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

Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and the arrival of 170,000 refugees, the already fragile Italian refugee system was forced to undergo major re-structuring and expansion. Re-organisation included the adoption of partially new multi-level governance relationships, as well as political instruments. Despite the widespread positive attitude of public opinion toward the Ukrainian refugees and the bipartisan support for their reception, the outcome of the policy has been not in line with the goals the proponents set out to achieve. In fact, there have been delays, poor assistance to those who have offered to host, and, in the end, a partial waste of the economic and human resources which were devoted to the reception itself. The purpose of this article is to investigate the origin and development of the “vices” of this process, departing from the interpretive lens on policy and governance failure. Our findings consolidate the theoretical challenge to the reductive binary rhetoric on success and failure, and the classic view of failure confined to formulation and implementation. In addition, the article shows that multi-level governance dynamics are strongly relevant in explaining the “vices” of policies, particularly highlighting the role, until now largely disregarded, of the latent conflicts between the actors involved. The study has benefited from 38 semi-structured interviews with political actors, including third-party organisations and public actors, the analysis of political documents, and local and national media.

This paper examines how political alignment influences the job satisfaction and motivation of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs)—low-level frontline workers implementing policies while interacting directly with the public. I argue that political alignment affects SLBs' job satisfaction and motivation to work harder through three theoretical channels: (1) policy-driven effects, particularly demoralization from implementing disagreeable policies; (2) spill-over effects from other policy areas; and (3) political person-organization fit effects, which result in decreased pride in their employer. Using the International Social Survey Program data from 34 countries, and panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, tracking 880 respondents over 30 years, I find a robust link between political alignment and job satisfaction and motivation, and evidence for all three links. These findings underscore the importance of considering political alignment as a key factor in understanding and improving street-level bureaucrat performance beyond policy-specific and client-specific contexts.

Research on the dynamics of corruption has rarely considered sex as a currency in corrupt transactions. This article puts forward the argument that the abuse of entrusted power in exchange for personal gain is relevant also when sex, rather than money, is the currency. It then contributes with a careful conceptualization of such transactions as sexual corruption. Anchoring our conceptualization in the abuse of entrusted power, the article defines sexual corruption, its elements, categories and delimitations, and proposes a conceptual framework that can be used to develop research on sexual corruption. We also address the implications of recognizing sex as a currency in corrupt transactions, providing insights as to why abuse of power is often overlooked when sex is the currency of the transaction. Our approach offers analytic precision and contributes to setting an agenda for the study of sexual corruption as an obstacle to good governance, at a time when efforts to collect data on sexual corruption are increasing.

We study cartels in public infrastructure procurement and analyze the conditions under which they succeed in generating rents. We first conceptualize the interplay of the central actors of a procurement project, notably the contractor, the procurement agency, as well as the supervision and design consultants. By focusing on consultants, our framework includes important yet understudied actors in cartels that design tenders, evaluate bids, and supervise the implementation of projects. We go on to explore an original dataset of infrastructure procurement contracts in Lebanon and analyze the conditions under which powerful political elites can broker deals to overprice and/or overspend contracts. To examine how cartels operate, we identify the political connections of contractors and consultants and classify them according to their “quality” in terms of access to institutional functions of the implementing agency. We argue that design consultants serve as the lynchpin of the cartel by reducing transaction costs for searching, bargaining, and enforcing of corrupt deals.

This study conducts a randomized survey experiment to examine the impact of budgeting professionalism, environmental shocks, and fiscal transparency on citizen blame attributions during government fiscal crises. Theoretically, we distinguish between two logics of responsibility attribution: causal responsibility stresses the causal link between an actor's actions and specific phenomena; functional responsibility underlines an actor's legal, moral, or social obligations in relation to such phenomena. Our experiment focuses on empirically testing causal responsibility. Moreover, fiscal transparency may shape citizens' perceptions regarding government fiscal performance and subsequently influence blame attributions. The experimental results show that citizens attribute less blame to government leaders when professional experts play a more important role in the budgeting process, when localities experience severe environmental shocks, or when governments exhibit greater fiscal transparency. These findings support inferences based on the logic of causal responsibility and establish a clear relationship between fiscal transparency and citizen perceptions of government performance.

This study firstly examines the causal effect of environmental information disclosure on political trust and then provides a novel psychological mechanism through which the effect occurred. Exploiting the staggered rolled-out implementation of a national program in China that provides real-time air-pollution information to the public, we find that air pollution adversely moderates the positive effect of information disclosure on political trust. Notably and surprisingly, this “adverse moderation” is concentrated in less polluted areas, where the lack of visible smog led citizens to remain unaware of the actual pollution levels until information is disclosed. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the adverse moderation is more pronounced among urban residents using Internet, an important source for pollution information. Furthermore, we establish that the causal effect operates through the channels of citizens' mental well-being, demonstrated by a large and statistically significant increase in the risk of mild depression due to heightened concern over pollution.

The success of populist parties in national elections puts pressure on political leaders and their administrations, both at the central and sub-national levels. This paper explores the political tensions between two administrative levels—a central level governed by a populist party, and the city level headed by a liberal party—and the strategies populists use to challenge local political leaders and their city administrations. This paper analyzes three case studies: Prague, Warsaw, and Budapest. In all three cities, opposition candidates are visible challengers to the populist parties in government. The results show that city administrations face increasing tasks, cuts in budget transfers, higher scrutiny from central government, and administrative bottlenecks.