The grid-group cultural theory of Mary Douglas is used to produce a basic categorization of polar approaches to control over public administration and management and to illuminate the selfdisequilibrating dynamics of public administration control systems. The four polar types are based on contrived randomness, competition, mutuality and review. The self-disequilibrating processes work through a combination of mutual repulsion among the polar types and the inherent limitations of each type, which will tend to produce more serious side-effects and reverse effects the more emphasis is placed on any one type. Six hybrid types of control are discussed as simple pairwise combinations of the four polar types, but such hybrids are also likely to be unstable. The approach used here appears at least as good on three criteria as any other current available classification of controls over public administration and it offers a distinctive agenda for examining control design and outcomes.

How can differences in public support for membership in the European Union across the twelve EU member states and among its citizens be explained? Using Eurobarometer polls for 1982, 1986, and 1990, the paper examines how direct and indirect economic benefits associated with EU membership affect support for integration. We find that individuals living in countries that benefit more from EU membership display higher levels of support for their country's participation in the EU. Moreover, the results indicate that those individuals who benefit personally are also more supportive of the integration project. The paper also spells out some of the possible ramifications of these results.

This paper seeks to assess how far local business organisations, such as Chambers of Commerce, are maintained chiefly by the factors hypothesised by Mancur Olson as the forces being behind collective action: the costs and benefits of business services. The paper reviews the theoretical arguments to support this hypothesis and then assesses the case of UK Chambers of Commerce using empirical evidence from surveys of businesses and Chambers. The UK Chambers are a purely private law voluntary structure, unlike many European counterparts. The analysis demonstrates that in such a system the overwhelming motive for business membership is to access services with specific rather than collective benefits. In turn Chamber managers tend to respond by financing services chiefly through service fees rather than flat rate subscriptions. In an Olsonian world with purely voluntary Chambers, few businesses will pay for general collective goods (such as lobbying, representation or support to government) that others can consume at no cost. The paper also demonstrates strong differences between types of Chambers: large Chambers being largely service and fee oriented, small Chambers being more often collective action bodies. Overall, however, local Chambers have features common to other business organisations of being variable in size and resources, most are small, and the structure is fragmented. Conclusions are drawn from these findings for government policy.

Policy theory suggests that coherent statutes – those with precise, clear goals, supported by an adequate causal theory, with clear administrative responsibilities, clear implementation rules, and assigned to committed agencies – are more likely to have their intended impact. Using the Mazmanian and Sabatier policy implementation framework, this article examines U.S. family planning policies with a pooled time series analysis from 1982 to 1988. Of the four family planning statutes, only Title X, the categorical grant program, meets the criteria of a coherent statute. The data analysis reveals that a dollar spent through Title X has a much greater impact on birth rates, abortion rates, late prenatal care, and infant and neonatal mortality than does a dollar spent through other programs. The results are strong evidence in support of designing policies with coherent statutes.