Governance-An International Journal of Policy Administration and Institutions最新文献

Global governance systems, including international organizations (IOs), turn to academic experts to achieve a variety of policy-related outcomes. Existing scholarship offers valuable insights into the two main functions of expertise for international organizations–instrumental and symbolic. I draw on network analysis to propose a third function–political instrumentalism–where IOs use experts' degree of connectedness to other actors to exert influence in politicized areas of policymaking and in domestic contexts in which they are less well-networked. To this end, IOs foster epistemic communities through networks that have the characteristics of small-world and scale-free networks. I illustrate this with a descriptive network analysis of the International Organization for Migration's work in migrant health. Analyzing data from IOM documentation (2016–2022), I find that IOM fosters a complex (small world and scale-free) network through an epistemic community in which academics and researchers hold powerful positions. These positions in the network can help to serve political instrumental purposes to expand IOM's influence and visibility in domestic environments in a highly politicized area of policymaking–migrant health.

Decades of research emphasized collective behaviors in public budgeting, yet individual budget preferences remain underexplored. This paper argues that both well-known and lesser-known cognitive biases distort politicians' budget judgment, resulting in biased preferences. To test this, we conducted five preregistered experiments examining the impact of five biases—anchoring, herding, mental accounting, availability bias, and loss aversion—on budget preferences. Using data from 1825 municipal budgeters in The Netherlands, we reveal significant effects of anchoring, adherence to irrelevant budget labels (mental accounting), and overspending on items that attract media attention (availability bias) or emphasize gains (loss aversion). We also find that presenting decision information through infographics holds potential for improving judgment and mitigating biases in preferences. These findings challenge the view that budgeting is purely political, highlighting the role of cognitive factors in suboptimal budget decisions. We emphasize the need for further research into biases and debiasing mechanisms to advance budget decision-making.

Different disciplines ask why public sector corruption occurs, addressing diverse phenomena. However, how different approaches and factors at micro, meso, or macro levels relate to each other in causally complex, context-dependent ways is seldom theorized. This article develops an integrated “Corruption Hexagon” model with six dimensions. The analytically relevant context provides a not directly causal background that influences the interplay of the pressure to act corruptly, the opportunity to benefit from corruption, the capability to exploit the opportunity, the supply of corruption, and the rationalization of one's corrupt behavior. Using secondary data from 23 European countries, we operationalize the Hexagon to explain differences in procurement-related corruption risks. Results corroborate the Hexagon's expectations: whereas the circumstances enable corruption, their interplay with personal characteristics or rationalization triggers corruption. The Hexagon offers a flexible, context-dependent, complexity-informed model for cumulative research integrating different methods and theoretical assumptions about the agency underlying corruption.

In what ways, if at all, does transparency influence how politicians cooperate with interest organizations? While there are convincing normative arguments stressing the importance of transparency in politics, empirical evidence for how transparency in practice affects how politicians reason regarding cooperating with interest organizations is scarce. In this article, I address this gap by conducting a mixed method survey experiment with 1659 Swedish politicians. The findings indicate that a lack of transparency, as explored in this study, diminishes politicians' willingness to closely cooperate with interest organizations by submitting policy proposals drafted by these organizations. However, the central concern for most politicians, in both the transparent and untransparent conditions, was whether they had exercised independent political judgment rather than blindly accepted the interest organization's suggestion. These results contribute to the literature by showing how a specific form of transparency influences cooperation between politicians and interest groups, while also offering theoretical insights into the critical role of political judgment in this cooperation.