Assessment Of Government Performance Research Articles

‘Thin’ loyalty and declining attachment to the African National Congress

ABSTRACT The African National Congress (ANC) has been an electorally dominant party in South African politics since 1994, with its vote share peaking in 2004 before falling to a low in the most recent 2019 general elections. Simultaneously, there have been much sharper declines in levels of ANC partisanship and assessments of government performance among the party’s own voters. This presents a puzzle: Why do a significant share of ANC voters continue to support a party that they do not ‘feel close’ to and do not believe is adequately managing the economy or the delivery of public goods? Based upon original qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 111 intended ANC voters, I argue that there is a sizeable portion of ANC voters whose connection to the party is characterised by a conditional loyalty that falls short of a more thoroughgoing partisanship. The persistence of ‘thin’ loyalty alongside habitual and strategic voting for the ANC – especially among the ‘born free’ generation – has obfuscated the extent of decline in the perceived efficacy of voting and overall satisfaction with the outcomes of democratic politics.

Twitter Communication Among Democracy Actors: How Interacting With Journalists and Elected Officials Influence People’s Government Performance Assessment and Trust

Prior research highlights broad democratic benefits of sustained public trust in the government, and the confidence that the government performs responsively addressing citizens’ problems (i.e., unemployment, cost of living). As social media enhances citizens’ opportunities to interact with journalists and elected officials, little is known about these communication effects on people’s government trust, and citizens’ evaluations about how well the government is addressing important society problems. Relying on a two-wave US representative panel survey data, this study builds on prior literature to introduce Twitter Communication with Democracy Actors: journalists and politicians, as a single, yet two-dimensional construct. Then, advancing different ordinary least squares (OLS) predictive panel models, results indicate that people who interact with democratic actors on Twitter trust the government and assess its overall functioning more positively. Additional moderating tests indicate social media interactions with democracy actors help citizens who might need it the most, specifically those who have lower levels of external political efficacy. The study provides theoretical implications of findings and suggestions for future research.

Two-Stage Data Envelopment Analysis Models with Negative System Outputs for the Efficiency Evaluation of Government Financial Policies

The main purpose of this study is to provide a comparative analysis of several possible approaches to applying data envelopment analysis (DEA) in the case where some decision making units (DMUs) in the original sample have negative system outputs. In comparison to the traditional model of Charnes, Cooper, and Rhodes (CCR) and the CCR model with a scale shift to measure second-stage outputs, the range directional measure (RDM) model produces the most appropriate results. In this paper, an approach is proposed for estimating returns to scale. The study applies a two-stage DEA model with negative second-stage outputs to assess the public support for research, development, and demonstration projects in the energy sector in 23 countries over the period from 2010 to 2018. The assessment of government performance depends on its contribution to the growth of energy efficiency in the national economy and the reduction of its carbon intensity. Intermediate outputs (patents in the energy sector) are included in the analysis as both outputs of the first stage and inputs of the second stage. Taking the similarity between the calculations obtained without stage separation and the system efficiency calculations from the two-stage model as a measure of model adequacy, the RDM model shows the highest similarity scores.

Consumers' Trust in Different Sources of Information Related to Food Hazards and Their Judgment of Government Performance-A Cross-Sectional Study in Brazil.

Trust in institutions is fundamental for the stability and proper functioning of democracies, particularly in matters of high public sensitivity, such as food safety. This study aimed to assess trust levels in different sources of information and respondents' evaluation of the performance of government agencies responsible for controlling food-related hazards. Individuals interviewed in three environments (hospitals/clinics, supermarkets, universities, N = 1000) answered a face-to-face questionnaire in the Federal District of Brazil, and another population (health surveillance employees at the municipal, state and federal levels; N = 1017) answered the questionnaire online. About 60% of the population interviewed considered government performance to be low/very low. Scientists/universities, medical doctors (MD)/health professionals, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were judged to be the most reliable sources of information on food hazards, while the food industry, supermarkets and social media inspired the lowest trust. Individuals from the hospitals/clinics group had significantly higher trust in MD/health professionals, media and websites than the two other Federal District groups. In general, income and education were the most predictive factors for the results, being negatively associated with assessment of government performance and trust in most information sources. In the Federal District, there was a negative association between trust levels in the government and worry about pesticides and genetically modified food, but a positive association between trust in NGOs and worry on these hazards. The results point to the need for the implementation of more effective communication strategies by institutions in which the population has low trust levels, such as government and food companies.

Analysis of Carbon Emission Reduction Paths for the Production of Prefabricated Building Components Based on Evolutionary Game Theory

Prefabricated buildings are gradually being promoted from pilot demonstration to scale, to combat climate change and improve energy conservation and emission reduction in the building sector. Despite the carbon emission of assembled structures being substantially lower than that of cast-in-place buildings due to the significant reduction in energy demand during the materialization process, there is still a lot of room for improvement. This study looks at the strategy choices made by manufacturers of prefabricated building components in relation to lowering carbon emissions from the standpoint of manufacturing prefabricated building components. By building a dynamic evolutionary game model between two parties, we investigate the evolutionary process of the strategy chosen by prefabricated building component manufacturers and the government, analyzing the evolutionary stability of each side’s strategy choice, and finally using Matlab tools to simulate the effectiveness of the evolutionary stability. The study findings indicate that (1) low-carbon production costs, local government incentives and sanctions, and corporate low-carbon production benefits are the main influencing factors for manufacturers of prefabricated building components to adopt low-carbon production techniques; and that (2) the cost of regulation under low-carbon production methods and the local government performance assessment system are the key elements affecting regulations by the local government. Based on this finding, we suggest corresponding countermeasures in three areas, including investigating new low-carbon technology options for businesses, developing a new carbon emission accounting subsidy mechanism, and improving the regulatory framework of the government, to provide an efficient pathway for the growth of a low-carbon economy.

Performance evaluation, environmental regulation, and urban land green use efficiency: Evidence from China

AbstractEnvironmental regulation plays an important role in enhancing urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE), while economic and environmental performance evaluation may also impact ULGUE in the Chinese context. Using data from 282 prefecture‐level cities in China from 2006 to 2019, this article empirically tests the impacts of performance evaluation and environmental regulation on ULGUE by establishing a two‐way fixed‐effect model. The results show that environmental regulation has a significant contribution to ULGUE. However, environmental regulation also significantly increase carbon emissions from urban construction land, which is mainly influenced by the Chinese government's performance assessment. Therefore, the effect of performance evaluation is also examined. Economic performance evaluation is detrimental to environmental regulation and ULGUE, while environmental performance evaluation significantly contribute to both. Furthermore, economic performance evaluation and environmental regulation can synergistically promote ULGUE, however, environmental performance evaluation failed to have the same synergistic effect. Notably, when the ratio of economic performance evaluation to environmental performance evaluation was 2:8, performance evaluation and environmental regulation reached the optimal level for promoting ULGUE. Therefore, to improve ULGUE, it is necessary to establish and strengthen the constraint mechanism of environmental regulation on carbon emission from urban construction land. Meanwhile, local governments' performance assessment mechanism must be improved and the ratio of economic to environmental performance evaluation should be reasonably configured.

Trust in the police in Latin America: A multilevel analysis of institutional and experiential models

AbstractThis paper explores two models of preference-formation of trust in the police in Latin America and the Caribbean: An institutional model that highlights the role of broad assessments of government performance and legitimacy and an experiential approach focussed on more narrow experiences of victimization and police contact. We examine these frameworks based on theory and analysis of administrative data and surveys from the Americas Barometer 2014 (N = 34,798 respondents T = 22 countries). Findings show that respondents with higher confidence in their government also indicate higher ratings of trust in the police. Similarly, trust is higher among individuals who had not experienced victimization or bribery or who anticipated faster police response times. At the country level, our results suggest that trust is negatively related to economic development but positively related to rule of law. We draw on these findings to outline an integrative model that combines both institutional and experiential perspectives.

Does information about citizen participation initiatives increase political trust?

Participatory programs can reduce the informational and power asymmetries that engender mistrust. These programs, however, cannot include every citizen. Hence, it is important to evaluate if providing information about those programs could affect trust among those who do not participate. We assess the effect of an informational campaign about these programs in the context of a survey experiment conducted in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Results show that providing detailed information about citizen involvement and outputs of a participatory budget initiative marginally shapes voters’ assessments of government performance and political trust. In particular, it increases voters’ perceptions about the benevolence and honesty of the government. Effects are larger for individuals with ex ante more negative views about the local government’s quality and they differ according to the respondents’ interpersonal trust and their beliefs about the ability of their communities to solve the type of collective-action problems that the program seeks to address. This article complements the literature that has examined the effects of participatory interventions on trust, and the literature that evaluates the role of information. The results in the article suggest that participatory budget programs could directly affect budget allocations and trust for those who participate, and those that are well-disseminated could also affect trust in the broader population. Because mistrustful individuals tend to shy away from demanding the government public goods that increase overall welfare, well-disseminated participatory budget programs could affect budget allocations directly and through their effect on trust.

