Varieties of Participation in Public Services: The Who, When, and What of Coproduction

Despite an international resurgence of interest in coproduction, confusion about the concept remains. This article attempts to make sense of the disparate literature and clarify the concept of coproduction in public administration. Based on some definitional distinctions and considerations about who is involved in coproduction, when in the service cycle it occurs, and what is generated in the process, the article offers and develops a typology of coproduction that includes three levels (individual, group, collective) and four phases (commissioning, design, delivery, assessment). The levels, phases, and typology as a whole are illustrated with several examples. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for research and practice.     

Ideology,reconciliation and nationalism in Northern Ireland

This article explores the conceptualization of ‘reconciliation’ within modern Northern Irish nationalist discourse. I argue that the case of Northern Irish nationalism adds a new dimension to those understandings that remain currently underappreciated within the literature. The article charts how reconciliation becomes operationalized as a restrictive politics both despite and because of it being framed in a language of pluralism, restoration and openness. While this process points towards the constitution of a political and ideological community, the concept of reconciliation also precipitates contestation and competition – not simply over memory but over a moral vision of the (violent) past. As such, I argue that reconciliation is not so much about the past but about ideological reframing(s). The case of Northern Irish nationalism, then, suggests that those reframings – a closing down and an opening up of debate – take place simultaneously within the rhetoric of reconciliation.     

Bridging the divide between parent states and secessionist entities: a new perspective for conflict management?

This paper departs from the contested nature of the border that separates each side in secessionist conflict – the parent state considers this as an internal administrative line; the de facto state, conversely, sees this as an international border. The argument made builds upon the theoretical aspects of the bordering practices in the current literature, and then examines three cross-border cases – Mainland China-Taiwan, Cyprus-Northern Cyprus and Moldova-Transnistria, to demonstrate different patterns of cross-border interactions and their achieved outcomes. It questions why border-crossing practices have either brought about normalization in degrees, or with a questionable value? This paper makes the conclusion that although border-crossing practices have normalized relations between adversaries, they have also simultaneously brought along self-perpetuating separation as most of the divisions still persist today. Redefining borders and facilitating cross-border interactions has only had a limited contribution to conflict management.     

On the Development of Public–Private Partnerships in Transitional Economies: An Explanatory Framework

This article develops a generic framework to explain the environment for public–private partnership (PPP) development in transitional economies. The framework stands on a tripod that includes the market, the operating environment, and the government, each containing several factors that support aspects of PPPs. The authors apply the framework to analyze the results of a multicountry survey in an effort to identify key factors that facilitate PPP development in transition countries. The identified factors are market potential, institutional guarantee, government credibility, financial accessibility, government capacity, consolidated management, and corruption control. The framework and identified factors may serve as effective tools to diagnose and monitor PPP development in a broader array of countries. The framework is applied in analyzing data from four transitional economies and several advanced economies. The efficacy of the framework is further justified by its explanatory power of PPPs’ practicality and is largely confirmed by results from a sensitivity test.     

Desperate equilibrium: on guilt,law and rationality

Abstract

This paper is about the role of guilt in relation to practical reason. It analyses guilt not as a passive emotion but as a particular kind of strategy at the level of subjective rationality. The concept of guilt occupies a complex and contested semantic space with other concepts, most notably shame. There have been many attempts – philosophical, psychological, sociological – to define these concepts in relation to each other. This paper suggests that whilst guilt is a moral concept that is oriented towards a certain kind of legalism, shame is a moralistic concept. As such, the relations between guilt and shame are discussed in relation to some literary examples, for instance Macbeth's guilt and Conrad's Lord Jim. The conclusion is that on the one hand our confusion over the concept of guilt comes down not least to what may be our confusion over the difficult concept of law and that on the other hand this has consequences that can ultimately be political.     

