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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Agency Input As A Policy Making Tool: Analyzing The Influence Of Agency Input On Presidential Policy Success In Congress, José Villalobos
Agency Input As A Policy Making Tool: Analyzing The Influence Of Agency Input On Presidential Policy Success In Congress, José Villalobos
José D. Villalobos
This study posits a theoretical framework for understanding the role and value of agency input in presidential legislative policy making. I assert that by employing agency input for policy development, presidents instill their proposals with a degree of bureaucratic objectivity, expertise, process transparency, and agency support, which aids their legislative passage while lowering the extent of changes made to policy substance in the process. To test my hypotheses, I conduct binary and ordered logistic regression analyses using pooled cross-sectional data across twelve administrations from 1949-2010. I find that agency input serves as a key component for increased presidential legislative success.
Not Rising, But Rejuvenating: The “Chinese Dream”, Zheng Wang
Not Rising, But Rejuvenating: The “Chinese Dream”, Zheng Wang
Zheng Wang
No abstract provided.
Spillovers Of Veterans Hospice Care: The Economic And Social Impact Of Palliative Care, Maximiliano Mendieta, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii
Spillovers Of Veterans Hospice Care: The Economic And Social Impact Of Palliative Care, Maximiliano Mendieta, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii
Bruce D. McDonald, III
In exchange for military service in the United States, soldiers are promised a benefits package inclusive of health and education after the completion of their service. While the economic effects of the defense-growth relationship are well known, this study takes a unique approach to understanding the relationship between veterans and society by investigating the social and economic spillovers of veterans hospice care. This study shows that as an early adopter of hospice care, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs maximized its efficiency through sponsoring innovative research on geriatric care, introducing competition into the health sector, and legitimizing death and dying …
What We Do And Do Not Know: The Social Implications Of Defense, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii
What We Do And Do Not Know: The Social Implications Of Defense, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii
Bruce D. McDonald, III
The relationship between defense spending and economic growth has been a major topic of research and political debate for more than one hundred years. Although the relationship of interest is economically oriented, its theoretical underpinning has relied upon the social spillovers of the defense sector. This includes programs on community health, education, and access to technology. Despite this reliance, little is known about what social spillovers. This paper furthers our understanding of the defense-growth relationship by introducing the social spillovers that exist and clarifying how those spillovers occur. The author concludes with a discussion about the direction of future research …
The Next Hu, Zheng Wang
From “Top-Down” To “Middle-Out”: China And Japan Can Reconcile Their Relationship, Zheng Wang
From “Top-Down” To “Middle-Out”: China And Japan Can Reconcile Their Relationship, Zheng Wang
Zheng Wang
No abstract provided.
Manager-In-Chief: Applying Public Management Theory To Examine White House Chief Of Staff Performance, David B. Cohen, Justin S. Vaughn, José D. Villalobos
Manager-In-Chief: Applying Public Management Theory To Examine White House Chief Of Staff Performance, David B. Cohen, Justin S. Vaughn, José D. Villalobos
José D. Villalobos
In an effort to examine the causal determinants of performance dynamics for the administrative presidency, we apply empirical public management theory to White House administration to explain managerial performance. Utilizing original survey data that measures the perceptions of former officials from the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations, we conduct quantitative analyses to determine the extent to which a chief of staff’s background, relationship with the president, and internal as well as external management approaches shape overall perceptions of White House administrative efforts. We find that managerial dimensions matter considerably when explaining the dynamics of White House organizational performance.
Never Forget National Humiliation, The Montréal Review, Zheng Wang
Never Forget National Humiliation, The Montréal Review, Zheng Wang
Zheng Wang
No abstract provided.
Politics Or Policy? How Rhetoric Matters To Presidential Leadership Of Congress, José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn, Julia Azari
Politics Or Policy? How Rhetoric Matters To Presidential Leadership Of Congress, José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn, Julia Azari
José D. Villalobos
In this study, we examine the linkage between presidential policy proposal messages and legislative success. Employing a dataset on presidential legislative proposals that covers the years 1949-2010, we find that politics matters less than policy. Purely political messages that reference the electoral logic of mandates or appeal to a sense of bipartisanship appear to have no impact on presidential legislative success, nor does policy signaling, though highlighting the role of agency-based policy experts in crafting legislation does. From these results, we conclude that although the way presidents communicate their messages to Congress represents an important component of presidential-legislative relations, it …
Editorial: Social Implications Of Technology- “Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo”, Katina Michael
Editorial: Social Implications Of Technology- “Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo”, Katina Michael
Professor Katina Michael
Late last year, IEEE SSIT was invited to put together a paper for the centennial edition of Proceedings of the IEEE that was published in May 2012. The paper titled, “Social Implications of Technology: The Past, the Present, and the Future,” brought together five members of SSIT with varying backgrounds, and two intense months of collaboration and exchange of ideas. I personally felt privileged to be working with Karl D. Stephan, Emily Anesta, Laura Jacobs and M.G. Michael on this project.
