Government Contracts Commons^™

Contract Theory And The Failures Of Public-Private Contracting, Wendy Netter Epstein

Cardozo Law Review

The market for public-private contracting is huge and flawed. Privatization proponents predict that privatizing will both cut costs and improve service quality. But public-private contracts for services such as prisons and welfare administration tend to result in cost savings at the sacrifice of quality service. For instance, to cut costs, private prisons skimp on security. Public law scholars have studied these problems for decades and have proposed various public law solutions. But the literature is incomplete because it does not approach the problem through a commercial lens. This Article fills that gap by applying contract-theory principles to public-private contracting.

It …

The Dialectics Of Citizenship: Exploring Privilege, Exclusion, And Racialization, Bernd Reiter

Government and International Affairs Faculty Publications

What does it mean to be a citizen? What impact does an active democracy have on its citizenry and why does it fail or succeed in fulfilling its promises? Most modern democracies seem unable to deliver the goods that citizens expect; many politicians seem to have given up on representing the wants and needs of those who elected them and are keener on representing themselves and their financial backers. What will it take to bring democracy back to its original promise of rule by the people? Bernd Reiter’s timely analysis reaches back to ancient Greece and the Roman Republic in …

Army Corps Of Engineers, U.S., Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides an overview of how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has influenced historical and contemporary economic, environmental, and political developments in the American West.

Not Quite A Civilian, Not Quite A Soldier: How Five Words Could Subject Civilian Contractors In Iraq And Afghanistan To Military Jurisdiction , Katherine Jackson

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

No abstract provided.

The Epistemology And Methodology Of Exploratory Social Science Research: Crossing Popper With Marcuse, Bernd Reiter

Government and International Affairs Faculty Publications

This article seeks to propose a rationale for exploratory research in the social sciences. Inspired by the recent debates around qualitative methods (Gerring, 2001; George and Bennett, 2005; Brady and Collier, 2004; Mahoney and Rueschemeyer, 2003; Ragin, 2008; to name just a few), I seek to demonstrate that exploratory research also has a rightful place within the social sciences. In order to live up to its potential, exploratory research needs to be conducted in a transparent, honest, and selfreflexive way – and follow a set of guidelines that ensure its reliability. Exploratory research, if conducted in such a way, can …

The Scope And Limitations Of The Implied Warranty On Federal Government Design Specifications , Charles Mandel

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tying Together Termination For Convenience In Government Contracts , Lawrence Lerner

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

State Preemption Of Cable Television Regulation — Whatever Happened To The Sanctity Of Contract?, William M. Marticorena, Lynda E. Marticorena

Pepperdine Law Review

California Government Code section 53066.1 as recently amended gives cable television operators the right to obtain rate increases even in the face of the city or county franchisor opposition. Since most cable franchise agreements allow the franchisor to control rates for the cable service, there is a conflict between the statute and the franchise contracts. This article examines the issue of whether the statute violates the constitutional provisions against the impairment of contracts and whether the franchisor or a subscriber of the service has the necessary standing to assert the constitutional argument.

Fear And Loathing On The California Coastline: Are Coastal Commission Property Exactions Constitutional?, Mitchell F. Disney

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Government Contracts Under The Federal Acquisition Regulation, Robert C. Gusman

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Implications Of Alternative Dispute Resolution Processes For Decisionmaking In Administrative Disputes, Wallace Warfield

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contract Theory And The Failures Of Public-Private Contracting, Wendy Netter Epstein

All Faculty Scholarship

The market for public-private contracting is huge and flawed. Public-private contracts for services such as prisons and welfare administration tend to result in cost savings at the sacrifice of quality service. For instance, to cut costs, private prisons skimp on security. Public law scholars have studied these problems for decades and have proposed various public law solutions. But the literature is incomplete because it does not approach the problem through a commercial lens. This Article fills that gap. It considers how economic analysis of contract law, in particular efficiency theory and agency theory, bear upon the unique problems of public-private …

Waiting For Leviathan: A Note On Modern Wo'er Trading Co Ltd V Ministry Of Finance Of The People's Republic Of China, Daniel J. Mitterhoff

Faculty Scholarship

This article analyzes a Chinese bid protest that has taken nearly seven years to adjudicate, yet as of this writing, no institution of the Chinese state has evaluated the substance of the protester’s bid challenge. Instead, the supplier’s complaint has been snared in a grey area between two of China’s multiple bid protest systems, burdening the supplier to push China’s administrative state to respond. The saga of Modern Wo’Er Trading Company Ltd. v The Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China raises compelling questions about the relationship of China’s 1999 Tender and Bidding Law and China’s 2002 Government …

Closing The Loophole: Termination Of State Funding For Some Charter City Construction Projects, Michelle Scheinman

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.

Government Procurement Law Perspectives: Winter 2013, Government Procurement Law Program

Government Procurement Law Perspectives

No abstract provided.

General Dynamics Corporation V. United States: An Unnecessary Distortion Of The State Secrets Privilege In The Contracting Context, Adam Spiers

Journal of Business & Technology Law

No abstract provided.

The Real Issue Behind Stanford V. Roche: Faulty Conceptions Of University Assignment Policies Stemming From The 1947 Biddle Report, Sean M. O'Connor

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The recent Supreme Court decision in Stanford v. Roche laid bare a faulty assumption of the federal research funding system. Government patent policy for federally funded research relies on "contractors"--the recipients of federal funding--to secure patent assignments from their employees. While this practice was routine for private firms and nonprofit research institutions, it was not for universities. This was in part based on the relationship of faculty and other researchers to universities that differed from industry employment relationships. The roots of this faulty assumption can be traced to the seminal 1947 Biddle Report. Detailed monographs drafted as appendices to the …

Overcoming Coloniality: The Potential Of South-South Dialogue About Citizenship, Participatory Democracy, And Development Between Brazil And India, Bernd Reiter

Government and International Affairs Faculty Publications

This chapter argues that North-South dialogue is heavily influenced by the colonial past and burdened by extreme power inequalities. Former colonizing nations control many of the agendas of such dialogue, exposing it to the risks of paternalism, post-colonialism, and tutelage. As a result, coloniality is a condition difficult to escape in north-south dialogue. South-south dialogue, on the other hand, is less implicated by this burden, thus offering a platform for a potentially free - and freeing – critical interchange of ideas and empirical examples that reflect subaltern experiences and provide opportunities for mutual learning. One area where this dialogue is …

A Most Useful Ball Of Thread, Review Of Navigating Hud Programs: A Practitioner's To The Labyrinth By George Weidenfeller & Julie S. Mcgovern, Eds., Nestor M. Davidson

Faculty Scholarship

This book review of Navigating HUD Programs: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Labyrinth (George Weidenfeller & Julie McGovern eds., 2012) discusses the approach the book takes to a range of HUD programs, discusses some intimations of reform efforts suggested by the authors, and explores ways in which the book’s guidance reflects potential benefits in nascent HUD efforts at programmatic consolidation and modernization.

Cross-Debarment: A Stakeholder Analysis, Christopher R. Yukins

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

As more nations and organizations establish debarment (or "blacklisting") systems, to exclude corrupt or incompetent firms and individuals from contracting, a serious question has arisen: if a contractor is debarred, should other jurisdictions automatically exclude that contractor in a "cross-debarment"? This paper, which grew out of an October 2012 symposium at the World Bank, discusses the advantages and disadvantages of cross-debarment, from the standpoint of various stakeholders. The article concludes that some stakeholders (such as debarring officials themselves) might prefer that there be no automatic cross-debarment, so that government officials retain discretion -- and so leverage -- to persuade contractors …