Public Opinion and American Federalism: Perspectives on Taxes, Spending, and Trust--An ACIR Update

Cole, Richard L.; Kincaid, John

doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.pubjof.a030060

Cited by 49 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…How and why citizens are unable connect benefits and taxes at the state and local level is an intriguing question that calls for additional research. Further investigations into these questions also may help shed light on what is driving the declining share of people who believe that the federal government provides them a good value for their tax dollars (Cole and Kincaid 2000).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Work on attitudes toward intergovernmental relations and fiscal federalism based on surveys by the US Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) has shown declining levels of support for the federal government and increasing levels of support for state and local government since the 1970s (Cole and Kincaid 2000). While in the early 1970s, the largest share of respondents believed that the federal government provided citizens the most for their money, recent surveys show that more citizens now believe that local and state government do (Cole and Kincaid 2006).…”

Section: Attitudes Toward Taxesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Cole and Kincaid find, though, that there are partisan differences in views of which level of government provides the most for their money. Republicans are the most likely to view local and state government as providing the best value, followed by Independents and then Democrats (Cole and Kincaid 2000).…”

Section: Political Valuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Confidence, Perception, and Politics in California: The Determinants of Attitudes toward Taxes by Level of Government

Wallsten¹,

Park²

2015

CJPP

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California faced a tremendous fiscal challenge in the wake of the 2008 recession. With high political hurdles to raising taxes, the state and local governments were forced to appeal directly to voters through ballot initiatives. Debates over these ballot initiatives, however, took place against the backdrop of increasingly acrimonious disagreements about taxation at the federal level. Unfortunately, researchers have little idea about how the dynamics of public opinion on tax issues operate across these various levels of government. This article asks: do the factors that shape attitudes towards taxation in California vary depending on the level of government levying those taxes? Analyzing results from a 2012 poll, this article finds some differences and some commonalities in the determinants of tax attitudes at the federal, state, and local level. More specifically, we find that: (1) attitudes toward taxes are more politicized at the federal level than at the state or local level; (2) confidence in government has a strong effect on tax attitudes but citizens draw clear distinctions between levels of government; (3) perceived self-interest does not influence tax attitudes at any level; and (4) there is a gender gap in attitudes toward taxation at the federal, state, and local levels.2

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Attitudes Toward Taxesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Confidence, Perception, and Politics in California: The Determinants of Attitudes toward Taxes by Level of Government

Wallsten¹,

Park²

2015

CJPP

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“…Moreover, it is related to our food risk index, thus, making it a necessary control to ensure that our findings are not spurious. In recent decades, trust has been highest at more localized levels of government and lowest at the federal level (Cole & Kincaid, ; Kincaid & Cole, 2008). Citizens distrustful of the federal government have tended to support policy decentralization (Hetherington & Nugent, ).…”

Section: Controls For Alternative Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fearing Food: The Influence of Risk Perceptions on Public Preferences for Uniform and Centralized Risk Regulation

Maestas¹,

Chattopadhyay²,

Leland³

et al. 2018

Policy Studies Journal

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Public opinion features prominently in policy research because it sets bounds on the definition of policy problems and acceptable policy solutions. We contend that public opinion is also important for setting bounds on the level of government at which policy hazards are regulated by shaping preferences for uniformity of regulation and, relatedly, preferences for centralization. We offer a theoretical argument for why risk creates pressures for uniform standards and examine the extent to which preferences for uniformity and centralization are the product of fairly stable individual-level predispositions (e.g. partisanship and ideology) versus more fluid attitudes like perceptions of risk, which vary in response to crises, new information, and issue framing. We test our argument using survey data in the policy domain of food safety and find that individuals who anticipate greater risk from food-borne illness prefer more uniform food safety regulation, which translates into preferences for federal-level policymaking. Our results imply that contextual circumstances and strategic communications that influence risk perceptions can create not only generalized public demand for more regulatory policy but specific demand for uniform, centralized regulation.

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“…In countries with electoral democracies such as the US and Japan, citizens tend to have more trust in the local bureaus than in the central government (Cole & Kincaid, 2000). The reason behind this paradox of distance is that democratic elections help build a stronger relationship between local bureaus and their voters, which reinforces the public trust (Panagopoulos & Weinschenk, 2015).…”

Section: Hierarchical Trustmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the implementation gap of China’s urban pension scheme at the level of rural-urban migrant workers

Wang¹

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China has recently undergone extensive reforms in its basic urban old-age pension policy, which intends to benefit all urban workers, including internal rural-to-urban migrant workers. In 2011, the Social Security Law, the first comprehensive law of China attempting to remedy social inequality, came into force. China has established pension schemes for both rural and urban workers.All workers employed in urban regions are entitled to the urban pension scheme, which offers pension benefits based on the cost of living in cities. However, implementation of the system and loopholes in the legislation have resulted in very low participation by migrant workers in the basic urban old-age pension scheme. As of the end of 2013, the migrant worker coverage rate of the oldage pension scheme remained less than 20% (NBS, 2014a). This gives rise to the following question: What implementation gaps hinder migrant workers from taking up this old-age scheme?Implementation gaps may occur throughout the entire policy implementation process, in which stakeholders at all levels (including policy makers, bureaucrats and recipients) play a role in the success of the policy. This thesis examined the implementation gap in the urban pension scheme at the bottom level, where rural-urban migrant workers constitute the potential recipients.Conceptualised using Mazmanian and Sabatier's (1983) implementation theory and the theory of bounded rationality, the study focused on factors that influenced migrant workers' intentions to join the urban old-age pension scheme and their perceptions of taking up the scheme.The research adopted a mixed-method approach with quantitative survey and qualitative interview data collected and analysed sequentially.In Phase 1, over 200 migrant workers were surveyed in Shenzhen, China, on their understanding of the urban pension scheme (including their intentions to join) and on factors that might influence their intentions to join (individual, land, settlement, and employment). Bivariate analysis and multiple regression models were used to statistically examine the main factors that influenced migrant workers' intentions to join the scheme. This analysis showed that workers' settlement plans (the likelihood to settle in cities and the decision to go back to their rural iii hometown) and land expropriation experience significantly influenced the intention to participate in the urban pension system. Furthermore, approximately 85% of survey participants did not understand the basics of the urban old-age pension scheme.Phase 2 consisted of semi-structured interviews with 12 migrant workers, which were designed to explore their perceptions of joining the urban old-age pension scheme. Based on preliminary results from the quantitative study, six migrant workers with land expropriation experience and six without were selected from the survey participants. Interview transcripts were subjected to thematic analysis. The rich elaborations in these interviews provided a detailed picture of the processes by which migra...

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Public Opinion and American Federalism: Perspectives on Taxes, Spending, and Trust--An ACIR Update

Cited by 49 publications

References 1 publication

Confidence, Perception, and Politics in California: The Determinants of Attitudes toward Taxes by Level of Government

Confidence, Perception, and Politics in California: The Determinants of Attitudes toward Taxes by Level of Government

Fearing Food: The Influence of Risk Perceptions on Public Preferences for Uniform and Centralized Risk Regulation

Understanding the implementation gap of China’s urban pension scheme at the level of rural-urban migrant workers

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