Pillar Ii In Focus--The Responsibility To Assist: Police Capacity-Building In Timor-Leste And The 2012 Parliamentary Elections, Charles Hawksley, Nichole Georgeou
Pillar Ii In Focus--The Responsibility To Assist: Police Capacity-Building In Timor-Leste And The 2012 Parliamentary Elections, Charles Hawksley, Nichole Georgeou
Nichole Georgeou
This briefing paper provides a short background to the 2012 elections in Timor-Leste, and explores the UNPOL mandate to support and build the capacity of the Polícia Nacional de Timor-Leste (PNTL – the Timor-Leste National Police), so that Timor-Leste will be able to manage security for its citizens without international assistance. Based on fieldwork conducted during June 2012, including interviews with human rights-focused NGOs, and with international police implementing bilateral and multilateral capacity building, we argue that the 3,200-3,400 strong PNTL is theoretically ready to go it alone when the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste departs, and explore questions as …
Agenda Setting From The Oval Office: An Experimental Examination Of Presidential Influence Over The Public Agenda, José D. Villalobos, Cigdem V. Sirin
Agenda Setting From The Oval Office: An Experimental Examination Of Presidential Influence Over The Public Agenda, José D. Villalobos, Cigdem V. Sirin
José D. Villalobos
This study employs an experimental approach to isolate and directly test the extent to which presidents can affect public perceptions of issue importance and support for policy action, taking into consideration key factors that condition such effects. Our findings provide new empirical evidence that presidents can, in fact, positively influence public opinion through agenda setting, particularly by increasing the perceptual importance of low salience foreign policy issues. However, the results also indicate that such positive effects do not translate into public support for policy action; instead, presidential appeals actually decrease support. Last, our study offers new evidence that employing bipartisan …
Moving Toward Comparability: Assessing Per-Student Costs In K-12, Robert J. Eger Iii, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii
Moving Toward Comparability: Assessing Per-Student Costs In K-12, Robert J. Eger Iii, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii
Bruce D. McDonald, III
The current classifications for public school costs are provided by the National Center for Educational Statistics. To improve comparability between school districts, this paper provides an alternative classification with fewer numbers of expenditure categories and sub-categories. We also introduce distinctions between school-based and non-school based administration costs and between elementary and secondary schools to provide an identification of possible sources of inefficiency. The new classification is then applied to five comparable urban school districts Atlanta, Boston, Mobile, Nashville, and Newark. We find (1) that teacher salaries per student are affected by school level disaggregation; (2) that separating administrative costs into …
Staff Of The People? Assessing Progress In Descriptive Representation Under The Obama Administration, José D. Villalobos
Staff Of The People? Assessing Progress In Descriptive Representation Under The Obama Administration, José D. Villalobos
José D. Villalobos
Over the past few decades, presidents have made some increasingly noticeable efforts to fill their administrations with a higher number of minorities. Though not yet fully representative of the general public, such advances in descriptive representation are a sign of progressive change occurring within the executive branch, with positive potential implications for the state of representative democracy and public policy. In this article, I survey the current state of descriptive representation under the Obama presidency and the extent to which the president’s policy agenda has substantively addressed the needs of historically underrepresented groups. Descriptively, I find that President Barack Obama …
Where Does The Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory To Examine Public Appraisals Of The President, Cigdem V. Sirin, José D. Villalobos
Where Does The Buck Stop? Applying Attribution Theory To Examine Public Appraisals Of The President, Cigdem V. Sirin, José D. Villalobos
José D. Villalobos
This study applies attribution theory to examine public appraisals of the president. To date, most political science research on attribution theory has focused on domestic policy and no work has considered both domestic and foreign policy domains in tandem. To fill this gap, we formulate and experimentally test a series of hypotheses regarding the level of responsibility and credit/blame that individuals attribute to the president in both policy domains across varying policy conditions. We also consider how party compatibility affects people’s attribution judgments. Our findings provide a new contribution to the literature on political attributions, executive accountability, and public perceptions …
Promises And Human Rights: The Obama Administration On Immigrant Detention Policy Reform, José D. Villalobos
Promises And Human Rights: The Obama Administration On Immigrant Detention Policy Reform, José D. Villalobos
José D. Villalobos
This article evaluates the Obama administration’s efforts towards reforming U.S. immigration detention policies. Over the past decade, immigrant rights advocates have increasingly criticized certain policies of the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) system of immigration detention, including the widespread use of private contractors, lack of proper oversight, grouping of violent criminals and non-violent undocumented immigrants (particularly minority women and children) in holding cells, and neglect of detained immigrants in need of medical attention. In reviewing these developments, I contend that the Obama administration must take substantive steps towards reforming the existing system, particularly by instituting legally enforceable standards with …
