THE ROLE OF POLITICIANS AND ADMINISTRATORS IN DEPARTMENTAL REORGANIZATION: THE CASE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT

This article examines the history of the Department of the Environment from its creation in 1970 to the formation of the Department of Transport in 1976. Its main approach is an analysis of the roles of the Permanent Secretary and the Secretary of State in the development of the organization. The strong organizational relationship between these senior members of the department is an important factor in structural change both at the time of the initial reforms and throughout this period.
The influence of different personalities and their approaches to policy and management is considered as a determining factor in the evolution of the department. Additionally, the attempts at reorganization and reform are to be seen as largely developing within a traditional Whitehall framework, based on this relationship, which restricted its effectiveness.     

INDIVIDUALS AND THE DYNAMICS OF POLICY LEARNING: THE CASE OF THE THIRD BATTLE OF NEWBURY

In recent years, the phenomenon whereby key individuals introduce effective ideas into policy processes has been identified as a vital agent in the redefinition of policy issues. In turn, this raises the basic question of how these individuals themselves undergo processes of learning and change. The article examines three models of policy learning in order to analyse what they may tell us about the dynamics of individual learning: the advocacy coalition framework; the process of learning by means of ‘development’; and issue redefinition through processes of punctuated equilibria. The models are examined in the context of the learning dynamics of three key individuals within the salient anti‐bypass group the ‘Third Battle of Newbury’. The article’s conclusion identifies three apparent paradoxes in individual learning dynamics and attempts to answer these with particular reference to the concepts of frame reflection and regulation by means of norm setting.     

THE MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE IN WHITEHALL: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE FMI

The Conservative government announced the Financial Management Initiative in 1982. This article is based on research into the genesis, development and impact of the FMI. The findings suggest that the FMI has contributed significantly to the institutionalization of resource management in general and cost awareness in particular. Implementation has been influenced, however, by the differentiation of departmental tasks and contexts, the inevitable tension between management and politics, and the difficulty of meeting the conditions for the successful engineering of cultural change.     

THE COSTS AND RETURNS OF THE PRIVATIZATION OF NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIES

The sale of public sector industry has become a central plank of UK public policy. This paper concentrates upon the most contentious area of the opportunity cost of share sales. The nature of these costs is related to the revealed objectives of the policy, and the extent to which they differ from expected costs is identified. The nature of the benefits forecast for privatization is explod and questions posed concerning the balance of costs and benefits in current policy. Particular attention is paid to the distribution of returns on the share issues in privatized businesses and parallels are drawn with issues in the private sector.     

FROM THE EUROPEANIZATION OF LAWMAKING TO THE EUROPEANIZATION OF NATIONAL LEGAL ORDERS: THE CASE OF AUSTRIA

This article addresses the scope of legal Europeanization with regard to Austria, a 1995 accession country. Depending on the choice among several plausible indicators of legal Europeanization, the relative impact of the EU varies greatly. The share of EU-related legislation peaked in the pre-accession period when most of the acquis communautaire needed to be adopted. In the membership period, legislation that relates to the EU accounts for almost 25 per cent of the enactments. Although government decrees outnumber laws as the means of transposition, EU-related rules constitute a much smaller share of delegated legislation. Collectively, EU-related rules constitute a tenth of Austrian legislation. Yet by mid-2003, 42 per cent of Austria's original laws—the core of its legislation—were related to EU rules. While falling short of some inflated expectations, legal Europeanization is indeed a major feature of Austrian legislation. The article confirms expectations derived from the political controversy of EU affairs, federalism, and legal traditions. When we refer to 'legal orders' in the article we mean the entire body of legislation in force; we use the term 'legislation' to refer to recent additions to the body of legislation.     

