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Budgeting is an important mechanism for ensuring public accountability. How do budget reforms in the United States during the Progressive Era compare to those in contemporary China? Are administrative and legislative budget controls essential to an effective, efficient government? Though the two countries differ in many respects, significant parallels between their budget reforms are evident. In the United States, electoral accountability alone does not guarantee overall government accountability if proper budgetary institutions are absent. China’s recent budget reform reveals that it is possible to develop accountability, absent open elections, but with limitations and constraints. Lessons on budgeting and accountability for other developing and transitional countries are drawn from this comparative study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the impact of performance-based budgeting (PBB) on governmental spending? Do various PBB implementation strategies result in different outcomes? The authors, Jack Yun-jie Lee of National Open University in Taiwan and XiaoHu Wang of the University of Central Florida, gathered data from the United States, Taiwan, and China (Guangdong Province) to explore the possible intermediate- and long-term results of PBB. The data demonstrate how the impacts of PBB vary across countries and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since China’s 1994 fiscal reform, increasing concerns have been voiced about fiscal disparities across the country. Can local governments fairly and effectively fulfill basic public services such as primary education, public health, and social welfare? This essay traces the evolution of intergovernmental relations in China since 1978. The fluctuation of provincial level fiscal distribution over time and the underlying factors behind fiscal inequality, as compared to a decentralized American revenue system, are analyzed. The author, Zhirong Jerry Zhao of the University of Minnesota, argues for additional research on alternative measures of local fiscal capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To compare administrative reform in one of the world’s most ancient civilizations and in one of the world’s “youngest countries” produces some surprises. Administrative reforms in both countries are similar, but occur at different periods of history. Mengzhong Zhang of the University of Maryland at College Park discovers that some of China’s recent reform efforts resemble historic efforts in the United States up to half a century ago. Other components of administrative reform in China reflect contemporary practices in the United States. This phenomenon reflects convergence, rather than divergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful adoption of collaborative service delivery requires that governments develop better capacity to handle potential pitfalls. In this essay, Yijia Jing of Fudan University and E. S. Savas of the City University of New York provide a framework that compares and contrasts the management practices in China and America. Both nations favor collaborative service delivery and engage in it extensively. Can China’s state-affiliated strategy and the United States’ competition-oriented strategy both work effectively? Such distinct systems, embedded in vastly different socioeconomic and political institutional environments decisively influence the effectiveness of collaborative service delivery management in the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do two world powers with starkly different governing systems share common accountability problems, and why? Does the cycle of administrative reform produce additional need for reforms that come full circle, eventually exacerbating problems without solution? Yongfei Zhao and B. Guy Peters of the University of Pittsburgh examine governance in the United States and China and point out that conflicts in government functions unique to each country result in strikingly similar accountability issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the fastest growing economies in the world, many wonder what kind of international behavior an increasingly powerful China will demonstrate in the future. Will it be a responsible state on the world stage? The article aims to understand Chinese foreign policy making from a comparative perspective. By using the neoclassical realist approach, key features of Chinese foreign policy as well as possible future alternatives for its implementation are outlined. The essay concludes that significant changes in Chinese foreign policy in recent years are remarkably similar to those of other major powers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While international comparisons of anticorruption policies abound, whether these policies are transferable and how they change inside national boundaries remain debatable. Kaifeng Yang of Florida State University proposes an institutional framework that emphasizes the role of congruence and ideas in institutional change. In comparing China to the United States, the author concludes that anticorruption institutional change is path dependent, as it is nested in fundamental political structures and meta-narratives. Professor Yang proposes the possibility that new ideas may cause gradual changes with radical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the history of ASPA from internal and external vantage points, showing how the organization has continually adapted to demands from within and competition from without. ASPA is rooted in Progressive Era reforms that professionalized government during the first half of the twentieth century, spawning numerous associations of public officials dedicated to enhancing expertise and integrity throughout the public service. Changes in membership, mission, structure, conferences, publications, commitment to