Janet A. Weiss

The powers of problem definition: The case of government paperwork

Problem definition is a package of ideas that includes, at least implicitly, an account of the causes and consequences of undesirable circumstances and a theory about how to improve them. As such, it serves as the overture to policymaking, as an integral part of the process of policymaking, and as a policy outcome. In each of these roles it seems to exert influence on government action. Distinguishing among the roles clarifies the nature of that influence. A case study examines the transition from one problem definition to another in the domain of information collection by the federal government. The rise of the Paperwork Reduction definition illustrates the variety of ways in which problem definition has powerful consequences.

Public information campaigns as policy instruments

Considerable controversy surrounds public information campaigns: government-directed and sponsored efforts to communicate to large numbers of citizens in order to achieve a policy result, or what might be called government propaganda. We analyze the use of campaigns as policy instruments in three ways: (1) effectiveness in achieving substantive outcomes; (2) political benefits for public officials; and (3) consequences for democratic processes. Our review of 100 campaigns from these three perspectives reveals significant advantages and disadvantages of using campaigns in practice. We conclude that the advantages of public information campaigns justify their use as policy intruments when used appropriately and with care to mitigate the disadvantages.

Pathways to cooperation among public agencies

This study explores forces that push public agencies to overcome barriers to cooperation. Case studies of nine groups of local school districts examined the pressures that shaped local participation in cooperative programs. The literature on relationships among organizations suggests six possible reasons to bear the costs of cooperation: to get more resources, to satisfy norms and values, to obtain political advantage, to solve problems, to reduce uncertainty, and to obey legal mandates. Data from the cases illustrate strengths and weaknesses of these six theoretical lines of argument as they apply to the decisions of public managers coping with complex realities. A process model of cooperation integrates the lessons of the data into a perspective that highlights the role of demands for improved performance. The model offers realistic guidance for the design of workable cooperative relationships.

Coping with complexity: An experimental study of public policy decision‐making

Empirical studies of decision-making invariably conclude with profound skepticism about the human capacity to process complex problems. The skepticism bodes ill for public policy makers, for they confront decisions of formidable complexity. This research examines the impact of systematic variation in the complexity of public policy decisions on the quality of decisions made by experienced public and private sector managers. Results show that increases in complexity do affect decision-making, but in positive as well as negative ways.

Ideas and inducements in mental health policy

Between 1946 and 1963, federal officials sought to change the national practice of providing mental health care, away from state-run mental institutions and toward outpatient care based in local communities. These policy makers relied on two policy instruments, ideas and inducements. Both instruments contributed to unexpectedly significant changes in federal, state, and local policy. I conclude that a policy instrument framework helps to disentangle the strands of successful public management, and that it is useful to think of ideas as policy instruments that offer leverage on policy outcomes.

Reflections on value: policy makers evaluate federal information systems

Information systems produce information which may contribute to collective wisdom. They also produce control over the activities of others, through surveillance, monitoring, persuasion, targeting, and incentives.2 When policy makers evaluate the success of an information system, both products count. Responses to information are shaped by the qualities of the information itself and by the dynamics of the control relationships which surround the information. In this paper, we examine how policy makers evaluate information from mandatory reporting systems installed by the federal government to monitor state and local activity in elementary and secondary education. To explain policy makers conclusions about the value of these systems, we look at their needs for information to do their jobs and their reactions to the control implied by the systems. We asked 199 federal, state, and local level policy makers to reflect on the value of federal education data. We assume that the value of these data does not reside solely in the quality or quantity of the data. Information which is better by technical standards is not necessarily more valuable information. 3 We assume instead that the value of information to any given policy maker lies in part in the policy makers location in the policy-making structure, and in part in the causal theories about the policy domain that he or she embraces. Structural location and policy theories, we hypothesize, shape the policy makers needs for information to do their jobs and their reactions to the control implied by the information system, and in so doing, guide their reflections on the value of information. In this research we attempt to specify which characteristics of policy structures and which policy theories lead policy makers to see more or less value in information.

Data to support scholarship on nonprofit organizations: An introduction

This two-part special issue of American Behavioral Scientist (that is, this volume and the one that will follow it in July 2002) emerged from the work of the Social Science Research Council’s Committee on Research on Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector. The purpose of the committee is to help research on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector to achieve greater visibility, greater coherence, intellectual momentum, and intellectual direction. A central part of this fieldbuilding initiative is to promote the development of intellectual and material resources for studying philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. Toward this end, the committee decided early in its work to examine the quality and availability of data on nonprofit organizations and philanthropy by commissioning the essays included in this volume.

Deterring discrimination with data

Discrimination on grounds of race, sex, and handicap persists in many local school districts in spite of nearly twenty years of sustained attention from federal policymakers. Because litigation proceeds slowly and expensively, and because administrative attacks on discrimination have been stymied by political controversy, additional policy strategies merit careful consideration. We studied the operation of one such strategy in nine local districts: the mandatory collection of data concerning civil rights matters in schools. Data collection and reporting shaped local compliance with civil rights laws in four ways: by threatening local officials with future penalties, by providing political ammunition to constituencies that care about civil rights, by allowing local districts to learn about their own performance, and by framing school practices in ways that heighten awareness about equity. In this policy setting, data collection has advantages and disadvantages that complement those of other enforcement strategies. In this and other policy settings, data collection has power to elicit compliance even in the absence of conventional enforcement.

Comment: Public management research-the interdependence of problems and theory

As a college student, I read an article with a title that thoroughly captured my fancy, Topic X [this part of it does not matter]: Whence and Whither? I determined that some day I must write something with that mellifluous and capacious subtitle. I came, in time, to see the chutzpa required to say something intelligent about the whence and whither of anything, and never found the heart to follow through. But reading Laurence E. Lynns insightful account of the evolution of public management research, my favorite subtitle sprang to mind. He offers a provocative account of how the field has developed, and poses exciting but serious challenges to researchers about the future. Inspired by his analysis, I build on a few of his comments about where the field is going and why. First I consider how coherent our field can and should be. Second, I review some cautions about examining cases of best managerial practice as a research approach. Third, I suggest some ways to improve the stock of theory we use to understand public management problems and opportunities.

Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector / From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less

The article reviews the books “Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector,” by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, and “From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less,” published by the National Performance Review.