American State Governments Research Articles

Rulemaking Speed in the US States

Abstract This paper explores the speed of rulemaking in American state governments. Drawing on a unique data set of over 250,000 individual rules issued by states from 1993 through 2009, we introduce new measures of the speed and breadth of rulemaking in American state bureaucracies, providing a new way of evaluating the incidence of rulemaking delay within and across governments. We focus specifically on how professionalism and oversight powers of state legislative and executive branches affect rulemaking speed and find that states with more professionalized legislatures and governments with extensive legislative/executive oversight powers experience greater delays in rule adoption. These findings provide important new insights into the politics of regulatory delay and suggest disparate ways in which sub-national governments approach regulatory policymaking in a federal system.

US state government privatization: Implications for social equity and inequality?

AbstractPrivatization of state government services is commonplace, but our understanding of its effects is limited by data availability. We study the relationship between American state government contracting and public sector wages. Governments have used public sector employment to support a variety of goals, including social equity and economic development, but privatization, as a new public management (NPM) reform, may shift the focus. Our empirical analysis shows that state privatization of service delivery is associated with decreases in the public sector wage premium, but that these effects are not driven by gender, race, or low‐levels of educational attainment. The fidelity of the implementation to NPM values conditions these effects. We also find that contracting service delivery is associated with a lower public sector wage premium for middle‐class workers.

Accounting policies in the public sector: Characteristics and consequences of accounting for capital assets

We study the evolution of American state and local governments’ capital asset accounting policies from the initial adoption of Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 34 through the fiscal year ending in 2016. We document substantial cross-sectional and time-series variation in capital asset accounting policies, which potentially diminishes the comparability of capital asset accounting information across governments and over time. We also explore the economic implications of those policies in terms of capital investment decisions and capital asset condition ratios, as reported in governments’ annual financial reports. Our findings, which are relevant to the Governmental Accounting Standards Board and its constituents, extend prior research examining the adoption and application of generally accepted accounting principles in the public sector.

The Political Distribution of Economic Privilege in Van Buren's New York

AbstractHistorians have long recognized that one of the principal functions of early nineteenth-century American state governments was the distribution of economic privileges, including preferential grants of corporate privileges. North, Wallis, and Weingast label such regimes natural states and argue that government as privilege dispenser is a characteristic of most societies and, in some few instances, represents a transitional phase between traditional premodern societies and modern open-access democracies. This article documents the operation of the natural state in New York, focusing on how Martin Van Buren's Democratic coalition manipulated the distribution of bank and insurance company charters so as to advance the interests of their Democratic coalition. Consistent with the North, Wallis, and Weingast interpretation, the evidence shows that the transition to open access was neither smooth nor inevitable; Van Buren's Democratic coalition reversed the long-run trend toward greater access until they were unseated during the financial crisis years of the late 1830s.

Corruption and Public Pension Underfunding

Corruption exacerbates state pension underfunding through all relevant aspects: a more generous pension benefit promise, lower actuarially required contributions (ARC), lower actual contributions, and poorer investment performance. By reducing corruption by one standard deviation from the mean, states could have annually saved pension benefit by 10.24% (or, $1,894.64 per recipient), increased ARC by 4.40%, elevated actual contribution by 8.46%, and improved investment return by 4.72%, in the period 2003-2013, compared to those at the mean of corruption. Improved insulation of pension operations from corrupt officials, as well as reduction of public corruption, can make a significant contribution to reducing the pension funding crisis that haunts American state and local government.

Effective Resource Management of Governments and Corruption

This paper shows theoretically and empirically that public officials’ corruption is likely to degrade the quality of government management practices. By shedding light inside the classic “black box” idea of management, we explain how public corruption exerts a bad influence upon leadership, use of information and resource allocation. This bad influence of public corruption, as a consequence, will deteriorate the overall management quality of governments by weakening the integration of management subsystems. Data support our arguments by showing that increase in public corruption in an American state government decreases the probability significantly that the state may maintain its management excellence. The paper also demonstrates that infrastructure management of state governments is most vulnerable to corruption. Two-stage least squares instrumental variable (2SLS-IV) regressions support the robustness of our model and the empirical results.