ethics, and relationships with other like-minded associations are reviewed. Today, ASPA is an agile organization that represents a uniquely generalist orientation to public service professionalism while offering more services to its members within a competitive marketplace of public official associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Claude Ferguson, who in his own words “met the test of his lifetime,” deviated from the norms of the U.S. Forest Service articulated by Herbert Kaufman in The Forest Ranger to became a government guerrilla against the organization he loved. This profile highlights several enduring themes: the inherent tensions between democracy and bureaucracy, the many masters of career bureaucrats, how organizational culture can both empower and constrain employees, and what it means to act responsibly, ethically, and with integrity as a public servant. In addition, this case demonstrates how the Forest Service has evolved since Kaufman's classic study. First, Kaufman depicted forest rangers as “valuing the organization more than they value[d] getting their own way,” yet this profile underscores that public servants do not check their worldviews, mores, or ethics at the door. Second, Kaufman described the Forest Service's efforts to routinize the decisions of its employees in an effort to prevent allegiances to, or co-optation by, local populations. Yet in this Administrative Profile, Ferguson's hidden strategic tactics co-opted local stakeholders to enlist their support for a cause he deeply felt was right and just. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can the current presidential appointments process be improved? This essay highlights three kinds of problems: inexperienced appointees, a lengthening process, and tedious and adversarial inquiry. While the essay side-steps trying to affect the prerogatives of institutions involved in the tussle over appointments, it concentrates on improving the support of presidential personnel operations and the process of inquiry that nominees face, and it identifies patterns of repetitiveness among the roughly 2,800 details that a nominee must provide in responding to some 295 individual questions in nine categories. The most adversarial and tedious categories of inquiry include identifying personal background, reporting on criminal entanglements, and assaying potential conflicts of interest. Five strategies are identified for better matching the needed experience in the White House to the demands of presidential personnel. These changes would indirectly shorten the nomination and confirmation process, and the author makes three important recommendations for structuring inquiry that could reduce the adversarial burden on nominees by nearly a third. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This year marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of the D-Day invasion, when Allied forces crossed the English Channel and established beachheads along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast in northern France. Troops overcame stiff resistance and systematically moved inland, liberating Northern Europe and forcing the surrender of Germany and the end of World War II in that part of the world. The D-Day invasion took place on June 6, 1944, but its planning began more than two years earlier. This case studies the strategic planning that led up to the invasion. The Operations Division of the War Department General Staff, formerly known as the War Plans Division, was the principal staff agency of the U.S. Army high command during World War II. The story focuses on the Operations Division's role in formulating a strategic plan for ending the war as well as Operation BOLERO—the American military troop buildup in Great Britain that preceded the cross-channel invasion. By reprinting this case from the original U.S. Army historical record, PAR pays tribute to the brave men and women who planned and executed this bold maneuver, many of whom paid the ultimate price to achieve victory and restore freedom. Popularized as the “Greatest Generation,” they were ordinary people who answered the call of public service with extraordinary bravery and sacrifice. Members of the modern-day public administration community proudly stand on their shoulders. This chapter-length excerpt is taken from Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1951), chapter IX, “Case History: Drafting the BOLERO Plan,” pp. 143–63. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possibility of an influenza pandemic occurring within the next two decades is very real; the role of local governments in comprehensive preparation for this global threat is crucial. The federal government has provided broad guidelines for state and local officials who are ultimately responsible for emergency response and lifesaving services, vaccination and antiviral use, and the provision of other critical support. Much of this influenza pandemic preparedness has occurred under conditions of uncertainty, and these government actions may have unprecedented legal and ethical implications. This study evaluates the pandemic influenza policies of eight large U.S. cities to determine how Department of Health and Human Services recommendations with ethical and legal implications have been addressed. The authors find that several important aspects of these guidelines are vague in many plans, and input from key stakeholders is inadequate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A premise of charter school initiatives has been that these schools have direct benefits for the students attending them and indirect benefits for other students by creating competition for traditional public schools to improve their performance. This study uses a two-pronged approach to assess whether California charter schools are having indirect effects on students in traditional public schools. First, we examine how traditional