Shifting and Shirking
Political Appointments for Contracting Out Services in Israeli Local Government
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6403965 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rotem Bresler-Gonen (The University of Haifa, Israel), Keith Dowding (0000-0001-6888-9369, Australian National University, Canberra) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 807-831 |
| Publication date | 2009-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Urban Affairs Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1078-0874 • E-ISSN: 1552-8332 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1078087408328050 |
| OpenAlex | W2162687921 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 48 |
Principal—agent models in public administration concentrate upon policy drift—when agencies allow policy to drift away from the bliss point of executive politicians. We distinguish two types of policy drift: policy shifting and agent shirking. The first occurs when agents' political bliss points are located differently from those of their principals. The second occurs when agents do not competently carry out their principals' wishes. One response to policy shift is to appoint agents who share the bliss point of the principal, allowing the reduction of costly monitoring. Through 10 cases in three Israeli cities where political appointments were made to push through structural changes to contract out services, we show that political appointees are less effective than career bureaucrats, so that solving shifting often increases shirking, especially when monitoring is reduced. The agency problems thus created were only solved by increasing monitoring and returning to career civil servants
Administration (probate law · Agency (philosophy · BLISS · Civil servants · Corporate governance · Economics · Law and economics · Point (geometry · Political science · Politics · Principal (computer security · Principal–agent problem · Sociology · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Public Administration · Public Policy and Administration Research · Public-Private Partnership Projects · Finance
Polycentricity and Local Public Economies
The Political Economy of Public Administration
The New Public Management in Action
Inside Bureaucracy
Deliberate Discretion?
Delegating Powers
Moral Hazard and Observability
Do Public Sector Reforms Get Rusty? Local Privatization in Spain
Who Controls the Bureaucracy?
Reinventing Government
Choosing Strategies to Control the Bureaucracy
Learning From Oversight
The New Management of British Local Governance
Contracting out by Urban Governments
Production Choices for Local Government Services
Thinking the Unthinkable in Public Administration
The determinants of the choice between public and private production of a publicly funded service
Factors Influencing the Privatisation of Urban Solid Waste Collection in Spain
Municipal Unions and Privatization
Local government in Israel
The Determinants of Variations in Local Service Contracting
Factors Important in Local Governments' Privatization Decisions
Examining Local Government Service Delivery Arrangements Over Time
Municipal Service Provision Choices within a Metropolitan Area
Testing Pendleton's Premise
The Institutional Structure of Local Government Services
Managing the Public Service Market
Building Bridges or Burning Them? The President, the Appointees, and the Bureaucracy
Deference or Preference
The Principal's Moral Hazard
Exploring and Explaining Contracting Out
Municipal Reinvention
Amateur Government
Back to the Future? Senior Federal Executives in the United States
Civil Servants and Policymakers
Politicians, Bureaucrats, and Asymmetric Information
The Political Control of Bureaucracies under Asymmetric Information
A Theory of Political Control and Agency Discretion
Congressional Oversight Overlooked
Bureaucratic Capacity, Delegation, and Political Reform
The Dynamics of Political Control of the Bureaucracy
Control and Feedback in Economic Regulation
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,5 |
| Citation span | 2014 - 2025 (12) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |