The American Review of Public Administration

Fairness in tax policy is a widely shared goal among scholars, policymakers, and the public, yet equity remains a contested concept. This study examines interjurisdictional equity in the context of local option taxes (LOTs), which have become an increasingly significant revenue source for local governments. While much of the existing research on LOTs focuses on competition, rate setting, and adoption, this paper considers how different dimensions of equity intersect in shaping their implementation and effects and presents an analytical framework that can be applied to understanding interjurisdictional equity more holistically. Using a North Carolina local sales tax revenue policy designed to distribute revenues more equitably, this study analyzes county-level data from 2013 to 2019 to assess the policy's impact across multiple equity measures. The findings highlight complementary and conflicting equity considerations, underscoring the need for policymakers to clearly define their equity objectives to achieve desired policy outcomes. This research contributes to a more nuanced understanding of fairness in local public finance.

Despite the growing shift towards procurement centralization among governments around the world, questions remain as to how to increase purchasing within centralized frameworks. While centralized purchasing offers many benefits related to efficiency and quality control, users often prefer more flexible options for purchasing. An unanswered question is how knowledge of user requirements and market trends leads to framework agreements that reduce the inclination for users to purchase goods and services on their own. This study employs healthcare purchasing data from 21 regions in Italy from 2013–2023 to explore how different sources of knowledge about demand and supply affect centralization rates—both in respect to asset-specific and non-asset-specific products. Fixed effects regression results indicate that knowledge of supply gleaned from integrating technical experts into procurement teams enhances centralization for a range of offerings. The influence of demand-related knowledge on centralized purchasing varies by product type, however, with interpersonal exchanges proving more effective for non-asset-specific categories and logistical support mechanisms proving more critical for asset-specific product categories. The results provide longitudinal insights into conditions that are typically studied through cross-sectional data. They also offer important implications for the many countries operating publicly provided health programs, as well as those pursuing broader reforms tied to procurement centralization.

The rule of law is foundational to Public Administration (PA), yet the field has long lacked a clear conceptualization of what the rule of law entails and, furthermore, an objective measurement system. Grounded in the “thin” conception of the rule of law and integrated within the public administration context, we propose a three-dimensional framework: Regulations, Organization, and Decision-making. We operationalize this framework as the Public Administration Rule of Law Index (PARLI), a composite measure built from three level-1 and seven level-2 indicators, using objective data to ensure replicability. We apply this index to measure the rule of law in China's 31 provinces (2020–2024) and validate it by examining its relationship with key socioeconomic outcomes. The results align with theoretical expectations: PARLI scores are positively correlated with entrepreneurship and innovation but negatively correlated with government responsiveness. These findings simultaneously confirm the measure's validity and reveal the inherent tensions in applying the rule of law within the public administration. This study makes two primary contributions. First, it provides scholars with a coherent framework to overcome knowledge fragmentation and cumulate scientific inquiry. Second, it offers a replicable and objective measurement toolkit for policy analysis.

This article investigates the effects of participation on performance assessment in government, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations that deliver public services. In addition to examining the impact of participation on public assessments of performance, we also test the perceived tradeoff between efficiency and participation, as well as the sectoral differences in the participation-performance relationship. We conducted a preregistered vignette experiment using the context of US nursing homes where various organizational information, including participation opportunities, and sector of operation (public, for-profit, and nonprofit sectors) serve as key treatment manipulations. We find that participation plays a critical role in enhancing perceptions of organizations regardless of sectors, but government organizations may obtain greater benefits by pursuing participation, especially in improving public perception of bureaucratic effectiveness and efficiency. These findings suggest that participation is not only normatively desirable, but also practically beneficial for organizations. The findings from this study contribute to advancing our knowledge on public participation, sector differences, performance management, and public values.

Abundant literature documents a range of factors that shape citizen perceptions of government. However, attention to how the justification of a policy decision shapes citizen perceptions remains limited. In this study, we consider how justifications influence citizen trust and legitimacy through a 2 × 2 × 2 pre-registered factorial survey experiment that manipulates justification strategy, policy position, and policy type. Results indicate that opposing positions reduce trust and legitimacy while the context of a highly polarized policy has the opposite effect. Emotive-based strategies decrease trust but do not affect legitimacy. Further, the effect of a supportive or opposing position varies by level of policy polarization.

This article explores transnational nonprofit action through diaspora-led nonprofit organizations in the United States (U.S.) and their funding and support of public goods and services in the home country. Diaspora communities around the world make contributions to their homelands in various ways that have impact on public governance. Specifically, diaspora members engage in philanthropic giving behaviors towards their countries of origin, including via collective and social remittances. How does this diaspora giving contribute to the provision of public goods and services in the country of origin? This research uses a multi-sited, comparative case study design that included extensive fieldwork in the U.S. and Colombia, and the transnational space between these settings. Building on theory about public governance and nonprofit organizations, the research generates and further explores empirically a framework of three sets of resources that condition transnational nonprofit action—material, relational, and institutional. Material resources illuminate how diaspora-funded projects directly support public service delivery. Relational resources capture how trust, credibility, and embedded community ties via diaspora-led organizations provide access to both networks and funding sources. Institutional resources, namely norm-setting, explain how collective and social remittances have the potential to shape expectations, standards, and practices about the nonprofit sector, philanthropic giving, and public governance more broadly.

Despite being touted as a game-changing technology, studies on the influence of body-worn cameras (BWCs) on policing outcomes have produced mixed results, with the underlying reasons for such findings unclear. Drawing on the sociology of culture and organizational theory, we argue that BWCs often have mixed impacts due to deeply ingrained, valued occupational assumptions and practices shaped by the structural and organizational context. These assumptions and practices, collectively known as the police métier, are not politically neutral and can lead to motivated decisions rather than accurate ones. We suggest that such motivated reasoning can be mitigated by changing the structural or organizational context, such as establishing a citizen oversight agency (COA), which could decrease racial disparities in policing outcomes. To test these arguments, we examined the impact of BWCs on racial disparities in two types of policing outcomes: police homicides of citizens and disorderly conduct arrests (DCAs). Our findings indicate that while the adoption of BWCs does not impact racial disparities in DCAs or police homicides of citizens, there is a significant decrease in racial disparity in DCAs when BWCs and COAs are used in conjunction. Additionally, while the racial disparity in police homicides of Blacks and Whites does not decrease when BWCs and COAs are used together, there is an overall decrease in police homicides across both racial groups. Overall, our study demonstrates that technology's impact on bureaucratic performance is influenced by occupational assumptions and practices, which can be altered by external accountability mechanisms such as COAs.

The U.S. federal government often devolves administrative processes and decision making to state and local governments. Prior studies have found that the success of decentralization and implementation depends on several mediating factors at the subnational level, such as a state's political ideology or administrative capacity. This study focuses on one mechanism—the ability of states to leverage their information advantage about the local context vis-à-vis the federal government. We are interested in whether the information advantage of state-level firearm background checks decreased the rates of intimate partner violence (IPV) involving a firearm compared to states that relied on federally administered background checks. We take advantage of data from the period of state-mandated stay-at-home (SAH) orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, a temporal context with increased IPV rates. Using a Poisson fixed effects regression, we find that rates of IPV involving a firearm did not increase when the SAH orders were in effect. However, using decision-relevant information in state-administered background checks decreased the rates of IPV resulting in injury and murder-suicide, compared to states that relied on federal background checks.

An unnoticed breakthrough has occurred over the past generation in American public administration. The top level of federal governance is no longer a man's world. It is a woman's world as well. Female leaders increasingly occupy top executive positions at the levels of presidency, cabinet and agency. This revolution, like other social upheavals of our time, has significant implications for shared power, deserved rights and effective governance.

The stereotype of Asians as a model minority suggests that they either do not experience discrimination or overcome it through higher education, hard work, and respect for authority. We test that stereotype for Asian Americans in the federal service using both Census data and surveys of federal employees. We examine (1) whether Asians attain the same pay levels and managerial authority as whites; (2) whether differences in education, experience, citizenship, and English ability explain differences in pay and authority; (3) whether those differences vary across Asian sub-groups; and (4) whether Asians are as satisfied with their jobs and the treatment they receive. We find moderate Asian-white pay differences, which varied substantially across national origin groups. Asian-white differences in access to managerial authority, however, are substantial across all national origin groups. Asians’ higher educational attainment and weaker English abilities contributed to differences in pay and authority, but unexplained disparities remained, potentially due to discrimination and/or unmeasured factors. Surprisingly, Asians expressed a stronger belief that the federal service allocates rewards fairly and were more satisfied than whites with their own developmental and advancement opportunities despite those pay and leadership disparities. They were, however, somewhat less satisfied with pay, co-workers, and supervisors.

Despite the clear benefits volunteers can bring to public service organizations, their involvement may also create or exacerbate challenges for managers in ensuring clear roles for professionals staffing such organizations. We argue that simple, strategic communication messages can clarify the relative roles of volunteers and professionals. We test this assertion with a low-cost experimental communication experiment embedded in a survey of 240 professionals employed at nursing homes in Denmark. Our results show that strategic communication to clarify volunteer roles reduces professionals’ perceived ambiguity about volunteer roles and the relative roles of volunteers and professional staff. These results are encouraging as many public service organizations seek to involve more volunteers, and managers can implement the kind of strategic communication studied in this article straightforwardly without high costs.

COVID-19 has created long-lasting yet unprecedented challenges worldwide. In addition to scientific efforts, political efforts and public administration are also crucial to contain the disease. Therefore, understanding how multi-level governance systems respond to this public health crisis is vital to combat COVID-19. This study focuses on China and applies social network analysis to illustrate interactive governance between and within levels and functions of government, confirming and extending the existing Type I and Type II definition of multi-level governance theory. We characterize four interaction patterns—vertical, inter-functional, intra-functional, and hybrid—with the dominant pattern differing across governmental functions and evolving as the pandemic progressed. Empirical results reveal that financial departments of different levels of government interact through the vertical pattern. At the same time, intra-functional interaction also exists in provincial financial departments. The supervision departments typically adopt the inter-functional pattern at all levels. At the cross-level and cross-function aspects, the hybrid interaction pattern prevails in the medical function and plays a fair part in the security, welfare, and economic function. This study is one of the first to summarize the interaction patterns in a multi-level setting, providing practical implications for which pattern should be applied to which governmental levels/functions under what pandemic condition.