The Case For The Development Of Public Transit In An Urban Boundary Rural Area, Sarmistha Majumdar
The Case For The Development Of Public Transit In An Urban Boundary Rural Area, Sarmistha Majumdar
Sarmistha R Majumdar
Individuals’ preferences for automobiles are often taken for granted in our auto centric society. This study attempts to determine if commuters in a city located beyond the fringe of a metropolitan area are willing to use public transit if it is developed and what are the socioeconomic and attitudinal factors that influence individuals’ decision to use such a service. Analyses of survey data reveal that preferences exist for public transit service, which can be partly attributed to individuals’ concerns regarding rising gasoline prices and air pollution, and is particularly noticeable among those who are educated and/or belong to a younger …
The Obama Administration's Challenges After The 'War On Science': Reforming Staffing Practices And Protecting Scientific Integrity In The Executive Branch, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos
The Obama Administration's Challenges After The 'War On Science': Reforming Staffing Practices And Protecting Scientific Integrity In The Executive Branch, Justin Vaughn, José Villalobos
José D. Villalobos
In this article, we examine the difficult leadership position President Barack Obama inherited as he took office with respect to science and technology policy making and implementation, particularly following the Bush administration and years of the so-called "war on science." We contend that the Obama administration's challenge is not only to take substantive policy action, but also to reform certain administrative practices, particularly in light of the previous administration's practice of the politics of strategic vacancies, a managerial technique that rearranges an agency's ideological inclinations not through the usual forms of active politicization (i.e., by filling the appointee ranks with …
What Bush Did Right - On China, Zheng Wang
Presidential Staffing And Public Opinion: How Public Opinion Influences Politicization, José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn
Presidential Staffing And Public Opinion: How Public Opinion Influences Politicization, José Villalobos, Justin Vaughn
José D. Villalobos
Scholars traditionally frame presidential efforts to politicize the federal bureaucracy as the result of divergence between the president's preferences and an agency's output. The authors argue that presidential concern with agency output is dynamic and is in part conditioned by the president's relationship with the public. To assess the relationship between politicization and public opinion, the authors use a data set that combines information on presidential efforts to politicize the Council of Economic Advisers from 1989 to 2004 with that of public attitudes concerning the president's handling of the economy. Their results indicate that public opinion does indeed bear a …
The Managing Of The Presidency: Applying Theory-Driven Empirical Models To The Study Of White House Bureaucratic Performance, Justin S. Vaughn, José D. Villalobos
The Managing Of The Presidency: Applying Theory-Driven Empirical Models To The Study Of White House Bureaucratic Performance, Justin S. Vaughn, José D. Villalobos
José D. Villalobos
We argue that scholars of the presidency should begin to apply their rich descriptive understanding of White House organization and personnel to questions of causality. To help guide this effort, we offer a theory-driven empirical model that explains organizational performance. Importing theory from the public management literature, we show how scholars can use the Meier-O'Toole (MO) model to explain performance outcomes and dynamics for key political and policy functions within the institutional presidency. We introduce the MO model and discuss its potential impact on the field of presidency studies.
Obama’S Empty Cupboard: Contending With Administrative Vacancies And The Threat To Neutral Competence, Justin S. Vaughn, José D. Villalobos
Obama’S Empty Cupboard: Contending With Administrative Vacancies And The Threat To Neutral Competence, Justin S. Vaughn, José D. Villalobos
José D. Villalobos
In this essay, we focus on the public administration challenge concerning the rising number of politically motivated administrative vacancies resulting from George W. Bush's tenure in office with which President Barack Obama must now contend. We argue that the hyper-politicization of personnel decision-making during the presidency of George W. Bush left many parts of the federal bureaucracy understaffed, yet more densely populated by staffers chosen more for ideological and political congruence than administrative competence. For President Obama to achieve key aspects of his policy agenda, he must first attend to fixing these staffing problems and then to reforming the personnel …
A Prospect Theory Analysis Of California’S Initiatives In Implementation Of The Zev Mandate, Sarmistha Majumdar
A Prospect Theory Analysis Of California’S Initiatives In Implementation Of The Zev Mandate, Sarmistha Majumdar
Sarmistha R Majumdar
In 1990, the state of California passed the pioneering mandate on zero emission vehicles (ZEV). This technology-forcing regulation is aimed at improvement of air quality and protection of public health from the adverse effects of air pollutants from automobiles. Facing severe opposition from the auto industry, the mandate has been revised a number of times, most recently in 2003, whereby the requirement for ZEVs have been made to align with the pace of technology development. Review of strategies used in implementation of the mandate has revealed greater emphasis on the economic incentives for rather than on environmental merits of ZEVs. …