Jerrell D. Coggburn

The Quality of Management and Government Performance: An Empirical Analysis of the American States

Government performance is an enduring concern for students of public management, public administration, and political science. Governments administrative arrangements and managerial behavior can profoundly influence programmatic content, activities, and outcomes; therefore, considering public managements effects is necessary for a true understanding of public policy and government performance. This article uses data from the Maxwell Schools Government Performance Project to examine the relationship between state governments’ managerial capacity and a measure of government performance (specifically, state policy priorities). We find that state management capacity has direct effects on state policy commitments: States possessing higher levels of management capacity tend to favor programmatic areas that distribute societal benefits widely (that is, collective benefits) as opposed to narrowly (that is, particularized benefits). Our analysis demonstrates that public interest group activity, government ideology, and citizen ideology each have significant, predictable effects on state policy commitments. Thus, our findings place managerial capacity alongside other more commonly studied state characteristics as an important influence on government activities.

ENVIRONMENTALLY PREFERABLE PURCHASING: WHO IS DOING WHAT IN THE UNITED STATES?

In recent years, concerns over environmental degradation and environmental sustainability have pushed governments to search for new ways to combat environmental problems. One such approach, which is gaining in popularity, is environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP). EPP attempts to address environmental challenges by taking advantage of governments vast purchasing power to create strong markets for environmentally friendly products and services. This article reviews governments’ experience with EPP in the United States. Specifically, the article describes the development of EPP in the federal government and reviews EPP activities at both the national and subnational levels. Next, the article presents several broad strategies that governments and procurement professionals can pursue in implementing EPP. The article concludes by identifying several challenges facing EPP.

EXPLORING DIFFERENCES IN THE AMERICAN STATES' PROCUREMENT PRACTICES

This exploratory article examines the issue of state government procurement. It uses original survey data to create a measure of reformed state procurement practices, as suggested by the literature, and explores the ability of several variables from the state policy literature to explain observed differences in state procurement. Findings suggest that the states’ procurement practices possess varying degrees of reform characteristics, that interest group diversity, legislative professionalism, results-oriented management, and regional effects each have significant relationships to state procurement practices, and that several “classic” explanations of state policy are not significantly related to state procurement practices. One implication is that procurement, like other forms of state administrative policy, may not be readily explained by widely utilized theories of state policy.

The Structure of Bureaucratic Decisions in the American States

Bureaucrats have a significant impact on the ways that governmental policies impinge on American citizens. This is particularly true at the state level. Administrators in state agencies have wide latitude to make vital decisions in important public programs. And yet, surprisingly little is known about this process. The present analysis will address this topic by focusing on the structure of bureaucratic initiatives in state Medicaid policies. We believe that doing so has several important advantages. Substantively, our focus on the structure inherent in bureaucratic decisions reveals a great deal about the nature of administrative policy making in social program developments at the state level. Methodologically our analysis produces an empirical measure of bureaucratic policy outputs, which can be used as an analytic variable in other research efforts. Altogether the information obtained in this analysis provides new insights about the role of administrators in the American policy process. Background In this study, we will examine state adoptions of Medicaid optional health care services. The federal government and state legislators establish the general parameters for the Medicaid program (Coughlin, Ku, and Holahan, 1994). But, state-level bureaucrats make important decisions that determine the exact configuration of services to be offered within each state (Bovbjerg and Holahan, 1982; Congressional Research Service, 1993; Schneider and Jacoby, 1996). Hence, many of the differences that exist across state Medicaid programs are due to administrative initiatives rather than to state legislative statutes or federal regulations (Davison, 1980). The objective of this article is to determine whether there is an underlying structure among these interstate differences. If such a structure does exist, then it should be useful for discerning the criteria that Medicaid bureaucrats have in mind when they make administrative decisions. Given the importance of state bureaucracies in the Medicaid policy making process, it is somewhat surprising that so little is known about how they operate. There has been virtually no research conducted on this topic so we do not know whether there is any pattern or structure to bureaucratic decisions. Previous empirical analyses have focused on other aspects of the Medicaid program, such as state expenditures and assessments of program intention, content, and/or scope (Hanson, 1984; Holahan and Cohen, 1986; Barrilleaux and Miller, 1988; Schneider, 1988; Buchanan, Cappelleri, and Ohsfeldt, 1991). Those few studies that have focused directly on administrative initiatives in the Medicaid program have tended to be speculative and interpretive (Lemov, 1991; Hovrath, 1992). They generally conclude that there is no discernible pattern among state bureaucratic policy adoptions. Instead, they argue that the range of available services is too wide to be analyzed or summarized in any comprehensible form (Davison, 1980; McDonough, 1992). We emphatically disagree with the preceding conclusion and believe that there is an underlying structure to bureaucratic decisions in state Medicaid programs. We hypothesize a pattern of bureaucratic activity based upon the degree of difficulty involved in providing various health care services. State administrators would begin by adopting easy options; only after doing so would they move on to implement more difficult services. The exact nature of the difficulty is an empirical matter, to be determined as pa-rt of the analysis. It could be based upon the costs of the services, the size of the clientele groups for the various services, or the level of political controversy surrounding different health care options. In a-nv case, a cumulative pattern should arise because states adopt easier services before proceeding to more difficult options. Most states are willing to provide a set of minimal health care services while others are willing to bear greater burdens. …

ACHIEVING MANAGERIAL VALUES THROUGH GREEN PROCUREMENT

This article examines green procurement in relation to classic managerial values of public administration in the United States, including effectiveness, efficiency, and economy. The article considers these relations from two frames. First, the article examines green procurement as an administrative tool, that is, as an approach to acquiring the goods and services needed by public organizations and officials to accomplish their respective missions. Second, the article considers green procurement as a policy tool for promoting environmental quality objectives. The article draws on a broad but largely anecdotal body of international evidence on green procurement to argue that in both instances green procurement can accomplish managerial values.

Environmentally Preferable Procurement: Greening U.S. State Government Fleets

Since passage of the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) in 1992, the U.S. federal government has imposed procurement restrictions on state government fleets. Regulations, overseen by the Department of Energy (DoE), require that a high percentage of new state fleet acquisitions be “green” alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs). This article first reviews AFV technologies, advanced technology designs, and alternative fuels. A discussion of the EPAct mandates and other policy incentives for state fleets follows. The next section presents findings of a survey of state fleet managers regarding their compliance obligations. The article concludes with a discussion of the recently passed EPAct of 2005 and how its provisions may affect the continued greening of state fleets.