When harsh cuts were introduced in the Swedish welfare state in an agreement between the centre-right government and the opposition Social Democrats in 1992, there were astonishingly few disagreements between the political parties as to which social groups should carry the burdens of the cuts. The conventional wisdom on welfare state retrenchment would lead us to expect a clash of interests, es...

In many cases, politicians and government officials are forbidden by law to accept monetary donations from interest groups or other outside parties as these monetary transfers are thought to cause social inefficiencies. The empirical literature supports this view as it finds a negative link between corruption (secret payments to government officials) and growth. However, banning monetary transf...

The Vernal Pool Mapping and Assessment Program (VPMAP) was initiated in 2007 to create a vernal pool database as a planning tool to foster local compliance with new state vernal pool regulations. In the northeastern United States, vernal pools are seasonal wetlands that provide critical breeding habitat for a number of amphibians and invertebrates and provide important resting and foraging habi...

State officials responsible for the regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations used in the production of oil and gas resources will inevitably confront a key policy issue; that is, to what extent can statewide regulations be developed without reducing land use autonomy typically exercised by local officials? Most state regulators have historically recognized the economic importanc...

We are interested in event-driven news, defined as coverage of activities that are, at least at their initial occurrence, spontaneous and unmanaged by officials within institutional settings. Most news most of the time has its origins in official proceedings and pronouncements. That may be changing. We want to know if event-driven news stories, facilitated by technological advancements such as ...

The media play an important role in connecting citizens to government officials. Much of what citizens learn about environmental policy making and implementation is learned through media coverage of government actions. We have evidence to suggest that the media can influence citizens' perceptions of government, but we know less about the media's dependence on govemment. This paper is meant to e...

The history of sport referees, judges, and officials, began with the first Olympic Games in the Antiquity. The Hellanodikai, the judges of the Greeks, had many roles including; selecting the athletes, supervising their training, coordinating the drawing lots, refereeing the competitions and judging and deciding on sanctions if it was required (Bagnall, Brodersen, Champion, Erskine, & Huebner, 2...