Intergovernmental Relations

The relationships between federal, state, and local governments have been in varying degrees of dynamic tension since the founding of this country. Concern with the care of dependent or needy populations has reflected this tension. The original sovereignty enjoyed by the 13 colonies following the Revolutionary War was challenged over time by the evolving power of the federal government. This evolution resulted from federal legislative actions, the initiatives and vetoes of presidents, court decisions, and constitutional amendments. The crisis of the Great Depression of the 1930s can be viewed as the beginning of modern federalism, with the emergence of an increasingly strong, more dominant federal government. Within 35 years of this crisis, a significant challenge to this growth was expressed through the resurgence of political support for limiting the role of the federal government, and for the return of power to the states. The net results of this challenge seemed unclear at the close of the Reagan presidency.     

A CHANGE POINT ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF "ENVIRONMENTAL FEDERALISM" ON AGGREGATE AIR QUALITY IN THE UNITED STATES: 1940–98

During President Reagan's administration, environmental policy making was substantially shifted from the federal level to the state and local levels. We use techniques in Bai (1997a, 1997b) to determine change points in the trends of three important air pollution series. We find that the beneficial trends in the emission series began with federal legislation and were not due to the Reagan devolution. However, second-round change point tests indicate that the beneficial trends in the emissions series that began with federal legislation continued unabated following the Reagan devolution. (JEL Q20 , C50 )     

Coping by nonprofit organizations during the Reagan years

Contrary to expectations that a divested federal role would lead to the demise of nonprofit agencies, the relationship between nonprofit and government sectors in New York at the end of the 1980s was stronger than ever. This article presents longitudinal data for six nonprofit agencies in Rochester, New York, to demonstrate "management by groping along" during the Reagan years, behavior that resulted in increased reliance on state and local governments for funds and programs and in different ways of doing business.     

Government public relations during Herbert Hoover's presidency

While historians generally credit President Franklin Roosevelt with the establishment of robust public information activities in the federal government, this case study reviews those activities during the administration of Roosevelt's predecessor, Herbert Hoover. During Hoover's term, agency PR was conducted extensively and openly enough to trigger media and partisan attacks. This suggests that public relations emerged gradually in federal departments and agencies during the 20th century, well before FDR's inauguration in 1933, and was already a natural element of the emerging profession of public administration.     

The federal Public Relations Administration: history’s near miss

Given the permanent hostility by Congress to public relations in public administration at the federal level of government, it is surprising how close the federal government came to establishing a wartime agency, entitled the Public Relations Administration (PRA), as part of its administrative structure in World War II.During the interwar years (1918–1941), the civilian and military leadership of the US engaged in elaborate planning for a possible future war, including recommending the creation of a superagency called the PRA. The 1933 version of the Industrial Mobilization Plan (IMP) submitted to Congress by the Army and Navy was the high water mark of institutionalizing public relations in public administration. This one-time opportunity to legitimize and professionalize public relations by the federal government was lost due to the opposition of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939. This article relates how that planning effort unfolded and the factors that led to its stillbirth.     

The rising importance of local government in the United States: Recent research and challenges for sociology

Local governments have gained increasing responsibilities for public well‐being according to a variety of social science literatures. The rise of the local state is often seen as a part of a broader process of state‐rescaling or downward shift in national governance under neoliberal development. Yet attention to local government lags in political sociology, which conventionally elevates the national federal state as its object of interest. I summarize four recent bodies of literature that address the new role of local governments. Taken together, these literatures speak to different sides of the debate about whether the rise of local government is detrimental to citizens' well‐being. I explain how greater sociological attention to the local state can contribute to this debate as well as inform political sociologists' understanding of the U.S. nation‐state itself and provide directions for future research.     

Federal Government EAPs and Total Quality Management:

In the federal government, total quality management (TQM) principles have been actively supported and encouraged since the Reagan administration. The EAP Consortium administered by Federal Occupational Health, a Division of the U.S. Public Health Service, Region IX, has had unique opportunities to implement total quality improvement principles. In an era of budget constraints and limited resources, it is a never ending dynamic process to achieve a better understanding of Federal agencies and to continually innovate EAP products and processes to remain customer focused. This article explores the challenges of satisfying customer needs and expectations by continuously working across the organization to improve external and internal processes.     