Does local government competition affect the dependence on polluting industries? Evidence from China's land market

Many countries have formulated strict environmental regulation policies, but unfortunately, environmental pollution is still severe. We believe that this phenomenon may result from institutional factors. We study whether local government competition affects the dependence on polluting industries and test it with the transaction data of China's land market. We find that the decline in the economic ranking of cities increases the scale of land transferred to polluting industries, and the more the ranking decline, the larger the scale of land in polluting industries. Besides, we analyze the impact of the first decline in the urban economic ranking, finding that the land transfer scale of polluting industries exhibits a trend of slowing down after a rapid rise in the short term. Heterogeneity analysis shows that officials with lower education levels and before-retirement age will dependent more on polluting industries to a greater extent when they face local government competition, and cities with economic growth lower than the national average will increase their dependence on polluting industries to a greater extent. This paper provides new insights into the causes of the environmental governance dilemma, which also highlights the need to weaken economic indicators and strengthen environmental indicators in government performance assessment.

The impact of Chinese aid on political trust

AbstractThis paper examines whether Chinese aid impacts citizens' trust in government by matching geocoded data on Chinese aid projects located in sub‐Sahara Africa (SSA) between 2000 and 2014 to respondents from rounds 3 to 6 of Afrobarometer survey. Implementing an instrumental variable (IV) estimation to control for the potential endogeneity of aid, this paper finds robust evidence that Chinese aid reduces trust in government. The decline in trust seems to be because the aid projects stimulate poor assessments of government performance and perceptions that government officials are involved in corrupt activities. Replication analysis reveals that World Bank projects are no different and also reduce trust in government. Consequently, these findings reignite concerns about the unintended consequences of aid and the need to adopt implementation approaches that mitigate unintended adverse outcomes.

Performance Evaluation of 198 Village Governments using Fuzzy TOPSIS and Intuitionistic Fuzzy TOPSIS

Currently, volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) have become unavoidable problems. In addition, knowledge or information that is not managed properly can result in inappropriate decision-making processes within an organization. Business Intelligence conception is then becoming an essential view for converting unstructured data and information into a more actionable strategic plan that allows organizations to make competitive decisions. Village Government (VG) is the smallest organization in the Indonesian government system because VG implemented regulation and development programs in all areas of a national government. VG executes a series of tasks every year starting from planning, budgeting, administrating, executing, and reporting. However, the important role of VG in the development of a country brings also some drawbacks such as corruption and other domino effects. Several factors have been identified that cause those problems such as lack of capabilities in managing village organization and human resources quality. Monitoring and evaluation regarding those VG performances normally have been done each year. However, measurable evaluation standard for VG performance until recently has not been determined nationally. This study is intended to make a comprehensive standard of village government performance assessment through a Good Governance Framework approach. This study involved 198 villages from Madiun Regency as a case study. Seventy-four measured parameters were proposed to evaluate VG performance mapping. Fuzzy TOPSIS is implemented to rank those 198 villages into 4 groups of VG performance levels. The fuzzy TOPSIS classification result has been validated by using manual scoring and the accuracy reached 86,4%.

Political Participation, Political Efficacy and Trust for Government

A person without trust cannot stand. A country without trust might decline. The rapid development of China's economy and the growing strength of the country cannot be separated from mutual, effective, coordinated and sustainable interaction between the government and the citizens. The achievement can neither be separated from the citizens' trust for the government, nor from the government's improvement of the citizens' political participation and the cultivation of their sense of political efficacy. This paper uses 11,783 pieces of data from the China General Social Survey (2010) to further refine political participation into institutionalised and non-institutionalised participation through factor analysis and regression analysis to explore the effects and mechanisms of influence between institutionalised participation, non-institutionalised participation, political efficacy and trust for government. The results of the analysis show that institutionalised participation has a non-significant positive effect on trust for government, non-institutionalised participation has a significant negative effect on trust for government and political efficacy has a significant positive effect on trust for government. Based on these findings, it is proposed to strengthen the institutionalisation of political participation and improve government performance assessment to further enhance citizens' trust for government.

