Twice-hyphenated: transnational identity among second-generation Ethiopian-American professionals in the Washington,DC, metropolitan area

This article examines the dynamics of transnational identity among second-generation Ethiopian-American professionals. Drawing on the experiences of 21 second-generation Ethiopian-American professionals, I analyze how they manage the dual challenges of maintaining Ethiopian identities while embracing American values and aspirations. Study participants indicated how their parents actively encourage them to embrace Ethiopian culture while they expect them to succeed in the US society. They expressed fear that if they become ‘too American’, they will disappoint their parents. Moreover, they find restricting their identity to one group or another too confining. They selectively choose defining ethnic characteristics from the cultural domains in which they operate –their families, social networks, and school environments; media images; popular culture; and the broader dominant culture. Most of them embrace individualism and autonomy in order to negotiate, create, and recreate their own transnational identities. The ethnic characteristics of second-generation Ethiopian-American can certainly be characterized as ‘hybrid identities’.     

Culture Governance: Governing Self‐Reflexive Modernity

Political and administrative analysis is today said to be taking a narrative turn: to learning by telling and listening to the different stories that constitute political life. However, this new approach to studying the decentring of politics and policy as multiple discursive practices carries a new grand narrative too. A new connection between political authority and political community is taking shape outside the spheres of modern government and representative democracy. Political authority is becoming increasingly both communicative and interactive in order for it to be able to meet complexity with complexity. It is employed for reforming institutions by opening them towards the culture and by tying them to the political attributes and capacities of self‐reflexive individuals and to the transformation and self‐transformation of their conduct. I call this development culture governance. Culture governance is about how political authority must increasingly operate through capacities for self‐and co‐governance and therefore needs to act upon, reform, and utilize individual and collective conduct so that it might be amenable to its rule (Bang 2003; Dean 2003). Culture governance represents a new kind of top‐down steering; it is neither hierarchical nor bureaucratic but empowering and self‐disciplining. It manifests itself as various forms of joined‐up government and network governance and proclaims itself to be genuinely democratic and dialogical. This I shall show by a study of local Danish politics and policy in Copenhagen. Culture governance, I shall argue, constitutes a formidable challenge and threat to democracy, in attempting to colonize the whole field of public reason, everyday political engagement, democratic deliberation, and so on, by its own systems logic of success, effectiveness or influence. It seeks to take charge of the working of the more spontaneous, less programmed and more lowly organized politics of the ordinary in political communities, thus undermining the very idea of a non‐strategic public reasoning as founding the practices of freedoms.     

A THEORY OF CULTURE‐SWITCHING: LEADERSHIP AND RED‐TAPE DURING HURRICANE KATRINA

This article draws upon studies of organizational culture and sense‐making to develop a theory of culture‐switching. Culture‐switching occurs when organizational actors shift emphasis from one existing organizational cultural assumption to another to reshape organizational action. The concept is demonstrated in a case study of the Hurricane Katrina response by the US Department of Defense (DOD). A slow initial DOD response arose because of self‐imposed red‐tape designed to limit engagement in crisis response, reflecting a cultural assumption of the need to maintain autonomy. DOD leaders altered the nature of the response by committing to another widely‐shared cultural assumption: a ‘can‐do’ approach to achieving difficult goals regardless of obstacles. The case illustrates how different organizational cultural assumptions interact with red tape to foster either inertia or a proactive response.     

Cultural Capital and Sustainable Livelihoods in Sri Lanka's Rural Villages: Towards Culturally Aware Development

Increasing attention is being directed towards the role of culture in the development and well-being of rural communities. Systems of knowledge, beliefs, customs, norms and a wide range of culturally related activities, such as arts, crafts and music, can play a significant role in the everyday lives of people and contribute to the sustainability of human societies. The means through which culture can be effectively incorporated into development processes requires further research. This article develops the concept of ‘cultural capital’ to explore how cultural assets sustain an artisan class in three rural villages close to the city of Kandy in central Sri Lanka. The field research found that embodied cultural traditions and subsequent material outputs are vital ‘resources’ in achieving livelihood objectives and meeting family aspirations. We argue that the development industry needs to reconsider cultural assets and traditions and incorporate them into its work at conceptual and programmatic levels. Conceptually development needs to see itself as a cultural as much as economic or social process, and programmatically we see openings within sustainable livelihoods approaches for a greater explicit appreciation and awareness of locally-specific cultural traditions, strengths and perspectives.     