Individual and Social Costs of Divorce in Utah

This preliminary report provides an overview of the economic consequences of divorce for couples experiencing divorce in Utah. The economic impact on the divorcing individuals, the surrounding communities in which they live, and the state and federal governments were assessed. The data collected in Utah reveals that the federal government absorbs the most substantial costs, including a host of expenditures related to welfare assistance and medical costs. The 9,735 divorces in Utah during 2001 cost the state and federal government nearly $300 million in direct and indirect costs. Extrapolation from these estimates reveals that divorce and its direct and indirect economic consequences cost the United States $33.3 billion annually. Implications for social policy and strengthening marriages are provided.A longer version of this paper, including a cost analysis breakdown for each state, is available from the author. This paper was originally written while the author was at Utah State University. This report is based on initial research findings by Dr. Steven L. Nock and Dr. David B. Larson. I would like to thank Dr. Brent A. Barlow, Brigham Young University, and Drs. Kathleen W. Piercy and James P. Marshall, Utah State University, for their valuable assistance in this research. A special thanks also goes to the reviewers for their invaluable comments on earlier versions of this article.David G. Schramm, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Auburn University, 203 Spidle Hall, Auburn, AL 36849; e-mail: schradg@auburn.edu.     

Local Government Fiscal Burden in Nonmetropolitan America1

Rising fiscal pressure on local governments in rural areas of the United States is documented in this study. The level of fiscal burden on taxpayers to support local governments in nonmetropolitan areas is found to be higher than that in metropolitan areas between 1977 and 1987. Using a model from the urban fiscal literature, the level of fiscal burden in nonmetropolitan areas is found to be influenced by a combination of demographic, socioeconomic, intergovernmental, and historical factors. Intergovernmental revenue transfers from the state and federal government play a critical role in determining the level of fiscal burden rural taxpayers bear. These findings have implications for rural economic development and for understanding how rural areas are influenced by the larger society.     

The Organization and Funding of Social Science in the NSF*

The legitimation of federal funding of social, economic, and behavioral science research faced a major challenge with the budget reductions of the Reagan Administration in 1981–1982. This article reviews the history of support and opposition to the social sciences in NSF and the collective response of the social science research community to the budget cutbacks. The consequences for research directions as a result of retrenchment and for the future of social science support in NSF are elaborated.     

The Institutionalization of COSSA: An Innovative Response to Crises by American Social Science

Over the past seventy-five years, separate disciplinary associations have been created for each of the social sciences in the United States. As a consequence, cooperation among the associations has only been periodic and delimited. These associations have been primarily focused on member services and have been less concerned than the biological and physical science associations with issues of governmental science policy.
The first Reagan budget was constructed to reduce the already sparse research support by the federal government for the social sciences. That intent mobilized the national social science community to develop collective and coordinated action. Building on a latent structure that had emerged from the common Washington location of the disciplinary associations, the Consortium of Social Science Associations was institutionalized to make a response. COSSA's initial success minimized some of the potential negative consequences. That success suggested the value of such cooperative efforts and also confirmed the necessity of the continuation of COSSA in the future.     

“Fracking democracy”: Issue management and locus of policy decision-making in the Marcellus Shale gas drilling debate

This study examined a two-year period in which natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania expanded rapidly, as did public policy proposals meant to deal with the myriad legal, economic, and environmental issues that accompanied this growth. Focusing on the use of legitimacy strategies during the critical phase of the issue of hydraulic fracturing, the study examined how activists and energy industry advocates argued that different levels of government policy making – local, state, and federal – should be the locus of policy decisions. Both the “fractivists” and the energy industry sought to legitimize state-level legislators and regulators. Activists viewed federal-level intervention as legitimate leverage for their work in the state, while the energy industry saw federal regulators as redundant and restrictive. Finally, while both sides viewed local authorities as legitimate actors, the energy industry sought to limit their ability to act against the development of new wells.     

Private Polls and Presidential Policymaking: Reagan as a Facilitator of Change

Did the Reagan administration disregard majority will when craftingits policy initiatives? Did it cater to a narrow partisan constituencyinstead? The answers to these questions will help with an assessmentof Jacobs and Shapiro’s (2000b) hypothesis that presidentssince the late 1970s have used private White House survey researchas a tool to manipulate or assuage centrist public opinion whilemeeting the policy demands of their partisan core supporters,resulting in a decline in presidential responsiveness to majoritywill. Using the actual surveys administered by Richard Wirthlin(Reagan’s pollster) between 1981 and 1983, this articlewill demonstrate the level of consistency between majority opinionon 129 policy issues and Reagan’s behavior through 1984,and it will explore the conditions under which the presidentwas more or less likely to respond to public preferences. Thedata reveal that the Reagan administration was constrained bythe popular will in predicable ways: if the policy issues wereabout domestic concerns, highly popular, and visible in themedia, then the administration acted in line with public preferencesmore than 70 percent of the time. Further, Reagan and his adviserswere selective in responding to party activists: they championedissues drawn from their conservative ideological agenda thatfit with the current tide in public opinion, while sidesteppingother issues dear to party activists that encountered strongmajority resistance. While I do not contest Jacobs and Shapiro’s(2000b) important observation that presidents often use surveyresearch to "craft talk" in an attempt to channel the publicdebate, the evidence here highlights how the president nonethelessremains constrained by the popular will, at least on domesticissues.     