public school principals react to the introduction of charter schools. Second, we assess whether competition from nearby charters is affecting student achievement outcomes for students that remain in traditional public schools. The survey results show that traditional public school principals felt little competitive pressure from charters. Similarly, the student achievement analysis shows that charter competition was not improving the performance of traditional public schools. These results suggest that California charter schools are having little effect on the climate of traditional public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In light of the blurring between sectors, it is critical not only to understand public organizations, but also to identify factors that contribute to the achievement of public outcomes across sectors. To what extent does organizational “publicness” lend insight to understanding and managing for public outcomes? By integrating the theory of dimensional publicness with recent work on public values, this analysis presents a framework that defines realized publicness as public outcomes predicted in part by institutions embodying public values. Based on insights from neo-institutional theory, managing for public outcomes, or managing publicness, requires attention to the combined effects of regulative, associative, and cultural-cognitive public value institutions. This analysis concludes with a timely application of the realized publicness framework to mortgage lending, demonstrating the importance of conceptualizing influences from diverse types of public value institutions when evaluating a particular initiative, such as the Community Reinvestment Act, and mortgage outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars of representative bureaucracy have long been interested in the linkage between passive representation in public agencies and the pursuit of specific policies designed to benefit minority groups. Research in this area suggests that the structural characteristics of those organizations, the external political environment, and the perceptions of individual bureaucrats each help to facilitate that relationship. Work to date has not, however, sufficiently investigated the impact of region on representation behavior, which is surprising given the emphasis that it receives in the broader literature on race and politics. Drawing on that literature, this study argues that, for black bureaucrats, region of residence is an important moderator of active representation because it helps to determine the salience of race as an issue and the degree of identification with racial group interests. It tests hypotheses related to that general argument in a nationally representative sample of more than 3,000 public schools. The results suggest that black teachers produce greater benefits for black students in the South, relative to other regions. A supplementary analysis also confirms the theoretical supposition that race is a more salient issue for Southern black bureaucrats, when compared with their non-Southern counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federalism jurisprudence shapes the powers that public administrators have to achieve policy priorities. Federalism, however, is neither static nor simplistic as a concept, and a proper understanding of the environment in which public administrators work rests on a careful analysis of U.S. Supreme Court decisions. The authors review claims that a 2005 decision, Gonzales v. Raich, terminated a federalism revolution that had been ushered in a decade earlier. Does Raich in fact mark the end of the Supreme Court's federalism doctrine? Analysis of this question clarifies whether the past and current Court has articulated any direction touching on administrators' powers at both the national and state levels. The authors argue that before the federalism revolution is declared dead or alive, public administration can better understand the realities of the Supreme Court's doctrinal boundaries by examining a more detailed analysis of jurisprudence for what is says about the foundations of federalism such as the commerce clause, Fourteenth Amendment, Tenth Amendment, Eleventh Amendment, spending clause, and statutory interpretation issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congestion costs are emerging as one of the most important challenges faced by metropolitan planners and transport authorities in developed economies. In the United States, these costs were as high as $78 billion in 2005 and are growing as a result of rapid increases in travel delays. In order to solve the current and severe levels of congestion, the U.S. Department of Transportation has recently started a program to initiate congestion pricing in five metropolitan areas. In this context, it is important to identify factors that influence successful implementation, as well as the problems or difficulties associated with charging projects. The authors review, synthesize, and analyze worldwide experience with urban road charging in order to extract lessons for policy makers who are considering the implementation of congestion pricing projects and for those who are interested in the introduction of traffic management tools to regulate entrance to city centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The credit rating agencies (CRAs) were an important component of the subprime mess. This article describes what the CRAs are, what they do, what roles they play, and how they fit into the regulatory system. It outlines the types of mortgage securities that the CRAs rate and outlines the evolution of the subprime mess. It then assesses three prime suspects in the CRAs' problems: incentives, ignorance, and stress. The author concludes that all three factors were important, that public officials were slow to react, and that additional safeguards have been put into place to prevent such problems in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