REPRESENTING EUROPE: THE EMERGING ‘CULTURE’ OF EU DIPLOMACY

Debate over ‘loyalty transfer’ in the European Union (EU) centres on the assumption that elite socialisation and ‘spillover’ processes lead inevitably to changes in the behaviour and identities of European officials. This article interrogates that notion by exploring how officials in the EU external delegations represent Europe. The Lisbon Treaty (2009) will transform the delegations in ways that are emblematic of the EU's evolution as a global actor. Drawing on empirical insights we examine the way EU diplomats embody the European idea and understand their role in promoting ‘the European Union interests and values around the world’. At a moment of historic transition, the article highlights some of the cultural dynamics currently transforming European diplomacy and how officials conceptualize their work of ‘delivering EU external relations policy’. We argue that Europeanization and loyalty transfer are complicated by inter‐institutional rivalries that raise problematic questions over who can best claim to ‘speak for Europe’.     

Putting power into practice: Administrative and political capacity building in the European Parliament's Committee for International Trade

As the formal powers of the European Parliament have increased with successive treaty changes, its committees' administrations have seen a parallel growth. We argue that such administrative capacity is necessary but not sufficient for acting on formal treaty powers. Administrative capacity has to be combined with political capacity in order to muster policy impact in European Union decision‐making. By differentiating between intra‐institutional administrative and inter‐institutional political capacity, we offer a fine‐grained conceptualization of policy capacity while broadening the theoretical and empirical understanding of the European Parliament's administration as an organizational structure of formal and informal working practices, intra‐institutional coordination and inter‐institutional relations. Based on expert interviews, document analysis and participant observation, the case of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership illustrates how societal politicization of a specific policy issue triggered the European Parliament to exploit the latent potential of its post‐Lisbon administrative capacity by transforming it into a more readily deployable political capacity.     

Diversity in Daugavpils: Unpacking Identity and Cultural Engagement among Minority School Youth in Eastern Latvia

Abstract

Studies of minority ‘integration’ often focus heavily on group boundaries of ethnicity, language and identity. This essay challenges these conventional approaches in Latvia by examining individuals’ quotidian, lived experiences and how these transcend common analytical boundaries. Using the Daugavpils region as a case study, I explore Russian speaker and Latvian participation in events explicitly linked with ‘ethnic’ Latvian cultural identity. I argue, by adopting multifaceted analytical measures of identities, ethnicity and belonging, new perspectives on banal integration and minority engagement within national culture emerge. Individuals engage with each other and with ‘national’ identity and culture in complex ways. Young ‘Russian speakers’ are often more integrated with their ethnic Latvian peers than the extant literature suggests, both civically and in Latvia’s cultural sphere, as consumers and producers of Latvian ‘national’ identity.     

NOT SO ‘ARM'S LENGTH’: REINTERPRETING AGENCIES IN UK CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

Administrative decentralization to government agencies (so‐called ‘agencification’) has attracted much attention in recent years, increasingly for its longevity or evolution after the ‘high’ managerialism of the 1980s, and largely through a neo‐positivist epistemology. Drawing on techniques of narrative and discourse analysis, and a model of incremental ideational change, this article identifies the necessity of supplementing those existing large‐N analyses of agencification's expansion and decline with qualitative attention to the endurance of policy meaning. It demonstrates how the original foundations of managerialism, civil service empowerment and decentralization from the UK's seminal ‘Next Steps’ agency programme are eschewed in contemporary reform discourse, where agencification is instead advocated as centralized, politically proximate and departmentalized governance. This substantial reinterpretation of the arm's‐length concept not only challenges existing claims of continuity in UK administrative policy, but also demonstrates the utility of interpretive methods for exploring longevity in public management more widely.     

From Balcony to Barricade: Nationalism and Popular Mobilisation in Georgia,Ukraine, and Russia

This article examines the dynamics of popular mobilisation in autocratic post-communist regimes, focusing on how opposition groups manoeuvre around cultural and structural constraints to inspire ordinary citizens to join street protests, despite the real dangers associated with political action. Using evidence from original interviews with activists in Georgia, Ukraine, and Russia, the article analyses the comparative challenges facing Russian activists in constructing new collective identities for the people they hope will become their followers, through the use of an inclusive, civic nationalism and a narrative that links action in the present to an ongoing, shared historical process.     

