Reinventing government: a critique from an institutional perspective(1)

This paper critically examines the recent reinventing government movement from an institutional perspective, focusing on principal-agent problems in management and political contexts of public agencies. Based on this perspective, it analyzes the problems and prospects of the National Performance Review in the United States and suggests that an institutional perspective can prove useful in redesigning government--not by achieving a single set of insights common to all contexts, but rather by focusing attention to particular situations and institutional contexts.     

Reinventing urban government in the Netherlands: an American perspective

National agricultural policies intended to stabilize farm price and income may have different impacts on different agricultural sector of a state or a region. A policy which influences a region's agriculture also may affect the general economy of that region, depending on the degree to which agriculture is linked to the general economy. This study evaluates the economywide impact of the Flexible Planting Program (FPP) -- a recent policy designed to encourage farmers to respond more to market than to the government incentives. The study employs an integrated modeling framework which links the national and state farm sectors to the region's non-farm sectors. Because of reductions in real U.S. market prices and, in turn, Tennessee market prices of some farm commodities under FPP, production of most agricultural outputs are expected to decline in Tennessee by 1995. Study results indicate that as a result of price reductions, the agricultural sector will lose about 15 percent of output, income, and employment. These losses cause significant negative impacts on the business-related service sector. The service sector suffers a loss of 31 million dollars in total output and 523 jobs. The total income lost by the service sector (18 million dollars) will be much higher than agriculture sector (11.99 million dollars). Thus, though the FPP may deliver its intended good at the national level, the policy has the potential to cause undesirable impacts on certain regions.     

Controlling Immigration Manually: Lessons from Moscow (Russia)

In 2007, the Russian government instituted quotas for immigrant work permits that were consistently lower than actual labour demand. While low quotas are politically popular on the mass level, this article argues that low quotas are also a tool of the government to distribute patronage resources to regional political and economic elites. For several years after quotas were instituted, they remained quite controversial, and during this time decisions about them were firmly in the hands of Vladimir Putin, first as president and then as prime minister, giving him a powerful tool to control the immigration process and labour market manually. While this type of manual control is effective in the short term to manage contentious policy arenas, it suffers a number of possible long-term consequences.     

Squatter settlements in Latin American cities: The response from government

Little attention has been paid by sociologists interested in Latin American urban problems, to the ways in which Governments have responded to the existence of squatter settlements. Government intervention in these areas, which is usually designed to ‘integrate” the squatter population, has taken several forms. Particularly in respect to housing, little has been learned from the experiences of squatters themselves, and little attempt has been made to give squatters a voice in the way their settlements develop. The result is that though the role of Government is widened, the benefits this brings the squatter population are few.     

Development from below: Neighborhood improvement associations in the Latin American squatter settlements

Juntas, a type of neighborhood association found in many Latin American countries, are described in terms of their common characteristics, functions, and strategies. Factors which strengthen juntas are isolated, and the potential for juntas to become ongoing institutionalized structures is discussed. Information from a large number of written sources was compared in order to identify the common cross cultural characteristics of juntas. Juntas generally originate as squatter invasion forces organized to take over and settle, either gradually or overnight, unocupied lands in or near urban centers. After invasion the huntas continue to function as neighborhood associations which make collective demands on the government for public services and which promote various self-help projects within the squatter community. Juntas are widespread in Latin American countries. Of the 91 squatter settlements which have been studied in 11 different countries, 61 has juntas. Participation of household heads in the juntas ranges from 10-70%. Most squatter invasions are planned or spontaneous radical political action. The collective invasion itself often serves to open negotiations with the government. After the invasion leaders are elected, and they help organize the new community by assigning land, setting boundries, screening new settlers, collecting dues, and directing a variety of self-help construction projects. Collective demands are then made on the government to provide urban services such as water and electricity. The collective nature of the demand helps reduce the risk of official retaliation. Demand strategies include petitioning high level government officials, utilizing personalistic contacts, affiliating with either the rulingpower or opposing parties, appealing to outside agencies, linking up with other juntas, conducting public demonstrations, and publicizing their grievances in order to engender public support. After basic services are provided the juntas promote self-help projects such as organizing taxi services, medical clinics, vocational and lteracy programs, and building playgrounds. The juntas sometimes perform quasi governmental functions, such as, settling disputes between community members and policing the community. Participation in juntas declines as the need for making outside demands lessens; however, the high level of self-help activity keeps the juntas viable. They also retain the latent capacity for political demand behavior if the need for action arises. Factors which strengthen juntas included 1) high population density and large size of the squatter community, 2) defined boundaries, 3) close proximity to urban agencies, 4) climatic factors which make it necessary to act quickly and collectively, and 5) a moderate level of heterogeneity in the squatter population.     

Migration,Reconfigurations of Family Relations and Social (In)Security: an introduction

This introduction reviews the contributions this collection of articles makes to understanding migration, social reproduction and social protection. Migration necessarily involves reconfigurations of family relations and these entail changes in the patterning of social (in)security. Our expansive interpretation of the concepts of social reproduction and social protection situate the reorganisation of gendered family lives as integral to the migration–development nexus. Life-course thinking informs analysis of how migrants ‘do family’ and what this means for gender, identity and (in)security. The collection explores how ‘care deficits’ are managed, both discursively through the negotiation of gendered ideologies about gender identity and the family, and through the everyday practice of social reproduction. The resulting reorganisation of social security involves taking on new risks and vulnerabilities for migrants and their families. For both internal and international migrants the challenges involved in securing social reproduction are powerfully shaped by welfare and migratory regimes and raise important questions about the relationship between social protection and broader social policy and citizenship issues.     