Government performance, geophysical-related disasters, and institutional trust: A comparison of Chilean and Haitian responses after an earthquake

This article investigates the effect of government performance assessment after the 2010 earthquakes in Chile and Haiti on institutional trust. Available data from the 2010/2012 AmericasBarometer survey are used to estimate the immediate effects and those linked to the rebuilding process. Results show that performance assessment of Chilean institutions’ ability to manage the earthquake positively affected institutional trust, whereas the above relationship only holds for Haitian municipalities and the National Police. The evidence reveals the relevance of strengthening the crisis-handling skills displayed by local and national governments to avoid erosion in institutional social capital, a key aspect for development.

Financial Performance and Human Development with Control of Regional Characteristics

Regional autonomy is a policy given by the central government to local governments. The granting of this right to autonomy will encourage the acceleration of economic development in the community. Local governments begin to regulate all affairs in their regions independently so that they will be faster in overcoming all existing problems, including problems of community welfare. The implementation of regional autonomy also gives full rights to regional governments, including in financial management in the regions. Effective, efficient, transparent and responsible financial management is an important basis for improving the community's welfare. Of course, increasing the financial performance of local governments will also increase the human development index. The performance of the local government needs to be assessed as a form of our supervision to the government. This government performance assessment can be measured through the ratio of regional independence, effectiveness and efficiency. In addition, proper management of existing resources in the area will be able to improve the welfare of the community. The purpose of this study is to empirically test the ratio of independence, effectiveness, efficiency to the human development index by controlling regional characteristics in the form of capital expenditures, operational expenditures, government size, regional original income, and population. The amount of data in this study were 29 districts and 6 cities in Central Java during 2015-2019. The results of this study state that the independence ratio, effectiveness ratio, and efficiency ratio can have a significant effect on the human development index. In addition, the control variables for regional characteristics in the form of capital expenditures, operational expenditures, government size, and population are able to influence the human development index. Meanwhile, local revenue has no effect on the human development index.

Evaluación de la política de seguridad pública en México: 2006-2018

El artículo evalúa la política de seguridad pública en México durante los sexenios de Felipe Calderón Hinojosa y Enrique Peña Nieto, a partir de los resultados de la ENVIPE, desde su primera publicación en 2010 hasta 2018. El análisis considera tres líneas sustanciales: la percepción de la inseguridad, la confianza institucional y la valoración ciudadana sobre el desempeño gubernamental para reducir la inseguridad en el país. Para obtener los resultados, se realizó una evaluación de tipo externa y ex post facto, de la cual se concluyó que la valoración social sobre la intervención gubernamental para el mejoramiento de la seguridad pública resultó reprobatoria y prácticamente imperceptible para la ciudadanía durante los dos sexenios.

Measuring the Efficiency of Fiscal Policies for Environmental Pollution Control and the Spatial Effect of Fiscal Decentralization in China.

This paper uses both fiscal expenditure policy and fiscal revenue policy as input indicators and selects environmental pollution control results reflecting different forms and sources of pollution as output indicators. The efficiency of fiscal policies for environmental pollution control (EFPE) of 30 provincial-level administrative divisions in China from 2007 to 2017 is measured by adopting the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. Then, the spatial effect of fiscal decentralization on EFPE is empirically analyzed by using the spatial lag model (SLM). The results show that EFPE values in China have been greatly improved overall since 2014. The change in technical efficiency (TE) is caused mainly by the change in pure technical efficiency (PTE). EFPE values have regional heterogeneity and convergence. The eastern region has clearly higher EFPE values than other regions. The growth rate of the low efficient region is greater than that of the high efficient region. Fiscal expenditure decentralization has a direct negative effect and spatial spillover effect on EFPE values, while fiscal revenue decentralization has a non-significant effect. Based on these results, this paper proposes the following policy implications: increasing the level of fiscal expenditure of environmental pollution control and improving the central transfer payment system for environmental protection; reforming the government performance assessment system and innovating the conditions of government expenditure on environmental pollution control; and promoting horizontal fiscal cooperation in cross-regional environmental governance.

