scholarly journals Civil Service Rules and Policy Choices: Evidence from US State Governments

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 338-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gergely Ujhelyi

This paper studies the policy impact of civil service regulations, exploiting reforms undertaken by US state governments throughout the twentieth century. These reforms replaced political patronage with a civil service recruited based on merit and protected from politics. I find that state politicians respond to these changes by spending relatively less through the reformed state-level bureaucracies. Instead, they allocate more funds to lower level governments. The reallocation of expenditures leads to reduced long-term investment by state governments. (JEL D73, H72, H77, H79)

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (Supplement) ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
George Applebey

In this paper, I will reflect on my personal memories of Ludovic Mann, friend and mentor to my late father George Applebey, whose archaeological career is also a focus of the paper. They both worked together on Mann's most famous excavations at Knappers Farm, and the nearby painting of the Cochno Stone rock-art panel. However, these are only two examples of their long-term collaboration and friendship, and this paper will explore the broader context within which they worked. This will include consideration of other collaborators, such as J Harrison Maxwell, part of the ‘Ludovic Group’ in the first half of the twentieth century. The important role that all three men played in the development of Scottish archaeology is noted. The paper concludes with developments following Mann's death in 1955 including George Applebey's emergence as a noted amateur archaeologist in his own right, and the fate of the Mann and Applebey collections.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 717-717
Author(s):  
Edward Miller ◽  
Pamela Nadash ◽  
Marc Cohen

Abstract This presentation documents the continuing failure to tackle the problem of financing long-term services and supports (LTSS)—a failure most recently seen in the only national legislation ever enacted to comprehensively address LTSS costs: the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act. The CLASS Act was included in the Affordable Care Act, but was repealed in 2013. Subsequently, policy experts and some Democrats have made proposals for addressing the LTSS financing crisis. Moreover, significant government action is taking place at the state level, both to relieve financial and emotional burdens on LTSS recipients and their families and to ease pressure on state budgets. Lessons from these initiatives could serve as opportunities for learning how to overcome roadblocks to successful policy development, adoption, and implementation across states and for traversing the policy and political tradeoffs should a policy window open once again for addressing the problem of LTSS financing nationally.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (S4) ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Hannah Abelow ◽  
Cassandra Crifasi ◽  
Daniel Webster

This article argues that state government actors concerned about gun violence prevention should prioritize enactment of robust firearm purchaser regimes at the state level. First, the article outlines the empirical evidence base for purchaser licensing. Then, the article describes how state governments can design this policy. Next, the article assesses the likelihood that purchaser licensing legislation will continue to be upheld by federal courts. Finally, the article addresses the implications of this policy, aimed at curbing gun deaths, for equally important racial justice priorities. Taken together, these various considerations indicate that purchaser licensing policies are among the most effective firearm-focused laws state governments can enact to reduce gun deaths within the existing federal legislative and legal frameworks.


Author(s):  
Anthony Sparacino

Abstract This article examines the origins and early activities of the Democratic and Republican Governors Associations (DGA and RGA, respectively) from the RGA's initial founding in 1961 through the 1968 national nominating conventions. I argue that the formations of these organizations were key moments in the transition from a decentralized to a more integrated and nationally programmatic party system. The DGA and RGA represent gubernatorial concern for and engagement in the development of national party programs and the national party organizations. Governors formed these groups because of the increasing importance of national government programs on the affairs of state governments and the recognition on the part of governors that national partisan politics was having critical effects on electoral outcomes at the state level, through the reputations of the national parties. To varying extents, the governors used these organizations to promote the national parties and contributed to national party-building efforts and the development of national party brands.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-41
Author(s):  
Quentin Lippmann

This paper studies the evolution of mate preferences throughout the twentieth century in France. I digitized all the matrimonial ads published in France’s best-selling monthly magazine from 1928 to 1994. Using dictionary-based methods, I show that mate preferences were mostly stable during the Great Depression, WWII, and the ensuing economic boom. These preferences started transforming in the late 1960s when economic criteria were progressively replaced by personality criteria. The timing coincides with profound family and demographic changes in French society. These findings suggest that, in the search for a long-term partner, non-material needs have replaced material ones.


1977 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Sigelman ◽  
William G. Vanderbok

The bureaucratization of the political process that characterizes twentieth century politics in many countries has not bypassed Canada—as evidenced by skyrocketing rates of government employment and expenditure and, even more dramatically, by the ever-expanding policy-making power of Canadian bureaucracy. One observer sees the civil service as occupying an increasingly strategic role in Canadian politics, a condition thatreflects in part the expanding role of modern government into highly technical areas, which tends to augment the discretion of permanent officials because legislators are obliged to delegate to them the administration of complex affairs, including the responsibility for drafting and adjudicating great amounts of sub-legislation required to “fill in the details” of the necessarily broad, organic statutes passed by Parliament. Some indication of the scale of such discretion is found in the fact that, during the period 1963–8, an annual average of 4,130 Orders-in-Council were passed in Ottawa, a substantial proportion of which provided for delegating authority to prescribe rules and regulations to ministers and their permanent advisers. By contrast, the number of laws passed annually by Canadian federal parliaments is rarely over one hundred.


1998 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 2070-2077 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raúl E. López ◽  
Ronald L. Holle

Abstract Long-term changes in the number of lightning deaths from 1900 to 1991 have been examined for the contiguous United States. The population-normalized series revealed an exponential decrease in the number of deaths per million people. This exponential trend is also present in the decrease of the rural U.S. population for the period. The two datasets agree remarkably well and this suggests the downward trend in lightning deaths resulted to a large extent from the reduction of the rural population. Superimposed on the overall downward trend in lightning deaths were fluctuations of two or three decades in duration. The patterns of these fluctuations are paralleled by nationwide changes in thunder-day frequencies and average surface temperature values. Thus, it appears that the lightning death fluctuations are climatically induced.


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