Showing papers on "Government published in 2005"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the latest update of their aggregate governance indicators, together with new analysis of several issues related to the use of these measures, and suggest a simple rule of thumb for identifying statistically significant changes in country governance over time.
Abstract: The authors present the latest update of their aggregate governance indicators, together with new analysis of several issues related to the use of these measures. The governance indicators measure the following six dimensions of governance: (1) voice and accountability; (2) political instability and violence; (3) government effectiveness; (4) regulatory quality; (5) rule of law, and (6) control of corruption. They cover 209 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. They are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 37 separate data sources constructed by 31 organizations. The authors present estimates of the six dimensions of governance for each period, as well as margins of error capturing the range of likely values for each country. These margins of error are not unique to perceptions-based measures of governance, but are an important feature of all efforts to measure governance, including objective indicators. In fact, the authors give examples of how individual objective measures provide an incomplete picture of even the quite particular dimensions of governance that they are intended to measure. The authors also analyze in detail changes over time in their estimates of governance; provide a framework for assessing the statistical significance of changes in governance; and suggest a simple rule of thumb for identifying statistically significant changes in country governance over time. The ability to identify significant changes in governance over time is much higher for aggregate indicators than for any individual indicator. While the authors find that the quality of governance in a number of countries has changed significantly (in both directions), they also provide evidence suggesting that there are no trends, for better or worse, in global averages of governance. Finally, they interpret the strong observed correlation between income and governance, and argue against recent efforts to apply a discount to governance performance in low-income countries.
1,849 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the extent, nature, and economic costs of political rent provision in government banks and found that political firms borrow 45 percent more and have 50 percent higher default rates than private banks.
Abstract: Corruption by the politically connected is often blamed for economic ills, particularly in less developed economies. Using a loan-level data set of more than 90,000 …rms that represents the universe of corporate lending in Pakistan between 1996 and 2002, we investigate rents to politically connected …rms in banking. Classifying a …rm as “political”if its director participates in an election, we examine the extent, nature, and economic costs of political rent provision. We …nd that political …rms borrow 45 percent more and have 50 percent higher default rates. Such preferential treatment occurs exclusively in government banks - private banks provide no
1,556 citations
TL;DR: Co-management, or the joint management of the commons, is often formulated in terms of some arrangement of power sharing between the State and a community of resource users, but in reality there often are multiple local interests and multiple government agencies at play, and co-management can hardly be understood as the interaction of a unitary State and an homogeneous community.
1,180 citations
TL;DR: This article showed that government-owned banks increase their lending in election years relative to private banks in countries other than the United States, and that this effect is robust to controlling for country-specific macroeconomic and institutional factors as well as bank-specific factors.
1,157 citations
TL;DR: It is concluded that an integrated technology like ERP, which potentially represents a "hard" constraint on human agency, can be resisted and reinvented in use.
Abstract: Recent perspectives on organizational change have emphasized human agency, more than technology or structure, to explain empirical outcomes resulting from the use of information technologies in organizations. Yet, newer technologies such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems continue to be associated with the agenda of organizational transformation, largely because they are assumed to constrain human action. We report an interpretive case study of an ERP system after its implementation in a large government agency. Despite the transformation agenda accompanying the new system, users initially chose to avoid using it as much as possible (inertia) and later to work around system constraints in unintended ways (reinvention). We explain the change in enactments with the concept of improvised learning, which was motivated by social influence from project leaders, "power users," and peers. Our results are consistent with arguments regarding the enactment of information technology in organizations and with temporal views of human agency. We conclude that an integrated technology like ERP, which potentially represents a "hard" constraint on human agency, can be resisted and reinvented in use.
1,028 citations
TL;DR: An analysis of a selected set of resources government practitioners use to guide their e-government efforts identifies a set of commonalities across the practical guides and makes recommendations for future development of practitioner guides and future research into e- government initiatives.
813 citations
TL;DR: This paper assess the existing legal infrastructure authorizing public managers to use new governance processes and discuss a selection of quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial new governance process in international, federal, state, and local public institutions.
