so on-is by definition political. Thus, as inherently part of a set of political institutions, the educational system will constantly be in the middle of crucial struggles over the meaning of democracy, over definitions of legitimate authority and culture, and over who should benefit the most from government policies and practices. That this is not of simply academic interest is very clear in the increasingly contentious issues surrounding what curricula and methods of instruction should be used in our schools. Think for instance of the whole languageversus-phonics debate and the immense political controversies this has demonstrated in local communities and in state legislatures. Or think of Diane Ravitch’s (largely erroneous) arguments that “real knowledge” is no longer taught and that political and educational “progressives” have captured the teaching and curriculum in most schools throughout the past century (Ravitch, 2000). Even though her assertions are both empirically and historically incorrect (Apple, 2001b), these and similar arguments have been circulated largely uncritically by the mainstream media, by increasingly conservative foundations, and by political groups.

Marketisation in Higher Education, Clark's Triangle and the Essential Ingredients of Markets

Abstract: While government intervention in the higher education market may be justified, it may come at the cost of lower consumer sovereignty and restricted producer autonomy. Through marketisation policy, students and higher education providers have more room to make their own trade-offs and interact more closely on the basis of reliable information. This article discusses eight conditions for a market and the extent to which these are met in Dutch higher education. It is argued that there is still a key role for the government to co-design framework conditions and facilitate interaction in a more demand-driven and liberalised higher education sector.

A Retrospective on Undergraduate Engineering Success for Underrepresented Minority Students

Abstract: This paper examines the various factors that contribute to the success of minority students in engineering programs by exploring past and current paradigms promoting success and analyzing models for advancing the participation of members of these populations. Included is a literature review of articles, government reports, Web sites, and archives published since 1980. Student success is correlated to several indicators, including pre-college preparation, recruitment programs, admissions policies, financial assistance, academic intervention programs, and graduate school preparation and admission. This review suggests that the problem of minority underrepresentation and success in engineering is soluble given the appropriate resources and collective national “will” to propagate effective approaches.

Outcomes of Collaborative Water Policy Making: Applying Complexity Thinking to Evaluation

Abstract: Collaborative policy making has become increasingly significant in environmental management, but it is often evaluated by whether or not agreement is reached and implemented. The most important outcomes of such policy dialogues are often invisible or undervalued when seen through the lens of a traditional, modernist paradigm of government and accountability. These dialogues represent a new paradigm of governance that can be best understood in the light of a complex adaptive system model of society. From this perspective collaborative policy making is a way of making a system more flexible, adaptive and intelligent. The authors document such outcomes in three cases of water policy making in California, including the San Francisco Estuary Project, the CALFED Bay-Delta Program and the Sacramento Area Water Forum. The outcomes include social and political capital, agreed-on information, the end of stalemates, high-quality agreements, learning and change, innovation and new practices involving networks and fle...

Public spending in developing coutries: trends, determination, and impact

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to review trends in government expenditures in the developing world, to analyze the causes of change, and to develop an analytical framework for determining the differential impacts of various government expenditures on economic growth. Contrary to common belief, it is found that structural adjustment programs increased the size of government spending, but not all sectors received equal treatment. As a share of total government spending, expenditures on agriculture, education, and infrastructure in Africa; on agricultural and health in Asia; and on education and infrastructure in Latin America, all declined as a result of the structural adjustment programs. The impact of various types of government spending on economic growth is mixed. In Africa, government spending on agriculture and health was particularly strong in promoting economic growth. Asia's investments in agriculture, education, and defense had positive growth-promoting effects. However, all types of government spending except health were statistically insignificant in Latin America. Structural adjustment programs promoted growth in Asia and Latin America, but not in Africa. Growth in agricultural production is most crucial for poverty alleviation in rural areas. Agricultural spending, irrigation, education, and roads all contributed strongly to this growth. Disaggregating total agricultural expenditures into research and non-research spending reveals that research had a much larger impact on productivity than non-research spending.