Managing policy‐making in the local climate governance landscape: The role of network administrative organizations and member cities

Trans‐municipal networks (TMNs) have reshaped the landscape around local government action on global climate policy. Past research has focused on why cities join TMNs and the impact that membership has on local action. This study considers a potential reverse effect: namely, that cities' membership choices position them to influence TMNs' overall priorities. In considering this, we emphasize the role of network administrative organizations (NAOs) and posit that the multiple climate‐related networks, which share members and operate in overlapping geographic and issue spaces, are bound together as part of a meta‐network. We utilize social network analysis and data on membership in four climate‐related TMNs to examine the factors that shape how cities can influence meta‐network priorities. We find that cities with local vulnerabilities tend to be located in network positions that enable them to influence the meta‐network's overall priorities.     

NEW FORMS OF ADMINISTRATIVE LAW IN THE AGE OF THIRD‐PARTY GOVERNMENT

This article explores the democratic values underlying public services when they are outsourced. Building on Rosenbloom and Piotrowski's (2005a, 2005b) framework, we examine whether and how administrative law norms – that serve as central democratic governance and accountability mechanisms in the administrative state – are extended to the new (private) frontline service providers. Through a study of the regulation of the privatized welfare‐to‐work programme in Wisconsin, we find that new forms of administrative law are evolving in third‐party government. These forms differ from administrative law as it usually applies to public agencies in several important aspects. The findings highlight the active role of legislative and administrative mechanisms in the promotion of these new forms of administrative law; and they shed light on the transformations that administrative law norms undergo in the age of third‐party government.     

REMOVING THE CULTURAL AND MANAGERIAL BARRIERS IN PROJECT‐TO‐PROJECT LEARNING: A CASE FROM THE UK PUBLIC SECTOR

Project‐based initiatives form a major part of government investment and, so, learning from past projects should be a major concern for public sector organizations. Previous research has explored systems and processes for project‐based learning but little research has examined the social and cultural factors that enable this learning to be applied with useful effect. This paper reports on two successive major UK government projects. The introduction of independent learning accounts (ILAs) and the subsequent introduction of educational maintenance allowances (EMAs) following the scrapping of the former. Although similar in many respects, the first was a major failure while the second, having learned the lessons of the first, was acclaimed as a success. Using a cultural analysis, this case study shows how project‐to‐project learning enabled the EMA project team to learn from the failed project. This resulted in two significant changes in government and civil service organizational culture.     

BETTER REGULATION IN EUROPE: BETWEEN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND REGULATORY REFORM

Can the European regulatory state be managed? The European Union (EU) and its member states have looked at better regulation as a possible answer to this difficult question. This emerging public policy presents challenges to scholars of public management and administrative reforms, but also opportunities. In this conceptual article, we start from the problems created by the value‐laden discourse used by policy‐makers in this area, and provide a definition and a framework that are suitable for empirical/explanatory research. We then show how public administration scholars could usefully bring better regulation into their research agendas. To be more specific, we situate better regulation in the context of the academic debates on the New Public Management, the political control of bureaucracies, evidence‐based policy, and the regulatory state in Europe.     

On the Relationship between Political Science and Administrative Science in Germany

The theoretical and empirical analysis of administrative activities has been an important area of research since the establishment of political science as an academic discipline in Germany at the end of the 1960s. But is administrative science still a significant part of political science in Germany today? I argue here that in Germany a political science oriented administrative science has developed from a science focused on public administration, that is, on organizational questions, to one focused on public policies and thus on questions concerning the conditions and consequences of political problem solving and control (Steuerung). The question of the internal organization of government is increasingly regarded as an irrelevant one; in addition, the institutional promotion and funding of political science administration research has dramatically decreased since the 1970s. Today's new challenges (economization and internationalization) for both government and public administration seem to exceed the capability of political science administrative research. These challenges open up new opportunities, however, since, in the search for solutions beyond the dichotomy of market/managerialism on the one hand and traditional bureaucracy and state government on the other, political science in particular regains more importance. As will be shown, there are now tendencies which indicate that political science administrative research might encounter a stronger political demand. If the consequent research is able to find a new mixture of theory and practice, this in turn could help revitalize political science administrative research in Germany.     

THE NEW U. S. IMMIGRANTS: HOW DO THEY AFFECT OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN EXPERIENCE?