The Deportation of James Larkin: Irish American Politics and the British, American, and Free State Governments

The Deportation of James Larkin:Irish American Politics and the British, American, and Free State Governments Gerry Watts (bio) James Larkin (1874–1947) was founder and leader of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU). Almost single-handedly he organized the lowest-paid workers in Ireland, laborers who worked in subhuman conditions and lived in cramped and unhygienic housing where malnourishment and disease were rampant and mortality rates high at the turn of the century. Through his inspiring leadership and oratorical skills, he captured the imagination of the Irish working class, empowering them with a sense of their own destiny. After the travails of the 1913 Lockout, Larkin left Ireland in 1914 and landed in the United States with the double aim of furthering Irish nationalism and worldwide social revolution. Although Larkin did not ultimately achieve these goals, he did play a part in promoting Irish nationalism in the run-up to the 1916 Rising. He also worked within American trade unions, campaigned against the war, and was instrumental in the formation of the American Communist Labor Party. After an initial period working with the Irish American organization Clan na Gael, Larkin fell out with the group over political aims and in 1920 was convicted of criminal anarchy and incarcerated in the New York state penitentiary system. Three years later, he was given a full pardon by the New York governor Al Smith, and shortly thereafter he was deported from the United States by the department of labor. For his troubles, he was often penniless, subject to arrest, and exposed to danger. This essay will look at the role played by individuals within the Bureau of Investigation (precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, [End Page 186] the FBI), Clan na Gael, and the Irish Free State and British governments in the deportation process of Larkin in America. This process was begun in February 1919 but only completed in April 1923. Deportation was the legal sanction for an alien charged and convicted of criminal anarchy. However, Larkin instead received a sentence of imprisonment, with deportation carried out only after a long delay. Consequently, he was unable to return to Ireland during the critical period of the War of Independence and the formation of the Free State between January 1919 and January 1923. A look at the people and circumstances surrounding his incarceration will renew focus on this period of Larkin's life, particularly the role played by Clan na Gael members in the judicial process, at his trial, and during his lengthy appeals process wherein a conviction was secured without deportation. This essay will inquire into whether or not this was a tactic on the part of Clan na Gael members to keep Larkin away from Ireland and stop him from interfering with the work of Sinn Féin. The "nationalist plot" to have Larkin assassinated in 1919, first brought to light by scholar Claire Culleton, is closely connected to these events and will receive attention here as well.1 I will first assess the authenticity of the plot and then ask if its underlying motives were similar to the tactics of Clan na Gael in Larkin's judicial process—namely, that in both cases the motive was to keep Larkin away from Irish affairs. The essay will also look at the role the British state and Free State played in keeping Larkin away from Ireland. It will consider aspects such as the British exclusion order keeping the labor leader out of Ireland, intelligence discussions on Larkin between Dublin Castle and the War Office in London, and the use made by the Free State of the Irish consular service in New York and the office of the Irish Trade Representative in tracking his activities. This analysis takes the form of an investigation and intends therefore to set out a series of exploratory questions. [End Page 187] Larkin is "Shadowed" by Dublin Castle Following the outcome of the 1913 Lockout, Larkin had become despondent. The outbreak of war in August 1914, however, changed the political landscape significantly, pushing Larkin to the fore once again—not as a revolutionary strike leader this time, but as...

Unions, Parties, and the Politics of State Government Legacy Cost

AbstractMany American state governments have made extensive promises to pay for employees’ health care and other benefits in retirement. Currently estimated at over $1 trillion in unfunded liabilities, these other postemployment benefits (OPEB) are creating a major fiscal problem for state governments. In this article, we examine the politics of OPEB. We seek to explain the variation in the generosity of OPEB across U.S. states. We argue that party competition theories do not adequately explain the outcomes we observe. Instead, we draw on the emerging Schattschneiderian approach to the politics of public policy to show that public union strength conditions a party's incentives to represent unions’ interests. In states where public sector unions are strong, unions can find their way into either party's coalition. We find that Republicans are more responsive to public union interests than either their ideological brand or prior research would suggest. It is only in states where public employees are weak that Republicans can act unilaterally and enact their preference for less government spending. To test our theories, we carry out an empirical analysis using a newly assembled data set of per capita OPEB liabilities across 49 states.

Sustaining the States: The fiscal viability of American state governments, (ASPA series in public administration and public policy), edited by Marilyn Marks Rubin and Katherine G. Willoughby. CRC Press, 2015.

Sustaining the States: The fiscal viability of American state governments, (ASPA series in public administration and public policy), edited by Marilyn Marks Rubin and Katherine G. Willoughby. CRC Press, 2015.

