18. A) Supply the prepositions where necessary.

b) Write down some questions about the text.

Public administrators have long wrestled ... the problem ofbring- ing professional policy knowledge or technical expertise to bear ... decision making ... a contentious policy arena. A common solution addresses political conflict ... developing institutions that buffer de- cision making ... the regular influence of elected official. This article compares the effects of politically buffered decision making relative ... politically influenced decision making by drawing ... case studies of county efforts to site and develop landfills and incinerators in New York State. Some of these counties created a special district gov- ernment known as a “public authority” ... an effort to remove ... the “politics from decision making.” Others used their regular line agencies. The cases show that the public authority sitting processes were less likely to accommodate political concerns and more likely to focus ... research-based policy or technical criteria. However, this professional focuses ... then made them vulnerable to political con- flict and likely contributed to the high failure rate of the public au- thority projects. In contrast, the more successful line agency proc- esses, influenced by elected officials’ political concerns, tended to arbitrage away political conflict ... the expense of professional or technical considerations—but these processes were more likely to succeed. One case provides a possible middle ground. Rather than ar- bitraging away points of conflict, the administrators aggressively pushed decision making back ... the political process, making elected officials choose the policy options. This process required elected of- ficial leadership, education, and commitment and resulted .. . deci- sions that were professionally and technically informed as well as re- silient to political conflict.

N o t e s:
to wrestle	— биться над чем-л.
contentious	— дискуссионный, спорный
landfill	— мусорная свалка
incinerators	— мусоросжигательная печь
siting	— выбор участка
vulnerable	— уязвимый, ранимый
resilient	— эластичный, упругий

It’s interesting to know

• Read and render into English(Russian).

Public choice theory is often referenced when discussing how in- dividual political decision-making results in policy that conflicts with the overall desires of the general public. For example, many special interest and pork barrel projects are not the desire of the overall de- mocracy. However, it makes sense for politicians to support these projects. It may benefit them psychologically as they feel powerful and important. It can also benefit them financially as it may open the door to future wealth as lobbyists (after they retire). The project may be of interest to the politician’s local constituency, increasing district votes or campaign contributions.

The main questions are: (1) how to hire competent and trustwor- thy individuals to whom day-to-day decision-making can be delegat- ed and (2) how to set up an effective system of oversight and sanc- tions for such individuals. To answer these questions, it is necessary to assess the effects of creating different loci of power and decision- making within a government; to examine voting and the various means of selecting candidates and choosing winners in elections; to assess various behavioral rules that might be established to influence the be- havior of elected and appointed government officials; and to evaluate alternative constitutional and legal rights that could be reserved for citizens, especially rights relating to citizen oversight and the avoid- ance of harm due to the coercive power of government agents.

Of some interest has been the discovery that a general collective preference function cannot be derived from even seemingly mild con- ditions. This is often called Arrow’s impossibility theorem. The theo- rem, an economic generalization of the voting paradox, suggests that voters have no reason to expect that, short of dictatorship, even the best rules for making collective decisions will lead to the kind of con- sistency attributed to individual choice.

Of special concern has been logrolling and other negotiations car- ried out by legislators in exercising their law-making powers. Impor- tant factors in such legislative decisions are political parties and pres- sure groups. Accordingly, Public Choicers have studied these institu- tions extensively. The study of how legislatures make decisions and how various constitutional rules can constrain legislative decisions is a major sub-field in Public Choice.

Another major sub-field is the study of bureaucracy. The usual model depicts the top bureaucrats as being chosen by the chief exec- utive and legislature, depending on whether the democratic system is presidential or parliamentary. The typical image of a bureau chief is a person on a fixed salary who is concerned with pleasing those who ap- pointed him. The latter have the power to hire and fire him more or less at will. The bulk of the bureaucrats, however, are civil servants whose jobs and pay are protected by a civil service system against ma- jor changes by their appointed bureau chiefs. This image is often compared with that of a business owner whose profit varies with the

success of production and sales, who aims to maximize profit, and who can hire and fire employees at will.

A field that is closely related to public choice is “rent-seeking.” This field combines the study of a market economy with that of gov- ernment. Thus, one might regard it as a “new political economy.” Its basic thesis is that when both a market economy and government are present, government agents are a source of numerous special market privileges. Both the government agents and self-interested market par- ticipants seek these privileges in order to partake in the monopoly rent that they provide. When such privileges are granted, they reduce the efficiency of the economic system.

«

N o t e s:

pork barrel

it makes sense constituency oversight loci

coercive short of logrolling to fire to partake rent-seeking

бочка с салом», кормушка, казенный пирог

субсидий из федерального бюджета

зд. вполне логично

электорат, избиратели

контроль, надзор

мн. от locus (место, месторасположение) насильственный, принудительный исключая

взаимные услуги в политике увольнять принимать участие поиск ренты