Accession to the European Union 2001–2010

Throughout history, the courts have played a key role in determining the nature of the intergovernmental system in the United States. In particular, the Federal Courts haw been the central arbiter in deciding between assertions of national authority and state claims to protection from federal encroachment. The Courts have been asked time and again to choose between Constitutional commands supporting the national government on the one hand and commands supporting state and local governments on the other. In the decades of the 1940's through the 1980's, more often than not, the courts decided the trade-offs in favor of national authority and thus significantly supported the expansion of national governmental power. This trend in support of the Federal Government is important, in that it has played a crucial role in structuring our system of governance, altered our system of public administration, and constituted fundamental constraints on the ability of state and local officials to direct programs and operations to meet the expanded domestic policy agenda that has been devolved to state and local governments. The trend in favor of national authority had persisted for so long that some commentators concluded that the federalism principle had outlived its usefulness and was no longer a viable judicial doctrine (Choper, 1980, pp. 255-256). Federalism supporters feared that the Supreme Court had reached the same conclusion and was formally signaling its abdication of any responsibility to protect state prerogatives. Nonetheless, the worst fears of federalism supporters were not realized. The decade of the 1990's has brought a shift in the trend in federalism cases and brought the Supreme Court back to taking up a role as a protector of federalism. To understand why, it is necessary to scrutinize a series of cases decided from the opening of the decade. It began inauspiciously enough with an unobtrusive personnel policy case, Gregory v. Ashcroft (111 S. Ct. 2395, 1991). In that case, state judges challenged Missouri's constitutional requirement that judges retire at age 70. Citing the Federal Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967 and the Fourteenth Amendment, Missouri supported its constitutional regulation through the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, which reserves to the states all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government. The Court decided for Missouri, but what was more significant is that in doing so, it went on to engage in a lengthy review of past cases focusing on state political functions, and then went to extraordinary lengths to expound a general view of state sovereignty. Not content to stop there, the Court went on to equate the importance of a balance of power between state and federal governments with the separation of powers within the national government and stated that this constituted a double security for the people. The Supreme Court has followed Gregory with a series of decisions buttressing federalism. The cases that follow illustrate the nature and extent of the resurgence. New York v. United States 505 U.S. 144 (1992) Just one year after Gregory, the Supreme Court announced its decision in response to a challenge from two counties and the State of New York against the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act, which, among other things, mandated that states or regional compacts that fail to provide the disposal of all low level radioactive wastes generated in the affected states by January 1, 1996, must take title to the waste if requested by the generator or owner of the waste. The Court stated that this take-title provision offered the states a choice between two unconstitutional alternatives. The first choice, accepting ownership of the waste, would allow Congress to transfer radioactive waste from generators to state governments which was dearly unconstitutional. The second choice, regulating according to Congress's instructions, would command state governments to implement legislation enacted by Congress. …

Reconstructing the City, Constructing the State: Government in Valparaíso after the Earthquake of 1906

Equal employment opportunity has been an explicitly stated national goal since enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In furtherance of this goal, Congress authorized creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce compliance with the act's provisions against discrimination in employment, and to work with state and local fair employment practices agencies in their enforcement of related antidiscrimination laws. These joint efforts have led to complex intergovernmental relations among national, state, and local governmental organizations. The impetus for this study lies in understanding the relationship between national and state administrative agencies charged with enforcing antidiscrimination statutes in the public and private workplace. Such understanding is important in refining current theory and practice regarding equal employment opportunity. Although extensive literatures exist in the areas of intergovernmental relations and civil rights, research is sparse regarding the linkage between equal employment opportunity as a public policy in a federal system and its implementation through intergovernmental means.[1] Three primary questions underlie this research. First, to what extent and in what ways does the presence of overlapping authority help or hinder administrative enforcement? Second, what variation exists in the degree of interdependence between the EEOC and state fair employment practices agencies, and what effect does the degree of interdependence have on enforcement? Third, what is the nature and extent of bargaining in the development of consensus between the national agency and state entities, and how does it affect the content of contracts between them? The Evolution of Employment Discrimination Policy Employment discrimination policy has developed within the context of a federal system of governance. Both the national government and individual states create and execute policies.[2] A division of responsibility between levels of government based on the nature of the program or service provided is part of the ongoing debate over proper allocation of authority among governmental levels (Rivlin, 1992). From early conflict over slavery to clashes over desegregation and voting rights, disagreement about the nature of federalism has often centered on issues related to states rights in a federal system (Nice, 1987). Traditional views about dual federalism, in which power and responsibility is divided between the national and state governments and each exercises authority in its respective jurisdiction, reinforced the perspective that states, when enacting segregation laws, were exercising authority in their own relatively autonomous sphere. The national government, however, exerted authority in a variety of areas, including fair employment, particularly during the New Deal and Great Society periods. When the national Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, over 20 states had some type of fair employment law, and several states had laws requiring racially segregated employment.[3] The coordinated enforcement requirement in Title VII of the act, which indicated that the newly created EEOC was to work with subnational fair employment agencies, was reinforced by views about cooperative and creative federalism. Instead of separate spheres of authority, there were areas of overlap, with power and responsibility for certain policies shared between national and state governments to varying degrees. Growing federal involvement in the implementation of civil rights policy was challenged during the Reagan administration as part of an overall effort to shift many governmental responsibilities to the states (Amaker, 1988; Nathan and Doolittle, 1987). Devolution and decentralization varied by state and program (Lester, 1986; U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, 1993). Fair housing enforcement by states increased (Lamb, 1991) and fair employment enforcement showed a mixed approach (Wood, 1990). …