The Discretionary Authority of US County Governments at the End of the Twentieth Century

County governments as the administrative subdivisions of American state governments have operated with significantly less discretionary authority than have municipalities. In recent decades, however, counties have been granted or have been forced to increase their authority and functions. This movement toward expanded authority to make and implement local policy choices varies widely among the fifty states. Counties in some states come close to parity with cities, while in other states county governments have been eliminated. Previous research has identified two rapidly growing roles for county governments – provider of municipal services and coordinator/regulator of interjurisdictional service delivery. This paper examines these trends as well as identifies other emerging areas where counties are gaining increased discretionary authority.

The Comfort Women Controversy: Not Over Yet

During the World War II, up to 200,000 women, the majority of whom were Korean, were forced to provide sex to Japan’s military forces. The perceived refusal of Japan to fully take responsibility for the mistreatment of these “comfort women” has been a major obstacle to Japanese-Korean relations for a quarter of a century. Although the signing of the December 28, 2015 Agreement between Japan and Korea purported to “finally and irreversibly” solve the comfort women issue that has divided these two East Asian powers, the voices of Korean and Korean-American civil society indicate the contrary. American local, county, and state governments have become key battlegrounds in the conflict. As comfort women memorials across the USA proliferate, these governmental entities have allowed themselves to be caught up in incomplete narratives, whether Japanese or Korean. Against the backdrop of the tense geopolitics of today’s Asia-Pacific, a more responsible, comprehensive inquiry is needed to bring closure to a tragic chapter of human history.

Developing a Framework for Ranking State and Municipal Governments on Fiscal Sustainability

Fiscally distressed governments tend to draw public attention only amid prominent events like bankruptcy filings, credit downgrades, and serious service cuts. Ideally, before the situation became so severe, the public would be able to quickly assess a government’s financial health, both individually and relative to peers. Recognizing the challenge of consistently assessing governments’ fiscal health, we developed a uniquely broad data set and proxy measures of fiscal health. For more than 10,000 state and municipal governments in the United States, we extracted comparable data points from audited annual financial reports (FY 2008-09 to 2013-14). We then calculated a budget balance ratio, an asset flexibility ratio, and a pension funding ratio, which we used to rank governments’ relative performance. Previous work largely focused on state- and country-level comparisons of fiscal condition using limited samples due to restricted data availability and great variability in accuracy, particularly at the municipal level. These limitations restricted comparability across governments over time and geography. However, we successfully compiled a broad, multi-year public finance database that makes comparisons across thousands of American cities, counties, and state governments possible. Furthermore, our high-level framework of analysis illustrates a way to create simple, broadly applicable measures of municipal financial health. Keywords: government fiscal condition, fiscal solvency, financial ratios, fiscal sustainability, budget balance, asset flexibility, pension funding, public finance, municipal finance JEL Classification: J18, H70, H80

A Colony Sprung from Hell: Pittsburgh and the Struggle for Authority on the Western Pennsylvania Frontier, 1744–1794 by Daniel P. Barr (review)

