MILITARY ASSISTANCE,FOREIGN POLICY,AND NATIONAL SECURITY

From the inauguration of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program (MDAP) in 1950, until its termination in the early 1960s, Norway was among the main European beneficiaries of military assistance from the United States. Previous research on this subject has mainly seen the MDAP from the perspective of the recipient, analysing what effect the influx of large amounts of equipment had for the shape and development of the Norwegian Armed Forces. This article discusses the motives for US military assistance to Norway, and analyses this activity as an expression of US Cold War objectives concerning Norway and NATO’s northern flank. The article also explores how these objectives influenced policy making relevant to military assistance, and gives particular attention to the role of US representatives in Oslo. These actors played an important role in highlighting the political and strategic benefits of extensive aid to Norway.     

THE COMPARATIVE STATIC RESPONSE OF RENTAL HOUSING TO A PRICE CHANGE: INFLATION AND GOVERNMENT POLICY*

ABSTRACT. A two period consumer choice model is presented in which housing is treated as a quality differentiated good. The short-run comparative static response of rental housing to a price change is examined via an example, an exogenous increase in the inflation rate. Two stylized facts are alternately used; interest income is taxed, and interest rate ceilings are imposed on small savings deposits. The partial equilibrium distributional impact of inflation, in the context of rental housing markets, is also discussed.     

ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND COMPETITIVE STRUCTURE: IMPLICATIONS OF THE HAZARDOUS WASTE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA) assigns the Environmental Protection Agency responsibility for protecting the public from hazards created by industrial wastes. The Agency has understandably used its mandate to construct cradle to grave regulation of waste substances that pose health hazards. The regulations, however, are likely to hike costs of legal disposal by increasing the demand for disposal sites, while at the same time reducing the supply. The higher cost of disposal may give an advantage to larger, existing firms, may deter entry of new firms to both waste generating and disposal industries, and promote illicit disposal. RCRA therefore may have the paradoxical result of increasing public exposure to hazardous wastes.     

POLICY COMMUNITIES: THE BRITISH AND EUROPEAN POLICY STYLE

It seems possible to formulate broad characterizations of the British and European policy processes in terms of the relationship between government and interest groups. There is a preferred type of machinery in Britain, reflecting normative values, which is to avoid electoral politics and public conflict in order to reach consensus or “accommodation” in the labyrinth of consultative machinery. This style is aptly labelled “bureaucratic accommodation” and is a system in which the dominant actors are groups and government departments. Departments readily recognize the “relevant” groups in a given policy area and seek to mobilize the community around agreed policies. The predilection for the avoidance of conflict seems equally apparent in other Western European nations.     

THE POLICY PROCESS AND ORGANIZATIONAL FORM

In this paper the transactions cost approach (TCA) is used to define organizations and to predict their forms under certain conditions. Next, Aaron Wildavsky's approach is used to define the policy process and to predict its form in particular organizations. Two assertions follow: namely, that the most efficient organizational form may be predicted from knowledge of underlying transactions costs, and that the form of the policy process in an organization can be predicted from knowledge of the organization's form (regardless of whether it is the most efficient form). Recent natural gas policy in the U.S.A. is used to illustrate these propositions, and several conclusions are offered about 1) the potential applicability of the TCA to the public sector and to the policy process and 2) about the potential applicability of Wildavsky's version of the policy process to differing organizational forms.     

SPECIAL INTERESTS AND THE POLICY PROCESS

Books reviewed in this article:
Jeffrey M. Berry, Feeding Hungry People: Rulemaking in the Food Stamp Program
Peter Navarro, The Policy Game: How Special Interests and Ideologues are Stealing America
Richard K. Scotch, From Good Will to Civil Rights: Transforming Federal Disability Policy
Paul Y. Watanabe, Ethnic Groups, Congress, and American Foreign Policy: The Politics of the Turkish Arms Embargo     

BEYOND THE RATIONALITY PROJECT: POLICY ANALYSIS AND THE POSTPOSITIVE CHALLENGE

Peter deLeon. 1988. Advice and Consent: The Development of the Policy Sciences
Deborah A. Stone. 1988. Policy Paradox and Political Reason
John S. Dryzek and Davis B. Bobrow. 1987. Policy Analysis by Design