Nicolai Petrovsky

Democracy and Government Performance: Holding Incumbents Accountable in English Local Governments

The link between government performance and support for incumbents is a key mechanism of accountable government. We model the vote share of incumbent administrations in local government as proportional and nonproportional responses to public service performance. We evaluate the models using a panel data set covering performance and elections from 2001 to 2007 in English local governments where an incumbent party or coalition was up for reelection. We control for the previous vote, whether the incumbent administration is of the national governing party, and local economic conditions. We find evidence for a nonproportional, performance threshold hypothesis, which implies that voters’ behavior is affected by clear gradations of performance. Only the difference between low performance and at least mediocre performance matters. There is no reward for high performance. Instead our findings suggest negativity bias in the relationship between performance and electoral support for incumbents.

WHEN AND HOW THE FIGHTING STOPS: EXPLAINING THE DURATION AND OUTCOME OF CIVIL WARS

Previous research has shown that the duration of a civil war is in part a function of how it ends: in government victory, rebel victory, or negotiated settlement. We present a model of how protagonists in a civil war choose to stop fighting. Hypotheses derived from this theory relate the duration of a civil war to its outcome as well as characteristics of the civil war and the civil war nation. Findings from a competing risk model reveal that the effects of predictors on duration vary according to whether the conflict ended in government victory, rebel victory, or negotiated settlement.

The Politics of Agency Death: Ministers and the Survival of Government Agencies in a Parliamentary System

This article extends the theory of government agency survival from separation of powers to parliamentary government systems. It evaluates expectations of increased risk to agencies following transitions in government, prime minister or departmental minister, and from incongruence between the originally establishing and currently overseeing political executive. Using survival models for UK executive agencies between 1989 and 2012, the study finds that politics trumps performance. Ministers seek to make their mark by terminating agencies created by previous ministers, which is reinforced by high media attention to the agency. Performance against agency targets is not associated with higher termination risk, and replacement agencies do not perform any better than those that were terminated. Financial autonomy provides some protection for agencies that are less dependent on budgetary appropriations.

Leadership succession and organizational success: when do new chief executives make a difference?

When do new chief executives in the public sector make a difference to organizational performance? Theory suggests that executive succession has both adaptive and disruptive effects on public organizations, and the balance between these is likely to depend on the performance of the organization in the period before a new top manager takes office. We test this proposition on several years of data on all 148 English principal local authorities. Our results suggest that chief executive succession makes a difference to performance, and that succession has a positive effect where prior performance is low, but a negative effect where it is high.

Party Control, Party Competition and Public Service Performance

This article assesses party effects on the performance of public services. A policy-seeking model, hypothesizing that left and right party control affects performance, and an instrumental model, where all parties strive to raise performance, are presented. The framework also suggests a mixed model in which party effects are contingent on party competition, with parties raising performance as increasing party competition places their control of government at increasing risk. These models are tested against panel data on English local governments’ party control and public service performance. The results question the traditional account of left and right parties, showing a positive relationship between right-wing party control and performance that is contingent on a sufficiently high level of party competition. The findings suggest left–right models should be reframed for the contemporary context.

Executive succession in English local government

The authors report the results of the first quantitative study of senior management turnover in English local authorities. Consistent with existing management theory, rates of executive succession were found to be higher in an adverse external environment, and where organizational performance is weak.

Measurement Equivalence in Replications of Experiments: When and Why it Matters and Guidance on How to Determine Equivalence

ABSTRACT Replications of experiments are typically conducted to verify initial findings, increase their external validity, or to study the boundary conditions of treatment effects. A crucial and implicitly made assumption is that outcome measures in experiments are sufficiently comparable (i.e., equivalent) across experimental settings. We argue that there are good reasons to believe that this equivalence assumption may not always be met and should therefore be tested empirically. Integrating the literature on experimental replication and survey measurement equivalence, we provide guidance when and how experimental replicators need to determine cross-replication equivalence.

What Explains Agency Heads’ Length of Tenure? Testing Managerial Background, Performance, and Political Environment Effects for Different Forms of Exit

Influences on agency heads’ length of tenure depend on the way in which tenure ends, distinguished by moving to elsewhere in the public sector; the private sector; or retiring. We estimate survival models of agency heads’ tenure using panel data on British central government executive agencies from 1989-2012. Our findings suggest that chief executives of poorly performing agencies are encouraged to retire sooner. We find no evidence of change in political control increasing risk of any form of exit, suggesting that political pressure to leave is not substantial for this type of official. Outsiders (agency heads recruited from outside central government) are relatively difficult to retain for a longer time, such that potential shortfalls in suitable managers caused by retirements in an aging workforce may be difficult to make up by appointing from this source.