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AbstractMultiparty governments are based on delegation and compromises but, at the same time, coalition parties have at their disposal several legislative instruments to keep tabs on their partners. Whereas previous studies focused on policy divisiveness and issue salience as main factors able to explain parliamentary scrutiny, in this article we suggest uncertainty as a complementary factor. In particular, we theorize that the use of parliamentary questions (PQs) is a function not only of policy characteristics but also of actors involved in coalition governance. When ministers increase intra-coalition uncertainty, cabinet parties use PQs to extract information from ministers and to reduce uncertainty in policy implementation. Statistical analyses of all written and oral parliamentary questions in the Italian Chamber of Deputies between 2006 and 2018 support our main hypothesis that when intra-coalition uncertainty increases, coalition parties ask more questions of 'hostile' ministers.

1. Introduction : governance and entropy -- 2. The limitations of uncertainty and risk-averse public policy -- 3. Government as uncertainty and risk manager of last resort -- 4. Concepts for facilitating the transition -- 5. Implementing the transition -- 6. Conclusions : low entropy governance.

Does globalization affect popular support for national governments? This article contends that exposure to the world economy obscures mass-elite linkages in developed democracies. Market interdependence, I argue, sends a signal to citizens that the policymaking environment has become more complex. As a consequence, publics are less certain of how to evaluate policymaker performance when exposure to the world economy increases. Informed by research on the role of uncertainty in public evaluations, I test this proposition by modeling the volatility of aggregate government popularity as a function of economic openness in four advanced industrial democracies. Results show that globalization increases the volatility-and, hence, the uncertainty-of public assessments of government performance. The implications for the political economy of advanced capitalist democracies and for models of collective public opinion are discussed. [Copyright 2007 Elsevier Ltd.]

PurposeThis paper aims to formulate an Austrian model of the governmental process and to apply the theory of human agency to discuss the problems in transforming government into a digital organization.Design/methodology/approachThe paper applies the Schutzian theory of human agency to analyse public agents' behaviour and the decision‐making process involved in adopting information technology (IT) in the public sector. The study incorporates cognitive elements such as opportunity discovery, learning, experimentation, trial and error, and revision of plans to understand problems in adopting new technology in government.FindingsFrom an Austrian perspective, the government is viewed as an institution for coordinating economic affairs. Advances in IT will facilitate the coordination. However, public agents will face structural uncertainty when they consider adopting new technology. During the process of making an adoption decision, public officials perceive new incoming events and formulate plans according to their experience and knowledge. The subjective interpretation of a problematic situation by public officials yields provisional judgements to be confirmed by subsequent experience. With new information and experience, they subsequently revise their plans in order to eliminate errors. A new problem situation requires the public planner to produce new trial solutions which are then subjected to further testing in daily operation. The revision of plans by public officials is thus seen as a continuous process and results in administrative and coordination changes.Originality/valueUnlike neoclassical public economists who act as omnipotent advisers on how the e‐government should behave, the theory of human agency analyses the operation of digital government from the "first person perspective". It suggests that public officials, equipped with better IT, act or make decisions under uncertainty and constraints. Hence, the impact of a government action on an economic issue is not deterministic. Instead, many government policies take society by surprise and result in institutional change. It is concluded that agents in both the private and the public sectors are journeying into an unknown future.

AbstractThis paper investigates the effects of economic policy uncertainty on local government debt issuance in China and identifies a transmission channel through the cost of capital. Our findings demonstrate that economic policy uncertainty raises the cost of external financing for local governments, leading to decreased levels of debt issuance. Specifically, a 1% increase in uncertainty related to economic policy variations leads to a reduction in government debt issuance of 0.0478%. In addition, our analysis reveals that local governments located in regions experiencing lower fiscal pressure, lower economic catch‐up pressure, and higher sensitivity to uncertainty are more responsive to economic policy uncertainty changes.