Editors’ Introduction to JTP issue 31.2
| DOI | 10.1177/0951629819843372 |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Editorial
Journal of Theoretical Politics
2019, Vol.31(2) 129–131
ÓThe Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0951629819843372
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Editors’ Introduction to JTP
issue 31.2
To r u n D e w a n
London School of Economicsand Political Science, UK
John W Patty
Emory University,USA
This issue of Journal of Theoretical Politics contains six original articles tackling a
variety of topics.
In ‘Organizing evaluation: Assessing combat leadership quality’, William
Wagstaff develops a model of the hierarchical supervisory relationship in military
units. The principal–agent framework applied by Wagstaff offers answers to sev-
eral questions, including how different oversight structures affect the flow of infor-
mation from subordinates the commander and, accordingly, how commanders
should structure such oversight structures. Two of several interesting conclusions
from the theory is that subordinates are more informative in less professionalized
militaries and when oversight responsibility is restricted to a single level of com-
mand within the unit. Finally, Wagstaff’s theory implies that commanders in more
professionalized militaries should be more likely to task multiple layers of the unit
with (joint) oversight responsibilities, even though this can reduce the quality of
information received by the commander.
The second article in the issue, ‘Motivating political support with group based
rewards’, by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, tackles a classic topic:
the theory of institutional design in the face of collective action problems.
Specifically, Bueno de Mesquita and Smith compare the use of contingent con-
tracts with tournament-based (i.e. relative performance) incentive schemes. They
show that tournament-based compensation helps overcome the limited impact of
individual effort on collective performance. They explore the framework’s predic-
tions regarding the impact of the number and heterogeneity of the groups that are
competing within the tournament scheme.
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