Recently added articles from Policy Studies Journal:
Editors' notes.(Editorial)
May 01, 2008; ... This issue of the Policy Studies Journal includes an excellent set of articles, focusing on a range of theoretical aspects of public policy. The lead paper, by Jeffrey Wenger, Laurence O'Toole, & Kenneth Meier challenges the conception of public managers as functionaries forced to "trade ...
Trading speed for accuracy? Managing goal conflict and accommodation in the U.S. unemployment insurance program.(Report)
May 01, 2008; ... Introduction Public programs and public organizations typically carry more than one objective, and managers must consider these multiple criteria in strategic and day-to-day decisions. These circumstances, it is often assumed and asserted, compel managers to make tough choices ...
Does morality policy exist? Testing a basic assumption.(Report)
May 01, 2008; ... Introduction After the 2004 presidential election, journalists, pundits, and pollsters claimed that moral values had become the main criterion on which voters assessed candidates. "Family and family values matter," opined the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "they are not just ...
When do we "just say no"? Policy termination decisions in local hospital services.(Report)
May 01, 2008; ... Introduction Policy termination is an integral part of the policy process (Bardach, 1976; Geva-May, 2004), typically described as including agenda setting, policy formation, implementation, evaluation, and finally, termination. Yet, it has been a relatively understudied process ...
What determines homeland security spending? An econometric analysis of the Homeland Security Grant Program.(Report)
May 01, 2008; ... Introduction The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) annually disburses grants to each U.S. state. The distribution of these grants has been attacked widely. DHS grants are being distributed as "pork," say critics, alleging that politicians fighting for their respective ...
The politics of crisis policymaking: Chernobyl and Swedish nuclear energy policy.(Report)
May 01, 2008; ... Introduction On April 26, 1986, a low-power engineering test of the Unit 4 reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station resulted in a sudden increase in heat production and loss of cooling water, causing a catastrophic steam explosion that completely destroyed the reactor ...
Making a policy problem of water export in Canada: 1960-2002.(Report)(Case study)
May 01, 2008; ... Introduction The general purpose of this article is to understand the initial step of the policymaking process, the agenda setting stage, and what it takes for a national government to pay attention to an issue and mobilize its resources to respond to it. The specific objectives ...
School choice as a latent variable: estimating the "complier average causal effect" of vouchers in Charlotte.(Charlotte, North Carolina)(Report)
May 01, 2008; ... Few contemporary questions in American education have produced such widespread controversy as that regarding the potential of school vouchers to reduce inequality in student outcomes. This potential has been studied by many scholars of government and public policy, using some of the most ...
Editors' notes.(Editorial)
Feb 01, 2008; ... The Mission Statement of the Policy Studies Journal states: "Policy Studies Journal (PSJ) is dedicated to providing scholars with the finest theoretically grounded, empirically sound, and cutting edge research covering all aspects of public policy." Four years ago, when we first took over ...
Human rights violations, corruption, and the policy of repression.(Report)
Feb 01, 2008; ... In this article we examine government use of human rights violations as a policy, shaped by the goals of both principals and agents. While treating these violations as a policy rather than as a condition seems an obvious starting point, and researchers have examined the strategic goals of ...
Global public policy, transnational policy communities, and their networks.(Report)
Feb 01, 2008; ... 1. Introduction The concept of "global public policy" is not well established. Accordingly, this article asks: what is global public policy, where is it enacted, and who executes such policies? The first part of the article sets out to delimit the discussion to transnational ...
Enemies to allies: the role of policy-design adaptation in facilitating a farmer-environmentalist alliance.(Report)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Introduction Since 1985, farmers and environmentalists have become agricultural conservation policy allies. This alliance reflects the capacity to evolve a policy design that bridged the growing disconnect between traditional agricultural conservation designs and the systems ...
Voluntary environmental programs: are carrots without sticks enough?
Feb 01, 2008; ... In recent years industry representatives, policymakers, and scholars have argued that "command-and-control" regulations, although relatively effective, are costly policy instruments for promoting environmental protection. Accordingly, voluntary environmental programs (VEPs), generally ...
The diffusion of voluntary international management standards: Responsible Care, ISO 9000, and ISO 14001 in the chemical industry.(Report)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Introduction The last two decades have been marked by the development and diffusion of many industry voluntary environmental standards. Through these private or nongovernmental regimes, firms commit voluntarily to improve their environmental management practices beyond ...
Assessing the performance of voluntary environmental programs: does certification matter?(Report)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Introduction Over the past 20 years, considerable efforts have been expended by governments, industry, and third-party organizations to develop and promote organizational participation in voluntary environmental programs (VEPs). In general, VEPs set forth a specific rationale to ...
Can voluntary environmental regulation work in developing countries? Lessons from case studies.(Report)
Feb 01, 2008; ... 1. Introduction The conventional approach to industrial pollution control is to establish laws requiring firms to cut emissions. Voluntary regulation, by contrast, provides incentives--but not mandates--for pollution control. The four main types of voluntary regulation are: (i) ...
Voluntary environmental programs: a Canadian perspective.(Report)
Feb 01, 2008; ... Introduction Canadian environmental policy has traditionally emphasized command-and-control environmental regulations. Although not as stringent as U.S. policy, which prescribes mandatory quantity limits on emissions of pollutants or the use of specific abatement technology, ...
Editors' notes.(Editorial)
Nov 01, 2007; ... As editors of the Policy Studies Journal we cannot help but marvel at the changes taking place in how we--as policy scholars--go about our research. The use of the Internet has developed well beyond a mechanism for retrieving articles to a source of data, debate, and insight. Most of us ...
Race, gender, and communications in natural disasters.(Report)
Nov 01, 2007; ... The 2005 Katrina hurricane that devastated New Orleans, parts of Mississippi, and the Gulf Coast has led to calls for better emergency planning throughout the United States (Comfort, 2006). As was made painfully clear there by the 13 hundred lost lives (700 in New Orleans alone), destroyed ...
Media framing and racial attitudes in the aftermath of Katrina.(Report)
Nov 01, 2007; ... Over 40 years of research clearly indicates that African Americans tend to have lower levels of political trust and confidence in governmental institutions than their White counterparts (Dawson, 1994; Engel, 2005; Howell & Fagan, 1988; Hurwitz & Peffley, 2005; Kinder & Sanders, 1996; ...