How Institutional Culture Trumps Tier Effects: Evidence from Government Responsiveness to FOI Requests
How Institutional Culture Trumps Tier Effects: Evidence from Government Responsiveness to FOI Requests
复制标题
制度文化如何战胜层级效应：来自政府对信息自由请求的响应的证据
DOI：
10.1093/jopart/muy039
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发表时间：
2018
影响因子：
4.2
通讯作者：
E. G. Poole
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
E. G. Poole
权力下放可以改善政府的问责制和反应能力的主张导致它在全球范围内被采纳为一项政策目标。但最近的经验研究发现，在实践中几乎没有证据表明“层级效应”；相反，即使在最相似的机构之间也存在显著差异。认识到FOI在促进大规模数据收集方面的价值，以及英国机构的多样性提供了层间和层内差异的重要来源，我通过向812个具有执行职能的英国公共机构发送两个独立的FOI请求，编制了一个大型新数据集。我认为，不同的英国领土在及时性和质量方面存在显著差异，不同的基本动机有助于解释面向透明度的改革所建立的机构与旨在解决冲突的机构之间的反应模式。缺乏证据表明，较低级别的政府通常反应更灵敏，这再次证明了最近对关于权力下放的更基本主张的挑战，即知情的学术辩论和实际做法。
Claims that decentralization could improve government accountability and responsiveness led to its adoption as a policy objective across the globe. But recent empirical work finds little evidence of ‘tier effects’ in practice; instead, significant variation exists even between most-similar bodies. Recognizing the value of FOI in facilitating large-scale data collection, and that the UK’s institutional diversity offers an important source of between- and within-tier variation, I compile a large new dataset by emailing two separate FOI requests to 812 UK public bodies with an executive function. Identifying significant variation in timeliness and quality between UK territories, I argue that differing foundational motives can help explain patterns of responsiveness between institutions established by transparency-facing reforms and those designed to resolve conflict. A lack of evidence that by lower-tier governments are generally more responsive reaffirms the recent challenges to the more fundamental claims about decentralization that informed academic debate and real-world practice.