La Ciudad de México es la más valiosa, monumental, compleja y prolongada obra que la nación ha construido en toda su historia. Constituye la síntesis de la evolución de México en el siglo xx y el ...escenario principal para vislumbrar las perspectivas del país en el siglo xxi: i) su gran valor reside en producir más de una cuarta parte de la riqueza nacional; ii) la monumentalidad está representada por su tejido urbano de más de dos mil kilómetros cuadrados; iii) la complejidad se deriva de requerir sofisticadas tecnologías en la construcción de sus grandes obras infraestructurales; y iv) la antigüedad se extiende a su fundación como capital de la Nueva España hace casi quinientos años.
Prior studies on corporate political strategies have taken an exchange view to examine these strategies' benefits and costs for firms and politicians, but have paid less attention to how politicians' ...political values shape their perceptions of, and willingness to engage in, these exchanges. We investigate how politicians' imprinted political ideologies affect the likelihood of firms' political appointments. Examining 760 city mayors across 242 Chinese cities from 2001 to 2013, we find that cities have fewer private firms appointed to local councils if the mayor-the key decision maker for such appointments-is more strongly imprinted with an orthodox communist ideology that opposes capitalism. The intensity and evolution of such an ideological imprint are influenced by contextual factors. The imprint's strength is shaped by the mayors' prior exposure to intense ideological experiences, such as experiencing the Cultural Revolution at a young age. Working in an environment consistent with the ideology (e.g., a province with a greater communist legacy) sustains and even strengthens the imprint, whereas working in an environment inconsistent with the ideology (e.g., a city with greater economic development) attenuates it. We discuss the implications of these findings for political strategy research, imprinting theory, and nascent research on political ideology.
•Observes the emergence of a policy paradigm of “transformative innovation policy”.•Presents an analytical framework for assessing transformative innovation policy.•Finds conceptual variety in this ...emerging policy paradigm.•Illustrates markedly different articulations of transformative innovation policy in practice.•Reflects on how to address variety in times of policy paradigm shift.
This paper presents an analytical framework for assessing the emergence of a new policy paradigm labelled “transformative innovation policy”, which can be seen as layered upon, but not fully replacing, earlier policy paradigms of science and technology policy and innovation systems policy. The paper establishes conceptual diversity in this emerging policy paradigm. Despite a common agenda for transformative change, there are notable differences concerning the understanding of the innovation process. Two global initiatives to promote such new innovation policies, Mission Innovation and the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, are used to illustrate how different articulations of transformative innovation policy are expressed in practice. These may be seen as a positive expression of the breadth of the emerging policy paradigm. While there are grounds for such a positive reading, this paper ends with a caution by stressing the political nature of paradigm change and the strong legacy of an economic, firm-centred and technology-oriented tradition in innovation policy. It makes a plea for more emphasis on a broader conceptualization of transformative innovation, and suggests that a socio-technical understanding of innovation provides several appropriate analytical concepts that can help to shape our thinking and understanding of transformative innovation policy.
This paper examines the initial experience of directly-elected mayors in the new combined authorities established in England. Do they have an innovative strategic leadership role for sub-national ...areas and provide a vehicle for effective public engagement, representing a new start for the hitherto faltering progress of the elected mayoral initiative? Alternatively, are the combined authority mayors just another policy failure in the uneven process of local government reform?
Central government has created the office of directly-elected mayor and local government has to live with the consequences for good or ill. This paper deals with the role of directly-elected mayors for the combined authorities, raising questions about the effective leadership of sub-national areas of England. The new mayors may require a 'boldness' to work across the boundaries of bureaucratic organizations and to engage with external partners and they enjoy some limited additional resources. Central government explicitly expects the combined authority mayor to exercise their greater powers more efficiently than traditional council leaders. Yet such mayors may lack public endorsement or any degree of active public interest and may ultimately reflect government obsession with structures rather than human agency in reforming local governance.
We show that Brazilian voters strongly sanction malfeasant mayors when presented with hypothetical scenarios but take no action when given the same information about their own mayor. Partnering with ...the State Accounts Court of Pernambuco, we conducted a field experiment during the 2016 municipal elections in which the treatment group received information about official wrongdoing by their mayor. The treatment has no effect on self-reported voting behavior after the election, yet when informing about malfeasance in the context of a vignette experiment, we are able to replicate the strong negative effect found in prior studies. We argue that voters' behavior in the abstract reflects the comparatively strong norm against corruption in Brazil. Yet on Election Day, their behavior is constrained by factors such as attitudes toward local political dynasties and the greater salience of more pressing concerns like employment and health services.
We study the consequences of populism for economic performance and the quality of bureaucracy. When voters lose trust in representative democracy, populists strategically supply unconditional policy ...commitments that are easier to monitor for voters. When in power, populists try to implement their policy commitments regardless of financial constraints and expert assessment of the feasibility of their policies, worsening government economic performance and dismantling resistance from expert bureaucrats. With novel data on more than 8,000 Italian municipalities covering more than 20 years, we estimate the effect of electing a populist mayor with a close‐election regression discontinuity design. We find that the election of a populist mayor leads to smaller repayments of debts, a larger share of procurement contracts with cost overruns, higher turnover among top bureaucrats—driven by forced rather than voluntary departures—and a sharp decrease in the percentage of postgraduate bureaucrats.
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