Reviewed by: A Colony Sprung from Hell: Pittsburgh and the Struggle for Authority on the Western Pennsylvania Frontier, 1744–1794 by Daniel P. Barr Kevin T. Barksdale A Colony Sprung from Hell: Pittsburgh and the Struggle for Authority on the Western Pennsylvania Frontier, 1744–1794. By Daniel P. Barr. (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2014. Pp. 334.) In A Colony Sprung From Hell: Pittsburgh and the Struggle for Authority on the Western Pennsylvania Frontier, 1744–1794, Daniel P. Barr chronicles the efforts of the colonies/states of Virginia and Pennsylvania, Great Britain, and the American Congress to secure, stabilize, and govern the western Pennsylvania backcountry. From the early settlement of the region to the Whiskey Rebellion, Barr reveals the inability of these groups to control the unceasing Indian warfare, contentious land speculation efforts, colonial border disputes, and localist political sentiment that plagued the region in the eighteenth century. Barr divides his study of these efforts to project authority in the region into three phases. In Part I: Competition, Barr focuses on the efforts of Pennsylvania and Virginia land speculators and “expansionist-minded politicians” to assert claims over the region (6–8). From the earliest efforts to settle and speculate in the region through the French and Indian War, the colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia aggressively vied for control of the region. The absence of clear colonial boundaries, the efforts of politically connected land companies (e.g., the Ohio Company), and the threat posed by the French and their Indian allies left the region ungoverned and vulnerable. The inability of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the British imperial administration to defend the region’s communities led to growing anger among western residents and their refusal to support the British war effort. Part II: Regulation examines the British postwar efforts to control the region and to prevent costly Indian warfare. The continued “intercolonial rivalry” for the region between Virginia and Pennsylvania, Ohio Indian threat, and ineffectiveness of British frontier policies undermined imperial postwar efforts to bring stability and peace to the region, restart Native American trade, and quieten festering regional localism (17). The growth of the region’s population, chaos surrounding Pontiac’s Rebellion and Lord Dunmore’s War, lack of civilian civic and political institutions, increased lawlessness, regional political factionalism, and growth of Indian hatred continued to make governance of [End Page 91] the region virtually impossible. Barr argues that the failure of British frontier authority and unpopular western policies (e.g., Proclamation of 1763) resulted in a postwar “power vacuum,” hostility to outside political interference, repeated violations of western policies (e.g., squatting, illegal land sales), and the escalation of the competition for the region by Virginia and Pennsylvania (133). In Part III: Revolution, Barr explores the efforts of the American government to control the region during the revolutionary period. Barr argues that the American Revolution in western Pennsylvania was simply part of the “long struggle for power and authority in the region” (169). The chaos surrounding the revolution and the continued confusion regarding state borders perpetuated the contest for the region between Virginia and Pennsylvania. The inability of the American and eastern state governments to address the wartime regional threats posed by loyalists and British-allied Indians continued to foster antigovernment sentiment in the region. As the violence and chaos continued to escalate during the war, the region’s growing localism and anger at distant governments resulted in military insubordination, resistance to supporting the American war effort, and rampant extralegal land speculation and squatting. The region’s leaders framed the American Revolution in local terms and acted according to regional interests. As the war approached completion, the new American government continued to struggle to govern the region, control Indian violence, halt squatting, and provide food and resources to the remote region. The failure of the American Congress to establish control over the region led regional leaders to launch “local initiatives” aimed at colonial defense and asserting local autonomy. Additionally, the absence of political authority in the region continued to fuel Pennsylvania and Virginia’s contest for the region, and the intercolonial contest for the forks of the Ohio ended only after a postwar agreement between Virginia and Pennsylvania at Baltimore...

Reducing Polarization: Some Facts for Reformers

In response to the governance problems associated with excessive party polarization in American national and state governments, many reformers now seek to alter existing electoral institutions to reduce polarization and its effects. Unfortunately, many existing proposals are based on premises that lack empirical foundation. This essay outlines a set of empirical regularities about polarization in the United States that have important implications for the appropriateness and efficacy of reform proposals. In the conclusion, I outline some approaches to polarization that do not run afoul of the facts.

Bohn's Test of Fiscal Sustainability of the American State Governments

The dramatic fall in state revenues during the Great Recession and the resultant large budget deficits accentuated concerns about state fiscal sustainability. I employ a model‐based approach proposed byto test for sustainability. In this approach, a positive and significant reaction of the ratio of primary surplus ratio (s) to lagged debt constitutes a sufficient condition for sustainability. Based on a panel of 48 contiguous states (1961–2008) and several model specifications, I find robust evidence in favor of sustainability. Further analysis suggests that the adjustment of the components ofsto debt is asymmetric with the revenue side bearing a heavier burden than the spending side. The response ofsis also found to be asymmetric with respect to the level of debt. Finally, the magnitude of the response is larger in states with a higher degree of fiscal stringency in general and “own‐revenue” and “no‐deficit‐carryover” provisions in particular.

A Primer on State and Local Tax Policy: Trade-Offs Among Tax Instruments

This primer provides an overview of the different types of general revenue taxes used in American state and local governments. The intended audience includes policy makers, their advisors, and other citizens interested in the trade-offs involved in setting tax policy. The primer begins with a short discussion of criteria for evaluating tax revenue options (i.e., economic efficiency, equity, transparency, collectability, and revenue production). It proceeds to an overview of the different types of taxes employed at various levels of government and an evaluation of each tax against these criteria. The tax categories included here are individual income taxes, consumption taxes, real property taxes, and corporate income taxes.

