Itai Beeri | University of Haifa (original) (raw)

Papers by Itai Beeri

Can professional low-level bureaucrats who implement policy act as policy entrepreneurs and affec... more Can professional low-level bureaucrats who implement policy act as policy entrepreneurs and affect policy design? Does the transition from traditional, hierarchical administrations to local governance systems play a role in enabling policy entrepreneurship among such low-level bureaucrats? We explore these questions using the case study of waste separation in Israeli local authorities. We maintain that the attributes of local gov-ernance can explain their success in affecting policy. Our findings demonstrate how low-level bureaucrats who act as policy entrepreneurs use the structural characteristics of governance as a window of opportunity for reform. When the mode of governance is more lateral and less traditional, these bureaucrats have a better chance of acting as policy entrepreneurs.

This research examines local authority involvement in education as a function of local policymake... more This research examines local authority involvement in education as a function of local policymakers' perceptions of education as a public servicenamely, whether public education is for the benefit of society as a whole, or for individual students and parents. Perceptions of education and involvement in education were assessed through 107 questionnaires returned by mayors and heads of local education departments in Israel. The results show that (1) local policymakers tend to perceive public education as a general public service, and (2) the relationship between this perception and involvement in education varies with the locality's centre-periphery status. In peripheral localities, perceiving education as a general public service and an understanding of 'society' as the local community leads to greater involvement in education. In central localities, involvement rose with a more individualised perception. Implications of the findings are discussed in line with viewing education in the spirit of new localism.

The recent economic slowdown has revealed weaknesses in existing fiscal arrangements and led to t... more The recent economic slowdown has revealed weaknesses in existing fiscal arrangements and led to the reintroduction of enforcement mechanisms on local authorities within the OECD. One extreme intervention approach for municipalities in financial distress includes neutralization of the elected local leadership and its replacement with a convened committee. Yet how effective are such enforcement methods in the stabilization of local authorities? We present, for the first time, a complete empirical examination of how neutralization affects the financial performance of failing local authorities, as measured by municipal spending, revenue and fiscal balance. We apply the difference-indifferences methodology using data on 77 Israeli municipalities during 2000–2011 to answer this question. We find a sizeable effect of convened committees on the financial performance of local authorities, including an 11% reduction in municipal labor costs, a 6% reduction in current deficits and a 40% reduction in municipal debt. We also find some evidence for an increase in local tax collection. The fall in debt is partly due to an increase in targeted government transfers and may reflect increased political trust. We discuss the results in light of possible tensions between the neutralization approach and local democracy and conclude that while convened committees improve the financial performance of local authorities, they should be reserved for extreme municipal crises.

This study empirically examines relationships between conceptions of political corruption, percei... more This study empirically examines relationships between conceptions of political corruption, perceived levels of corruption, and political participation among members of the public. Based on a field study of 298 Israelis, we show that the effects of perceived levels of corruption on participation are significantly influenced by how citizens conceptualize corruption. The public's conceptions of corruption influence whether and how they will participate. The findings provide strong evidence that while the perceived extent of political corruption is a powerful determinant of participation, the public's conception of corruption must not be overlooked. Rather, both factors should be considered as important indicators of participation.

The past two decades have witnessed a burgeoning of scholarship on perceptions of political corru... more The past two decades have witnessed a burgeoning of scholarship on perceptions of political corruption and their determinants. Yet despite recent advances in understanding these perceptions and their importance to political life, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the question of how the public understands political corruption. We address this gap by reconstructing the conventional conception of political corruption and by presenting a new empirical tool designed to measure the conceptualizations and conceptions of political corruption held by a given population. We present preliminary findings and explore the relevance of the new tool for elucidating the public's understanding of political corruption.

New Localism has attracted growing interest among both researchers and practitioners who deal wit... more New Localism has attracted growing interest among both researchers and practitioners who deal with local governance. Although most research on the subject has emphasized institutional and national points of view, this study aims to elucidate public opinion toward a governmental policy that for some fundamentally contradicts and for others goes hand in hand with the principles of New Localism: namely, an end-case scenario under which the central government neutralizes failing local authorities. Following Ford's (Ford, Richard T., 1999, Law's territory (A history of jurisdiction), Michigan Law Review 97:843–930) pioneering work " Law's Territory (A History of Jurisdiction), " we suggest a model that predicts the members of the public, based on individual-and community-level characteristics, who are likely to support the neutralization approach and further test the model using a field study of 1,321 residents of Israeli local authorities. Our analyses identified two individual-level factors (satisfaction with local services and social trust) and three community-level characteristics (socioeconomic status, ethnic majority versus minority population, and previous history of neutralization) that influence whether individuals are likely to support or oppose the neutralization approach. Implications of the findings are developed and discussed.

Over recent decades, nations worldwide have been struggling with public finance difficulties and ... more Over recent decades, nations worldwide have been struggling with public finance difficulties and other organizational and functional challenges that, inter alia, led to the EU Fiscal Stability Treaty in 2012. Under various reforms, poor-performing local authorities are subject to continuous pressure to employ turnaround management strategies – strategies borrowed from the private sector that are assumed to be effective in public-sector contexts. Based on insights from institutional theory, we argue not only that turnaround management strategies have been either poorly matched to the causes of failure in the government sector or poorly implemented, but that turnaround management strategies will almost always tend to fail in the public context. Based on survey data collected in local authorities, we empirically verify this argument. Theoretical and practical lessons for improving reforms in the government sector and other public organizations that face crisis are suggested.