BLAMING THE VICTIM; THE ROLE OF DECISION-MAKERS IN THE OCCURRENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE

ABSTRACT

Past research on environmental justice concerns has focused primarily on the siting of hazardous waste facilities. Less research has been done on other aspects of environmental policy in which concerns of racial or other injustices arise. This study shows that environmental injustice is not limited to the sitting of hazardous facilities or the occurrence of pollution, but occurs also at the policy formation and implementation stages in other areas such as solid waste management. To study this issue, this study focuses on the implementation of the Illinois Solid Waste Management Act of 1988, in two counties in north-eastern Illinois, Kankakee and Will. In neither of the two counties were minorities included in the planning process, and out of a total of 91 advisory committee members, minority interests were represented by only one black male. At the same time racial minorities made up about 15 percent of the total population in the two counties.

The study shows that the main reason for this lack of representation is not a lack of environmental concern among blacks. Nor can it be explained by a lack of interest in participation in environmental decision-making among blacks. Rather, the study shows that the process is led by misconceptions among planners and decision-makers who generally believe that blacks are not interested in environmental issues and therefore not interested in participating in environmental decision-making. The conclusion of this study is that it is the belief held by local planners and decision-makers that there is a lack of interest in environmental issues among blacks, that produced a planning process in which the interest of minorities were not represented.     

THE UNITARY STATE AS A SYSTEM OF CO-GOVERNANCE: THE CASE OF THE NETHERLANDS

The original institutional design of Dutch administration and intergovernmental relations is commonly referred to as the 'decentralized unitary state'. However, the views of traditional administrative theorists have been misrepresented. Hierarchy, uniformity and the separation and delimitation of layers of government are not, as often alleged, the theoretical underpinnings of the Dutch unitary state. Rather, classical theory emphasized interdependence, diversity and the dynamic interaction of relatively independent layers of government. This image suggests that Dutch administration does not need a greater separation of layers of government but better means for regulating conflict. It also suggests that the unitary state comes in several guises and cannot be equated with a monocentric system of government.     

THE ROLE OF EXTERNAL INSPECTION IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES: THE CASE OF THE UK TRAINING MARKET

We consider two interpretations of the role of external inspection in the public services in the UK in the context of publicly funded, work‐based training programmes for young people. The first is that inspection provides substantive information to buyers concerning training quality, thereby improving efficiency in the ‘training market'. The second is that it provides procedurally oriented reassurance concerning service quality to government and the public, irrespective of substantive quality. Evidence is drawn from the inspection procedures and reports of the Adult Learning Inspectorate between 2001 and 2005. The inspectors rated training providers on various attributes, some clearly procedural, others potentially substantive. We find that while inspectors took both procedural and substantive dimensions of training into account in judging the quality of a provider's services, they attached considerably more weight to procedural than to substantive attributes. In particular, they undervalued the trainee completion rate, despite its potential association with the substantive quality of training and the priority the government attaches to raising it. These results are interpreted as evidence of limited validity in inspection findings, which do little to resolve information asymmetries in the UK training market.     

THE VISIBLE HAND OF THE STATE: ON THE ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF INTEREST GROUPS

To understand dynamics within communities of organized interests, researchers have primarily studied organizational births and deaths. The organizational development of established interest organizations has received far less attention. This article claims that the evolution of interest groups' organizational features is strongly affected by evolving resource dependencies with the state. A life‐history case study of an environmental interest organization is used to substantiate this argument empirically. The findings demonstrate that resource dependence relations with state actors critically shape organizational development, but that this dependence affects an organization's mission, structure, and strategy in different ways. This conclusion highlights the vital role of government patronage in the survival and maintenance of interest organizations.     

MEETING THE CHALLENGE OF MARGINALIZATION PROCESSES AT THE PERIPHERY OF EUROPE

Under the influence of the enlargement of the European Union, there is now a renewed concern for marginalization processes in rural areas. Especially in countries at the periphery of Europe, these processes often have a large‐scale and multifaceted character. As agriculture and rural areas have become dissociated, the marginalization or success of the one no longer necessarily affects the other, and not necessarily in the same way. Dealing with the phenomenon in policy terms requires tools to explicate it. In this article, we present a simple typology of marginalization processes as a first step to its disentangling. The typology is applied to Finland and Portugal, countries at the periphery of Europe. The results strengthen the idea that different processes with different characteristics are going on at the same time, requiring specific approaches.     

