Suchergebnisse

State preemption of local government discretion is examined through the lenses of county cooperation with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and "immigration federalism." Through a mixed-method approach, we examine why counties collaborate with ICE as well as how and why they deviate from state preemptions on local support for immigration. Analysis of a sample restricted to Georgia and Texas, states with especially robust preemptive anti-immigrant laws, suggests that special interests—those related to immigrant-dependent industries important to county economies—have significant influence over county decisions to minimize cooperation with ICE.

AbstractContracting for prison services has been a topic of discussion for decades. Absent from this discussion is the relationship between contracting for immigration detention and confinement quality, a topic that has gained relevance as the detained immigrant population recently surpassed 440,000 per year. Detaining immigrants presents unique challenges because of detainee characteristics, the performance standards governing facilities, and the intersectoral and intergovernmental arrangements used to manage detention facilities. This research conducts the first‐known large‐N study that evaluates the confinement quality of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's detention facilities to determine the effect, if any, of contracting on performance. The findings suggest that all detention facilities have deficiencies that threaten the well‐being of detained immigrants, but, broadly, privately contracted detention facility environments are less safe and secure than their public counterparts. The authors use contracting theory to explain why this performance disparity might exist and conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of this research.

Abstract
This article examines whether and how the capacity of a street-level organization moderates its ability to perform effectively in the context of a public program reform. We use the case of California probation departments during the phased implementation of the state's Low-Income Health Program, a major Medicaid reform that offered critical new services for many probation citizens/clients, namely, mental health and substance abuse treatment. We exploit six years of monthly California county-level probation department data to conduct quasi-experimental difference-in-differences analyses. Results indicate that in those counties that had activated the reform, probation departments with greater capacity achieved higher rates of probation completion success when compared to departments with lower capacity. The analysis implies that organizations improved most when departments benefitted from a combination of reform-generated resources and more robust organizational capacity.

Representative bureaucracy theory suggests that demographic representation among street‐level bureaucrats will improve outcomes for minority citizens receiving a given public service. Scholars of representation in public bureaucracies argue that the effect of bureaucrats' demographic profile on outcomes for minority citizens becomes particularly salient in contexts where bureaucrats exercise relatively high amounts of discretion. Empirical evidence has documented this relationship in education, policing, and a variety of public programs. We extend this literature to the context of prisons, where street‐level corrections staff exercise considerable discretion over inmates' daily lives. Using prison violence and disciplinary actions to proxy for the potential effects of a representative staff on the experiences of prison inmates, we find that prisons with greater representation have fewer assaults and exercise fewer disciplinary actions. We offer evidence that the positive effects of demographic representation may not hold in privately managed prisons. We speculate that differential organizational socialization and managerial incentives may help to explain this result.

Theory tells us that competition is the chief driver of improved efficiency and effectiveness in government contracting, yet contract provider markets are often noncompetitive. This study offers a detailed, contextualized examination of public administrative responses to thin contract markets. Following an inductive approach with data from semistructured interviews with contract administrators, the authors offer a preliminary typology of the conditions that give rise to thin markets, and the "market management" strategies used to create, enhance, and sustain competition in the markets from where governments purchase goods and services. The authors then review the efficacy and implications of these strategies for public services to citizens.

AbstractThis article addresses whether perceived goal agreement matters for cross‐sectoral collaboration outcomes. Using original survey data from Lebanon that compares the perceptions of local governcment and nonprofit leaders, the findings indicate perceived goal agreement is salient and linked to judgments that collaboration meets its objectives. The article also examines perceptions of goal agreement as it relates to social (trust) and process (power‐sharing) collaboration outcomes and find it to be associated with higher trust between collaborators. While this is the case for nonprofits more than local governments, we find no corresponding sector differences for the relationship between perceptions of goal agreement and effectiveness. In addition, agreeing on goals seems to be linked to perceptions of unequal decision‐making authority for local governments. The results highlight implications for the relationship between goal agreement and cross‐sector collaboration outcome, particularly in the context of developing countries.

Leaders' perceptions of the effectiveness of their organization's collaborations are critical as they determine current and future collaboration. This article examines perceived collaboration effectiveness—the extent to which targeted goals are achieved—based on an organization's role in that collaboration's governance arrangements (initiation, funding, coordination, and decision-making). Findings suggest that governance arrangements have modest association with perceived effectiveness of collaborations between nonprofits and local governments in Lebanon. Perceived effectiveness increases when an organization is directly engaged in coordinating the collaboration's work, activities, resources, and partners, but decreases when an organization has the responsibility for decision-making. Perceived effectiveness also appears to be related to trust, relationship effectiveness, service category, and the organization's sector.

AbstractResearch focuses on various macro and meso aspects of collaboration and less on the individuals who make decisions about their organizations' collaborations. Organizational leaders make these decisions based on their interpretations, influenced by their personal characteristics. Existing studies examining organizational outcomes such as a decision to collaborate typically consider these characteristics separately and independently, ignoring the reality that a leader's characteristics jointly and interactively shape perspectives, attitudes, and behaviors. We focus on five prominent characteristics in the literature—gender, educational attainment, prior cross‐sector experience, current cross‐sector affiliation, and tenure in position—and study their configurational dynamics regarding the organization‐level outcome—the propensity of cross‐sector collaboration. We employ qualitative comparative analysis to develop and test a configurational model for cross‐sector collaboration, using survey data of local government and nonprofit leaders in Lebanon. The analysis offers exploratory insights into four configurational types of leaders whose organizations opt to collaborate at the local level.

Capturing the benefits of competition is a key argument for outsourcing public services, yet public service markets often lack sufficient competition. The authors use survey and interview data from U.S. local governments to explore the responses of public managers to noncompetitive markets. This research indicates that competition is weak in most local government markets (fewer than two alternative providers on average across 67 services measured), and that the relationship between competition and contracting choice varies by service type. Public managers respond to suboptimal market competition by intervening with strategies designed to create, sustain, and enhance provider markets. In monopoly service markets, managers are more likely to use intergovernmental contracting, while for‐profit contracting is more common in more competitive service markets. The strategies that public managers employ to build and sustain competition for contracts often require tangible investments of administrative resources that add to the transaction costs of contracting in noncompetitive markets.

AbstractThis essay responds to the prevailing political environment of estrangement that can be seen in the growing distrust of public institutions, intensifying levels of political polarization, and rising support for populism, particularly in the United States. These trends have contributed to a diminished sense of publicness in public administration, including an erosion of public values and political legitimacy, and an increasingly cynical view of the value, role, and purpose of public service in the modern polity. We argue that public administration must respond actively to this estrangement and seek to repair and strengthen the links between democracy, public administration, and public values through scholarship, connections to practice and the public, and education.