Mass Administrative Reorganization, Media Attention, and the Paradox of Information

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bertelli, Anthony M.; Sinclair, J. Andrew
• 署名单位: New York University; New York University; New York University
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3352
• DOI: 10.1111/puar.12396
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 855-866
• 关键词: POLITICAL CONTROL; issue ownership; POLICY; bureaucracies; constraints; performance; agencies; DESIGN; quango; MODEL

摘要

How does media attention influence government decisions about whether to terminate independent administrative agencies? The authors argue that an agency's salience with partisan audiences has a direct effect, but a high media profile can disrupt normal government monitoring processes and obfuscate termination decisions. This argument is evaluated in the context of a recent mass administrative reorganization by the British coalition government using probit and heteroscedastic probit regression models. The evidence suggests that termination is less likely for agencies salient in newspapers popular with the government's core supporters but not those read by its minority coalition partner. We also find that agencies with greater overall newspaper salience as well as younger agencies have a higher error variance.