Global Public Policy, Partnership, and the Case of the World Commission on Dams

This article examines the potential for partnership to address two major challenges in public service: (1) the evolving sociopolitical context of public service, that is, the increasing incidence and intensity of conflict among diverse stakeholders; and (2) the formulation of acceptable and feasible global public policy. The partnership approach, its value added, and its operationalization are examined through the World Commission on Dams, a partnership designed to resolve conflicts over large dam projects. The analysis identifies lessons that are specific to conflict-based partnerships for global public policy making and regarding partnership work more generally. The importance of converging interests, policy champions, democratic processes, and perception are highlighted. Intense conflict provides incentives for joint solution, but process agreement is paramount, and conflict resolution is not a one-time effort for all. The World Commission on Dams demonstrates that partnership is an effective and efficient approach to addressing conflictive policy issues.     

Public Provision for Urban Water: Getting Prices and Governance Right

Public sector monopolies are often associated with inefficiencies and inability to meet rising demand. Scholars attribute this to fundamental problems associated with public provision: (1) a tradition of below‐cost pricing due to populist pressures, (2) owner–regulator conflicts of interest, and (3) perverse organizational incentives arising from non‐credible threat of bankruptcy, weak competition, rigidities, and agency and performance measurement problems. Many governments worldwide have shifted to private provision, but recent experience in urban water utilities in developing countries has shown their limitations because of weak regulatory regimes compounded by inherent problems of information, incentives, and commitment. This article examines the paradoxical case of the Phnom Penh Water Supply in Cambodia to illustrate how public provision of urban water can be substantially improved by getting prices and governance right. Findings have implications for the search for solutions to provide one billion people worldwide with better access to potable water.     

公共部门绩效评估:来自发展中国家的经验

在过去的几年中,公共部门绩效评估的理念在很多发展中国家日渐盛行。但是,由于发展中国家的公共部门软弱无力,法律框架不一致,公共服务提供的数量和质量不足,以及问责机制不完善等因素,导致公共部门绩效评估变得愈加复杂,且充满挑战。因此,总结和分析发展中国家公共部门实施绩效测量系统所取得的经验和教训,提出更具指导性的建议就显得尤其重要。基于此,本文以菲律宾、尼泊尔和印度尼西亚三个亚洲国家公共部门的绩效测量系统为分析对象,采用案例研究的分析方法,着重探讨了近几年来这些国家在绩效测量系统的设计、实施和管理等方面的一些经验教训。尽管没有一种放之四海而皆准的解决方案,但是本文在对这些经验教训反思的基础上,总结出的具有可持续性的绩效评估系统成功的五个关键要素,即所有权、激励、简单化、透明度和部门政策目标,可以为发展中国家的公共部门绩效评估提供最好的实践指导①。     

Verhandeln statt Argumentieren oder Verhandeln durch Argumentieren? Eine empirische Analyse auf der Basis der Sprechakttheorie

In a recent debate in German political science the terms ?bargaining and arguing“ have been construed as semantic opposites in the same dichotomous way as the terms ?strategic action and communicative action“ and ?game theory and discourse theory“. This paper rejects the notion of these dichotomies and presents a new theoretical approach to distinguish bargaining and arguing as modes of communicative resolution of conflicts. On the basis of speech act theory a method for the empirical analysis of bargaining and arguing processes is developed and demonstrated with an example of interest conflict resolution by mediation. Three conclusions can be drawn: First, in empirical processes of communicative conflict resolution, in almost all cases both arguing and bargaining will be present. Second, within the context of an interest conflict, arguing is not an alternative to bargaining, but a means for bargaining. Third, in the example in question a sequential structure could be observed: The resolution of disagreements over facts and values by arguing took place before the resolution of interest conflict by bargaining.     

Livelihood strategies and performance of Ghana's health and education sectors: exploring the connections

The public sector in Africa is riddled with widespread ineffectiveness. Although some countries have implemented various reform programmes with the support of international development agencies, the results so far have been disappointing. One reason for the failure is that the policies have focussed more on achieving macroeconomic stability than making the organisations effective. This article explores a fundamental problem of the policies—the need to focus on the human component of organisational performance. Using education and health organisations in Ghana as examples, the article advances a hypothesis that the livelihood strategies of public sector employees and the performance of their organisations are interconnected. Specifically, it is argued that as public sector employees have become more dependent on multiple sources of income, they have developed multiple social identities, which influence the culture of their organisations. The organisational culture may have encouraged employee effectiveness in some cases, but for most organisations, it has resulted in practices that perpetuate inefficiency and poor performance. To be successful, public sector reform policies must therefore involve deliberate efforts to change organisational cultures. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A House Divided? Roll Calls,Polarization, and Policy Differences in the U.S. House, 1877–2011