Press–Party Parallelism and Its Effects in Sweden: A Longitudinal Study, 1979–2002

Seymour-Ure introduced the concept of 'press–party parallelism' (PPP) into mass media studies in The Political Impact of Mass Media (Constable/Sage, 1974). This concept describes the partisanship of the newspaper system. So far, little systematic longitudinal research of PPP and its possible effects has been conducted. The current study fills this void. It makes the argument that PPP should be conceptualized as a context variable, which structures political behavior. It then proposes a measure of PPP and applies this measure to eight Swedish Election Studies from 1979 to 2002. Finally, it studies the effect of PPP on electoral participation. PPP varies considerably over time, and the analyses show that it structures electoral participation. The concluding section of the article argues that a decline of PPP is a manifestation of a decrease of attachment to one political party (dealignment) and of a process of professionalization of journalism.     

The abiding voter: The lengthy horizon of retrospective evaluations

Although the theory of retrospective voting receives wide support in the literature on voting behaviour, less agreement exists on voters’ time horizon when assessing the government's performance – that is, whether voters are myopic. Previous studies on voter myopia tend to focus on aggregate-level measures of the economy, or use an experimental approach. Using panel data, this article offers the first investigation into voter myopia that uses individual-level evaluations of government performance in a representative survey at several points during the electoral cycle. The study focuses on The Netherlands, but it also provide tests of the generalisability and robustness of the findings, and a replication in the American context. The results indicate that voter satisfaction early in the government's term adds to explaining incumbent voting. Thus, rather than the myopic voter, evidence is found of the abiding voter – steady at her or his post, evaluating government performance over a long length of time.     

Reconceptualizing financial innovation: frame,conjuncture and bricolage

Abstract

This article argues for a reconceptualization of financial innovation which, as culprit and victim of the current crisis, is now damned by those who once praised it. But what is financial innovation? The dominant answers from mainstream finance and social studies of finance share variations on a rationalistic view whereby financial innovation is about improving markets or at least extending the sphere of rational calculability. Because improvisation is more important than the dominant perspectives can admit, this article proposes a new concept of financial innovation whose three main elements – frame, conjuncture and bricolage – are indicated by the title of this article. The importance of this problem shift is that it highlights the inherent fragility of this type of intermediary-led financial innovation where things will often miscarry and highlights the need for a more radical rethinking about policy responses to the financial crisis that began in 2007.     

The Conceptualisation and Measurement of Issue Ownership

Issue ownership means that some parties are considered by the public at large as being more able to deal with, or more attentive to, certain issues. The theory has been used to explain both party behaviour – parties are expected to focus on owned issues – and voter behaviour – when a voter considers a party to own an issue, this affects the odds of voting for that party. The purpose of this article is, first, to provide a look backward at the existing research through a literature review of the studies that were conducted in the past decade-and-a-half. Secondly, it takes stock of the current conceptualisation and argues that issue ownership is a multidimensional concept. Thereafter the article discusses how this multidimensionality affects both the role of issue ownership in voter and in party behaviour. Finally, the article outlines a number of shortcomings of the extant literature and discusses potential avenues for future research.     

Where it all starts: Lobbying,democracy and the Public Interest

The article is a theoretical and semantic analysis of the concept of Public Interest. It starts with a focus on the ambiguity of the concepts of interest and public, whose different interpretations directly impact the understanding of the expression “Public Interest.” An examination follows of the most important contributions in the literature on the idea of Public Interest. A distinction is then drawn between the concept and different conceptions of it. In particular, I propose a typology of five ideal–typical conceptions of the Public Interest: formal, substantive, realist, aggregative, and procedural. For each conception, I highlight the constitutive elements and the relevant consequences in their respective visions of democracy and of lobbying. Some expectations are finally advanced on the uses of the various conceptions in actual policymaking contexts.     

Harnessing Market Competition in PPP Procurement: The Importance of Periodically Taking a Strategic View

Public‐Private Partnerships (PPP) procurement is routinely portrayed as offering greater scope for harnessing competitive market forces to secure Value for Money (VfM) than traditional procurement approaches ( OECD 2008 ). The aim of this article is (a) to demonstrate the importance of periodically taking a more systematic and strategic view when assessing VfM in PPP procurement ( OGC 2003 ), and (b) to develop an analytical framework for such an analysis. Road infrastructure procurement in South East Queensland is used as a case study to test the usefulness of the proposed framework, and to show how a narrow focus on individual contracts increases the risk of overlooking overdependence on one supplier ( OGC 2003 ). Discussion focuses on the need to combine detailed analysis of individual contracts with longitudinal analyses of market competitiveness when assessing best VfM.     

