Control pliers in principal-agent relations: An investigation of hardship commissions in the German asylum administration

IF 2.6 2区 社会学 Q2 DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Ina Radtke, Markus Seyfried
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Abstract

There is a remarkable gap in research regarding principal-centred analyses of control means towards—in a formal sense—rather weak independent administrative actors as agents. Therefore, the paper develops a theoretical notion to link means of ex ante and ex post control and applies it to the (re-)actions of ministries vis à vis hardship commissions in the German Länder by asking: How does the super-ordinated ministry (principal) try to control the hardship commission (agent) and with what effect? The theoretical framework is based on principal-agent theory and argues that the respective relationship is best understood by a notion of control pliers which interlinks the principal's preferences, its means of ex ante and ex post control and the agent's output. We hereby draw on partisan and organization theory. The overall research design of the paper is confirmatory and the focus on the federal states allows to control most of the external variance. We use descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling for path analysis to investigate the ex ante and ex post elements of the control pliers. Our empirical analysis is based on the output of 12 hardship commissions for the period of 2005–2017. Our results show that ex post control seems to matter more than ex ante control, but also that the effects of both may be characterized as interdependent. Furthermore, we show that partisan influence seems to matter more than organizational factors considering the output of the agent but that most can be won by combining the two approaches.
委托代理关系中的控制钳:对德国庇护管理机构艰苦条件委员会的调查
在以委托人为中心的控制手段分析研究中,有一个显著的差距——在正式意义上——相当弱的独立行政行为者作为代理人。因此,本文提出了一种将事前和事后控制手段联系起来的理论概念,并将其应用于德国Länder政府部门对困难委员会的(再)行为:上级部门(委托人)如何试图控制困难委员会(代理人),其效果如何?理论框架基于委托-代理理论,并认为通过控制钳子的概念可以最好地理解各自的关系,控制钳子将委托人的偏好、事前和事后控制的手段以及代理人的产出联系起来。我们在此借用党派和组织理论。本文的整体研究设计是验证性的,重点放在联邦国家允许控制大部分外部方差。我们使用描述性统计和结构方程模型进行路径分析,以调查控制钳的事前和事后元素。我们的实证分析基于2005-2017年期间12个困难委员会的产出。我们的研究结果表明,事后控制似乎比事前控制更重要,但两者的影响可能是相互依存的。此外,我们表明,考虑到代理人的产出,党派影响似乎比组织因素更重要,但大多数可以通过结合这两种方法来赢得。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
6.50
自引率
6.20%
发文量
93
期刊介绍: Social Policy & Administration is the longest established journal in its field. Whilst remaining faithful to its tradition in academic excellence, the journal also seeks to engender debate about topical and controversial issues. Typical numbers contain papers clustered around a theme. The journal is international in scope. Quality contributions are received from scholars world-wide and cover social policy issues not only in Europe but in the USA, Canada, Australia and Asia Pacific.
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