Public Administration Review

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• Natural born violence? Understanding street‐level bureaucrats' use of violence: Police officers and protests

  What factors influence street‐level bureaucrats' (SLBs) use of violence? To answer this question, we focus on police officers, a typical example of SLBs, who can lawfully use violence whenever they deem it necessary. Based on ethnographic work among Brazilian police officers dealing with protests, we analyze how violence erupts in the interaction between police officers and protesters. We contribute to the literature by suggesting that no single factor alone can explain the actions of SLBs regarding the use of violence, as previous research has posited. We demonstrate how the interplay between four factors explains the use of violence by SLBs: (1) institutional logic, (2) type of situation, (3) desire for revenge and having fun, and (4) lack of accountability. As such, we propose a more complex account of SLB's use of violence.

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• A new acquisition model for the next disaster: Overcoming disaster federalism issues through effective utilization of the Strategic National Stockpile

  Using primary data collected from interviews with federal and state government officials and secondary data related to PPE distribution and state healthcare statistics, we discovered evidence that the use of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) to distribute personal protective equipment to state and local agencies in need during the height of COVID‐19 was indeed poorly designed to cope with the COVID‐19 emergency, leaving many states with shortages of badly needed medical supplies. As a result, many states struggled to organize an uncoordinated procurement response—which we suggest is due to federalism issues. To overcome federalism challenges and increase future disaster preparedness, we recommend four necessary reforms to the SNS that include (1) the incorporation of uncompensated industry experts into SNS administration, (2) the provision of an emergency production board for times of crisis, (3) elevated political leadership for the SNS, (4) improvement of federal‐state supply chain governance.

• Civil servants navigating networks for development: From the perches of the World Bank and MENA countries
• Public administration in disasters: Integrating emergency management into jail and prison preparedness

  Jail and prison administrators have historically struggled to prepare for and respond to disasters. State and county Emergency Managers, as public administrators, are responsible for coordinating preparedness to mitigate disaster impacts. The author used 41 qualitative interviews with emergency management and corrections professionals to assess the extent to which these two collaborate for carceral disaster readiness. The findings indicate that Emergency Managers omit local jails and prisons from their planning, training, and exercises. Additionally, neither sees the other as a legitimate partner in disaster preparedness. This forces corrections professionals to face disasters without the aid of emergency management experts thereby exposing inmates, staff, and the public to greater risk.

• Charles Goodsell: A weaver of the tapestry of public administration

  Our society has the habit of writing about exemplars after they are no longer with us; this is certainly important and beneficial but misses the opportunity to engage them in a personal reflection on their lives and the contributions/lessons they most want to share. This essay is intended to address this common oversight by sharing the marvelous 61‐year career of Charles Goodsell, by first recounting his still active professional journey and closing with his own personal advice to academics, practitioners, and students.

• Data feminism. By Catherine D'Ignazio , Lauren F. Klein , Cambridge: The MIT Press. 2020. pp. 314. $29.95 (hard cover). ISBN: 9780262044004 (Open access version through MIT Press at https://data-feminism.mitpress.mit.edu/).
• Governor's political affiliation and stringent COVID‐19 policy

  The political affiliation of governors has been highlighted as the most important predictor of a state's aggressiveness in responding to the pandemic, that is, Democratic governors advocated for more stringent policies than their Republican counterparts. However, of the 39 states that issued a statewide stay‐at‐home order (SAHO) mandate, nearly half were led by Republican governors. Using a qualitative comparative analysis, we find that gubernatorial partisanship alone cannot explain SAHO mandates. If partisanship played a role at all, it did so only in states with large metropolitan areas or with fewer public health resources. Regardless of the governor's partisanship, the combination of problem severity and public health resources was sufficient to produce a stringent policy outcome. Emphasis on gubernatorial decisions as purely political overlooks material needs relevant for future pandemic response and the potential for evidence and future coordination.

• A cognitive network perspective for public administration and policy

  This article introduces the concept of cognitive social structures to public administration and policy scholars. Cognitive social structures are the perceptions, or mental maps, actors hold of the relationships that exist among the members of their network. These perceptions and their accuracy have implications for actor behavior, decisions, and outcomes. The literature on network cognitions has developed in the fields of psychology and organization studies but has yet to be applied in public administration and policy. We provide an overview of cognitive social structure research. We then demonstrate the theoretical and practical implications cognitive social structures hold for our field by examining applications in two research areas—implementation and leadership. We argue that using a network cognition perspective can help researchers and practitioners to better explain and pursue important organizational and interorganizational phenomena. We hope this article fosters new dialogue on the role of network cognitions in public administration and policy.

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Featured documents

• What a Difference a Grade Makes: Evidence from New York City's Restaurant Grading Policy

  Can governments use grades to induce businesses to improve their compliance with regulations? Does public disclosure of compliance with food safety regulations matter for restaurants? Ultimately, this depends on whether grades matter for the bottom line. Based on 28 months of data on more than 15,00...

• We Need to Compare, but How? Measurement Equivalence in Comparative Public Administration

  In addition to public administrations and public managers, there is increasing interest in studying citizens’ interactions with and views toward government from a comparative perspective in order to put theories to the test using cross‐national surveys. However, this will only succeed if we...

• Determinants of Public Administrators' Use of Performance Information: Evidence from Local Governments in Florida

  Performance management has been a focus of scholars and practitioners for more than 25 years, yet the use of performance information has not greatly expanded as a result of this attention. Acknowledging that performance measurement is not an end in itself but rather a means to enhance focus on...

• What Gets Measured, Gets Done: Understanding and Addressing Middle‐Class Challenges

  Middle‐class families face a range of challenges, including uneven income growth, imposing child care costs, and affordability gaps for higher education. The ideal policies by which policy makers and public administrators can aid the middle class are far from obvious. Policy solutions are likely to ...

• Agencification
• F. C. Simon, Meta‐Regulation in Practice: Beyond Normative Views of Morality and Rationality (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017). 240 pp. $45.95, ISBN: 1315308894
• Does public managers' type of education affect performance in public organizations? A systematic review

  Although scholars agree that public managers' education could affect performance in public organizations, no attempt has been made to synthesize the empirical evidence on this relationship. Consequently, we ask, do public managers with a general management education, such as an MPA, or a specialist ...

• Careers of women public managers: Career needs of women public managers across generations

  This study examines women's managerial experiences in leadership roles and reflects on their career needs. Women's career needs are understood by applying the Kaleidoscope Career Model (KCM), which is yet to be widely explored in public sector settings. The KCM recognizes the interplay of multiple...

• Connecting the composition of collaborative governance structure to community‐level performance in homeless services

  Collaborative governance has become prevalent in public service provision as both government and nonprofit sectors face pressure to solve multidimensional social problems in communities while improving performance. Drawing on collaborative governance and homeless services literature, this article...

• Defining social equity in emergency management: A critical first step in the nexus

  The conceptualization of social equity in public administration and emergency management has been subjective to the user of the term. While the vagueness of the concept provides fertile grounds for intellectual debate, the failure to arrive at a single and formal definition leads to confusion and...