History is institutional memory writ large. One looks at economic history to see what problems recur, what causes them to recur, what solutions have worked best in the past, and which interventions have made the problems worse. The authors argue that a moderately complex interaction between the workings of the financial sector, the way in which the political system is organized, and the administration of regulation makes perfect regulation of the financial sector extremely unlikely. Many of these problems arise as a result of conflicting incentives for those participating in and regulating the financial field. The authors find that some proposed solutions have improved matters but have costs, and that some proposed solutions have actually worsened problems in the financial sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the financial crisis of 2008 ultimately affected the range of U.S. financial institutions, it began with practices in home ownership finance. The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) System was the first instrumentality created by the U.S. government, in 1932, to sustain affordable home ownership finance. In this article, the authors ask what role, if any, the FHLBanks played in the subprime lending and securitization practices that precipitated the current crisis. The authors analyze publicly available FHLBank financial data in terms of a framework focused on the System's assets: advances; mortgage loans acquired from members; and investments, particularly in mortgage-backed-securities. They conclude that the FHLBanks did not contribute significantly to problematic practices. Nonetheless, they recommend consideration of three reforms to the FHLBanks to ensure a return to effective regulation and responsible, affordable home ownership finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Federal Reserve System struggled to maintain order in U.S. credit markets as rapid declines in home prices led to huge write-downs in the value of mortgage-backed securities held by financial institutions. The Fed could have taken a number of steps—in the mortgage market or through broader regulatory actions—to either preempt or mitigate the impact of this market disruption. Broader regulatory actions—in the mortgage market, of risk taking by financial institutions, or in the form of actions to limit the contagion of crisis—imply fundamental changes at the Fed. The network of actors with a stake in broader regulatory action is powerful and highly resistant to regulatory scrutiny. The statutory mission of the Fed—especially its commitment to stable prices—could be jeopardized by a broad and explicit mandate to provide liquidity to a wide range of vulnerable financial institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This descriptive study examines the extent to which the federal government has achieved social equity in its workforce. In particular, the author addresses the degree to which white women and people of color have been successful in reaching the upper, higher-paying levels of nonpostal federal government jobs. The study shows that, with few exceptions, these groups, despite continued calls for greater equity, remain in lower-level, lower-paying, less prestigious jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration instituted a Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution System (PPBES) in 2002. As supplemented by matrix management, PPBES was appealing as an effort to rationalize the performance of an agency with an especially high degree of functional overlap among its component parts. Although PPBES has had some salutary effects, the agency's experience to date consistent with accounts of the difficulties that led to the abandonment of program budgeting by the civilian bureaucracy almost 40 years ago. As such, it speaks to the limits of performance assessment as a means of reallocating resources and responsibilities across organizational boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions about congressional earmarking often focus on their direct costs in the federal government's appropriations bills. This article shows that this conventional view neglects the administrative costs of earmarking by examining the extensive transaction and opportunity costs that come with the political, budgetary, and programmatic management of these earmarked projects in Congress and in the Office of Naval Research. One policy conclusion from this study is that the executive branch should make these costs transparent, as they remain largely hidden from public discussion and the consideration of the federal budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonprofits represent a substantial group of third-party agents that deliver public services, yet little is known about the extent to which these organizations embrace participatory governance practices. Using survey data from nonprofit social service agencies in Michigan, the author examines how these organizations provide opportunities for client participation and identifies factors that contribute to these practices. Four methods of securing client involvement are examined: participation in agency work groups, client feedback surveys, advisory boards and committees, and client service on the agency board of directors. The results indicate that government funding plays a systematic role in promoting these activities within nonprofits. These findings carry important implications for the government-nonprofit contract relationship by demonstrating that government funding shapes the practices of nonprofits in ways that promote democratic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study documents state implementation of mechanisms designed to promote public participation in agency rulemaking. Many scholars have questioned the effectiveness of such mechanisms, arguing that they fail to encourage greater participation or that increased participation does not affect the substance of administrative rules. Using data from a unique survey of state administrators, the author employs multivariate analyses to assess the relationship between these measures and the perceived influence of external actors. The results suggest that critics may understate the importance of public notification and access procedures. These devices are associated with increases in the impact that a wide variety of actors are perceived to have on the content of agency rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring that a community is prepared to deal with a disaster is among the many tasks public managers are charged with addressing. Disaster preparedness and response requires adherence to standard planning practices, yet disasters are typically unpredictable. Dealing with disasters, therefore, requires a blend of traditional management skills and improvisation. Furthermore, like other aspects of administrative leadership, the top administrator must blend initiation and responsiveness in interactions with elected officials and a careful delineation of responsibility in handling actual emergencies. This article discusses how local administrators assess risk and balance preparedness needs within a universe of daily operational needs. Managing environmental risk is also explored from a political and legal context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unraveling of the budget process described by Irene Rubin will have extraordinary consequences for the long-term budget outlook facing the nation. The retirement of the baby boom generation will prompt unprecedented and unsustainable structural fiscal imbalances for decades to come. Early policy action on the spending and revenue sides of the budget is critical to avert fiscal and economic crisis and to phase in changes in order to avoid precipitous and politically perilous actions in the future. Yet such actions constitute what amounts to a politically unnatural act, as one generation of political leaders is asked to make sacrifices in current policies benefiting future generations. Budget process reforms can serve to highlight the salience of these issues and help deal with the significant political hurdles faced by decision makers in making these intertemporal budgeting trade-offs. Ironically, the need for budget rules and processes has intensified as policy makers have become more vulnerable to polarized political parties, ever more watchful media, and mobilized interest groups. Budget rules and processes can help policy makers cope by protecting their ability to make the hard choices that will be necessary. The pressures for budget process reform will accelerate as the current financial crisis increases near-term budgetary pressures, promoting greater alignment between near-term and long-term fiscal problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tensions remain in adapting to the “new normalcy”—that is, the balance between national security and other democratic and administrative priorities in the aftermath of 9/11. Perhaps no one appreciates this balance more than Admiral James Loy. Immediately following the September 11 attacks, he left his post as commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard to accept the challenge of standing up the Transportation Security Administration. Next, Loy tackled the role of deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Loy’s efforts to articulate a set of core organizational values in three organizational contexts offer lessons for public managers who seek to enhance internal cohesion. Strong cultural cohesion is expected to support organizational transformation and, ultimately, performance. Loy’s example puts that connection to the test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The budget process is seriously flawed, as Irene Rubin suggests, but there is little prospect for its effective reform. Current economic and political conditions could open the window for reform, but the excessive partisanship that helped create these conditions also has reduced the pool of institutionalists who could lead reforms. More important is confusion about which reforms might be most effective. Most proposed reforms would create more rules, but they will not work unless politicians commit to meeting the goals such rules are intended to support. Those commitments could be produced by deliberation over critical issues that have been neglected in recent discussions of budget process reform: how the process could support macroeconomic policy making, how improved budget concepts could accurately measure finances and aid in dealing with upcoming policy challenges, how reorganization could enable intelligent priority setting, and how the process could be better aligned with the constitutional sharing of powers and the electoral system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The speed and scale of urbanization provide serious challenges for governments all over the world with regard to the realization, maintenance, and operation of public urban infrastructures. These infrastructures are needed to keep up with living standards and to create conditions for sustainable development. The lack of public funds and the inefficiencies of public service provision have given rise to initiatives to stimulate private parties to invest their resources in public urban infrastructures. However, private sector participation creates a whole range of new challenges. The potential benefits are countered by concerns about the compatibility of the private sector‘s focus on short-term return on investment with the long-term perspective needed to realize sustainability targets. On the basis of a review of literature on experiences with private sector participation in urban infrastructure projects, this article identifies governance practices that help or hinder the reconciliation of private sector participation in urban infrastructure projects with the objective to increase the sustainability of the urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) is a mutual aid agreement and partnership that allows states to assist one another in responding to natural and man-made disasters, often in advance of federal disaster assistance. This article examines EMAC’s response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in order to address the significant need for analysis of emergency management at the state level. A content analysis of news reports, government documents, and reports from a number of institutions was performed to determine the volume and direction of EMAC’s performance and its transactions during the response operations. The authors find a lack of EMAC training among responders, potentially reducing communication and coordination and the efficiency and effectiveness of response operations. A network analysis assessed the relationships among the responding organizations to coordinate their emergency response operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Budget reform requires goals that are both good public policy and achievable. The core purpose of budgeting is to consider and relate details and totals. Common demands for reform are dubious because they slight consideration of details. For this reason, too strict a definition of “balance” would be bad policy; the demand for balance over many decades is neither good policy nor realistic; and multiyear discretionary spending caps can be both bad policy and impractical. Concern about passing annual budget resolutions ignores the fact that the major reason for annual totals is no longer endorsed by policy makers and economists. Scorekeeping should be honest and accurate and often can be improved, but possible achievements are limited. Budget reforms will not make government accountable if the governing coalition is united in seeking to avoid that, and if neither the public nor elites demand it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current theories of community-based collaborative governance arrangements rely on the presence (or absence) of certain antecedent community conditions as well as incentives for institutional change deriving from the sociopolitical and economic environment. The combination of antecedent conditions and incentives is helpful in understanding why collaboratives emerge and succeed in “easy” cases (strong incentives, conducive antecedent conditions). Yet the combination is of little help in understanding the institutional change puzzle for collaboratives in “tough” cases (strong incentives, poor antecedent conditions). Examination of a “tough” case in the Blackfoot watershed (Montana), which eventually blossomed into a successful collaborative, shows the importance of a particular set of new ideas, or shared norms, around which participants coalesced. These new ideas for understanding public problems, the community itself, and the relationships among stakeholders, became a broad conceptual framework for guiding stakeholder interaction as they attempted to manage the many public problems facing the watershed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the use of pay-for-performance systems in the United States government. It is noted that such systems are not unique to the U.S. Several previous studies on the topic are cited and the results of a meta-analysis are presented, which indicate that these systems typically do not work well. The history of pay-for-performance systems in the U.S. is discussed, including the Merit Pay System which was part of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, the Performance Management and Recognition System (PMRS), which lasted from 1984 to 1991, and 21st-century approaches used by the U.S. military and the Department of Homeland Security.

Newly elected presidents oftentimes set out to reform the executive branch. This has been the norm for more than 100 years, and indications are that the next president will follow this pattern. The authors have had firsthand experience over the past 15 years with White House–led government reform efforts. They provide their insights on President Bill Clinton’s reinventing government initiative and President George W. Bush’s management agenda efforts. Based on their experience, they offer lessons to the next president’s team on what they might do to get a reform effort started successfully and how to get reform initiatives implemented and sustained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, Congress passed the Real ID Act despite decades of stalemate in reforming the U.S. national ID system. Using John Kingdon’s policy streams framework, the authors examine the development of reform ideas, the opening of a policy window and the shift in the national mood after the 9/11 attacks, and the legislative tactics by the George W. Bush administration that led to the passage of the act. The analysis illustrates the significance of policy entrepreneurship in national crises but also raises questions about the permanency of policy reforms and the ethical responsibilities of public administrators in such times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the demise of the space shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board sharply criticized NASA’s safety culture. Adopting the high-reliability organization as a benchmark, the board concluded that NASA did not possess the organizational characteristics that could have prevented this disaster. Furthermore, the board determined that high-reliability theory is “extremely useful in describing the culture that should exist in the human spaceflight organization.” In this article, we argue that this conclusion is based on a misreading and misapplication of high-reliability research. We conclude that in its human