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Countries differ in their governmental architectures and in the rules that describe the allocation of tasks, rights and duties across the various levels of government. In this paper, we present a short and selective survey of the development of the theory of optimal allocation of rights and duties along the vertical dimension in federations. We thereby first discuss the multiple trade-offs brought forward in the literature; these make that an ideal allocation of actual tasks across levels of government may be difficult, if not impossible, to attain. Then we turn to the consequences of a sub-optimal allocation of tasks and discuss spillover effects, strategic interactions between jurisdictions and intergovernmental competition. Throughout the review, we highlight paths in need of further research such that, in time, we will have a more solid ground for policy advice.

AbstractMany theories in Public Administration and Public Management explicitly relate to changes over time in the attitudes, values, perceptions, and/or motivations of public‐sector employees. Examining such theories using (repeated) cross‐sectional datasets may lead to biased inferences and an inability to expose credible causal relationships. As developing individual‐level panel datasets is costly and time‐consuming, this article presents a method to make better use of existing surveys fielded repeatedly among the same respondent pool without individual identifiers. Specifically, it sets out an approach to create a system of unique identifiers using information about respondents' background characteristics available within the original data. The result is a panel dataset that allows tracking (a subset of) individual respondents across time. The article discusses issues of feasibility, credibility as well as ethical considerations. The methodology has further practical value by highlighting data characteristics that can help minimize identifiability of respondents while creating public‐release datasets.

Politicians often implement popular changes in public policies prior to elections, with the aim of improving their Election Day outcome. This research note evaluates whether such 'electioneering' carries over also into politicians' extra-parliamentary activities. Evidence from the UK House of Commons over the period 2005-10 suggests that adjustments do occur in MPs' outside activities over the election cycle. The safety of the politician's seat and his or her decision to stand for re-election play an important mediating role. Adapted from the source document.

Politicians often implement popular changes in public policies prior to elections, with the aim of improving their Election Day outcome. This research note evaluates whether such 'electioneering' carries over also into politicians' extra-parliamentary activities. Evidence from the UK House of Commons over the period 2005–10 suggests that adjustments do occur in MPs' outside activities over the election cycle. The safety of the politician's seat and his or her decision to stand for re-election play an important mediating role.

Research linking civic engagement to citizens' democratic values, generalized trust, cooperative norms, and so on often implicitly assumes such connections are stable over time. This article argues that, due to changes in the broader institutional environment, the engagement-values relation is likely to generally lack temporal stability. We investigate this empirically by analysing the engagement-trust relation using World Values Survey (WVS) data from the 1990 and 2000 waves. Overall, our results show that voluntary association memberships remain positively associated with generalised trust in both samples, but evidence that memberships in connected associations are better than in isolated ones appears, at best, scant in more recent years.

Political parties are often argued to compete for voters by stressing issues they feel they own -- a strategy known as 'selective emphasis'. While usually seen as an electorally rewarding strategy, this article argues that cultivating 'your' themes in the public debate is not guaranteed to be electorally beneficial and may even become counter-productive. It describes the conditions under which 'selective emphasis' becomes counter-productive, and applies the argument to recent discussions regarding the strategies of mainstream parties confronting the extreme right. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Political parties are often argued to compete for voters by stressing issues they feel they own - a strategy known as 'selective emphasis'. While usually seen as an electorally rewarding strategy, this article argues that cultivating your themes in the public debate is not guaranteed to be electorally beneficial and may even become counter-productive. It describes the conditions under which 'selective emphasis' becomes counter-productive, and applies the argument to recent discussions regarding the strategies of mainstream parties confronting the extreme right.

Politicians often implement popular changes in public policies prior to elections, with the aim of improving their Election Day outcome. This research note evaluates whether such electioneering carries over also into politicians' extra-parliamentary activities. Evidence from the UK House of Commons over the period 2005-2010 suggests adjustments do occur in MPs' outside activities over the election cycle. The safety of the politicians' seat and his/her decision to stand for re-election play an important mediating role.