Intergovernmental cooperation in the collection of statistics on economic and social conditions presents an interesting problem because of the need for uniformity in the various segments of a statistical survey. This subject has not, however, been discussed, except incidentally, in any of the many studies of the changing roles of state and federal governments. In many programs flexibility, the capacity to adapt to varying local conditions, is presented as a major advantage of federal-state cooperation and particularly of grant-in-aid programs. The very essence of accurate statistics, however, is uniformity of concept, methodology and product in the various parts of a system. Once it is recognized that a number of major statistical programs are carried out through cooperative action, questions about the desirability of cooperation and the reasons for it arise, since it appears that the flexibility which is an advantage in other programs would be a dangerous weakness in these. This article reviews the development of one of the larger cooperative statistical programs and, in the process, attempts to throw some light on the reasons for the success of cooperation in that program and the conditions under which it is likely to be satisfactory in other programs. Economic and social statistics, or interpretations of them, are frequently referred to; they are an important factor in political and economic decisions and programs. but little attention is customarily paid to the way in which they are obtained. The scope and accuracy of the statistics which describe our economy, the majority of which are prepared by government agencies, have grown enormously in the last generation, which has also seen some important changes in the relations between our national and state governments. These changing patterns have impinged and, in consequence, a substantial share of our current economic statistics is collected through some arrangement by which the national and state governments cooperate in order to increase the quantity of comparable statistics and reduce the number of requests for information addressed to putative respondents in statistical surveys. There is a great diversity in the subject matter of these cooperative surveys. The Department of Agriculture uses them in collecting information on the acreage and production of crops and the number of livestock on farms. The Bureau of Mines conducts surveys of mineral production and accidents to miners. The Office of Education helps states to improve their own statistics on education. The National Vital Statistics Division secures data on births and deaths throughout the United States. The Bureau of Labor Statistics prepares current monthly estimates of employment, hours of work, earnings, and labor turnover for several hundred industries and these are comparable with the estimates for each state and 140 metropolitan areas which are prepared by cooperating states. Each of the sets of statistics mentioned has its own audience of business analysts, legislators, public health services, school systems, economists, and public adininistrators. They are factors in the development of public policy and legislation at all levels of government and frequently contribute to business decisions and to the climate of public opinion on various issues. These statistical systems are of quite different types in a technical sense. In some cases they are based on samples, in others reports are obtained for each unit in the universe of events being studied; some depend almost entirely on mailed questionnaires, others on interviews; some measure changes in a continuum through time, others count discrete events; some are based on voluntary responses to requests for information, others on the tabluation of reports required by law for various purposes. The common thread running through them is cooperation between state and national agencies. This cooperation itself takes various forms, ranging from a simple exchange of the basic data collected to highly integrated systems. It may involve technical or financial assistance by the national government, which may be provided in one of a number of ways.

I say, sir, that purity of Christian church, purity of our holy religion, and preservation of our institutions, require that Church and State shall be separated; that preacher on Sabbath day shall find his text in Bible; shall preach Jesus Christ and him crucified; shall preach from Holy Scriptures, and not attempt to control political organizations and political parties of day. --Senator Stephen A. Douglas(1) Imagine a legislator who must decide whether to vote to outlaw, or otherwise disfavor, particular conduct--abortion, for example, or same-sex unions. She wonders what weight, if any, she should put on her religiously grounded belief that conduct is immoral; in particular, she worries that it might not be appropriate for her to disfavor conduct on basis of her religiously grounded moral belief.(2) In another essay in series of which this Essay is a part,(3) I argue that morality of liberal democracy does not counsel her against disfavoring conduct on basis of religiously grounded moral belief.(4) In this Essay, I pursue a different but, for us citizens of United States, complementary inquiry: Does United States's constitutional morality of religious freedom--in particular, requirement that government not religion--forbid government to disfavor conduct on basis of a religiously grounded belief that conduct is immoral? That morality of liberal democracy does not counsel a legislator or other policymaker against disfavoring conduct on basis of religiously grounded moral belief does not entail that norm (as I prefer to call it) permits government to disfavor conduct on basis of religiously grounded moral belief. As I have explained elsewhere, norm that is part of American constitutional law is, in some respects, more restrictive than morality of liberal democracy; in some respects, limitations placed on government by norm are greater than, they go beyond, limitations placed on government by morality of liberal democracy.(5) The First Amendment to Constitution of United States famously insists that shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting thereof; or abridging freedom of speech, or of press; or right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition Government for a redress of grievances. Yet, according to authoritative case law--law that is constitutional bedrock in United States(6)--it is not just Congress but all three branches of national government that may not prohibit of religion, abridge freedom of speech, etc. Moreover, it is not just (whole) national government but government of every state that may not do what First Amendment forbids. I have suggested elsewhere that there is a path from text of First Amendment, which speaks just of Congress, to authoritative case law.(7) But even if there were no such path, it would nonetheless be constitutional bedrock in United States that neither national government nor state government may either prohibit of religion or establish religion (or abridge the freedom of speech, or of press; or right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition Government for a redress of grievances).(8) For Americans at beginning of twenty-first century, serious practical question is no longer whether free exercise and nonestablishment norms apply to whole of American government, including state government. They do so apply. And there is no going back. The sovereignty of and norms over every branch and level of American government--in particular, their sovereignty over state government as well as national government--is now, as I said, constitutional bedrock in United States. …

COVID-19 and socioeconomic impact in Asia: The case of India

In reviewing the Winter Commission Report, I asked myself two questions. What insight in the problems of public sector management will this report give me? What concrete suggestions for implementing change can I glean from the report? While the report was collect in its identification of some of the problems of managing in state government (there is little about local government), I found much more representing longstanding academic complaints, which sadly do not represent the concerns of public sector management. Did the last two decades slip by without anyone noticing that things have changed in state and local government? I helped draft legislation over 20 years ago to create a cabinet system in Massachusetts to redress the failure of the states to permit strong executive leadership. Now I am told the central problem of state government is that we elect too many Secretaries of State and State Land Commissioners. This ground was plowed more than 25 years ago by, among others, the Commission on Economic Development. Did not virtually every state make significant constitutional changes in the 1970s? Was not that an era marked as the renaissance of state government? Did those of us working on state government reform accomplish nothing? The core concept behind the commission report is that of and That notion is invoked in several sections. The initial definition of this concept sounds like something out of Reinventing Government, or one of the many books on public sector TQM. As I understand the statement, the idea is that, as a manager, if you trust your staff you will let them lead. The juxtaposition of this idea, which is embedded in the section on the weakness of governors, is fascinating. Do you first need to accrue more power at the top before you trust and lead? Is a bottom-up management style something that will work only if mandated by a single person at the top? I can appreciate that the chair of the commission is a former governor and that two of the meetings were held in the capitols of the states with the constitutionally weakest chief executives (Austin and Tallahassee). But to presume that those institutional restraints also apply in the other 47 states, or to the council-manager cities and counties in this country is a little extreme. To my way of thinking, reshaping the state and local public service has more to do with how we educate and utilize our public servants than the relative power of the chief executive. When someone does a convincing study that demonstrates that Alaska and Hawaii, with only a couple of state-wide offices, are the best managed states, and Texas and Florida, with the weakest governors, are the worst managed, I will find this whole argument creditable. The same argument would apply to the issue of the nationalization of Medicaid. In the 1960s, Congressman Reuss proposed revenue sharing; in the early 1970s and again in the early 1980s, the proposal was to nationalize welfare, which then cost more than health care. Should the changes in public management in state and local government be dependent on the national government taking over a larger share of governmental expenditures in the 1990s? How well we manage state and local governments should not be contingent upon decisions about Medicaid. Health care reform of any kind should not be linked to public sector management change. Furthermore, such a change relieves overburdened states, but does nothing for local governments. While I laud the goal of reforming Medicaid financing as sound public policy, I think that management improvement initiatives are also sound public policy and should not be linked to other policy concerns. I want to touch on one last unnecessary foray into politics that muddies the water about management change. Campaign reform and lobbyist registration are hot topics, but what do they have to do with public management? I understand that the public is suspicious and even cynical about both politicians and bureaucrats, but these recommendations are off the point. …