Disentangling the Effects of Lobbying Laws on Interest Group Registrations in the American States, 1988-2013

Throughout the past twenty-five years, American state governments have come to define lobbyists and their clients differently. The states have also adopted a variety of new regulations on those registered to lobby. I use temporal measures of statutory definitions, prohibitions, and reporting stringency to estimate the effects of such laws on interest group populations or registrations. Definitions with additional, specific criteria are shown to be correlated with increased registrations. Additional prohibitions and reporting requirements, however, are shown to discourage groups from registering in the presence of such specific criteria. Contrary to prior studies, these findings suggest that such regulations are enforced and have countervailing effects on political transparency. I suggest a need for a reevaluation of the effects of such laws on lobbyists.

From Glass Ceiling to Glass Cliff: Women in Senior Executive Service

The dominant paradigm that frames the challenges women face in attaining upward mobility has been the glass ceiling metaphor (Bowling, Cynthia, Kelleher, Christine, Jones, Jennifer, and Deil Wright. 2006. Cracked ceilings, firmer floors, and weakening walls: Trends and patterns in gender representation among executives leading American state agencies, 1970–2000. Public Administration Review 66 (6): 823–36; Bullard, Angela, and Deil Wright. 1993. Circumventing the glass ceiling: Women executives in American state governments. Public Administration Review 53 (3): 189–202; Naff, Katherine C. 1994. Through the glass ceiling: Prospects for the advancement of women in the federal civil service. Public Administration Review 54 (6): 507–14; Riccucci, Norma M. 2009. The pursuit of social equity in the federal government: A road less traveled? Public Administration Review 69 (3): 373–82; Sneed, Bethany G. 2007. Glass walls in state bureaucracies: Examining the difference departmental function can make. Public Administration Review 67 (5): 880–91). However, over the last decades women have made steady progress and are moving to positions of leadership. Women in leadership positions continue to face an uphill battle; they often are placed in precarious positions setting them up for failure and pushing them over the edge—a phenomenon recently termed as “glass cliff” (Ryan, Michelle K., and S. Alexander Haslam. 2005. The glass cliff: Evidence that women are over-represented in precarious leadership positions. British Journal of Management 16, 81–90. Ryan, Michelle K., and S. Alexander Haslam. 2007. The glass cliff: Exploring the dynamics surrounding the appointment of women to precarious leadership positions. Academy of Management Review 32 (2): 549–72). Using data from the 2010 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, this research examines the challenges women face in Senior Executive Service (SES) in various US federal government agencies (distributive, redistributive, regulatory, and constituent policy). The study is based on three widely discussed theories in the field of social psychology—think-manager-think-male, social role theory, and role incongruity theory. The study findings indicate that SES women in distributive and constituent policy agencies are most likely to face glass cliffs. The odds of women falling off the cliff are less when women have influence over policymaking decisions, perceive empowerment, and experience organizational equities. Address correspondence to the author at meghna.sabharwal@utdallas.edu JPART doi:10.1093/jopart/mut030 © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Advance Access published June 13, 2013 at U niersity of T exas at D allas on Jne 4, 2013 http://jpaordjournals.org/ D ow nladed from Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 2

Does Local Government Matter? How Urban Policies Shape Civic Engagement. By Elaine B. Sharp. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. 248p. $67.50 cloth, $22.50 paper.

Like most fields of knowledge, political science tends to progress incrementally. Typically, a political scientist develops a model about a prominent institution or common behavior and that model becomes the starting point for understanding all its other permutations. This is especially the case in studies of American state and local government, which tend to follow theories of national politics. Scholars of state legislatures typically begin their analysis by using studies of the U.S. Congress, analysts of local elections start with presidential vote models, and so on. But, as Elaine Sharp reminds us in Does Local Government Matter?, we should not be so quick to assume that models or theories about national-level politics translate easily to the local level. In fact, local politics may operate under logics all their own.

Stormwater management: can we learn from others?

While there is considerable amount of literature examining how and why American federal and state governments look for information and ideas, there is considerably less knowledge of how these processes operate at the local level. This is particularly true in the case of how ideas related to sustainable water management policies are found and used by local governments. This article attempts to open this area by examining where, how and to what purpose local agents engage in the transfer of low-impact development policies and techniques. This article is organised around four questions: (1) Is there a basic agreement about the pioneers in stormwater management; (2) Where did agents gather information; (3) Did this involve complex understanding; and (4) What emerged as key obstacles to the transfer and learning processes amongst the local authorities involved in this study?