The implications of recent immigration for race relations in the United States depend importantly on family cultural orientations among Mexican Americans and how this group is culturally perceived by Anglos. Because Moynihan's 1965 work (in)famously emphasized the need to change black family culture in order to ameliorate black poverty, his work still holds implications for understanding how cultural orientations affect changing color lines. Unfortunately, his partially insightful analyses inadequately foresaw that policies designed to alleviate poverty through the modification of family cultural patterns are likely to fail without parallel changes in structural opportunities. Similar limitations also often emerge from mis-characterizations of Mexican origin family cultural situations, which all too often are incongruously reified as either being unduly familistic (thus falsely implying Mexican origin families foster self-sufficiency) or largely governed by culture of poverty tendencies (thus inaccurately suggesting Mexican origin families depend on welfare). Here we review research suggesting that Mexican origin families are neither substantially familistic nor disproportionately susceptible to moral hazard, thus indicating that future Mexican origin economic advancement is likely to turn on the availability of structural opportunities. In-depth interviews with Anglos further suggest that Mexicans are not culturally viewed with the same degree of prejudice and discrimination as blacks, implying that the integration of Mexicans into American society, contingent on adequate economic opportunity, will probably progress more steadily than often feared, while that of blacks may proceed more slowly than often expected.     

FRAGMENTED BUT FORCEFUL: DUTCH ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES AND THEIR INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION

This article is an attempt by three (relatively) young scholars to make sense of the broad field of public administration (PA), in The Netherlands, with particular emphasis on Dutch administrative sciences. The one essential fact about the Dutch administrative sciences is that they lack a real essence, both in institutional and in paradigmatic terms. They are fragmented – yet forceful. Nevertheless, we will argue, they must recast their position in relation to practitioners and other academics if they are to maintain their strength. We start by highlighting the development of The Netherlands itself, moving on to Dutch public administration and Dutch administrative sciences. We explore the historical Dutch emphasis on ‘pragmatic morality’. After this rough historical overview, we move on to contemporary features of Dutch administrative sciences, features which explain why these sciences have become fragmented, yet forceful – as well as why this force is threatened. We conclude with a perspective on the future of the field and will argue in favour of a renewed emphasis on ‘pragmatic morality’ within scholarly circles.     

How can network leaders promote public value through soft metagovernance?

The aim of this article is to explore the opportunities and challenges of employing ‘soft’ metagovernance to promote public value in governance networks. Soft metagovernance can be defined as a form of relational leadership that is exercised through face‐to‐face contact. This involves making an emotional connection with people to exert influence through a collaborative endeavour, rather than employing bureaucratic authority. Drawing on a case study of a local social enterprise—The Bristol Pound—in the UK, this article examines how soft metagovernance can be used by non‐state actors as a form of leadership to create public value. Evidence reveals that relational forms of leadership are a powerful asset in helping leaders of networks to create public value. Moreover, if network leaders understand how soft metagovernance functions they can use it more purposefully to maximize public value creation and mitigate the risks of public value destruction in governance networks.     

Coordinated European Governance: Self‐Organizing or Centrally Steered?

Now that it is widely accepted that the European Union (EU) constitutes a system of governance, analysts need actively to explore precisely how it may affect the continuing struggle better to coordinate national and European administrations. In its 2001 White Paper on governance, the European Commission interpreted governance to mean less central control and more network-led steering. Its interpretation of such networks is that they are self-organizing. Drawing upon an empirical study of environmental policy integration (EPI) in the EU, this article shows that this vision may not adequately fit the multi-actor, multi-level coordination challenges associated with some EU problems. By studying the administrative capacities that the European Commission and three member states have created to achieve better environmental coordination, this article shows significant administrative weaknesses. It concludes that the coordination challenges now troubling the EU require a more thoughtful discussion of network management than the White Paper suggests.     

Cultural Aspects Of Europeanization: The Case Of The Scottish Office

This article takes an in-depth look at the cultural implications of membership of the European Union (EU) for a UK government department. As part of a broader examination of how Europeanization, in its various forms, has affected a range of Whitehall departments, Bulmer and Burch (1998) concluded that the cultural element of change in the UK has been limited in the sense that existing administrative traditions within government departments have not undergone any radical reorientation. The purpose here is to test the validity of these conclusions and in more general terms afford detailed consideration to an area of Europeanization which has tended to be neglected in the academic discourse. This is achieved by way of employing interview and documentary-based source material relating to the area of cultural change as it affected a particular UK department, the Scottish Office. In the event, the piece concludes that the detail of the Scottish Office case can be used to confirm Bulmer and Burch's general observation that cultural Europeanization has not manifested itself to any great extent within UK government departments in the sense that it has entailed wide-reaching changes to administrative approaches and working practices. More generally, the empirical basis of the analysis provides fresh insights into how specific matters, such as training and secondments, have impacted upon the work of civil servants in the UK.