As more and more of the population moves to areas prone to natural hazards, the costs of disasters are on the rise. Given that these events are an eventuality, governments must aid their communities in promoting disaster resilience, enabling their communities to reduce their susceptibility to natural hazards, and adapting to and recovering from disasters when they occur. The federal system in the United States divides these responsibilities among national, state, and local governments. Local and state governments are largely responsible for the direct provision of services to their communities, and the Stafford Act of 1988 provides that the federal government will pay at least 75% of all eligible expenses once a presidential major disaster declaration has been made. As a result, state and local governments have become largely reliant on transfers from the federal government to pay for disaster relief and recovery efforts. This system encourages state and local governments to ignore the risks they face and turn to the federal government for aid after a disaster. This system also seems to underemphasize an important mechanism that can bolster disaster resilience: financing the costs of disasters in advance through ex ante budgeting. Four tools for budgeting ex ante—intergovernmental grants, disaster stabilization funds, the municipal bond market, and hazard insurance—are described and examples of their use provided. Despite limited use by state governments, these tools provide governments the opportunity to build community resilience to disasters by budgeting ex ante for them.

Fiscal federalism involves the use of multiple levels of government to perform public sector activities. Most countries have at least some degree of fiscal federalism, since their public sectors are typically organized into localities, provincial (regional or state) governments, and a national government. However, the precise structures differ from country to country. In some, such as France, the central (national) government has substantial fiscal and administrative control over regional and local governments. In others, such as Brazil, India, and the United States, state governments have considerable authority and account for a large share of all government sector activity. In every nation, legal rules and history play a major role on the pattern of fiscal federalism…

Fiscal federalism involves the use of multiple levels of government to perform public sector activities. Most countries have at least some degree of fiscal federalism, since their public sectors are typically organized into localities, provincial (regional or state) governments, and a national government. However, the precise structures differ from country to country. In some, such as France, the central (national) government has substantial fiscal and administrative control over regional and local governments. In others, such as Brazil, India, and the United States, state governments have considerable authority and account for a large share of all government sector activity. In every nation, legal rules and history play a major role on the pattern of fiscal federalism…

Debates over the relative power of national and state governments have typically hinged on constitutional provisions. “The evolution of federalism in law” describes how, in the early years of the republic, the US Supreme Court played a key role in defining the nature and scope of the US federal system. It then outlines how judicial decisions of the twentieth century continued the expansion of federal authority. Although the national government has many tools to influence state policymaking and enact federal policy, US states retain important powers. For many Americans, the actions of state and local governments have a bigger impact on their lives than those of the national government.

In an effort to protect and enhance the interests of their constituents in a complex era of globalization, interdependence, and “creative destruction,” mostu.s.state governments have chosen to be engaged internationally, especially in economic activities, such as export promotion and the attraction of direct investment, tourists, and students from abroad. However, these activities have often been sporadic and are subject to being downsized or eliminated during tough fiscal periods, such as the Great Recession of 2007–2009. Moreover,u.s.federalism has been in a period of centralization with more power assumed by the national government at the expense of state governments. The executive branches of the national and state governments occasionally clash over international competencies, with the national government almost always prevailing. Nonetheless, most state governments continue to be actively engaged in “foreign affairs,” as contrasted with “foreign policy,” and future trends should result in the proliferation of these pursuits.

