Ira Sharkansky

Policy Making and Service Delivery on the Margins of Government: The Case of Contractors

odern government defies definition. It grows, but it also declines. It does more while doing less. It confounds those who would understand it, while adding to the benefits offered the people. Its own officials will not-or cannot-report the true size of the budget or workforce. Because they cannot say exactly what it is, policy makers have problems in controlling it while observers have problems in describing it. Academic specialists in public administration and political science suffer from confusion about the thing that is central to their careers. Officials do more while they do less by assigning activities to bodies that are not, strictly speaking, part of the government. Just how this happens depends on conditions within each country. The national government of the United States has, in certain respects, actually shrunk in size during the period 1955-1976. Its number of employees declined from 146 per 10,000 population to 134 to 10,000 population. Yet, no one should claim that the national government did less in 1976 than in 1955. It shrunk by hiving off new activities and some old established programs. Washington transferred some activities to state and local governments. It assigned others to special authorities, and to private firms and foundations operating as contractors for government agencies. This essay deals with contractors that operate on the margins of American governments. Yet, central features of this analysis apply to other kinds of bodies that operate on the margins of this and other modern governments. The inclination to use business firms or other private bodies as contractors is distinctly an American style of conducting public activities on the margins of government. By tradition the United States is a country of free enterprise. It is fitting to use business corporations to design, implement and monitor many of the programs that have turned the United States into one of the most generous of welfare states.

The Auditing of Public Policy and the Politics of Auditing: The U.S. GAO and Israel's State Comptroller

A purist conception of audit independence appears to be obsolete. A survey of audit activities of the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) and Israels State Comptroller describes pressures on audit bodies to examine sensitive policy issues and to enter partisan and personal squabbles between elected officials. The critique of the GAO by the National Academy of Public Administration recommends that legislators refrain from asking the audit body to deal with politically sensitive issues. In order to salvage something from the principle of audit independence, it appears more realistic to urge diligence on the part of the supreme auditor.

TOWARD A TYPOLOGY OF NON-DECISIONS: THREE ISRAELI CASES

ABSTRACT The concept “non-decisions” is problematic, but widely used. Often it denotes entrenched interests keeping issues off the political agenda in order to limit the benefits of the powerless. Three Israeli cases illustrate different varieties of non-decision, and suggest the utility of developing a typology suitable for the concept

Corruption in the 2006 Israeli Elections

Until Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered his series of strokes, ‘corruption’ was poised to be an issue in the election campaign of 2006. While the prime minister lay in a coma, allegations about his own behaviour became buried in a process of sanctification. The focus of attention shifted to the deepening problems of major and minor parties like Labour, Likud, Shinui, and the National Religious Party, plus the puzzle of what policies a government led by Kadima would pursue after the election. Yet corruption remained in the background, and seemed likely to survive as a persistent charge against Israeli politicians. For some years, Sharon’s own behaviour and that of his sons was a primary focus of the discussion about corruption. Allegations of improper campaign finances, and using his influence with the Greek government to help a political supporter with a resort scheme returned to the headlines with the conviction of his son, Omri, for a criminal offence concerned with the financing of his father’s 1999 Likud primary campaign. There were continuing legal proceedings against leading Likud/Kadima politician Tsakhi Hanegbi for making political appointments while a minister; Likud members of Knesset Yechiel Hazan and Michael Gorlovsky for double voting; Naomi Blumenthal for financing a hotel meeting for supporters and the more serious charge of obstructing justice; Shas Knesset member Yair Peretz for submitting academic work written by someone else; claims that Inbal Gavrieli’s success in the Likud selection of candidates was purchased by money her father earned from his casinos and other enterprises; plus investigations still open concerning the financing of Ehud Barak’s campaign of 1999, and the activities of former Shas minister Shlomo Benizri. At one point, Labour MK Yuli Tamir sought to quiet Gavrieli by telling her that the Knesset was not her father’s casino. Rivals in the Labour Party accused one another of tampering with the primary election, and somewhere in public memory were police investigations into charges that former prime minister (and current Likud Party candidate for prime minister) Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife had misappropriated public funds for their personal use.

Privatization and Ethics: The Israeli Telecommunications Company

Abstract The move toward privatization, one of the most distinctive changes in governments in recent years, has generated some ethical problems. This study explores and discusses two sets of ethical problems that emerge during the privatization process: those generated by changes in the structure of the organization and those generated during the transition from one type of structure to another. We illustrate these problems with a case study of Bezek, the Israel Telecommunication Company. The analysis concludes that ethical problems increase as a consequence of privatization, particularly under conditions of partial and incomplete privatization.

Slogan as policy

Slogans are essential in politics and other endeavors of mass persuasion. Many are benign, but some are troublesome. Here the concern is with those that achieve so much popular success that they become identified with policies and render it difficult for elected officials to consider changes in programs even in the face of substantial indications that change is warranted.

Corruption again, and again not decisive

Corruption was prominent in the run-up to the 2009 election, but did not affect the outcome. Two candidates accused of corruption, Benyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, led their parties to greater success than in the election of 2006. The candidate claiming to be free of corruption, Tzipi Livni, led her party to the most seats in Knesset, but not enough to overcome Netanyahus advantage of allies. Complicating the analysis of corruption and the election outcome is the fuzziness in the key concept. Corruption means different things to different communities and individuals. Israel is not free of corruption, but neither is it clearly more corrupt than other western democracies. Citizens may be inured to a chronic, but tolerable level of corruption, so that they do not consider it essential to guiding their votes.

GOVERNING A HYBRID: THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is an Israeli version of the administrative hybrids represented by elite universities. Webers norms of hierarchy and standardization according to formal rules with a minimum of exceptions falls to variations between units with different missions and quality. There are also multiple sources of funding, resources limited to specific purposes that remain outside the control of central administrators, academic freedom and the presence of prima donnas among the personnel who are to be controlled.

Auditing the Conventional Wisdom: Issues of Equality in Israel

Abstract It is conventional wisdom in Israel, apparent in the writings of academics and publicists, and widely expressed by politicians, that the country suffers from an abnormally wide social gap, or differential between the incomes of rich and poor. The validity of the claim does not stand up to serious inquiry. Unfortunately, the State Comptroller shares in propagating the “wisdom,” rather than addressing it from a critical perspective suitable to the audit function.

Planning a Railroad to Jerusalem: “Professional considerations” + “political considerations” = “an old and slow line”

Abstract Railroads have provided exciting stories of planning and construction. There has been difficult terrain, dangerous animals, populations opposed to the coming of outsiders, the management of huge workforces, and the raising of huge sums with inflated promises of profit. Recent cases feature sophisticated and competing analysis of costs and benefits, groups concerned with protecting the environment, as well as suspicious populations empowered by democratic provisions for access, mass media, and advocacy groups. The railroad to Jerusalem illustrates both the historic and contemporary sides of these stories. Planning for a new line and the upgrading of the existing line have run into the modern complications of sophisticated economic analyses, demands from localities along competing routes, the conflicting interests of politicians and administrative entities, environmental activists, and considerations of international relations.