Abstract: Leaders in public affairs identify tools and instruments for the new governance through networks of public, private, and nonprofit organizations. We argue the new governance also involves people—the tool makers and tool users—and the processes through which they participate in the work of government. Practitioners are using new quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial governance processes, including deliberative democracy, e-democracy, public conversations, participatory budgeting, citizen juries, study circles, collaborative policy making, and alternative dispute resolution, to permit citizens and stakeholders to actively participate in the work of government. We assess the existing legal infrastructure authorizing public managers to use new governance processes and discuss a selection of quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial new governance processes in international, federal, state, and local public institutions. We conclude that public administration needs to address these processes in teaching and research to help the public sector develop and use informed best practices.
790 citations
TL;DR: Acemoglu et al. as mentioned in this paper found that expropriation risk and contract enforcement play a role in Chinese firms' reinvestment decisions, while the extent of private ownership is associated with greater private ownership.
713 citations
TL;DR: This article found that when viewers are exposed to televised political disagreement, it often violates well-established face-to-face social norms for the polite expression of opposing views, and as a result, incivility in public discourse adversely affects trust in government.
Abstract: Does incivility in political discourse have adverse effects on public regard for politics? If so, why? In this study we present a theory suggesting that when viewers are exposed to televised political disagreement, it often violates well-established face-to-face social norms for the polite expression of opposing views. As a result, incivility in public discourse adversely affects trust in government. Drawing on three laboratory experiments, we find that televised presentations of political differences of opinion do not, in and of themselves, harm attitudes toward politics and politicians. However, political trust is adversely affected by levels of incivility in these exchanges. Our findings suggest that the format of much political television effectively promotes viewer interest, but at the expense of political trust.
694 citations
TL;DR: This paper used the theory of segmented assimilation, which accounts for diverse entry situations and receptions of immigrant and refugee populations, to consider the needs and obstacles to education for refugees, and interventions for success.
Abstract: Since 1975, the United States has resettled more than 2 million refugees, with approximately half arriving as children. Refugee children have traumatic experiences that can hinder their learning. The United Nations has specified in conventions, and researchers have concurred, that education is essential for refugee children's psychosocial adjustment. However, government officials, public opinion, and researchers have often differed about what is best for refugees' healthy acculturation. On the basis of a large-scale longitudinal study of the children of immigrants and refugees, Portes and Zhou (1993) suggested the theory of segmented assimilation, which accounts for diverse entry situations and receptions of immigrant and refugee populations. This review uses their theory to consider the needs and obstacles to education for refugees, and interventions for success.
662 citations
05 Apr 2005
TL;DR: The results show that quality of classification can be preserved even for highly restrictive privacy requirements, and has great applicability to both public and private sectors that share information for mutual benefits and productivity.
Abstract: Releasing person-specific data in its most specific state poses a threat to individual privacy. This paper presents a practical and efficient algorithm for determining a generalized version of data that masks sensitive information and remains useful for modelling classification. The generalization of data is implemented by specializing or detailing the level of information in a top-down manner until a minimum privacy requirement is violated. This top-down specialization is natural and efficient for handling both categorical and continuous attributes. Our approach exploits the fact that data usually contains redundant structures for classification. While generalization may eliminate some structures, other structures emerge to help. Our results show that quality of classification can be preserved even for highly restrictive privacy requirements. This work has great applicability to both public and private sectors that share information for mutual benefits and productivity.
TL;DR: The authors examined how and for what reasons rural residents come to care about the environment and explored the deep and durable relationship between government and subjectivity and showed how regulatory strategies associated with and resulting from community decision making help transform those who participate in government.
