The police are required to establish probable cause before engaging in custodial interrogation. Much custodial interrogation relies on a fraudulent epistemic environment (FEE) in which the police knowingly use deception and dishonesty to gain an advantage over a suspect regarding a material issue, injuring the interests of the suspect. Probable cause, then, is a sort of evidentiary and epistemic standard that legally justifies the police’s use of deceptive and dishonest custodial interrogation tactics that are on par with fraud. However, there are both deontological and consequentialist considerations that show why the police’s use of an FEE is often unjustified. Accordingly, the paper argues that even if the use of an FEE is based on probable cause, there are other (non-epistemic) reasons to think evidence with probative value (such as a confession) should be excluded when derived from an FEE and there is no acute threat of harm to others.

Policymakers around the world are increasingly regulating creators’ (copy)rights in their work. This includes economic rights and moral rights. While the former type of rights is recognized and protected in most jurisdictions, the approach to the latter – moral rights – differs. How allocation and protection of copyrights affects creators’ choices depends on their preferences. Yet, creators’ preferences are almost not researched empirically. This paper uses a conjoint experiment, applied for the first time in this context, on representative samples in the UK (general population and professionals) and the USA (professionals) designed to reveal people’s preferences with respect to different rights derived from copyrights laws. We find that moral rights are valued more than economic rights, yet participants were willing to trade this right. Such findings might suggest reconsidering existing regulations in particularly with regards to the question of whether the right of attribution can and should be “traded”.

Monetary sanctions in law enforcement, including fines, forfeitures, and related fees, are susceptible to exploitation by agencies for self-serving profit motives. However, a key challenge in addressing this issue is disentangling the agencies’ profit-driven motives from their genuine commitment to upholding law and order. Against this backdrop, this study examines a novel policy design proposal: redirecting revenues from law enforcement to fund local nonprofits. This approach seeks to eliminate conflicts of interest without restricting the use of monetary sanctions as a tool for law enforcement, while simultaneously channeling revenues toward community benefits. Experimental evidence based on a representative sample of US adults (n = 1,030) further highlights this approach’s potential to improve public perceptions of, and attitudes toward, law enforcement agencies. The study concludes by discussing the broader implications of this proposal for the political economy of law enforcement, as well as key considerations and potential challenges for its implementation.

Territorial restructuring through amalgamating local authorities has figured prominently on the agendas of European governments for many decades. Precisely where and when restructuring occurs is poorly understood, although it is broadly assumed to be initiated in response to fiscal stress, urbanization, and functional decentralization. Using a large-N approach with a 30-year time series for 39 European countries, this article demonstrates that associations between these problems and territorial restructuring depend on institutional decision rules, specifically whether the power to decide on local government amalgamations is centralized or dispersed. The findings indicate that policymakers at the local level are particularly attentive to demographic problems, whereas policymakers at the central level pay more attention to problems related to policy delivery. We outline theoretical and practical implications.

The influx of foreign capital into cities in developing countries creates new labor demands, triggering significant internal migration as workers move for opportunities. But this mobilization creates a management problem for local governments. How do local officials manage competing interests in developing their labor market while preventing governance problems from excessive demand on public resources? Using the highly institutionalized case of China, I argue that local governments encourage long-term migration of “desirable” migrants by integrating them into social services while keeping others out. Variation in locally invested FDI skill dependence drives variation in inclusivity towards internal migrants. Policies that facilitate the integration of internal migrants into local urban welfare systems correlate with investment in firms with greater dependence on high-skilled workers, especially when investment flows to firms established more than one year previously. These trends are strongest in eastern municipalities where market forces play a larger role in local development policies.

Government outsourcing has become increasingly prevalent, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of the factors that drive success and maximize public value. This study introduces a novel framework for classifying outsourcing arrangements and examines its implications for performance management through a multidisciplinary lens. We identify thematic patterns and highlight the four quadrants of Government Outsourcing Performance Management: Building, Plumbing, Consulting, and Coaching. Each quadrant represents different roles of outsourcing agencies, emphasizing factors like accountability and relationship intensity as critical success differentiators. Our research outlines an adaptive performance management system tailored to these relationships, illustrated through case studies. This innovative approach equips policymakers and public administrators with a robust tool to optimize outsourcing strategies and enhance public value delivery. By offering fresh insights into the complex dynamics of government outsourcing, this paper contributes to both theoretical discourse and practical applications in public administration and management.

A neglected dimension of housing policy is how municipalities use it as a gatekeeping mechanism to exclude vulnerable groups and thereby control their territory. To examine this topic, we apply a systematic review that draws on the international academic literature and utilizes three bibliometric analyses. First, statistical analysis reveals the field’s growth and how it is characterized by publications often combining an impressive set of data and methods. Second, the material is explored through network analysis, emphasizing how a few important journals lead the distribution of knowledge. Finally, a thematic analysis highlights consistency in the detrimental effects of exclusionary policies across different contexts. A distinction between planned excluding practices and policies with such unintended effects are also evident. The analysis underscores the conflict between individual responsibilities and societal obligations, where current policies tend to place substantial burdens on the individual.

The impact of fiscal decentralization on energy intensity has been a long-standing subject of interest and debate. However, to date, there has been a notable absence of studies delving into the effects of fiscal decentralization on energy intensity from the vantage point of tax sharing. This investigation explores the effects of China’s value-added tax (VAT) revenue-sharing reform on energy intensity using prefecture-level city data from 2006 to 2020. Results show a correlation between an increased proportion of VAT revenue sharing and higher regional energy intensity. Heightened competition among local governments amplifies this impact, while environmental regulations and technological innovation mitigate it. Our findings contribute to a more scientifically grounded formulation of the revenue-sharing ratio between central and local governments, aiming to reduce local energy intensity.

This study examines the impact of COVID-19-induced policy environments on civil servants’ public service motivation (PSM), a topic not yet adequately researched. Using a vignette survey experiment, we investigate how four types of COVID-19 policy environment information – 1) total deduction of annual leave compensation, 2) a significant increase in working hours, 3) positive assessments of government responses from domestic audiences, and 4) positive assessments of government responses from other advanced democracies – shape civil servants’ PSM during the pandemic. We analyze original data from over 4,000 South Korean civil servants in central and local governments, gathered as part of a representative survey. Results show that reducing compensation to prepare the disaster relief fund has a negative impact, whereas recognition by advanced democracies has a positive impact on PSM. Our analysis suggests the importance of policy environments in both motivating and demotivating civil servants during a pandemic crisis.

We conduct a survey experiment testing the causal link between ethical justifications and acceptability towards two environmental policies: conservation area expansion and wildlife infrastructure. In a 2 × 3 experiment with American participants (n = 1604), we test two ethical justifications – anthropocentric justification (nature as instrumentally valuable) and a non-anthropocentric justification (nature as intrinsically valuable) compared to a control group. We find partial support that non-anthropocentric justification increases policy acceptability compared to no justification. Contrary to expectations, non-anthropocentric justification leads to higher policy acceptability than anthropocentric justification. These results are robust to individual differences in political orientation and environmental concern. Additionally, participants in the non-anthropocentric experimental condition respond that similar conservation policies generally are, and should be, passed to benefit wildlife and ecosystems compared to control group participants. Likewise, participants given the anthropocentric justification report that similar policies are, and should be, passed for humans and society compared to the control group.

Based on monthly panel data from 2014 to 2020 and employing the staggered difference-in-differences (staggered DID) method, we examine the impact of environmental vertical management reform on data manipulation in the public sector. We reveal that environmental vertical management reform significantly reduces data manipulation in the public sector. Moderating effect analysis shows that economic growth targets weaken the inhibitory impact of this reform. Conversely, public environmental concerns could enhance the inhibitory impact of this reform on data manipulation. Mechanism analysis reveals that environmental vertical management reform works through strengthening grassroots environmental law enforcement. The increased independence of law-enforcing departments has reduced the tendency of local governments to engage in data manipulation.