How Do Different Forms of Foreign Aid Affect Government Legitimacy? Evidence from an Informational Experiment in Uganda

Local public goods and social services are delivered through a variety of funding and implementing channels in aid-dependent countries. Existing research proposes that international aid to governments undermines government legitimacy and the fiscal contract between citizens and their rulers. We outline how the implications of fiscal contract theory differ depending on whether aid takes the form of donors funding projects through the government, donors funding projects through NGOs, or the government outsourcing project implementation to NGOs. We test these predictions using an informational experiment among N = 2446 Ugandan adults in 18 communities with foreign-funded, NGO-implemented projects. We randomize the amount of information that we provide about these projects. Our results suggest that donor-to-government funding has limited effects on citizens’ opinions about their government. Only bypass aid (i.e., donor aid to NGOs) undermines citizens’ assessments of government performance, while only NGO implementation reduces the willingness of citizens to pay fees to the government or to donate to community funds. Government legitimacy, as measured by individuals’ willingness to comply with government instructions, is very low to begin with and is not influenced by information about different forms of aid.

A Study of the Mechanism of Government Intervention on Excess Capacity Through the Enterprise Overinvestment in China

This article summarizes government publications focusing on excess capacity from the 1990s to 2016 and argues that the market-oriented principle needs to be established to deal with the long-standing excess capacity issues in China. Based on the specificity of the long-term excess capacity in China, this article puts forward the hypothesis: The excess capacity in China is derived from the enterprise’s overinvestment, and the government intervention is one of the main drivers of the problem. The intervention is actuated by the GDP-based government performance assessment through such means as offering privileges on land use, environmental ignorance, natural resource provision and financial support. This article (a) calculates capacity utilization of 30 manufacturing industries, (b) builds a ‘mediation effect model of overinvestment’, and (c) makes use of the industrial data, economic development data and capacity utilization from 1998 to 2017 to test the hypothesis. The result shows that government intervention indeed has a significant influence on excess capacity. The support for land use and the tolerance for environmental pollution are two of the most persuasive reasons. Therefore, the Chinese government needs to make greater efforts to deepen the market reforms, standardize and improve the factor market so as to accelerate innovation, and push for industrial upgrading.

Performance and Innovation in the Public Sector of the European Union Countries. An Analysis Based on the Dynamics of Perceptions, 2009-2016

Based on empirical perception data, the present paper introduces a new approach in government performance assessment in rela­tion to public innovation capacity and quality of public services. Innovation in the public sector has reached a high level of priority on the public agenda of the EU, while the interest of academ­ics in this topic has steadily increased over the last decade. However, a fundamental theory on this issue is missing, and only a limited amount of research offers an in-depth analysis of the correlations between innovation and different components associated with government effec­tiveness. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature, by developing an index of government performance for assessing the ability of EU mem­ber-state governments to adopt a strategic vision on innovation and to provide good-quality public services. In addition, the dynamics in the inter­dependencies between the innovation capacity and various drivers of government performance was highlighted, as well as the convergence/di­vergence trends between Member States. The empirical research in this paper identifies the EU states which may be considered as examples of good practices in adopting an innovative per­spective on public administrations, as well as in proposing specific policy recommendations that could foster decision-making processes related to innovation in the public sector.

How Does the Quality of Life Affect Individuals’ Disaster Preparedness Behaviors? A Moderated Mediation Model-Based Case Study

This study examined how the quality of life (QoL) affects an individual’s disaster preparedness behavior (PB); furthermore, it also considered and examined the mediating effects of trust in government (GT) and the moderating effects of self-efficacy (SE). One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to test the differences in QoL, GT, SE, and PB, by socio-demographic, and the study hypotheses were verified by using hierarchical regression analysis based on 1682 samples. The Johnson–Neyman technique was used to test the conditional effects of SE on QoL and PB. All the hypotheses presented in this study were supported: (1) QoL had a positive effect on PB; (2) QoL had a positive effect on GT; (3) GT had a positive effect on PB; (4) GT mediated the relationship between QoL and PB; (5) SE moderated the relationship between QoL and PB. Specifically, when SE was high, the positive relationship between QoL and PB increased; (6) SE moderated the relationship between GT and PB. Specifically, when SE was high, the positive relationship between GT and PB increased; and (7) SE moderated the indirect effect of QoL on PB. Specifically, when SE was high, the mediating effect of GT on the relationship between QoL and PB increased. This study makes significant contributions in terms of identifying the mechanisms of QoL on PB based on the moderated mediation model. Improving individuals’ QoL is not only an important societal goal, but also an effective way to enhance people’s positive behavioral outcomes. Therefore, QoL improvement should be considered in the top-level design of government policies, and it should also be regarded as an important indicator of government performance assessment.