scholarly journals Public Employees as Politicians: Evidence from Close Elections

2017 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARI HYYTINEN ◽  
JAAKKO MERILÄINEN ◽  
TUUKKA SAARIMAA ◽  
OTTO TOIVANEN ◽  
JANNE TUKIAINEN
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
The Public ◽  
Employment Sector ◽  
Municipal Employees ◽  
Election System ◽  
Municipal Employee ◽  
Information Advantage

We analyze the effect of municipal employees’ political representation in municipal councils on local public spending. We use within-party, as-good-as-random variation in close elections in the Finnish open-list proportional election system to quantify the effect. One more councilor employed by the public sector increases spending by about 1%. The effect comes largely through the largest party and is specific to the employment sector of the municipal employee. The results are consistent with public employees having an information advantage over other politicians, and thus, being able to influence policy.

Policies under Cameron: modernisation abandoned

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dorey
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor

Upon becoming Conservative leader in December 2005, David Cameron spoke passionately about the need for the Party to move on from Thatcherism. In so doing, he alluded to the need for a more compassionate and constructive Conservatism, one which was more sympathetic to the poor, and which also wanted to foster a partnership with professionals in the public sector. However, following the 2008 financial crash, the Conservative Party's policies became increasingly hostile both to welfare recipients and the public sector, whereupon the need to cut public spending was repeatedly invoked to justify major cuts in welfare provision and further marketisation or privatisation of the public sector. Regardless of Cameron's initially emollient rhetoric and allusions to One Nation Toryism, the trajectory of key Conservative policies since 2010 has remained firmly within a Thatcherite paradigm. Conservative modernisation has quietly been abandoned.

Portal for Employees in the Public Sector

2018 ◽  
pp. 342-362
Author(s):  
Ana Campos Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
Human Resources Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Reforms ◽  
Shared Management ◽  
New Public

The need to reduce public spending has led Portugal to make administrative reforms. To that end, it called on the so-called e-government, using ICT as a mechanism to increase the quality and transparency of public services while lowering costs and operationalizing new public policies. Although administrative decentralisation is enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, only recently has it been prioritised as one of the great objectives of the administrative reforms of the state. To this end, the transfer of the necessary financial and human resources are foreseen. This will imply the implementation of human resources management strategies and mechanisms that avoid surplus or shortage of human resources, both in Central and Local Administration. Therefore, in this chapter, the creation of the “Portal for Employees in the Public Sector” is proposed as a shared management tool.

Portal for Employees in the Public Sector

2022 ◽  
pp. 659-679
Author(s):  
Ana Campos Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
Human Resources Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Reforms ◽  
Shared Management ◽  
New Public

The need to reduce public spending has led Portugal to make administrative reforms. To that end, it called on the so-called e-government, using ICT as a mechanism to increase the quality and transparency of public services while lowering costs and operationalizing new public policies. Although administrative decentralisation is enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, only recently has it been prioritised as one of the great objectives of the administrative reforms of the state. To this end, the transfer of the necessary financial and human resources are foreseen. This will imply the implementation of human resources management strategies and mechanisms that avoid surplus or shortage of human resources, both in Central and Local Administration. Therefore, in this chapter, the creation of the “Portal for Employees in the Public Sector” is proposed as a shared management tool.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Florida's Impasse Resolution Procedures: A Survey of Public Sector Practitioners

1988 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth M. Jennings ◽  
Steven K. Paulson ◽  
Steven A. Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Dispute Resolution ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Regression Analyses ◽  
Perceived Effectiveness ◽  
Frequency Distributions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Right ◽  
Impasse Resolution

Public employees in Florida have been permitted by law since 1974 to engage in collective bargaining with their employers. Along with the right to engage in collective bargaining, the law established a dispute resolution process for resolving bargaining impasses in lieu of the strike, which was strictly prohibited. This law also established the Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC), which was created to oversee the process. The present study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the present impasse procedure as perceived by the concerned parties. This study was exploratory in nature and designed to provide PERC and thus the Florida Legislature with the documentation required for review of the present law. A total of 1,150 questionnaires were mailed to union representatives and public employers. A 45 percent return rate was achieved. The return was approximately equally divided between the unions and the employers. Frequency distributions of these responses and regression analyses are presented and conclusions are drawn as to the perceived effectiveness of the process.