The study of political conflict in legislatures is fundamental to understanding the nature of governance, but also difficult because of changes in membership and the issues addressed over time. Focusing on the enduring issue of civil rights in the United States since Reconstruction, we show that using current methods and measures to characterize elite ideological disagreements makes it hard to interpret or reconcile the conflicts with historical understandings because of their failure to adequately account for the policies being voted upon and the consequences of the iterative lawmaking process. Incorporating information about the policies being voted upon provides a starkly different portrait of elite conflict—not only are contemporary parties relatively less divided than is commonly thought, but the conflict occurs in a smaller, and more liberal, portion of the policy space. These findings have important implications for a broad range of work that uses elite actions to compare political conflict/polarization across time.     

The contribution of international accounting standards to implementing NPM in developing and developed countries

In recent years, numerous countries have undertaken administrative reforms to implement New Public Management (NPM) postulates. The implementation of NPM involves new information needs for decision taking by public managers. In this context, public sector accounting plays a key role as an information system for the successful implementation of NPM. The International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) is undertaking an international accounting harmonisation project to establish high‐quality public sector standards to meet the new information requirements under NPM worldwide. This article examines the capability of IFAC accounting measurement bases to meet information needs under NPM postulates, in both developing and developed countries, analysing the differences between these types of countries. The National Accounting Standard Setters (NASS) of 47 countries were asked about the usefulness and viability of Fair Value Accounting (FVA) to implement NPM postulates, especially those concerning improved efficiency, enhanced information transparency and benchmarking analysis. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of future climatic changes on international water resources: the Colorado River,the United States,and Mexico

International water resources have been a source of contention in many parts of the world over the last few decades and such conflicts may grow in frequency and severity as future climatic changes alter the quantity or quality of limited water resources. Indeed, some future climatic changes appear inevitable due to growing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other trace gases. Unless mechanisms for incorporating climatic changes into water agreements can be worked out, these changes may provoke further frictions and conflicts. One region with a history of political conflict over shared water resources is the Colorado River Basin in the United States and Mexico. While past disagreements over water have mostly been resolved, future climatic changes that adversely affect the existing hydrologic regime of the basin cannot be discounted. This paper examines the possibility that future long-term climatic changes may exacerbate shortages in the Colorado River. Political conflicts and tensions that arise from reductions in water supply in both the United States and Mexico are evaluated and discussed, together with recommendations for incorporating the issue of climatic change into existing international treaties and agreements.     

Quality awards as a public sector benchmarking concept in OECD member countries: some guidelines for quality award organizers

In many OECD member countries, quality awards have become an important benchmarking instrument for public and especially private sector organizations. Quality awards pursue two main goals: one is to introduce elements of competition in areas of the public and the private sectors that lack of market competition; the other is to encourage organizational learning. The problem is that in a public sector context these aims seem to be mutually exclusive. The aim of the article is to show quality award organizers how to realize the full potential of quality awards by making the appropriate choices in the design of a public sector quality award. The conclusion is that the stage of public sector quality management and the degree of ‘publicness’ of the public sector in a given country will influence the competition‐inducing and learning effect of a national quality award in an adverse way. Nevertheless, the negative effects on one or the other element of quality awards can be counterbalanced by the appropriate choice of the scope of the quality award, the area to be evaluated, the evaluation criteria as well as the benchmarking concept. Last but not least, quality award organizers should keep in mind that quality awards are not a benchmarking instrument for all seasons. Copyright © John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Benchmarking sustainability performance: the next step in building sustainable business models

Developing sustainable business models incorporating effects on people, profit, and planet is becoming an increasingly important strategic issue. Benchmarking with peer companies can assist a company in setting goals of improving its performance. As such, developing a methodology for effectively benchmarking sustainable business practices is an important step in the evolution of sustainability management. However, a company's sustainability performance is composed of many elements that may involve difficult tradeoffs, and its performance may vary over time. In this paper, we propose a data-driven approach of innovatively adapting statistical process control charts, conventionally used in quality control, to simultaneously compare multiple performance measures and analyze variation in both trend and performance among companies in a given industry. We apply this approach to benchmarking the sustainability performance of companies in the US utility industry and demonstrate it is robust and reliable for benchmarking the performance of companies in virtually all industries. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