美国政府救助无家可归儿童的机构、职能及运作分析

美国作为联邦制国家,其联邦、州及地方各级政府的权力分配是影响公共救助事业的关键因素。在无家可归儿童救助领域,美国各级政府建立起权责明确的职能部门,并通过项目管理的模式,形成了联邦政府主导、州与地方政府协调管理、非营利组织具体执行的分工协作式的无家可归儿童救助系统。美国政府在无家可归儿童救助事务方面的机构设置、项目运作、成效评估等几方面的经验值得我国在建设流浪儿童救助体系时学习借鉴。     

IS THE BUDGET DEFICIT “TOO LARGE”?: SOME FURTHER EVIDENCE

The size of the federal budget deficit has alarmed politicians and the general public both. Following recent work, we examine the long-run solvency of the U.S. government by testing for cointegration of federal expenditures and revenues. We include a break term in the cointegrating recession for 1981 to capture a shift in the fiscal process in the first Reagan administration. Tests show the break to be significant; and with the break, in contrast to earlier work, expenditures and revenues are cointegrated with a coefficient of one. Thus, we find the deficit to be stationary and so potentially sustainable.     

Policy Streams and Immigration to Russia: Competing and Complementary Interests at the Federal and Local Levels

This article uses Kingdon's Multiple Streams Framework to explain forms of national‐ and region‐level governance used in the Russian Federation to manage unprecedented levels of international immigration. First, we identify the ways that the Russian federal government has legislated and governed international migration from 1991 through 2010. We then compare the federal level to the case of the Krasnodar region, an ethnically diverse region in the North Caucasus. We find that that migration policy adoption in Russia at the federal level is relatively immune to economic trends or labour needs but more sensitive to foreign and domestic political objectives. At the regional level, local socio‐political and economic concerns predominate and political objectives are secondary. Finally, we argue that migration policy changes or adopted policy at the regional level may be explained by an interaction effect between changes in political leadership, federal level policy adoption, and regional level context.     

Shifting Imperial Strategies in Contemporary Latin America: The U.S. Empire and Venezuela under Hugo Chávez

Some scholars have shown how the U.S. has deployed several traditional, imperial strategies to maintain global power, including military interventions, support for proxy governments, economic coercion, and the exercise of hegemony. In many countries, though, these strategies cannot effectively work. Some countries have elected leaders that defy U.S. influence, and, in middle‐income countries, the U.S. cannot use economic coercion. The U.S. also cannot militarily invade all countries that possess anti‐American governments. How, then, does the U.S. aim to confront and control anti‐American governments in the contemporary world? I examine U.S. foreign policy towards Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, who recurrently challenged U.S. global power during his time in office. Through interviews with U.S. state elites, who developed policy towards Venezuela, and through analysis of U.S. diplomatic cables, I show how the U.S. has moved away from traditional, imperial modalities and towards new imperial techniques aimed at frustrating political processes within particular countries, as well as containing their global influence. These techniques include pressuring the federal judiciary, utilizing state agencies to fund and support opposition political parties and NGOs, seeking to terminate particular pieces of legislation, and eliminating eligibility for global leadership positions. These efforts do not immediately aim to displace existing governments, but, in the least, they aim to frustrate the domestic efforts of particular governments, and ultimately cultivate conditions favorable for the political opposition to eventually attain political power.     

HAS FEDERAL BUDGET DEFICIT POLICY CHANGED IN RECENT YEARS?

This paper applies new tests for parameter instability in cointegrated regression models to the U.S. Federal government's intertemporal budget constraint in order to detect whether there has been a regime change in spending and taxing policies. Some researchers have argued that fiscal policy under Presidents Reagan and Bush moved the U.S. deficit onto an unsustainable path. My results suggest that government deficit policy in the 1980s was not significantly different from policies during the three earlier decades. However, a diverging debt-GNP ratio suggests that the government will run into problems marketing its debt if current policy continues.     

The Mass Emigration Context of Lithuania: Patterns and Policy Options

Lithuania represents one of the rare cases in which a state with relatively high standards for maintaining population statistics is experiencing mass emigration. In light of the policy initiatives undertaken by the Lithuanian government to address the issue of emigration, this study aims to improve our understanding of how, in this mass emigration context, emigration events are connected to specific socio‐economic characteristics of individuals and variation in local socio‐economic conditions. We analyse census and vital registration data covering the whole working‐age population of Lithuania during the period 2011‐2012. Our findings indicate that when assessing the likelihood of emigration events, individual‐level characteristics such as employment status, educational attainment, and prior migration experience are highly relevant. However, the importance of these characteristics differs by gender. We also detect considerable spatial variation in emigration rates across Lithuanian municipalities. Our outcomes provide new insights for the development of cohesive migration policies in Lithuania.