Revue Internationale des Sciences Administratives, 2012

Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09540962 2013 763433, Jan 21, 2013

ABSTRACT The recent economic slowdown has revealed major weaknesses in existing fiscal arrangemen... more ABSTRACT The recent economic slowdown has revealed major weaknesses in existing fiscal arrangements in local authorities, resulting in the introduction of stronger enforcement mechanisms in a number of OECD countries. This article describes an extreme intervention approach—the neutralization of the elected local leadership and its replacement with a convened committee (CC), in Israeli local authorities. The performance of local authorities headed by CCs was significantly improved with only a temporary loss of democracy. The Israeli approach could be an option for countries dealing with failing local administrations.

This paper deals with Turnaround Management Strategies in failing local authorities. The paper su... more This paper deals with Turnaround Management Strategies in failing local authorities. The paper suggests that while the New Public Management reform resulted in some achievements, some public organizations are persistently failing. Although there is no clear-cut distinction between failing and good performing public organizations, the paper points out some of their characteristics. The Paper analyzes the efforts to recover English local authorities made by the Audit Commission. These efforts included persistent measurement, inspection, and supervision directed toward local authorities' performance improvement. The paper concludes that despite the efforts the success was partial due to two main reasons: first, the lack of experience and grounded knowledge and second, the use of inappropriate strategies.

Lex localis - Journal of Local Self Government, 2013

Public Money & Management, 2013

International Review of Administrative Sciences, 2012

ABSTRACT The use of Turnaround Management Strategies (TMS) in public administration has received ... more ABSTRACT The use of Turnaround Management Strategies (TMS) in public administration has received growing interest among both researchers and practitioners who deal with public performance. However, our theoretical and empirical knowledge about TMS suffers from significant lacunae. This research presents results from a unique empirical survey that tests the effect of TMS on group-level Organizational Citizenship Behavior. One hundred and twenty-six senior leaders of English local authorities participated in the study. The findings show that local authorities that implemented repositioning and reorganization at the organizational level to a high extent experienced high levels of group-level Organizational Citizenship Behavior, while high implementation of reorganization at the personnel level was linked to low group-level Organizational Citizenship Behavior. Group-level Organizational Citizenship Behavior was indifferent to retrenchment strategies. Implications and suggestions for future studies are discussed.

Public Management Review, 2013

ABSTRACT Despite growing preoccupation on the part of both the public and researchers with the co... more ABSTRACT Despite growing preoccupation on the part of both the public and researchers with the concept of political corruption and the ‘corruption eruption’ phenomenon, research studies addressing corruption in local government are few and far between. This exploratory research offers a theoretical conceptualization of institutionalized corruption in local government, and identifies structural factors that lead to such corruption. Further, this study empirically assesses institutional corruption at the local level and its correlation to attitudes and characteristics of local authorities and their populations, based on a survey of 1,709 residents of 156 local authorities in Israel and data on the local authorities from a separate database. This article proposes a model according to which local corruption arises from structural factors at three levels: the central–local level (relations between local authorities and the central government); the local–local level (competition between local authorities) and the intra-local level (factors relating to the performance of local councils and local democracy). Our analyses reveal correlations among characteristics of the local authority and community, residents' perceptions of local performance and perceptions of local corruption. Implications of the findings in light of strategies conventionally employed against corruption in local government are discussed.

Local Government Studies, 2012

In the past four decades, UK government policymakers have sought to improve the performance of lo... more In the past four decades, UK government policymakers have sought to improve the performance of local government by trying to achieve organisational turnaround and bring laggards up to the standards achieved by the leaders. Both the Conservative Party and New Labour led new public management reforms aimed at modernizing and improving local government authorities by adopting standards from the private

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 2012

Using a well-grounded theory of organizational citizenship behavior, this study attempts to exten... more Using a well-grounded theory of organizational citizenship behavior, this study attempts to extend the meaning of the good soldier syndrome beyond its common boundaries of the business sector. We follow conceptualization and model of changeoriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) to explain why and how public employees engage in activities targeted at changing and improving the public work environment and its job processes even when no formal rewards are offered in return. We extend Bettencourt's model and demonstrate its usefulness and contribution to public administration organizations, focusing especially on leadership behavior, leader-member exchange relations, and perceptions of organizational politics in public agencies. A field study of 217 public personnel in a large public health care organization yields interesting findings, demonstrating the uniqueness of change-oriented OCB over classical OCB measures (individual and organizational), the general positive effect of leadership on OCB and the moderating effect of perceptions of politics in this relationship. Implications of the findings are developed and discussed in the context of modern public administration.

Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2014

Journal of Business Ethics, 2013

Ethics in public administration has been a subject of growing interest for both researchers and p... more Ethics in public administration has been a subject of growing interest for both researchers and practitioners interested in the future of governance. This study examined the relationship between ethics and performance in local governance. We tested the effects over time of an ethics program on employees' perceptions (awareness of the code of ethics, ethical leadership, inclusion of employees in ethical decision making [EDM], ethical climate [EC], organizational commitment, and quality of work life [QWL]) and behavior (organizational citizenship behavior) in one Israeli regional council. We conducted a longitudinal study of 108 employees, using data from a two-phase survey (before implementation of the ethics program and a year after) and objective assessments of employees' behavior through managers' evaluations. The main findings show that the ethics program was very effective, resulting in greater awareness of the code of ethics, increased inclusion of employees in EDM, and an improved EC. Furthermore, ethical leadership was positively related to employees' awareness of the code of ethics, increased inclusion of employees in EDM, an improvement in the EC, greater organizational commitment, and higher QWL. Implications and suggestions for future studies are discussed.