spaceflight programs, NASA has never been, nor could it be, a high-reliability organization. We propose an alternative framework to assess reliability and safety in what we refer to as reliability-seeking organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ongoing public debate about the role of science in policy making signifies the importance of advancing theory and practice in the field. Indeed, assumptions about the science–policy nexus hold direct implications for how this interface is managed. A useful lens on contemporary themes is offered by the experience of a federal environmental science program that launched an ambitious effort to enhance capacity for policy relevance while protecting a commitment to sound, impartial scientific inquiry. This was achieved by developing an explicit conceptual model and implementing corresponding strategies that addressed critical gaps in capacity for policy-relevant research, analysis, and communication while supporting existing capacities. This article describes and evaluates the capacity-building effort from the dual perspectives of deepening an understanding of successful practice in the field and advancing a conceptual understanding of the science–policy nexus. It illustrates the challenges facing practitioners and the need for greater interaction between theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing for social equity performance has long been a goal without much guidance for public managers. We examine social equity performance in the context of indirect governance through the administration of grant programs and, more specifically, the matching of policy responses (grant funding) to social needs. Grant program managers must allocate funding to match needs while also ensuring accountability, but common administrative models that rely on competition can undermine social equity performance. We develop a unique framework to analyze the relative social equity performance of four models of grant administration in general. These models are defined by whether competitions or formulas are used to select grantees and to allocate funding. We test the implications of the framework in an analysis of funding distributions from the nonentitlement Community Development Block Grant program in four states. Our findings suggest that social equity in grant programs is better served when grantors do not rely solely on competitive grant contracting in the selection and distribution of grant funds, which is typical in grant administration. However, policy makers and managers can design institutional arrangements that utilize competition, but in a manner that does not create a bias against more socially equitable funding decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Winter Commission report of 1993 stressed cities with the mayor-council form of government and emphasized removing barriers to executive authority in large cities. In order to assess and update the report, it is important to recognize that a majority of cities with populations over 100,000 use the council-manager form, in which restrictions on the executive and fragmented authority are unlikely to be present because of the constitutional principles on which the form is based. There has been progress toward improved leadership in both forms of government and substantial management change, including the incorporation of reinventing government and e-government practices, and large counties are more likely to have an elected or appointed executive. An emerging issue not considered by the commission but in line with its purpose is the increasing challenge of governing expanding metropolitan and megapolitan regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trends in states’ civil service reforms since the Winter Commission’s report was published in 1993 are described and evaluated in the context of its recommendations. The authors argue that the commission’s reform agenda relies on a public service bargain that requires public employees, elected officials, and other stakeholders to respect, trust, and support each other’s efforts to serve the public interest. Its recommendations for modernizing state and local personnel systems are discussed and related to the “reinvention” and New Public Management initiatives of the past 20 years. Many of these ideas have been adopted by state governments, but there is no single reform model that has been followed across the states. Some states, such as Georgia and Florida, have engaged in radical reforms that include replacing traditional merit systems with at-will employment models. The general pattern involves decentralization, deregulation, and limitation of employee protections. While many of the management-oriented changes advocated by the Winter Commission are staples of states’ civil service reforms, its emphasis on a “trust and lead” strategy based on public service values, partnership, and leadership in the public interest has not received much attention. In general, objective evaluations of states’ reforms are needed to determine whether their purposes are being achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its 1993 report, the Winter Commission gave direction to the federal government in the area of health policy and Medicaid: lead, follow, or get out of the way. This article examines how the federal government responded to that advice, specifically asking what has happened in the allocation of responsibility in health policies between 1993 and 2006. In short, unlike the suggestion that there be a better-defined direction in federal–state policy assignments in health, the ensuing years have resulted in more of the same. The authors examine what has happened, particularly focusing on vertical diffusion—where the states have acted first—and on the role of policy learning in federal decision making. They find little recognition of policy learning in recent federal health laws—even in areas in which state experience was extensive. The federal government is leading in some health policies—but it is leading without learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic reformers are attracted by the role that advisory forums composed of lay citizens can play in public consultation on complex policy issues (such as participatory technology assessment). Using a comparative study of consensus conferences on the issue of genetically modified food in Denmark, France, and the United States, the authors show that the potential of such deliberative “mini-publics” is quite different in different sorts of political system. They attend to the mode of establishment, perceived legitimacy, policy impact, and influence on public debate of the forum in each case. In actively inclusive Denmark,mini-publics are deployed in integrative fashion; in exclusive France, in managerial fashion; and in the passively inclusive United States, in advocacy fashion. Proponents and practitioners of deliberative participatory reforms should take into account the constraints and opportunities revealed by this analysis and attend to the different roles that mini-publics might play in different political systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the George W. Bush administration’s efforts to apply New Public Management reforms to the Department of Homeland Security. The primary focus is the administration’s attempt to implement the law. The managerial strategy that Department of Homeland Security and Office of Personnel Management executives used to carry out the law in the massive new department receives attention, with a special focus on the approach used in dealing with the federal courts. The article suggests five general lessons concerning civil service deregulation at the federal level. The case reaffirms the notion that successful administrative reform requires a keen appreciation for the politics that shape it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

George Tenet served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1997 to 2004, an intense period spanning the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and covering the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Few other central intelligence directors have served for so long, so energetically, or amid so much controversy. This profile examines the steep trajectory of Tenet’s career, his response to the al-Qaeda threat, the role he played during the invasion of Iraq, and the eventual reorganization of the nation’s intelligence community. It describes a public servant caught between the warring factions of the White House decision-making process, his own agency’s intelligence priorities, and, ultimately, his own conscience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alasdair Roberts’s recent book The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government is an appraisal of the George W. Bush administration’s response to the 9/11 attacks and its management of the global war on terrorism. This war, Roberts argues, is a neoliberal war designed to accommodate assumptions about the boundaries of governmental action that became prevalent after Ronald Reagan’s election to the presidency in 1980. Concerns about the renaissance of the “imperial presidency” are simplistic and misplaced, Roberts proposes, because they largely ignore how executive authority in the United States has been weakened by political, economic, and institutional forces. President Bush’s actions after 9/11 reflect the limitations of his power. His White House was unable to impose significant burdens on citizens or the economy, felt forced to expand power surreptitiously, and chose to act militarily because the armed services enjoyed a level of legitimacy that was absent from the rest of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into e-government is relatively new. Nevertheless, much contemporary thinking and writing about e-government is driven by normative models that appeared less than a decade ago. The authors present empirical evidence from three surveys of local e-government in the United States to test whether these models are accurate or useful for understanding the actual development of e-government. They find that local e-government is mainly informational, with a few transactions but virtually no indication of the high-level functions predicted in the models. Thus, the models do not accurately describe or predict the development of e-government, at least among American local governments. These models, though intellectually interesting, are purely speculative, having been developed without linkage to the literature about information technology and government. The authors offer grounded observations about e-government that will useful to scholars and practitioners alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the rankings of American states in one fast-growing policy area, e-government, states with the most sophisticated and comprehensive policies varied over a five-year period. What factors account for change in digital government policy innovation over time? Using time-series analysis and 50-state data, the authors find that state institutional capacity is important for continued innovation. They also find an association between reinvention in state governments and the institutionalization of information technology, suggesting a more general orientation toward government reform and modernization. Although state wealth and education were not significant in previous studies, they emerge as predictors of later innovation. The theoretical contribution of this study is to better understand the dynamic character of innovation over time and the role of institutions. The link between reinvention and e-government raises the possibility that the modernization of state institutions generally facilitates innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]