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Polihot

Fighting Corruption Through Accountability? A Survey Experiment

·561 字·2 分钟
Polihot 公共行政 Corruption Accountability Survey Experiment Bureaucracy Whistleblowing
PA — 2026-04-07 Original Fighting Corruption Through Accountability? A Survey Experiment Ming‐feng Kuo, Hsini Huang Abstract ABSTRACT Democratic Weberian bureaucracy is facing great challenges upholding public values as we see turbulent party politics disrupt merit‐based systems, causing bureaucrats' goal displacement and conflicting compliance under multiple accountability mechanisms. Using vignette experiment design, 555 Taiwanese public employees were surveyed to explore how legal, administrative, and social accountabilities influence the perception of black, gray, and white corruption. While respondents accurately identified corruption severity, accountability reminders diminish ethical judgments and are ineffective in explaining whistle‐blowing intention. The study revealed that organizational positions interact differently with accountability reminders in a Weberian bureaucracy. Findings highlight the need to cultivate ethical judgment to shift from external controls to trigger greater perceived accountability to combat corruption. This study sheds light on both felt accountability and corruption theories to reflect existing anti‐corruption strategies.

Bureaucratic Resistance and Policy Inefficiency

·521 字·2 分钟
Polihot 政治经济学 公共行政 Bureaucracy Policy Reform Electoral Accountability Formal Model Public Service Quality
APSR — pp. 1-17 2026-04-07 Original Bureaucratic Resistance and Policy Inefficiency KUN HEO, ELISA WIRSCHING Abstract Poor public service provision creates an electoral vulnerability for incumbent politicians. Under what conditions can bureaucrats exploit this to avoid reforms they dislike? We develop a model of electoral politics in which a politician must decide whether to enact a reform of uncertain value, and a voter evaluates the incumbent’s reform based on post-reform government service quality, which anti-reform bureaucrats can undermine. Bureaucratic resistance for political leverage is most likely to occur when voters are torn between the reform and the status quo. Resistance lowers the informational value of government service for voters and can lead to policy distortions and accountability loss. When reform is moderately popular, resistance leads to policy inefficiency by preventing beneficial reforms due to electoral risks and inducing ineffective reforms by offering bureaucrats as scapegoats. Our model identifies a distinct mechanism of bureaucratic power and its implications for policy and accountability.

Toward a Theory of Value as Praxis: Linking Public Values and Public Value

·694 字·2 分钟
Polihot 公共行政 Public Values Public Value Praxis Translation and Mediation Public Administration Theory
PAR — 2026-04-06 Original Toward a Theory of Value as Praxis: Linking Public Values and Public Value Bishoy L. Zaki Abstract ABSTRACT Literature on value developed along two influential interpretations: public values as normative expectations about policymaking and governance and public value expressing added or lost benefits experienced through public action. Although normatively linked, these interpretations evolved as separate streams, limiting conceptual clarity and cumulative analysis. In response, this article develops “value as praxis” as an analytical framework that treats the relationship between public value and public values as a translation‐and‐mediation process. It specifies how public values travel from articulation and prioritization to encoding within rules and resources, embedding in organizational and sociotechnical arrangements, enactment in design and implementation, and eventually experiences of “value” or “disvalue” in the form of benefits and burdens. The framework illustrates this translation‐and‐mediation process across five recurring process groups (families of mechanisms): institutional , regulatory , sociotechnical , design , and learning . It offers a basis for studying value creation, destruction, and disvalue, and for diagnosing where the translation of public values into public value breaks down across contexts and populations.

Heterogeneous Treatment Effects and Causal Mechanisms

·491 字·1 分钟
Polihot 研究方法 Causal Inference Heterogeneous Treatment Effects Causal Mechanisms Research Design Exclusion Assumptions
APSR — pp. 1-18 2026-04-06 Original Heterogeneous Treatment Effects and Causal Mechanisms JIAWEI FU, TARA SLOUGH Abstract The credibility revolution advances the use of research designs that permit the identification and estimation of causal effects. However, understanding which mechanisms produce measured causal effects remains a challenge. The dominant current approach to the quantitative evaluation of mechanisms relies on the detection of heterogeneous treatment effects (HTEs) with respect to pretreatment covariates. This article develops a framework to understand when the existence of such HTEs can support inferences about the activation of a mechanism. We show first that this design cannot provide evidence of mechanism activation without additional, generally implicit, exclusion assumptions. Further, even when these assumptions are satisfied, the presence of HTEs supports the inference that the mechanism is active but the absence of HTEs is generally uninformative about mechanism activation. We provide novel guidance for interpretation and research design in light of these findings.

The Political Economy of Local Government Debt Expansion in China

·496 字·1 分钟
Polihot 政治经济学 比较政治 中国研究 Local Government Debt Dual-Appointment System China Fiscal Risk Party Leadership
JCC — pp. 1-18 2026-04-05 Original The Political Economy of Local Government Debt Expansion in China Pan Liu, Jie Mao, Min Dai Abstract Since the 1990s, China has strengthened the Communist Party of China’s leadership over local People’s Congresses through a dual-appointment system, under which Party secretaries also serve as chairpersons of People’s Congresses. This article argues that this system enhances Party influence over legislative decision-making while further reducing institutional constraints, enabling local Party secretaries to pursue career-oriented agendas such as borrowing for infrastructure to boost economic growth. Under a growth-first development paradigm, this arrangement has fueled the rapid expansion of local government debt. Overall, these findings offer a political economy explanation for the dynamics of local government debt in China, and underscore the importance of stronger legal and institutional constraints on the dual-appointment system to mitigate local fiscal risks.

Serving the public or checking boxes? Exploring motivations for overcompliance in policy implementation

·407 字·1 分钟
Polihot 公共行政 公共政策 中国研究 Overcompliance Policy Implementation Formalism Public Service Motivation China
PMR — pp. 1-34 2026-04-05 Original Serving the public or checking boxes? Exploring motivations for overcompliance in policy implementation Xue Gao, Quanfeng Shu, Hongtao Yi Abstract Policy implementation research has examined why street-level bureaucrats do not comply with higher-level directives; however, it has paid far less attention to why they overcomply and what this means for policy outcomes. This study addresses this gap by theorizing two competing drivers of overcompliance and analysing China’s national Solar Photovoltaic for Poverty Alleviation Program. We find that formalism is positively associated with overcompliance, while the effect of public-interest commitment is conditional on formalism. The results advance research on policy implementation and public service motivation by showing how intrinsic motivation and organizational norms interact to shape overcompliance and influence policy outcomes.