Suchergebnisse

DRMI Working Paper Series ; PMRC 2019: Public Management Research Conference (PMRC) ; Note by author: "This manuscript is in progress and will be presented at PMRC 2019. Please do not cite without permission from the author." ; The question of how public managers use public sector performance information received significant scholarly attention in recent years. The promise of performance management systems was to rationalize the decision making process by creating objective performance metrics that citizens, political officials, and public managers could use to assess the performance of public organizations. Some theoretical work suggests, however, that there is a certain subjectivity to these data, which arises from an individual's role in their organization or broader political environment. Furthermore, a recent spate of experimental work in this area suggests subjectivity might also arise, at the individual level, through cognitive bias. I bridge these two bodies of scholarship with a framework of performance information processing, which incorporates four models of political information use into the story of how public managers use performance information. I suggest that cognitive bias can contribute to the subjectivity of performance information when public managers process performance information. In other words, a model of meaning avoidance suggests that managers accurately receive performance information from management systems, but that cognitive biases influence the ways in which they interpret or act upon that information. In this essay, I provide empirical evidence for this model. I show that despite different presentations, public managers can accurately recount the objective information they saw when asked to recall it. I also provide evidence that despite being equally aware of objective raw performance metrics, public managers exhibit evidence of cognitive bias when asked to interpret the meaning of that information. This study contributes to the broader discussion of how individuals use performance information.

Since Huntington's seminal work The Soldier and the State, the scholarship on civil–military relations in the American context has often emphasized the need for a professional military to maintain an apolitical stance and let the civilian principals lead. In this article, we ask, what can we learn about civil-military relations by seeking to better understand the relationship between political institutions and the politicization of the military? We argue that this literature insufficiently accounts for the perils that exist within separation of powers (i.e., presidential) systems. Consequently, the existing scholarship cannot distinguish when politicization happens because of or despite civilian principals. We use long-standing arguments from Comparative Politics to explain why problems of separation of powers systems are endemic to these institutions. We then present five questions and two examples to facilitate a theoretical reframing of the subject. Our argument suggests more work is needed to understand how American political institutions shape civil–military relations.

AbstractRepresentative bureaucracy is a values-based theory of bureaucratic decision making. Its key assumption is that a bureaucrat's demography shapes her pre-organizational socialization, values, and ultimately her decisions, in a way that can advance the interests of a represented client or group (i.e., active representation). However, scholars have not critically examined the presumed links among these four factors. We review the literature and make an argument for representative bureaucracy scholars to incorporate a psychological perspective to better understand the behavioral mechanisms that influence active representation. We discuss the tripartite classification of the mind, dual-process theories of decision making, identity theory and the deservingness heuristic as theoretical perspectives scholars can use to investigate the behavioral foundations of representative bureaucracy.

When are human security international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) involved in countries with a history of civil war? Though the literature mentions the necessity of these actors in war-torn countries, not much is known about the factors which make INGO involvement more or less likely in countries with a history of civil war. We develop a theory that highlights the role of INGO safety and country salience in encouraging INGO involvement. Looking at the involvement of both development and human rights INGOs in countries with a history of civil war, we find support for our overall argument. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright, the International Political Science Association.]

When are human security international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) involved in countries with a history of civil war? Though the literature mentions the necessity of these actors in war-torn countries, not much is known about the factors which make INGO involvement more or less likely in countries with a history of civil war. We develop a theory that highlights the role of INGO safety and country salience in encouraging INGO involvement. Looking at the involvement of both development and human rights INGOs in countries with a history of civil war, we find support for our overall argument.

Since Huntington's seminal work The Soldier and the State, the scholarship on civil–military relations in the American context has often emphasized the need for a professional military to maintain an apolitical stance and let the civilian principals lead. In this article, we ask, what can we learn about civil-military relations by seeking to better understand the relationship between political institutions and the politicization of the military? We argue that this literature insufficiently accounts for the perils that exist within separation of powers (i.e., presidential) systems. Consequently, the existing scholarship cannot distinguish when politicization happens because of or despite civilian principals. We use long-standing arguments from Comparative Politics to explain why problems of separation of powers systems are endemic to these institutions. We then present five questions and two examples to facilitate a theoretical reframing of the subject. Our argument suggests more work is needed to understand how American political institutions shape civil–military relations.