Regulatory Effectiveness and Social Equity in Environmental Governance: Assessing Goal Conflict, Trade-Off, and Synergy

Abstract

Public organizations function in an environment of goal multiplicity and constantly juggle goal trade-off and synergy. However, little empirical research explores how the potential conflict between effectiveness and equity affects government agencies' decision making. This study examines the extent to which public agencies are committed to regulatory effectiveness and social equity in environmental policy management, and the circumstances under which administrative agencies engage in goal tradeoff and synergy. Analyzing data on the Clean Air Act in New York State, this study finds that although regulatory effectiveness is salient to government's policy implementation, equity-oriented policy is likely to give rise to trade-off in this goal domain. The state agency manages environmental programs in an equitable way, and policy intervention has inconsistent effects on the equity goal achievement. The agency does, in some instances, synergize two goals in loci reflecting the convergence of task demands, but equity-oriented policy does not reinforce such behavioral pattern. Findings beg the question regarding how public policies and programs can be devised in ways that help avert goal trade-off and engender the maximum level of social outcomes.

Walking the Talk of Social Equity? Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Decisionmaking About the Provision of Personal Resources

“…Within the ongoing debate on the importance of social equity in the public administration (e.g., Durant and Rosenbloom, 2017), scholars argue that values of social equity have become a dominant paradigm in contemporary public administration (Bryson et al, 2014; Johnson & Svara, 2011). Alongside extensive literature that identifies simultaneous values of effectiveness and social equity in the operation of government agencies (Liang, 2018; Riccucci, 2009), less is known about the pursuit of social equity in the everyday work of street-level public service providers. Indeed, from the earlier days of public administration research, scholars acknowledged the importance of exploring how social equity is practised (e.g., Williams, 1947).…”

“…In the present study, we aim to fill this gap and provide evidence of whether and how the ideals of social equity are practically manifested within everyday implementation work. Drawing on arguments regarding the critical role of government in fulfilling the principle of equity, particularly as it pertains to populations that are vulnerable due to their demographic or socioeconomic status (e.g., Frederickson, 2015; Guy and McCandless, 2012; Johnson and Svara, 2011; Liang, 2018; Riccucci, 2009), we focus on Israeli street-level workers’ decisionmaking in their encounters with low-income clients.…”

Are State-Owned Enterprises Good Citizens in Environmental Governance? Evidence From the Control of Air Pollution in China

“…The first issue is the data availability problem. Second, additional performance targets may introduce a more intricate dynamic into the decision-making and performance of administrative agents, who need to juggle with multiple goals that compete for implementation resources and attention (Liang, 2018; Ordóñez et al, 2009).…”

How Public Managers Make Tradeoffs Regarding Lives: Evidence From a Flood Planning Survey Experiment

“…Professional associations, organizational leaders, and politicians may want to consider whether they should provide more explicit guidance about the importance of saving lives in disaster planning through training and codes of ethics, as the government’s response to value tradeoffs can vary depending on the professional and organizational context rather than be a stylized balancing by government as a whole (Thacher & Rein, 2004). And if public administration makes a “call to action” for social equity, it may want to pursue studies that ask managers to make tradeoffs and that measure different conceptions of equity and identify factors that lead managers to take into account the interests of disadvantaged groups (Blessett et al, 2019; Liang, 2018). Furthermore, if different professional groups place different value on lives relative to other goals, as our study suggests they do, decision processes that incorporate different groups have the advantage of incorporating multiple perspectives even if they are slower or less efficient.…”