Abstract: This paper examines how and for what reasons rural residents come to care about the environment. Focusing on Kumaon, India, it explores the deep and durable relationship between government and subjectivity and shows how regulatory strategies associated with and resulting from community decision making help transform those who participate in government. Using evidence drawn from the archival record and fieldwork conducted over two time periods, it analyzes the extent to which varying levels of involvement in institutional regimes of environmental regulation facilitate new ways of understanding the environment. On the basis of this analysis, it outlines a framework of understanding that permits the joint consideration of the technologies of power and self that are responsible for the emergence of new political subjects.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce a two-dimensional framework to further the understanding of public sector corruption and identify its implications for multinational enterprises (MNEs) using an institutional perspective.
Abstract: Multinational enterprises (MNEs) often encounter government corruption when operating in host countries; however, in the international management literature, it is typically assumed that government officials pursue national interests rather than their own. We introduce a two-dimensional framework to further the understanding of public sector corruption and identify its implications for MNEs. Using an institutional perspective, we examine how the pervasiveness and arbitrariness of corruption can affect an MNE's organizational legitimacy and strategic decision making. We apply our analysis to the mode of entry decision.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the goals of social democratic parties are often best served by pursuing policies that benefit insiders while ignoring the interests of outsiders and analyze Eurobarometer data and annual macrodata from 16 OECD countries from 1973 to 1995, concluding that insider-outsider politics are fundamental to a fuller explanation of government partisanship, policy-making, and social democracy since the 1970s.
Abstract: In much of the political economy literature, social democratic governments are assumed to defend the interests of labor The main thrust of this article is that labor is divided into those with secure employment (insiders) and those without (outsiders) I argue that the goals of social democratic parties are often best served by pursuing policies that benefit insiders while ignoring the interests of outsiders I analyze Eurobarometer data and annual macrodata from 16 OECD countries from 1973 to 1995 I explore the question of whether strategies prevalent in the golden age of social democracy have been neglected and Left parties have abandoned the goal of providing equality and security to the most vulnerable sectors of the labor market By combining research on political economy, institutions, and political behavior, my analysis demonstrates that insider–outsider politics are fundamental to a fuller explanation of government partisanship, policy-making, and social democracy since the 1970s
TL;DR: The authors describe the deterioration of China's health care system in the 1980s and 1990s in the context of privatization of the Chinese economy and the Chinese government's current efforts to address the crisis.
Abstract: In this report, the authors describe the deterioration of China's health care system in the 1980s and 1990s in the context of privatization of the Chinese economy. They discuss the Chinese government's current efforts to address the crisis in order to improve access to and delivery of health care.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the temporal and spatial characteristics of the governance transition by charting the deployment of new policy instruments in eight industrialised states and the European Union and find that the change from government to governance is highly differentiated across political jurisdictions, policy sectors and even the main instrument types.
Abstract: Governance is a term in good currency, but there are still too few detailed empirical analyses of the precise extent to which it has or has not eclipsed government. This article explores the temporal and spatial characteristics of the governance transition by charting the deployment of new policy instruments in eight industrialised states and the European Union. The adoption and implementation of (‘old’ and ‘new’) policy instruments offer a useful analytical touchstone because governance theory argues that regulation is the quintessence of government. Although there are many ‘new’ environmental policy instruments in these nine jurisdictions, this article finds that the change from government to governance is highly differentiated across political jurisdictions, policy sectors and even the main instrument types. Crucially, many of the new policy instruments used require some state involvement (that is, ‘government’), and very few are entirely devoid of state involvement (that is, pure ‘governance’). Far fr...
TL;DR: It is argued that the information and transaction phases of e-government are closely intertwined with the street-level bureaucracy literature.
Book•
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01 Aug 2005
TL;DR: The health policy framework helps clarify the role of the state and the private sector in health policy and lays out the priorities for implementation and reform.
Abstract: Overview of the book The health policy framework Power and the policy process The state and the private sector in health policy Agenda setting Government and the policy process Interest groups and the policy process Policy implementation Globalizing the policy process Research, evaluation and policy Doing policy analysis Glossary Acronyms
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors combine resource dependency, institutional, and network theories to examine the factors that influence the likelihood that nonprofit organizations develop formal types of collaborative activities vis-a-vis informal types, and they find that an organization is more likely to increase the degree of formality of its collaborative activities when it is older, has a larger budget size, receives government funding but relies on fewer government funding streams, and is not operating in the education and research or social service industry.