Electronic Government at the Local Level: Progress to Date and Future Issues

Abstract: Much like businesses with electronic commerce, public organizations are beginning to embrace electronic government (e-government). This article defines the term e-government, discusses the literature oflocal-Ievel e-government, and documents the adoption and sophistication of e-government among U.S. local governments. It employs data from a survey conducted in 2000 to examine local adoption of e-government. E-government adoption among local governments generally tracks previously documented patterns of information technology adoption, which show a statistically significant relationship between adoption and such demographic variables as population size, form and type of government, region, and metro status. The article compares the results of that survey to a normative model of e-government maturity and finds that the emergence of e-government at the local level is still in its formative stages. The analysis also examines perceived impacts from e-govemment, sophistication of e-government offerings, barrier...

State And Local E-Government: Prospects and Challenges

Abstract: This article presents a self-contained yet comprehensive discussion of the prospects of state and local electronic government (e-government), the status of its development across the states and local communities, and the difficult challenges faced in making it a reality. In taking a very broad approach to e-government, the hope is that the analysis helps to bring perspective to the issue and to synthesize a literature that is increasingly becoming a series of disconnected case studies. Although the prospects at all levels of government for improving public services, reducing costs, and enhancing the democratic process are high, e-government has been penetrating state government much more rapidly than local government. The most salient obstacles to full penetration of e-government seem to be proper marketing, privacy issues, equity, and financing.

Bureaucracy, Network, or Enterprise? Comparing Models of Governance in Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, and New Zealand

Abstract: Theories of democratic government traditionally have relied on a model of organization in which officials act impartially, accept clear lines of accountability and supervision, and define their day–to–day activities through rules, procedures, and confined discretion. In the past 10 years, however, a serious challenge to this ideal has been mounted by critics and reformers who favor market, network, or “mixed–economy” models. We assess the extent to which these new models have influenced the work orientations of frontline staff using three alternative service types—corporate, market, and network—to that proposed by the traditional, procedural model of public bureaucracy. Using surveys of frontline officials in four countries where the revolution in ideas has been accompanied by a revolution in methods for organizing government services, we measure the degree to which the new models are operating as service–delivery norms. A new corporate–market hybrid (called “enterprise governance”) and a new network type have become significant models for the organization of frontline work in public programs.

Who wants to be an active citizen? The politics and practice of community involvement

Abstract: The notions of active citizenship and community involvement have become increasingly prominent in political discussions and policy practices within Britain in the past 15 years. This is a significant development as the modus operandi of modern liberal democracies has been a representative mode of government in which the wider citizenry has a passive role. This paper contextualizes active citizenship in terms of the interrelationship between civic society and the political realm. The Foucauldian-inspired literature on governmentality has made a concerted attempt to examine such issues. Governmentality regards government, not in the conventional sense as the provenance of centralized institutions, where interest groups and ideologies play their part, but as a complex and ever-changing process that forges ways of thinking about governing with a myriad of practices that proliferate throughout society. Whilst it is informative, it is questioned whether this analytic approach can fully explain and illuminate po...

Local government decision‐making—citizen participation and local accountability: some evidence from Kenya and Uganda

Abstract: The current fashion for decentralisation is built on the assumption that it will result in decisions that reflect local needs and priorities. Yet representative democracy through periodic elections is a crude mechanism for establishing these needs and priorities. Most local government systems offer few other opportunities for citizens to participate particularly for the poor and few mechanisms of accountability. This article reviews the literature relating local level decision-making citizen participation and accountability. It then presents the findings of a study of decision-making about the use of resources in a sample of municipal governments in Kenya and Uganda. Local governments in Kenya have traditionally offered minimal scope for citizen participation or accountability but this is beginning to change mainly as a result of performance conditions applied through the recently introduced Local Authorities Transfer Fund (LATF) together with an increasingly active civil society. In Uganda which has undergone a radical decentralisation there is much greater scope for citizen participation at the local level but there are still many of the same problems of local accountability as in Kenya. The article reviews some of the examples of and reasons for good (and bad) practice. It concludes that factors like committed local leadership central monitoring of performance articulate civil society organisations and the availability of information are critical. But even with these there is no guarantee that decentralised decision-making will be inclusive of the poor. (authors)

Issues of Knowledge Management in the Public Sector

Abstract: The new economy not only poses challenges, but also offers opportunities for both private and public sectors alike. To meet the challenges and take the opportunities, government must take active initiatives to adopt new management tools, techniques and philosophies of the private sector and adapt to its circumstance. Knowledge management (KM) is such an area that needs to be further explored and exploited for its full benefits to be reaped. Key issues, challenges, and opportunities of KM in the public sector need to be addressed and better understood