Uday Desai

Public Participation in Environmental Policy Implementation: Case of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act

Environmental legislation enacted in the last two decades contains many provisions and mechanisms for public participation. However, little systematic information is available on actual use of different mechanisms of participation in different stages of policy implementation. This study describes the use of various mechanisms by participants in one major environmental policy, the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). Our data indicate that the enforcement stage of policy implementation generates most individual citizen involvement, and citizen complaints are the most widely used mechanism for citizen participation. However, our aggregate data indicate that overall citizen participation in the implementation of SMCRA has been modest. The paper concludes with thoughts on why extensive legislative provisions for citizen participation are nevertheless justified.

Bulgaria's non-profit sector: the search for form, purpose, and legitimacy

Bulgaria, like other East European nations since the collapse of communism, has moved rapidly to form private, self-directed non-profit and voluntary organisations. Like those nations too, Bulgaria faces a number of challenges in its pursuit of forming a strong non-profit sector. Chief among those challenges are establishing a sound legal foundation, defining the social purposes and functions of the non-profit sector, and establishing the legitimacy of these organisations in the minds of the Bulgarian people. These three challenges are analysed in the essay, following an overview of the current make-up and characteristics of the emerging non-profit sector.

Competitive Sourcing in the Federal Civil Service

Competitive sourcing, meaning public—private competitions to perform work in the federal civil service, was made a priority management policy of the George W. Bush administration. Competition, it is believed, will greatly enhance administrative efficiency whichever bidder, public or private, wins. Introduction of such market-based human resource policies into the federal civil service has engendered debate over long-term effects on merit principles, public service motives and ethics, and administrative performance. This article contributes to that discussion by examining the policy origins and purposes behind competitive sourcing and by analyzing implementation of the policy during the Bush administration. Results show that the market ideology expressed in competitive sourcing has been moderated and mediated by the implementation process. Congressional and public employee involvement alongside that of the administration produced policy outcomes of mixed results.

Technical assistance for institutional capacity building the transferability of administrative structures and practices

The US government has been actively engaged for the last 15 years in foreign assistance programs for building democratic governance institutions and enhancing overall government capacity in the former Soviet bloc countries. Transfers of public policies, administrative structures and management practices from one country to another are problematic. In this article we suggest that there are some fundamental constraints inherent in the framework of cross-national transfers. It identifies two major transferability challenges: (1) feasibility of transfer and (2) appropriateness of transfer. This article discusses three institution building programs of short duration (three to five years), whose broad purposes were institutional and professional capacity building. Many powerful forces, domestic and international, shape the likelihood of democratic consolidation in the transitional democracies. While fundamental questions about the transferability of institutional norms and structures from one country to another remain, our experiences indicate that thoughtful and flexible implementation strategies are likely to increase the chances that soft technology transfer projects will contribute to building institutional capacity. A great degree of uncertainty, nevertheless, will always remain in determining the long-term impacts of foreign technical assistance programs for transfer of institutional norms and structures.

Municipal Government-Nonprofit Sector Collaboration in Bulgaria An Attitudinal Analysis

The worldwide phenomenon of devolution of power to local governments and growth of community nonprofit organizations increases opportunities for municipal government-nonprofit sector collaboration. Successful collaboration between the two institutions is seen as a promising trend because it stimulates development of a healthy civil society and delivery of a broader array of social services. This article presents an analysis of survey data that measured attitudes of Bulgarian municipal officials toward municipal-nonprofit collaboration. Municipal officials’ orientation toward working cooperatively with nonprofit organizations is critical to success. The survey data indicate that Bulgarian municipal officials are supportive of the general notion of municipal-nonprofit collaboration, but they retain serious reservations about the capacity of community nonprofit organizations to contribute meaningfully to service delivery in cooperation with local government. They perceive financial and human resource constraints within the nonprofit sector as well as within their own structures, thus making successful collaboration and its benefits problematic.

Failures of Power and Intelligence Use of Scientific-Technical Information in Government Decision Making

This article assesses the nonuse of scientific-technical information in energy research and development decision making and identifies major conditions and constraints that account for it. It is a study of the Coalcon project, the first federal attempt to demonstrate a synthetic fossil energy technology. The concepts of a failure of power and a failure of intelligence are used to explain the failure to use available technical information in the Coalcon decision. Consequences of crisis on an organization `s use of information are elaborated on.

Correlates of Selection in the Presidential Management Internship Program

The Presidential Management Internship Program (PMIP) was established in an effort to attract young individuals to the federal service. Since its creation, few studies have examined the characteristics of the interns selected for the program. This study investigates not only the intern characteristics but also the institutions that nominated them. Two findings are of particular interest. First, because few minorities are nominated for PMIP, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) should continue to take measures to attract minorities to the PMI program. Second, the study found that a few programs/schools dominate the PMI program. This therefore suggests that OPM should continue to reach out to graduate programs that do not have a history of involvement with PMIP.