Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: A text is a site of struggle; over meaning, and over power. Performance is that very battle embodied. In the global arena of the construction, (re)production, negotiation, contestation, and co-constitution of meaning, I articulate a call for opening up as contested space the confines of the classroom through critical performance, inviting the voices of bodies from the periphery into the very centers of our institutions of knowledge assembly. Through an autoethnographic reflexive essay recounting my experience instructing an introductory-level communication course alongside my enrollment in a graduate-level performance course, I contend that in inscribing an Other onto the self through critical performance in the classroom we open up the discourse(s) of power and privilege (and thus marginality) for potential scrutiny, critique, dismantling, and emancipatory change. I argue that when students are given the lens through which to recognize and articulate their own position of privilege, and are then asked to reconcile it with the voices of those often muted, they enflesh an agency often inaccessible to them from inside the apparatus of higher education. Critical performance pedagogy exposes a path toward empowerment from within the walls of the very institutions instrumental in reifying the hegemony that organizes our lived condition. To take this path is to deconstruct the boundaries of our felt experience, and renders visible terrain we have yet to traverse.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) in the federal budgeting process. The early evidence on PART prompts the search for a theory of budgeting that accepts that performance information will influence decisions, but will not be used in the same way from decision to decision, as the espoused theory of performance budgeting suggests. Dialogue theory emphasizes the ambiguity of performance information and related resource allocation choices. An exploratory test of dialogue theory is undertaken through an experiment involving graduate students assessing PART evaluations. The results illustrate a variety of ways in which different individuals can examine the same program and, using logical warrants, come to different conclusions about performance and future funding requirements.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Behn has argued that one of the �big questions� facing public management research centers on the use of performance data. Governments have devoted extraordinary effort in creating performance data, wagering that it will be used to improve governance, but we know relatively little on why managers actually use performance information. This paper addresses this question, using data from a survey of local government administrators. We treat performance information use as a form of extra-role behavior, and model a series of individual, job, organizational and environmental influences. We find that public service motivation, task specialization and experience, information availability, organizational culture, flexibility, managerial networking, and the role of central agency influence performance information use.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper assesses attitudes and basic knowledge in Congress about performance management; and identifies new types of institutional congressional performance-based oversight capabilities. Observers such as Elaine Kamarck (End of Government (2007)) dismiss Congress, placing emphasis on presidential initiatives. Prior to GPRA (1993), Congress held a monopoly on accountability-based oversight of agency programs. GPRA placed performance measurement on a different playing field, adding a potentially larger congressional role with a statutory base. Recent presidential initiatives have ignored Congress (presidentialization) while failing to lay a permanent basis for results-oriented government. In 2008, both presidential nominees made government reform a signature part of their campaigns-in 2009, the new President and his administration will encounter a Congress with increased institutional capacity to engage in performance monitoring. This research sheds light on Congress – the missing link in results-based government - arguing that performance measurement requires a “Hybrid” Cross-Institutional Method” where policymakers collaborate across both sides of the avenue.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Contracts are breached every day, oftentimes leaving bitter feelings between the parties. The law aims to rectify the wrong of the breach by offering a few remedies. One of those remedies, and the focus of attention of this paper, is the remedy of specific performance. Under many systems of law specific performance is the default remedy for breach.
Much ink has been spilt in the theoretical analysis of this remedy. Some try to justify it in deontological terms while others push for and against it from the perspective of economic efficiency. However important those views are, they lack � and usually admit so � empirical data.
Through the paradigm of law in action this research aims to take a fresh look into the ways contracts are preformed after litigation. The research is built on a two-tiered analysis: first, a comprehensive content analysis of court cases reveals the characteristics of judgments awarding specific performance. Second, a set of interviews with parties after litigation explores the obstacles and hurdles parties face in achieving performance of the court order.
Some of the economic analyses suggest that the parties will bargain around the court order rather than perform it. The interviews provide data on the frequency of such bargains and when those fail, on the frequency and quality of the performance of the court orders. The latter question offers a look into the under-explored scenarios where failure to negotiate results in (coerced) cooperation. The research aims at evaluating the problematic nature of semi non-consensual co-operations.