政治发展过程中民主与效能冲突的内在根源

在广大后发国家的政治发展过程中，民主与效能往往鱼和熊掌不可兼得。实行民主，就有可能损害政府的效能；提高政府的效能，又可能需要压制民主。这种冲突根源干发展中国家在其政治发展过程所不可避免的三大矛盾：合法性与有效性的冲突、理想与现实的落差及政治与经济的失衡。     

Addressing the Issues: The Choice of Environmental Conflict‐Resolution Venues in the United States

Environmental conflicts are the catalyst for policy and institutional changes, and they are expected to increase due to rising populations, economic growth, and climate change impacts. Yet, environmental conflicts and the venues used to address them have not been thoroughly examined. A common‐pool resource dilemmas typology is used to categorize environmental conflict issues and to develop hypotheses relating conflict issues to resolution venues. The hypotheses are tested on western water‐resource conflicts. The capacity of venues to address the underlying conflict issues as well as how some venues tend to work in tandem are important for explaining the matching of conflict type to venue.     

Social Reconstruction as a Local Process

¹When it comes to post-armed conflict interventions aimed atrestructuring a shattered society, policy makers have largelytreated countries as an undifferentiated whole, ignoring localdynamics that reinforce or transform the power relations thatare often most relevant to peoples’ lives. Using the exampleof Guatemala, the authors argue that local-level, bottom-upmechanisms can reflect a country's diverse makeup and experienceof conflict, and provide crucial precursors or extensions forwider-scale national and international projects. Local-levelinitiatives also can involve more community members, promoteagency and perhaps be less prone to large-scale patronage andcorruption. In promoting truth-telling initiatives and confrontingthe past, memorializing the departed and burying the dead, andresolving ongoing or recent community conflicts, the authorshave found that local-level programs have distinct advantages.The article considers local ‘houses of memory,’community-sponsored psycho-social interventions and exhumations;and conflict resolution based on Mayan methods. It concludesthat such efforts should be more systematically identified andsupported in post-armed conflict settings. In transitional justice,as elsewhere, the authors find, all politics is local.     

Building sustainable capacity in the public sector: What can be done?

Effective government performance is central to the creation of market-oriented economies, secure and productive populations, and democratic political systems in developing countries. Capacity building to improve public sector performance is thus an important focus of development initiatives. Several implicit assumptions underlie most such efforts: that organizations or training activities are the logical site for capacity-building interventions; that administrative structures and monetary rewards determine organizational and individual performance; that organizations work well when structures and control mechanisms are in place; and that individual performance improves as a result of skill and technology transfer through training activities. Each of these assumptions is called into question by the findings of research carried out in six developing countries and reported in this article. Our studies indicate designing interventions that most constructively address sources of poor performance must follow from an assessment of a relatively broad set of variables, including the action environment in which all such activities take place. We also found that effective public sector performance is more often driven by strong organizational cultures, good management practices, and effective communication networks than it is by rules and regulations or procedures and pay scales. Our case studies further indicate that individual performance is more affected by opportunities for meaningful work, shared professional norms, teamwork, and promotion based on performance rather than it is by training in specific skills. In this article, we describe a framework or conceptual map that emphasizes that training activities, organizational performance and administrative structures are embedded within complex environments that significantly constrain their success and that often account for training or organizational failure. When it was applied in the six case study countries, the framework proved useful in identifying capacity gaps and providing a tool for the strategic design of interventions that are sensitive to the roots of performance deficits. This allows us to conclude that the assumptions underlying many capacity-building initiatives may focus attention on interventions that do not generate the highest payoffs in terms of improved performance.     

Dimensions of political conflict and party positions in multi-level democracies: evidence from the Local Manifesto Project

Partisan conflicts have been frequently analysed in comparative political science research. Yet little is known about the dimensions of political conflict at the local level in multi-level democracies. This article contributes to the literature on the estimation and analysis of party positions by first presenting a new dataset of more than 800 local party manifestos in Germany that allows for a systematic analysis of the dimensions of political conflict at the German local level. Secondly, it is demonstrated that (semi-)automatic content analysis of these texts offers a promising approach for gaining new insights into local party positions. Thirdly, the empirical analysis of German local party manifestos shows that partisan conflicts are not only structured along the left–right dimension but also along a dimension which distinguishes between parties addressing ‘local’ and ‘national’ issues to a varying degree in their manifestos, due to the different behaviour of established and populist parties.     