Abstract: Existing research stops short of explaining why nonprofit organizations develop certain forms of collaborations instead of others. In this article, the authors combine resource dependency, institutional, and network theories to examine the factors that influence the likelihood that nonprofit organizations develop formal types of collaborative activities vis-a-vis informal types. Based on the survey data of 95 urban charitable organizations, the study has found that an organization is more likely to increase the degree of formality of its collaborative activities when it is older, has a larger budget size, receives government funding but relies on fewer government funding streams, has more board linkages with other nonprofit organizations, and is not operating in the education and research or social service industry.
TL;DR: This article endeavors to explain the origins of DSM-III, the political struggles that generated it, and its long-term consequences for clinical diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders in the United States.
Abstract: A revolution occurred within the psychiatric profession in the early 1980s that rapidly transformed the theory and practice of mental health in the United States. In a very short period of time, mental illnesses were transformed from broad, etiologically defined entities that were continuous with normality to symptom-based, categorical diseases. The third edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) was responsible for this change. The paradigm shift in mental health diagnosis in the DSM-III was neither a product of growing scientific knowledge nor of increasing medicalization. Instead, its symptom-based diagnoses reflect a growing standardization of psychiatric diagnoses. This standardization was the product of many factors, including: (1) professional politics within the mental health community, (2) increased government involvement in mental health research and policymaking, (3) mounting pressure on psychiatrists from health insurers to demonstrate the effectiveness of their practices, and (4) the necessity of pharmaceutical companies to market their products to treat specific diseases. This article endeavors to explain the origins of DSM-III, the political struggles that generated it, and its long-term consequences for clinical diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders in the United States.
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: In this paper, trust in government is measured in terms of specific support, as indicated by people's satisfaction with specific public services, and contrasted with more general support, determined by political culture and demographic factors.
Abstract: This paper focuses on trust in government, meaning the parliament, the cabinet, the civil service, local councils, political parties, and politicians. Trust is measured in terms of specific support—as indicated by people's satisfaction with specific public services—and contrasted with more general support, determined by political culture and demographic factors. The data used in this analysis are taken from a general mass survey of Norwegian citizens conducted in 2001. The main findings are, first, that people's trust in government is of a general character: A high level of trust in one institution tends to extend to other institutions. Second, political-cultural variables have the strongest overall effect on variations in people's trust in government. Here, the single most important factor is general satisfaction with democracy. Third, citizens who are satisfied with specific public services generally have a higher level of trust in public institutions than citizens who are dissatisfied. Finally, trust in government is also influenced by demographic factors, such as age, education, and occupation.
TL;DR: The authors found that female students with female mentors were more likely to succeed in science and engineering programs, while male students avoided male-dominated fields due to biases against women and the presence of female faculty may mitigate these effects.