Governance Forms in Urban Public-Private Partnerships

The article starts a conversation in the literature about the governance structures of certain kinds of collaboratives in public management: public-private partnerships. The findings come from the study of implemented partnerships for regeneration and management of city centres in the U.S. (Business Improvement Districts) and U.K. (Town Centre Management), and the introduction of urban regime theory. A three-ideal typology is built up, concerning the roles played by structures/design of the partnership, legal frameworks, incentives, evolution, competition, governance structures, and the ways all of these evolve. The conclusion is that public-private partnerships are constantly evolving and may assume “variable geometries” in response to the form of governance dominating their internal arrangements. Partnerships may be of various kinds: symbolic partnerships, in which hierarchical governance predominates; instrumental partnerships, which obey market rules; organic partnerships, where the predominant form of governance is network-based. The kind of PPP employed affects how the relationship between public and private organisations is managed.     

Governance in the European Union: A Policy Analysis of the Attempts to Raise Legitimacy through Civil Society Participation

Abstract

The article focuses on two flagship initiatives – the open method of co-ordination and online consultations – in which the European Union aimed to improve democratic legitimacy through collaborative governance. Offering an analytical framework to scrutinize the large body of existing theoretical and empirical research, the article concludes that not only were the high expectations on the effects of applied governance disappointed, the results also hint at larger, more general implications for the governance concept that, in contrast to the high expectations, appears to be indeed strongly dependent on government-like conditions to operate successfully.     

Melancholic citizenship in the south Tel Aviv protest against global migration

Combining anthropological analysis with the discipline of urban studies and the theory of melancholy, this article offers the concept of ‘melancholic citizenship’ to describe the emotion of sadness aroused among a discriminated group of citizens in light of a process that highlights their social marginality. The case study explored is the struggle of old-time Mizrahi (Jews who immigrated to Israel from Arab countries) residents of the Hatikva neighborhood – a lower income neighborhood of south Tel Aviv – against the inflow of African migration to the area. Based on anthropological field work I conducted in the neighborhood between the years 2010–2013, I argue that the struggle of the longstanding residents aroused melancholic feelings among them when they realized that the global migration is a current indication of their discrimination as lower income Mizrahim who inhabit the city periphery and are located at the margins of Israeli society.     

Nationalisation of multilevel party systems: A conceptual and empirical analysis

The concept of ‘nationalisation’ is vigorously discussed in the literature and three dimensions have been proposed. A first dimension considers the extent to which a party's vote in territorial units varies across time and this is labeled ‘dynamic nationalisation’. ‘Distributional nationalisation’ focuses on the degree to which there is an equal distribution of party votes across territorial units. Finally, ‘party‐linkage nationalisation’ concerns the extent to which candidates link together under common party labels. In addition to a conceptual debate there has been a simultaneous debate on the measurement of the various forms of nationalisation. This article contributes to both debates and argues that most of the literature on nationalisation suffers from a methodological nationalism bias – that is, the tendency of many scholars to choose the statewide level and national election as the natural unit of analysis. This claim is supported by a conceptual and empirical analysis regarding the effects of decentralisation on nationalisation. The conceptual analysis shows that the non‐robust findings of many studies concerning the effects of decentralisation on nationalisation can be related to the methodological nationalism bias. An effect of decentralisation is found once nationalisation is conceptualised with regard to its multilevel dimension and the measurements of nationalisation are differentiated according to parties, regions and type of elections (national or regional). An empirical analysis on the nationalisation of party systems, parties and regions in 18 countries for national and regional elections held between 1945 and 2009 shows that regional authority has a significant and robust effect on regions and regional elections but not on parties, party systems and national vote shares.     

What the Secretary Said Next: ‘Public Rhetorical Leadership’ in the Australian Public Service

Every year, senior departmental secretaries in Australia deliver keynote speeches to a range of audiences. What are these secretaries talking about, and to whom are they directing their comments? This article will examine keynote addresses by the secretaries of the two key central agencies in Australia – the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and The Treasury – over the calendar years 2009 and 2010. I argue that ‘public rhetorical leadership’ by secretaries poses challenges for traditional understandings of Westminster governance. Utilising the concepts of public value theory, the significance of this ‘public rhetorical leadership’ is assessed in terms of its impacts on policy implementation and questions of accountability.     

