The tension between managerialism and legalism in public administration has been a recurring theme at Minnowbrook conferences. This tension, increasingly evident in the literature, is couched in the often-conflicting values of efficiency and performance, on one hand, and legal and democratic values such as accountability, equality, and transparency, on the other hand. Building on conversations …
Much of the appeal of performance measurement is explained by its image as a simple and value-neutral way to monitor and improve government. But contemporary governance is characterized by complexity. Few public officials have the luxury of directly providing relatively simple services, the context in which performance regimes work best. Instead, they must work in the context of a disarticulate…
This article examines the road that network scholarship has followed in Public Administration. We look at the historical drivers of the use of networks in practice and scholarship in the field and discuss how that has shaped the current literature. The body of the article focuses on the current challenges that network scholars face in the discipline, specifically basic theoretical issues, knowl…
This essay focuses on the potential of information communication technologies to move the Public Administration (PA) scholarly community into a new information paradigm. We begin with a review of conventional approaches PA scholars use to communicate with each other, students, and practitioners. After illustrating advances in Web applications, we call for an “Open PA Scholarship” in which resea…
Action teams are unique among group types in that their work is focused on time-constrained performance events that cannot be redone later. This aspect of their team temporality gives rise to an emphasis on simulation—a technique used by teams to replicate the taskwork, coordination, and communication of real-life events—and adaptation—in which teams use “time-outs” to give members a chance to …
Previous research provides evidence that individual differences in the personality characteristic of extraversion/introversion can play a significant role in group idea generation. Cognitive stimulation has also been shown to have a significant, though inconsistent, influence on idea generation in computer-mediated groups. We conducted two controlled experiments using a web-based group simulato…
This study examines how group decision processes are affected by the perceived emergent expertise of a group member in situations where a correct solution is not readily verifiable. Using a moderately judgmental task, as opposed to an intellective task, the results of our experiment suggest that when group members are aware of performance feedback: (a) they gradually form a perception about the…
Despite increasing attention to emotional intelligence (EI) in the workplace, few studies have investigated EI at the group level. In this study, we propose that average member EI indirectly affects team performance by shaping emergent team dynamics. The results based on 91 teams show that both average member EI and leader EI are positively associated with intrateam trust, which in turn positiv…
An altruistic rationalization explanation of the interindividual–intergroup discontinuity effect proposes that intergroup interactions are more competitive than interactions between individuals because group membership creates an opportunity to rationalize selfishly motivated competitiveness as being enacted for the ingroup’s sake. To test this explanation, we compared participants whose decisi…
Grounded in social structure and personality, life course, and status attainment perspectives of social psychology, the Youth Development Study (YDS) has followed a cohort of teenagers from the beginning of high school through their mid-thirties. Evidence for the effective exercise of agency derives from diverse adolescent work patterns leading to outcomes that are consistent with youth’s earli…
This article examines so-called secondary transfer effects of intergroup contact, a phenomenon whereby positive intergroup contact experiences can influence attitudes not only toward encountered (primary) outgroups but also toward other (secondary) outgroups that were not initially involved in the intergroup encounter. The current study relies on a unique cross-sectional sample of the general p…
This article contributes to a social psychological understanding of identity by identifying some features of the interactional organization of self-praise. Early conversation analytic work on the epistemics of self-assessment and constraints against self-praise has shown that praising oneself is an interactionally delicate matter that may leave one vulnerable to “unfavorable character assessmen…
How does education affect racial attitudes? Past studies focus almost exclusively on whites’ attitudes toward blacks, neglecting important minority populations. This study extends previous research by analyzing the effects of education on beliefs about racial stereotypes, discrimination, and affirmative action policies among whites, Asians, Hispanics, and blacks. Results indicate that whites, H…
We study the degree of formal influence that rank-and-file members have on the selection of party leaders in the five English-speaking Westminster countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. We find that in recent years there has been a general, though not universal, trend towards granting party members greater influence in the choice of their leader. We observe t…
Common concepts for the classification of parties into families (origins, transnational links, ideology, name) suggest that the radical right should be less homogeneous than most other party families in Western Europe: their comparatively diverse origins, disputed ideological core features, as well as the lack of stable transnational cooperation and the absence of an agreed-upon label support t…
Political parties have substantial influence on which issues the news media cover during election campaigns, while the media have limited influence on party agendas. However, we know little about why some parties are more successful than others in passing the media’s gates and being covered on sponsored issues. On the basis of content analyses of election news coverage (812 news stories) and pr…
Scholars of women’s parliamentary presence have suggested that the proportion of women parliamentarians rests on the interaction between intra-party and party external conditions, and that these can be discussed in terms of necessity and sufficiency. Still, the field lacks systematic cross-case assessments of such relationships. This research takes an explorative approach to necessity, sufficie…
While much research has investigated the persuasive effects of partisan cues on citizens’ evaluations of political messages, our knowledge regarding failed persuasion is limited. It remains particularly unclear whether failed elite attempts at persuasion simply leave citizens’ attitudes unchanged or whether such attempts at persuading one segment of the electorate can actually lead to a loss of…
This article is an overview of the types and level of institutionalization of party systems in seven young democracies in East and Southeast Asia. By applying Alan Siaroff’s typology of party systems, the analysis demonstrates that the party systems in Asia do not converge on a single format. The party systems under consideration also differ in the level of institutionalization. Party systems i…
This article is an examination of the candidate preferences of 2008 superdelegates and of their role in determining the eventual Democratic nominee. Multivariate analysis suggests that female superdelegates were less likely to support Obama than were men; African-Americans, in contrast, were more likely to support his candidacy. A higher percentage of the popular vote received by Obama in the p…