Abstract: Although women have matched or surpassed men in many educational outcomes such as college access and persistence, female students remain much less likely to major in quantitative, technical, and science-related fields. While women have made progress in recent years, only 20 percent of engineering students are female, and the proportion of women receiving degrees in the sciences and engineering in the United States lags that of other industrialized countries (National Center for Education Statistics, 1995). This underrepresentation of women may have serious implications for women’s returns to education and may relate to occupational segregation and earnings inequality by gender (Linda Loury, 1997). As the economy shifts to favor these more male-dominated fields, there is concern that women will not be prepared to succeed. Moreover, the health of the economy depends on the production of certain kinds of degrees, and the underrepresentation of women in certain areas may contribute to shortages in critical fields. There have been many widely publicized efforts by the government, companies, and schools to increase female representation in male-dominated fields. One focus has been to increase mentoring opportunities for female students by hiring more women faculty members. Theory and evidence suggest that female instructors may be instrumental in encouraging women to enroll and excel in subjects in which they are underrepresented. Female students may avoid male-dominated fields due to biases against women (Sandra Hanson, 1996), and the presence of female faculty may mitigate these effects. David Neumark and Rosella Gardecki (1998) found that female doctoral students with female mentors were more likely to succeed. However, similar to student trends, women are underrepresented on university faculties, particularly in the sciences and quantitative fields, and many worry about the lack of potential role models for female undergraduates. For example, in 2003 Princeton University created a $10 million fund to hire and promote women faculty in science and engineering departments while Duke’s president pledged $1 million per year for the same purpose (Robin Wilson, 2003). In addition, the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE program continues to push for “increased representation and advancement of women in academic careers and engineering careers” (National Science Foundation, 2004). Does the presence of faculty members of the same gender impact student interest in a subject? This paper answers this question by estimating how having a female faculty member in an initial course affects the likelihood that a female student will take additional credit hours or major in a particular subject. If students choose their courses and major based on their experiences during their initial exposure to a subject, then the instructors they face early in a discipline could influence these decisions. Such an analysis is difficult because few data sets allow researchers to link student outcomes to faculty characteristics. However, using a comprehensive, longitudinal data set of nearly 54,000 students, this paper is among the first, large-scale studies to estimate the impact of faculty on the outcomes of students. Moreover, † Discussants: Ronald Ehrenberg, Cornell University; Brian Jacob, Harvard University; Richard Murnane, Harvard University.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use data from protected areas in Nepal's Terai to examine who participates in environmental decentralization programs and find that the likelihood of participation in community-level user groups is greater for those who are economically and socially better-off.
Book•
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: Fukuyama explains the concept of state-building and discusses the problems and causes of state weakness and its national and international effects as discussed by the authors. But the formation of proper public institutions, such as an honest police force, uncorrupted courts, functioning schools and medical services, is fraught with difficulties.
Abstract: Weak or failed states - where no government is in control - are the source of many of the world's most serious problems, from poverty, AIDS and drugs to terrorism. What can be done to help? The problem of weak states and the need for state-building has existed for many years, but it has been urgent since September 11 and Afghanistan and Iraq. The formation of proper public institutions, such as an honest police force, uncorrupted courts, functioning schools and medical services and a strong civil service, is fraught with difficulties. We know how to help with resources, people and technology across borders, but state building requires methods that are not easily transported. The ability to create healthy states from nothing has suddenly risen to the top of the world agenda. State building has become a crucial matter of global security. In this hugely important book, Francis Fukuyama explains the concept of state-building and discusses the problems and causes of state weakness and its national and international effects.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on buying firms' trust in a supplier's salesperson and posits that this type of trust is determined by characteristics of the salesperson, the interpersonal relationships between a sales person and the buying firm's boundary personnel, and characteristics of personal interactions between these two parties.
Abstract: This research focuses on buying firms' trust in a supplier's salesperson and posits that this type of trust is determined by characteristics of the salesperson, the interpersonal relationships between a salesperson and the buying firm's boundary personnel, and characteristics of personal interactions between these two parties. More important, the authors discuss the concept of interpersonal relationships in the context of Chinese culture and model it as a three-dimensional latent construct, which, in some literature, is called guanxi. A key aspect of this research is that the authors investigate the impact of each dimension of guanxi on salesperson trust separately. Moreover, the authors consider the buying firm's trust in the supplying firm and its long-term orientation toward the supplier the consequences of salesperson trust. To test the model, the authors use data collected from 128 buying organizations in Hong Kong. The sampled firms are from both the government and private sectors.
TL;DR: It is found that managerial innovativeness orientation and city size are the most compelling determinants of municipal e‐government adoption.
