Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Institutions or Culture or Both? A Comparative Study of Government Performance

政治学博士论文研究：制度还是文化，还是两者兼而有之？

• 批准号: 0317802
• 负责人: Brainard Peters
• 金额: $ 0.94万
• 依托单位: University of Pittsburgh
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-07-01 至 2004-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0317802&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Political; Science

Why some governments perform better than others has been a core question in political science for decades, but it has lately taken on debate characteristics. One line of argument holds that variables exogenous to government -civic culture or social capital-explain differential performance. Another line contends that there is, at best, a minimal link between social capital and government performance and that research should concentrate on institutional analyses and focus on variables endogenous to governments. This project intends to achieve theoretical reconciliation between currently competing explanations to one of the most enduring puzzles of the discipline of political science. These competing explanations arise from different research traditions and different conceptualizations of government performance. Therefore, the project has two objectives. The first is to clarify the concept and improve measurement of government performance by defining it on two equally important dimensions: administrative effectiveness and policy responsiveness. The second objective is to explain variance along both dimensions, arguing that administrative effectiveness is mainly associated with endogenous or institutional variables, and policy responsiveness is more closely associated with exogenous or societal variables. The project uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods with data from local governments of two federal systems: the U.S. and Germany. Such a case selection serves two purposes: 1) it provides a sample of cases large enough in order to perform statistical analyses and reveal general patterns of relationships, 2) it allows for cross-national verification of the results avoiding the fallacy of deriving general conclusions from the idiosyncrasies of a single national context. Thus, the level of analysis is within system, the results are verified across systems. The research methods employed include statistical analysis of the available data, elite interviewing for gathering original data, as well as analysis of available documentation. Factor analysis of data on the commonly used indicators of government performance is used to empirically determine the dimensionality of the government performance measure. Regression analysis helps to determine the general patterns of relationships with societal and institutional variables. The data for these two types of analyses is compiled from the local government data sets of the U.S. Census Bureau and German Association of Cities, surveys of city governments, the Government Performance Project and German Association of Cities), mass surveys (Putnam's Bowling Alone dataset and German Social Survey) and coding from the available documentation, such as the municipal codes of the U.S. cities and from German local government constitutions. The quantitative analyses are complemented by comparative case studies of four selected cities from each country in order to validate the results and illuminate the processes by which the various societal and institutional variables influence different aspects of government performance. The project's intellectual merit is both theoretical and practical. The project refines one of the most enduring puzzles within the discipline - the determinants of government performance. In addition it contributes to the growing intellectual debate on the effects of social capital. Finally, in order to improve governance, it is necessary to accurately measure government performance and this project will serve as a guidance tool for assessing and improving the performance of specific governments.

几十年来，为什么一些政府的表现好于其他政府，一直是政治学的一个核心问题，但最近它呈现出了辩论的特点。一种观点认为，政府的外生变量--公民文化或社会资本--可以解释不同的绩效。另一种观点认为，社会资本和政府绩效之间充其量只能有最低限度的联系，研究应该集中在制度分析上，并关注政府的内生变量。这个项目旨在实现目前对政治学学科中最持久的谜题之一的相互竞争的解释之间的理论上的和解。这些相互矛盾的解释源于不同的研究传统和对政府绩效的不同概念化。因此，该项目有两个目标。第一是澄清政府绩效的概念，并将其界定为两个同样重要的维度：行政效率和政策响应性，从而改进政府绩效的衡量。第二个目标是解释这两个维度的差异，认为行政效率主要与内生变量或制度变量有关，而政策响应性与外生变量或社会变量更密切相关。该项目使用了定量和定性研究相结合的方法，数据来自两个联邦系统的地方政府：美国和德国。这种案例选择有两个目的：1)它提供一个足够大的案例样本，以便进行统计分析并揭示关系的一般模式；2)它允许对结果进行跨国核查，避免从单一国家背景的特点得出一般结论的谬误。因此，分析的级别在系统内，结果在系统之间进行验证。所采用的研究方法包括对可用数据的统计分析、收集原始数据的精英访谈以及可用文献的分析。通过对常用政府绩效指标数据的因子分析，实证确定了政府绩效衡量的维度。回归分析有助于确定与社会和机构变量之间关系的一般模式。这两类分析的数据来自美国人口普查局和德国城市协会的地方政府数据集、市政府调查、政府绩效项目和德国城市协会)、大规模调查(普特南单独的保龄球数据集和德国社会调查)，以及来自现有文档的编码，例如美国城市的市政代码和德国地方政府宪法。定量分析辅之以每个国家选定的四个城市的比较案例研究，以验证结果并阐明各种社会和体制变量影响政府绩效不同方面的过程。该项目的智力价值既有理论上的，也有实践上的。该项目解决了该学科中最经久不衰的难题之一--政府绩效的决定因素。此外，它还助长了关于社会资本影响的日益激烈的智力辩论。最后，为了改善治理，有必要准确衡量政府绩效，该项目将作为评估和改进具体政府绩效的指导工具。