Voters' Perceptions of Policy Convergence and the Short‐term Opportunities of Anti‐immigrant Parties: Examples from Sweden

In contrast to previous studies on the political opportunity structures of anti‐immigrant parties, this article argues that voters’ perceptions of policy convergence between mainstream alternatives affect their short‐term propensity for supporting such partisan challengers. Drawing upon leading research in the field, two hypotheses about voters’ perceptions of policy convergence, in two policy areas (economic redistribution and immigration), are presented. The main findings in the article suggest that policy convergence between mainstream parties has a more immediate impact on the electorate than commonly recognised. Using unique data from Sweden, the article shows that perceived convergence between Swedish mainstream parties in the field of immigration policy increases potential support for the anti‐immigrant party, the Sweden Democrats (SD). Yet the results are the opposite when it comes to perceptions of convergence in the field of economic‐distributive policies. In contrast to widespread assumptions, the article thus finds that policy convergence between mainstream parties only appears to create short‐term opportunities for anti‐immigrant parties if it takes place on their own policy turf. These results indicate, in other words, that the potential electorate of the SD – which is a wider group than hard‐core xenophobes – is largely driven by preferences about immigration policy, rather than the short‐term urge to protest against mainstream parties. The article, therefore, concludes that the cordon sanitaire to isolate the SD in Sweden – which is underpinned by de facto convergence between mainstream parties on immigration policy – could improve, and is unlikely to curb, the short‐term electoral opportunities of this party.     

Equality,risk and responsibility: Dworkin on the insurance market

The concept of risk occupies centre-stage in debates about individual and social responsibilities and, within a broadly neo-liberal regime, the paradigmatic form of risk management is insurance. Nevertheless analysis of these recent shifts in welfare politics appears curiously disconnected from dominant trends of normative political theorizing. The rise of ‘insurance as government’ and ‘risk management as responsibility and opportunity’ has not obviously been addressed even by prominent liberal political theorists. Similarly the analysts of neo-liberalism have devoted little attention to tracing these concepts through the literature on political theory. This article seeks to remedy this disconnection, by showing how Ronald Dworkin – perhaps the foremost liberal theorist writing today – offers us an account of equality which foregrounds the apparatus of insurance, and represents the management of risk within the welfare system as both an opportunity and a responsibility. Furthermore, his account inherits many of the ambiguities and weaknesses of neo-liberal theory and redeploys them within the political theory of equality.     

Silent citizens: reflections on community,habit, and the silent majority in political life

This article identifies two different senses in which the concept of ‘community’ can be seen to underpin the norm of vocal participation in democratic politics. The first is a broadly liberal view of community – traceable to Alexis de Tocqueville – that promotes active, vocal, and autonomous citizens and acts as a buffer between the state and the individual. A second broadly conservative view of community in the writings, for example, of Edmund Burke and T.S. Eliot treats community as organic, passive, and largely silent. It valorizes habit and habitual relationships as supporting political life through obedience to the law and respect for authority. While these two traditions stand apart, what is striking about both views of community is the one point about which both agree: citizens' sense of community is in decline within liberal democracies today. Thus silence and silent majorities are problematic to both traditions, albeit for different reasons.     

Fundamentalism's encounters with citizenship: the Haredim in Israel

This paper centers on the challenge that fundamentalist groups – such as the Israeli ultra-Orthodox community (the Haredim) – pose for citizenship. It focuses on two issues: challenges centering on contribution to and sacrifice for the Israeli nation-state; and alternatives that fundamentalism poses to definitions of citizenship. Empirically, it is based on research in three arenas: service in the Israeli military; a voluntary organization aiding state agencies after terror attacks (ZAKA), and a charitable association offering help in health and social welfare (Yad Sarah). Two trends – challenges to concepts of security and the state, and the weakening of the state in the economic sphere and social services – have opened up spaces for fundamentalist groups to operate in civil society and complement the state. The Haredi community has gradually developed a new concept of inclusion that both fits the state-centred view of citizenship and their own fundamentalist perspective.