Abstract: . This paper explores the effect of managerial innovativeness in municipal government on the adoption of e-government, and it examines the association between the adoption of e-government and its outcome. The authors posit an exploratory model: The first part of the model shows how adoption of municipal e-government is determined by managerial innovativeness orientation, government capacity and institutional characteristics such as city size and government type. The second part suggests how e-government outcomes are associated with the adoption of e-government, government capacity and institutional characteristics. Analysing two different survey data sets of American municipal reinvention and e-government, this study finds that managerial innovativeness orientation and city size are the most compelling determinants of municipal e-government adoption. Different levels of e-government adoption may yield different outcomes.
03 Jan 2005
TL;DR: The Torture Papers as mentioned in this paper document the so-called "torture memos" and reports which US government officials wrote to prepare the way for, and to document, coercive interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib.
Abstract: The Torture Papers document the so-called 'torture memos' and reports which US government officials wrote to prepare the way for, and to document, coercive interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. These documents present for the first time a compilation of materials that prior to publication have existed only piecemeal in the public domain. The Bush Administration, concerned about the legality of harsh interrogation techniques, understood the need to establish a legally viable argument to justify such procedures. The memos and reports document the systematic attempt of the US Government to prepare the way for torture techniques and coercive interrogation practices, forbidden under international law, with the express intent of evading legal punishment in the aftermath of any discovery of these practices and policies.
TL;DR: The authors provided an explanation for this suboptimal fiscal policy based upon political distortions and incentives for less-than-benevolent government to appropriate rents, and tested this argument against more traditional explanations based purely on borrowing constraints with a reasonable amount of success.
Abstract: Many countries, especially developing ones, follow procyclical fiscal policies, namely spending goes up (taxes go down) in booms and spending goes down (taxes go up) in recessions. We provide an explanation for this suboptimal fiscal policy based upon political distortions and incentives for less-than-benevolent government to appropriate rents. Voters have incentives similar to the "starving the Leviathan" classic argument, and demand more public goods or fewer taxes to prevent governments from appropriating rents when the economy is doing well. We test this argument against more traditional explanations based purely on borrowing constraints, with a reasonable amount of success.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a new measure of corruption based on the difference between the amount of physically existing public infrastructure (roads, schools, hospitals, etc.) and the amounts of money cumulatively allocated by government to create these public works.
Abstract: Standard cross-national measures of corruption are assembled through surveys. We propose a novel alternative objective measure that consists of the difference between a measure of the physical quantities of public infrastructure and the cumulative price government pays for public capital stocks. Where the difference is larger between the monies spent and the existing physical infrastructure, more money is being siphoned off to mismanagement, fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and embezzlement; that is, corruption is greater. We create this measure for Italy’s 95 provinces and 20 regions as of the mid-1990s, controlling at the regional level for possible differences in the costs of public construction. THIS METHODOLOGICAL note presents a new measure of corruption, one based on the difference between the amounts of physically existing public infrastructure (roads, schools, hospitals, etc.) and the amounts of money cumulatively allocated by government to create these public works. Where the difference between the two is larger, more money is being lost to fraud, embezzlement, waste, and mismanagement; in other words, corruption is greater. The utility and novelty of this measure come first from the fact that it draws on data other than the surveys that are currently typically used to construct indices of corruption. Second, our measure operationalizes insights of development scholars regarding possible causes of low growth among poor nations. Existing literature suggests that the costs of public investment and the value of existing capital may differ substantially, and that as much as half of government investment in developing nations may be ‘‘missing’’ (Pritchett, 1996, 2000). However, to the best of our knowledge, no one has previously developed a systematic way to measure this. We propose such a method and, using Italian data, detail the construction of an index of missing infrastructure, one that we call ‘‘corruption.’’ The measure that we propose is of course only a proxy for corruption. It does not directly measure it, an enterprise that is not possible since corruption is a complex set of variable interactions, processes, and phenomena with no single metric. We are aware as well that the measure we propose captures some inefficiencies as well as various illegal activities that comprise
Proceedings Article•
01 Jan 2005
TL;DR: It is argued that e-government and digital divide research have been relatively disconnected and important intersections exist between the two and these intersections may be useful to explain some of the failures in e- government projects and policies.