IntroductionFew studies have described the drivers of vaccine hesitancy and acceptance in India from the perspective of those involved in the design and implementation of vaccine campaigns–such as government officials and civil society stakeholders–a prerequisite to developing approaches to address this barrier to high immunization coverage and further child health improvements.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study to understand government officials and civil society stakeholders’ perceptions of the drivers of vaccine hesitancy in India. We conducted in-depth phone interviews using a structured guide of open-ended questions with 21 participants from international and national non-governmental organizations, professional associations, and universities, and state and national government–six national-level stakeholders in New Delhi, six state-level stakeholders in Uttar Pradesh, six in Kerala, and three in Gujarat–from July 2020 to October 2020. We analyzed data through a multi-stage process following Grounded Theory. We present findings on individual-level, contextual, and vaccine/vaccination program-specific factors influencing vaccine hesitancy.ResultsWe identified multiple drivers and complex ways they influence vaccine beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors from the perspective of government officials and civil society stakeholders involved in vaccine campaigns. Important individual-level influences were low awareness of the benefits of vaccination, safety concerns, especially related to mild adverse events following immunization, and mistrust in government and health service quality. Contextual-level factors included communications, the media environment, and social media, which serves as a major conduit of misinformation and driver of hesitancy, as well as sociodemographic factors–specific drivers varied widely by income, education, urban/rural setting, and across religious and cultural groups. Among vaccine/vaccination-level issues, vaccine program design and delivery and the role of health care professionals emerged as the strongest determinants of hesitancy.ConclusionsDrivers of vaccine hesitancy in India, as elsewhere, vary widely by local context; successful interventions should address individual, contextual, and vaccine-specific factors. While previous studies focused on individual-level factors, our study demonstrates the equal importance of contextual and vaccine-specific influences, especially the communication and media environment, influential leaders, sociodemographic factors, and frontline health workers.

BackgroundLittle is known about how health care professionals deal with ethical challenges in mental health care, especially when not making use of a formal ethics support service. Understanding this is important in order to be able to support the professionals, to improve the quality of care, and to know in which way future ethics support services might be helpful.MethodsWithin a project on ethics, coercion and psychiatry, we executed a focus group interview study at seven departments with 65 health care professionals and managers. We performed a systematic and open qualitative analysis focusing on the question: ‘How do health care professionals deal with ethical challenges?’ We deliberately did not present a fixed definition or theory of ethical challenge.ResultsWe categorized relevant topics into three subthemes: 1) Identification and presence of ethical challenges; 2) What do the participants actually do when dealing with an ethical challenge?; and 3) The significance of facing ethical challenges.Results varied from dealing with ethical challenges every day and appreciating it as a positive part of working in mental health care, to experiencing ethical challenges as paralyzing burdens that cause a lot of stress and hinder constructive team cooperation. Some participants reported that they do not have the time and that they lack a specific methodology. Quite often, informal and retrospective ad-hoc meetings in small teams were organized. Participants struggled with what makes a challenge an ethical challenge and whether it differs from a professional challenge. When dealing with ethical challenges, a number of participants experienced difficulties handling disagreement in a constructive way. Furthermore, some participants plead for more attention for underlying intentions and justifications of treatment decisions.ConclusionsThe interviewed health care professionals dealt with ethical challenges in many different ways, often in an informal, implicit and reactive manner. This study revealed nine different categories of what health care professionals implicitly or explicitly conceive as ‘ethical challenges’. Future research should focus on how ethics support services, such as ethics reflection groups or moral case deliberation, can be of help with respect to dealing with ethical challenges and value disagreements in a constructive way.

Each dental public health worker is confronted with a wide variety of organizations with which a professional relation can be developed. Decisions about which relations should receive priority, and the kind of relations that may be expected, are easier to define if each possible organizational interface is placed in one of three categories: (1) professional associations; (2) the employing bureaucracy and its sister agencies; and (3) the organizations performing the same dental public health functions as the worker, but within different geographic parameters. A three-dimensional model is developed, using as an example the organizational interfaces of the chief dental officer, US Public Health Service; with national level associations, the federal government; and with dental public health workers at the international and state levels of government. Current issues of importance to the American Association of Public Health Dentistry are identified according to the principal relations needed with other national associations, the federal government, and international and state governments.