NEGLECTED FACES OF EUROPEANIZATION: THE DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT OF THE EU ON THE DISMANTLING AND EXPANSION OF DOMESTIC POLICIES

The objective of this article is to clarify the extent and the conditions under which the European Union (EU) induces changes in the policy arrangements of its member states. For an accurate measurement of our dependent variable, we distinguish between EU-induced policy expansion and EU-induced policy dismantling. We argue that the extent to which European requirements lead to an expansion or dismantling of national policy arrangements is crucially affected by the respective governance logic underlying the regulatory activities at the European level, that is: (1) compliance with EU rules; (2) competition between national administrative systems to achieve EU requirements; and (3) communication between regulatory agents across national levels arranged in an EU legal or institutional framework. To illustrate our theoretical argument, we develop hypotheses on the likelihood and direction of national policy change under these three modes of governance, in addition, providing empirical examples from different policy areas.     

THE POLITICS OF MARKETING THE LABOUR PARTY

THE POLITICS OF MARKETING THE LABOUR PARTY
Dominic Wring
Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, 262 pp., £16.99 (pb) ISBN: 0333689534     

A PROLEGOMENON TO THE STUDY OF THE ROLE OF RHETORIC IN THE GARBAGE-CAN POLICY PROCESS: THE CASE OF HONG KONG'S POSITIVE NON-INTERVENTIONISM

This article analyzes the Hong Kong government's policy making process from the garbage-can perspective. Despite the official claim that the principle of positive non-interventionism has been consistently adhered to, Hong Kong policy makers have been strategically employing positive non-interventionism as rhetoric in legitimizing what they choose to do or not to do in an ad-hoc manner. As a result, be it under colonial rule or Chinese sovereignty, Hong Kong has been governed like an “organized anarchy.” Indeed, playing with the rhetoric of positive non-interventionism has become the identity of Hong Kong policy makers. This argument is illustrated with a review of Hong Kong's industrial policy making from the pre-war period to the present.     

THE CONTRIBUTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS IN THE SUCCESS OF ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT COMMERCE

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to identify factors which affect the success of electronic commerce applications in federal agencies and to explore the role of transformational leadership and strategic planning for Web sites in the success of electronic commerce applications designed to serve citizens. Based on the literature review relative to electronic government commerce, the research model in this study postulates that transformational leadership, strategic planning for Web sites and other factors such as the size and complexity of the Web site influence the success of electronic commerce applications in federal agencies. The success of electronic commerce applications is the dependent variable and is measured by a combination of user-based criteria and system-based criteria. This research employed a combination of an online questionnaire survey and a Web structural survey. Questionnaires were electronically mailed to IT managers and/or users who have e-mail addresses at federal agencies. The results of the research confirmed the close association between organizational factors (transformational leadership and strategic planning for Web sites) and the success of electronic commerce applications in federal agencies.     

WILL THE PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC ENTERPRISES SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF CONTROL?

The Government's privatization programme has acquired such momentum that hardly any public enterprise is exempt from action or proposals. Evaluation of the programme must recognize the diversity of privatization policies, and the tensions inherent within their objectives. Ideological motivation has been supported by the inability of policymakers to design a viable framework of economic and financial control over public enterprises. This has led to a view that it is impossible to manage business efficiently within the public sector, the constraints of which can only be escaped by ‘setting the enterprise free’. However, decisions now will close future options, only be escaped and may be prohibitive to reverse. A list of unanswered questions remain about future relationships between hybrids and governments, the costs and benefits of the regulatory systems which will replace public ownership, and the balance between public policy and private interests. Can the market succeed where the state has been judged to have failed?