David A. Breaux

Welfare Reform, Mississippi Style: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Search for Accountability

Through an examination of the implementation of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act in the state of Mississippi, we explore the adequacy of traditional two-actor principal-agent theory. Using this as our lens, we suggest that the choices made by Mississippi in the area of welfare reform to privatize much of the work and to add several layers to the existing principal-agent relationship substantially reduced accountability and the effectiveness of the monitoring systems. We conclude that not only is traditional principal-agent theory an insufficient tool for understanding the complex interrelationship between democratic actors in this particular case, the decisions of the state of Mississippi to complicate the principal-actor relationship through privatization also undermined the reform effort itself in ways that may have general implications for other like-minded efforts in other policy areas. There are those who are undermining what we are trying to achieve ... —Bud Henry, Director of Economic Assistance, Mississippi Department of Human Services

Specifying the Impact of Incumbency On State Legislative Elections A District-Level Analysis

Prior research, based on the analysis of aggregate-level state legislative election data, has documented a decline in the marginality of state legislative districts. Over the past twenty or so years, state legislators, much like congressional incumbents, have been winning reelection by larger margins of the vote. By taking advantage of district-level, state legislative election data, the research presented here specifies the relative impact of incumbency on district marginality, while controlling for statewide party trends. More specifically, it follows the lead of congressional elections studies, examining the impact of retirement slump and sophomore surge on the legislative district vote. In general, the legislative district vote reflects both a retirement slump and a sophomore surge, with the magnitude of their impact being conditioned by the level of contested incumbent victories in a state.

The Core Curriculum Content of NASPAA-Accredited Programs: Fundamentally Alike or Different?

Abstract This paper uses data from National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration accreditation self-study reports to determine the extent to which core curricula focus on the public administration environmental context and professional skills. We develop five hypotheses to examine this focus. Using measures to determine the degree to which course content—as reflected in objectives, topics, and texts—reflects either professional (management and analytical) skills or an environmental (i.e., political, economic, and social) focus, we seek to explain program differences across a set of independent variables (program mission statements, institutional location, additional degrees offered, elective specializations, and faculty characteristics). We find that, although there is not a great deal of variance in the mix of professional skills and environmental context taught in all programs, the differences present may be accounted for by differences in institutional location and faculty characteristics. We also find that programs are generally more focused on professional skills than the characteristics of the faculty teaching in those programs might otherwise indicate.

Mississippi: Republicans Surge Forward in a Two-Party State

Mississippi entered the 21st century as a competitive two-party state far removed from its post-Reconstruction history of one-party Democratic domination. Yet Republican gains which had led to this emerging parity between the parties were not uniform across elective offices, as they had come first in federal elections and only later trickled down to state offices (Aistrup 1996). Mississippi voted Republican for president for the first time since Reconstruction in 1964 and 1972 (by landslide margins), narrowly backed Democrat and born-again southern Baptist Jimmy Carter in 1976, and henceforth has cast every one of its electoral votes for Republican presidential candidates. Enduring U.S. House gains began occurring in the Nixon landslide reelection year of 1972 with victories by Republicans Thad Cochran and Trent Lott. Cochran and Lott then replaced retiring conservative Democratic U.S. senators James Eastland in 1978 and John Stennis in 1988. Democrats remained competitive in U.S. house races at the century’s end, however, retaining two moderate conservative whites (Ronnie Shows and Gene Taylor) and one liberal African American (Bennie Thompson, representing the black majority “Delta” district) as congressmen. With the retirements of boll weevil Democrats Jamie Whitten in 1994 and Sonny Montgomery in 1996, conservative Republicans Roger Wicker and Chip Pickering took their places to maintain two House seats for the GOP.