Institutional design balances the costs and benefits of dictatorship and disorder. Democracy can be efficient if it improves the performance of government. Yet, sometimes authoritarian governments can be efficient if they reduce disorder. We show that democratisation has a non-linear effect on income-adjusted perceptions of government effectiveness. These findings present a new opportunity to revisit the study of government performance for researchers working in public administration and political science.

Exogenous shocks may lead to policies that seem extreme and even “irrational”. This paper argues that, in the event of a major energy shock in the US that persists, such legislation is an inevitable response to the demand from constituents that political actors “do something”. Since shocks by their nature are unanticipated and are often highly technical and complex, boundedly rational legislators cannot generally understand all of the ramifications of the shock, much less hope to craft well-considered and precise legislation to deal with it. But the demand to “do something” means that a range of actions is politically necessary. The “shock” policy process is modelled as a stepwise legislative decision problem. If the crisis persists, legislation that promises a solution is likely to be the result, even if this “solution” is infeasible. The model is applied to five US energy shocks.

This paper focuses on the circulation of policy ideas within international administrations. Based upon a study of UNAIDS, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS, it shows how bureaucracies can capitalise on policy-oriented information and knowledge to strengthen their influence within their own environment. Using a policy transfer approach as its analytical framework, the paper draws particular attention to the UNAIDS Secretariat, considered as a “transfer entrepreneur”. It argues that, in the 2000s, the Secretariat has demonstrated a capacity to collect, develop and disseminate policy ideas and, consequently, has gradually participated in UN policy development on AIDS. It thus suggests that the Secretariat has extended its authority within the UN system despite limited resources. In conclusion, the paper points out the need to examine policy transfer among international administrations through actors, interests and strategies, as a complement to holistic approaches.1