Modernization from above versus reform from below: U.S. policy toward Latin American agricultural development

This article distinguishes two tendencies in United States policy towards Latin American agriculture: a redistributionist tendency, favouring the break‐up of large private estates into small peasant plots; and a productionist tendency, favouring technical efficiency on existing holdings as the key to successful development. It is shown that this latter tendency has come increasingly to prevail in U.S. Government circles over the past decade, a shift in policy which is assumed to reflect political as well as strictly economic considerations. The endorsement of land reform, at least on the level of declared policy, in the early years of the Kennedy administration, has been followed by a reappraisal which brings U.S. policy more in line with the preferences of the large landowners who are among the most reliable political allies of the United States. (Ed.)     

Development perspectives from the Antipodes: an introduction

Abstract

Is there a distinctive Antipodean approach to development? In this introduction I take up Raewyn Connell's challenge to explore the possibilities for knowledge production that reflects Australia's and New Zealand's geographical situation of rich peripheral countries and their history of settler colonisation. While Antipodeans' contributions to development theory have been limited, their work is characterised by close connections between theory and practice. The Antipodes' positioning as global North in the geographical South has stimulated a search for alternative approaches to development knowledge. This is variously pursued through collaborative research relationships with indigenous communities, close engagement with non-Western cultural frameworks, and a focus on marginal spaces and positions. As the centre of global economic power shifts to the South, existing development relationships and established ways of doing development are increasingly challenged by newly constituted subject positions and coalitions.     

Teaching public management: the case for (and against) cases

This article calls for an increased and more rigorous use of the case method in public administration education. Cases yield generalizations, cases help students take ownership of knowledge, and cases can further repetition of behavioral characteristics important to students such as empathy and self-confidence.

The gradual expansion of public policy training into the area of public management has brought with it a marked increase in the use of cases and case teaching. Executive training programs, an ever more common feature of publicpolicy schools, rely even more heavily on case. Despite their prevalence and popularity, cases and case teaching have come in for considerable criticism. Social scientists in particular fault them for being atheoretical and, hence, lacking in intellectual rigor. Contemporary cases are also faulted for implicitly endorsing an “activist” or “heroic” view of public management. Whereas cases from the 1940s and 1950s portrayed a functional view of public managers, recent cases portray managers as people who actively shape their legal mandates and use administrative systems to promote political objectives--a questionable image to convey to students training for public service.⁽¹⁾

The first half of the paper describes in some detail a seminar, “Ethics and Public Management,” conducted at the Kennedy School by Mark Moore, Mark Lilla, and the author.     

Notes from an Intruder: Explorations in Political Macroanalysis

This paper traces the development of my theoretical and methodological approach to political sociology by referring to important intellectual influences and recounting the considerations that led me to choose particular research subjects. The term “intruder” emphasizes my discomfort with the separation of sociology and political science into distinct professions, as I ended up choosing political science as my academic profession but have always felt intellectually more at home in sociology.     

The erosion of vospitaniye (social upbringing) in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan: Voices from the schools

Independent Kyrgyzstan has inherited the Soviet school system, including vospitaniye as an essential part. Soviet social policy was driven by the belief that building communism partly depended upon the creation of the “Soviet man.” Such an individual would demonstrate unwavering commitment to aims of the October Revolution, and desire to undertake the technological and scientific training required to achieve collective purposes. The resulting social cohesion among like-minded individuals would thus reinforce the economic and political aims of the USSR. A primary institutional location for the creation of such individuals was the secondary school, formally organized to achieve two distinct but equally important goals: the transmission of formal knowledge (obrazovaniye) and the process of social upbringing (vospitaniye). This paper first considers the critical nature of vospitaniye as an aim of the USSR, an aim typically underestimated in the current discourse of reforming post-Soviet schools. It then suggests contemporary dilemmas voiced by practicing educators in several Kyrgyz schools who are still charged with social upbringing, but in a climate where the ideals and values upon which vospitaniye was initially created appear no longer viable.     

Decentralization or deconcentration: struggle for political power in poland (1)

This paper argues that the 1989 commitment to political and administrative decentralization has weakened over five years. As the point that it has become a rhetorical formula voiced by the governing political leadership when convenient, but in reality never realized. Two sets of factors contributed to such a state of affairs: (1) the inability of the center to reform itself, and (2) center's increasing commitment to regain the power lost over the last few years.

The first part of the paper lays a theoretical framework for analysis of pressures and barriers to decentralize. Second, examines the process of implementing in Poland, of local government and public administration reform over the 1989-1995 period. Finally, the third analyzes in detail the three most significant forces that central states utilized to gain control: (1) political; (2) power resources and (3) fiscal. It concludes by asserting that beyond 1990, while much of the program has been achieved in designing legislative and territorial aspects of the public administration and local governments reform, what was lacking was the political commitment to implement both.