Matthew Mingus | Western Michigan University (original) (raw)

Papers by Matthew Mingus

Public Administration Quarterly, 2012

As the inaugural article in the Public Administration Quarterly series on "Resilient Governa... more As the inaugural article in the Public Administration Quarterly series on "Resilient Governance," this essay argues that one key to creating resilient governance is promoting civility and discouraging incivility. Why start with civility? Many values influence the performance of public servants other than the traditional notions of efficiency and cost-effectiveness, both of which are increasingly stressed in an uncertain economic environment. The challenges to the commonweal resulting from incivility are clear. Frequently this incivility goes unchecked; it then surfaces in the form of violence. Seemingly random acts of violence can endanger any free society. For example: 1. Incivility in politics was brought to the forefront as the nation mourned in the days and weeks after the shooting spree in January 2011 by Jared Lee Loughner that killed 6 and injured 13, including the serious head injury to Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. While this incident occurred in Tucso...

Public Administration Quarterly, 2005

Borders and the nation-state model are increasingly under stress. This article demonstrates how n... more Borders and the nation-state model are increasingly under stress. This article demonstrates how networks and network structures are currently holding the nation-state model together while some as-yet-unknown future model of collective action develops. Networks are particularly useful at helping to overcome three acute problems associated with the nation state: (1) the internal clash of interests, (2) system externalities, and (3) synergy dysfunction. In keeping with a quantum, holistic view of reality, borders are best viewed as dotted lines on our maps. Another way to state this argument is that networks and network structures may now be viewed as constructs to help societies maintain the belief that national borders are still meaningful although for numerous specific policies these borders mutated or even disappeared long ago. INTRODUCTION We may distinguish certain things for the sake of convenience. The word 'distinguish' means 'to mark apart.' A distinction is m...

Citizen access to electronic government information and services continues to enjoy an expansiona... more Citizen access to electronic government information and services continues to enjoy an expansionary phase in local government. This expansionary phase holds a prominent place in service delivery strategic planning as governments address on-going operational challenges caused by increased fiscal pressures and greater accountability to the citizenry for their actions. Since the advent of the World Wide Web, in the mid 1990s, static information and interactive applications are available on government websites to facilitate information dissemination and citizen interaction. The presence of electronically delivered information and services may not address the accessibility needs of people with blindness or low vision who utilize assistive computer technology. Inaccessible websites can occur when accessibility-oriented development is absent from local government's web design process. Minimal research has been conducted to discover potential barriers preventing people with blindness or...

This new series will provide brief but lively essays for each issue of Public Administration Quar... more This new series will provide brief but lively essays for each issue of Public Administration Quarterly to generate positive dialogue on a specific value or value-related concern; thereby shedding light on challenging issues that otherwise might be overlooked. The implicit argument is that Public Servants do best if they recognize and respond to values-related issues to retain a vibrant and stable American society. At the same time the series recognizes the role of modern public servants as discrete actors within potentially complex patterns of governance, rather than assuming government can and will dictate and implement solutions. The new series intends to discuss, describe and delineate values we espouse, values we support through our actions, and how to narrow the gap between our aspirations and their realization. Value discussions may include the situation in its absence. For example, some of the first essays will respond to the challenges of incivility, inequality, and ideologi...

Many U.S. states changed election policies leading up to the November 3, 2020, general election t... more Many U.S. states changed election policies leading up to the November 3, 2020, general election to reduce the potential spread of COVID-19, and policy changes at the state level resulted in uneven access to voting options outside the polling site on the day of the election. This preliminary research examines the extent of in-person voting and other methods for voting as percentages of the overall population, separated by state, to determine if such policy changes helped reduce the spread of COVID-19. The data is correlated with the increase in the SARS-CoV-2 virus the week leading into the election compared to two weeks after the election. Political party in control of the state executive, urbanization, and the relative size of state government are also considered. While numerous court cases regarding the fairness of electoral methods were launched during the 2020 election cycle, the focus of this article is whether the percent of the population who voted in person on the day of the...

Public Administration Quarterly, 2013

Governance, culture, and societal development are intertwined because values that are compatible ... more Governance, culture, and societal development are intertwined because values that are compatible with and supported by the society and grounded in its culture are an essential aspect of good governance. Dissonance between values within and across systems may minimize the resilience of a society and thus have a deleterious effect over time. Modern China provides an example of the challenge as traditional and recently adopted values seek to coexist. A key challenge with public sector values in China is that "good government" reforms implemented since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 have promoted the Western civil service values of merit and transparency while the traditional values of guanxi and a politically-driven bureaucracy (i.e., dualism) have remained in place. While Aufrecht and Bun (1995, p. 178) define guanxi as "a network of outstanding personal favors and obligations stemming from town or regional ties, school ties, or family ties," the comple...

Administration & Society, 2016

In 1995, Robert Behn introduced American public administration to the need for common "big questi... more In 1995, Robert Behn introduced American public administration to the need for common "big questions" to become a significant academic discipline, similar to the physical sciences. Chinese civil service laws were just being promulgated then, and so the discussion that ensued in Public Administration Review and elsewhere was not particularly salient for China. The largely U.S. literature did not take an international or comparative turn, yet it later became an active conversation in the Chinese literature, which is struggling to deal with its own identity crisis and the value of its research. Developing the big questions of Chinese public management research is extremely relevant in today's environment because China is the world's second largest economy, and their civil service has had significant time to mature. Chinese researchers have recently called for the development of domestically embedded (i.e., Sinicized) big questions. This article discusses the relevance of Behn's questions on micromanagement, motivation, and measurement in the Chinese context and proposes alternate wordings of Behn's questions to make them meaningful within the Chinese cultural and institutional context (while avoiding suggestions of replacing the basic Chinese political structure). Our hope is this discussion will spark a lively debate among the relevant Chinese research community.

International Public Management Journal

International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior

Journal of Public Affairs Education

Page 1. Toward Understanding the Culture of Internet-Mediated Learning Matthew S. Mingus Western ... more Page 1. Toward Understanding the Culture of Internet-Mediated Learning Matthew S. Mingus Western Michigan University Abstract Peterson's college guide reported in 1997 that 762 educational institutions were offering cours ...

The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society: Annual Review, 2008

Shopping Cart Your Cart. Log in. Description All publishers. ...

Public Administration Quarterly, Oct 1, 2005

Disseminating public administration and management information through blind-refereed journals an... more Disseminating public administration and management information through blind-refereed journals and national/international trend studies of the demographics, education, and motivation characteristics of public and budgeting administrators.

Journal of Borderlands Studies, Sep 1, 2002

... 2 Fall 2002 Trade Concentration and Homeland Security on the Canada-United States Border Ma... more ... 2 Fall 2002 Trade Concentration and Homeland Security on the Canada-United States Border Matthew S.Mingus* Abstract; Peace, trade, and ... This concentration poses its own threat to binational economic security and will likely be worsened because the 30-point Action Plan ...

Administrative Theory & Praxis, 2008

... Copenhagen: DJØF Publishing. 2007. REVIEWED BY MATTHEW S. MINGUS, WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY... more ... Copenhagen: DJØF Publishing. 2007. REVIEWED BY MATTHEW S. MINGUS, WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY ... Perhaps not equally, but this book will convince you that the transition has taken place among public administration researchers on at least two continents. ...

Encyclopedia of Governance, 2007

European Journal of Sociology, 2007