Iraq's Abadi likely to survive reform challenge

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Step Down

Significance Criticism of his reforms, which involve sweeping cuts to government positions and an anti-corruption drive, has mounted in recent weeks despite initially receiving strong support from Shia politicians. However, parliamentarians are now openly debating whether parliament should withdraw its support for the reforms, with some even suggesting that Abadi should step down. Impacts Abadi's reform drive may stall if he is forced to reverse his cuts to government positions and create new ones to rebuild his support base. Failure to rein in public spending will affect Iraq's attempts to seek international financial assistance. Abadi's weakening would strengthen the Shia militias, and thereby reduce prospects for reconciliation with the Sunni community. It would also increase attempts by hardliners to sideline the US military in the fight against ISG. Abadi may well climb down on the public sector salary issue and attempt to depoliticise it.

State capture from below? The contradictory effects of decentralisation on public spending

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Mueller ◽  
Adrian Vatter ◽  
Tobias Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Political System ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
State Capture ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Swiss Cantons ◽  
Self Rule

AbstractThis study analyses the contradictory effects of decentralisation on public spending. We distinguish three dimensions of decentralisation and analyse their joint and separate effects on public spending in the Swiss cantons over 20 years. We find that overall decentralisation has a strong, significant and negative effect on the size of the public sector, thus confirming the Leviathan hypothesis. The same holds for fiscal and institutional decentralisation. However, the extent to which political processes and actors are organised locally rather than centrally actually increases central and decreases local spending. This suggests that actors behave strategically when dealing with the centre by offloading the more costly policies. The wider implication of our study is that the balance between self-rule and shared rule has implications also for the size of the overall political system.

Direct Democracy and Public Employees

2009 ◽  
Vol 99 (5) ◽  
pp. 2227-2246 ◽  
Author(s):  
John G. Matsusaka
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Public Employee ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Employment ◽  
Initiative Process

In the public sector, employment may be inefficiently high because of patronage, and wages may be inefficiently high because of public employee interest groups. This paper explores whether the initiative process, a direct democracy institution of growing importance, ameliorates these political economy problems. In a sample of 650+ cities, I find that when public employees cannot bargain collectively and patronage could be a problem, initiatives appear to cut employment but not wages. When public employees bargain collectively, driving up wages, the initiative appears to cut wages but not employment. The employment-cutting result is robust; the wage-cutting result survives some but not all robustness tests. (JEL D72, J31, J45, J52)

scholarly journals The Role of Public-Sector Unions During Privatization

2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-45
Author(s):  
Kim Jung In
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Labor Management ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
Public Unions ◽  
Public And Private Sector

This paper reviews the historical and institutional backgrounds of public- and private-sector unions, internal and external trends involving public-sector unions, union representation in the public sector, union affiliation with citizens, and the relationship between privatization and public unions. Using these characteristics to reflect on the fundamental rationale of public-sector unions as the negotiators for public employees and as the promoters of political affiliation with citizens, the nature of the labor-management relationship emerges as a key factor in determining the effectiveness of unions in these roles.

scholarly journals Political (Over)Representation of Public Sector Employees and the Double-Motive Hypothesis: Evidence from Norwegian Register Data (2007-2019)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Geys ◽  
Zuzana Murdoch ◽  
Rune J Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Register Data ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Public Sector Employees ◽  
Political Selection ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

Abstract Countries have widely diverging regulations regarding the eligibility of public sector employees for political office, and the stringency of such regulations remains fiercely debated. Building on a demand and supply model of political selection, this article contributes to such debates by studying whether and how the incentives of public employees as both consumers and producers of public services (their ‘double motive’) affects their descriptive political representation. Our analysis employs population-wide individual-level register data covering four Norwegian local elections between 2007 and 2019 (N>13 million observations). Using predominantly individual-level panel regression models, we find that public employees are strongly overrepresented on election lists and have a higher probability of election (conditional on running). Looking at underlying mechanisms, we provide evidence consistent with the ‘double motive’ of public employees inducing their self-selection into standing for elected office (at higher-ranked ballot positions). Demand-side effects deriving from party and voter selection receive more limited empirical support. We discuss ensuing concerns about the potential substantive representation of policy self-interests by elected public employees.

Why Public Employees Rebel: Guerrilla Government in the Public Sector

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary E. Hollibaugh ◽  
Matthew R. Miles ◽  
Chad B. Newswander
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
The Public
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