Making economic adjustment work: The politics of policy implementation

This article identifies tentative lessons about successful political management of stabilization and structural adjustment policies in developing countries. It addresses three basic questions: 1) What is the purpose of stabilization and structural adjustment policies and what specific measures are usually undertaken? 2) Who, in theory, is supposed to benefit or lose from such policies and who, in actual practice, supports or opposes them? 3) How have governments in developing countries successfully managed the supporters and opponents of adjustment policies? The article concentrates in detail on how the governments of Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala managed the actual supporters and opponents of these policies between 1982 and 1987, based on interviews with policy makers, official documents and content analysis of media sources, with the aim of determining what measures were implemented, who protested or supported them, and what the government did to build support or minimize opposition. The lessons from these three experiences are tied to the more general literature on successful political management of stabilization and structural adjustment.     

Regulatory mobilization and service delivery at the edge of the regulatory state

Where there is weak state capacity to carry out regulatory, redistributional, and developmental functions characterizing much of the developing world, the role of governance and service delivery is also performed by a myriad of private actors. Institutional reform in the utility sector in developing countries has often failed to distinguish between social and economic regulation. I show how private actors like NGOs and local community groups undertake what I term “regulatory mobilization” to influence the new rules of the service delivery game, as well as to deliver much‐needed basic services to urban poor communities. Based on extensive fieldwork carried out in the Philippines, this article reveals and explains the politics of the informal sector at the edge of the regulatory state. More than a decade since the privatization of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System in Metro Manila in 1997, water access for the urban poor remained limited as privatized water utilities faced difficulties in extending service provision. In the context of an unpredictable regulatory landscape and an oligarchic patrimonial state, unexpected collective action by organized urban poor communities and NGOs has taken place around water as a subsistence right. Combining hybrid mobilizations to obtain water as well as influencing the rules governing their provision, these forms of regulatory mobilization appear to be peripheral and episodic. However, depending on how local and sectoral politics are conflated, such regulatory mobilization may sometimes not only result in obtaining subsistence goods, but may also occasionally project countervailing power in the policy sector, and influence formal regulatory frameworks in surprising ways.     

ACCOUNTABILITY AND CREDIBILITY IN THE MANAGEMENT OF COMPLEX HAZARDOUS TECHNOLOGY

The requirements for dependable management of complex hazardous technologies include multiple barriers against serious failure, clear accountability for errors, and credibility for the decision-making process. Unfortunately, these requirements are in direct conflict. These conflicts can undermine the public's assurance that their health and safety concerns are being properly addressed. These conflicts can be reduced by the adoption of policies that enhance information exchange and evaluation, thereby, complementing the current policies based on physical safe guards and adversarial processes.     

Rethinking international migration: a review and critique

A new style of international migration, temporary and often illegal immigration in order to work, began to emerge after World War II. Many countries initiated immigration policies that gave the appearance of control, while their back doors remained open and, possibly, unclosable. In the US, it is slowly becoming obvious that foreign workers cannot be used as a temporary labor force at will. 2 usual theories of migration are the classical and the conflicts schools. The classical school presents migration as a rational, economic act that leads to economic adjustment between sending and receiving countries. The conflict school, often Marxist, views migration as an unequal process that leads to the inclusion of developing countries into the world capitalist system and to a widenin gap between rich and poor countries. The convergence of these 2 theories leads to the idea that although migration may be a survival strategy of individuals and households, it is also determined by a country's integration in the world economic system. The author reviews several books on immigration theory, which appreciate the complexity and worldwide character of migration; indicate that migration patterns are persistent; and support the view that migration is an economic, social, and political problem; and recommend that policies must be integrated and address the entire issue.     

A Contagious Concept: Explaining the Spread of Privatization in the Telecommunications Sector

Qualitative studies suggest that the spread of privatization of public utilities is due to a change of the economic paradigm and institutional isomorphism pressures. However, current quantitative studies mostly account for domestic factors. These factors can explain differences in national privatization trajectories but cannot explain the large trend. Based on a quantitative analysis of privatizations in the telecommunications sector in 21 OECD countries, the article argues that emulation pressures can explain the trend toward privatization. The analysis suggests that privatization gained legitimacy as more and more governments emulated privatization policies they observed in countries they perceived as similar. However, the article finds no evidence of cross‐sectoral diffusion. Thus, according to the analysis, telecommunications privatization diffused within the same sector between countries, but not within the same country between different sectors.