Whither the Developmental State? Explaining Singapore's continued Developmentalism

This paper examines why the Singapore developmental state, unlike the other East Asian developmental states, has shown no signs of devolving but instead appears to be strengthening its position within society by embarking upon several ‘post-industrial’ economic programmes. By utilising a class relations perspective, the paper argues that the resilience of the Singapore developmental state results from the continued weakness of the domestic capitalist class as well as from the state's collaboration with transnational capital and government-linked corporations. At the same time the working class has continuously been ‘incorporated’ by the state. To illustrate these processes, the paper examines Singapore's Biomedical Sciences Initiative, and the Work Restructuring Scheme, which have reinforced the supremacy of the Singapore developmental state, particularly in the economic sphere. The paper concludes that developmental states need not necessarily devolve, if they can continue to provide economic growth as well as to carefully ‘manage’ class relations in society.     

Institutionalizing Participation and Governance? New Participative Structures in Local Government in Ireland

Public service providers and elected levels of government around the world are continually being encouraged to involve citizens in decision-making. Various means of achieving this have been employed by local authorities in different countries. These include local referenda, customer surveys, online discussion forums and citizens' juries. This article draws on the example of new participative committee structures within Irish local government. These seek to involve identified stakeholders (including business, trade unions, the community/voluntary sector and environmental interests) in local government decision-making. These structures were inspired both by international trends towards participatory democracy and Ireland's experience of neo-corporatist 'social partnership' at the national level. This article considers the new committee structures and their composition and examines some of the problems encountered. It demonstrates that recent research into these new structures supports many of the concerns that have been raised in the literature on varying participative mechanisms practiced in other countries.     

Aid and state-building,Part II: Afghanistan and Iraq

Part I of this article found that, in South Korea and Taiwan, institutional legacy and continuity as well as the politics of aid did matter for post-war state-building. The inheritance and continuity of Weberian states and the receipt of aid either as budget support or increasingly aligned with local priorities helped to foster state-building. Part II of the study in this article explores a different dynamic of post-war aid to Afghanistan and Iraq which had a legacy of neopatrimonial and weak states. It argues that under more adverse initial conditions – for a neopatrimonial state – the role of aid regime and state-building strategies become even more important. Under these conditions, aid and state-building strategies may undermine state-building if they induce discontinuity in the existing state capacity and create parallel institutions to those of the state. Depending on the policies, state weakness may be reinforced if leaders are preoccupied with the politics of patronage.     

The importance of contextual factors for reform efforts in rural local governments

Local governments in rural areas are often characterized as lacking in professionalism and capacity necessary for confronting the variety of problems that must be addressed at the local level.

The public administration perspective is often one of recommending reforms to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness with which these governments do things, thereby increasing their capacity to manage their affairs. Well meaning reformers often take for granted the fact that constituents of the reform-targeted governments also recognize the need for change. In practice, the opposite may be closer to the truth. The State of Mississippi has just endured several years of bitter struggles to restructure its county governments. Resistance to structural reform of county government in Mississippi is largely a factor of the existing split between rural citizens and those who live within incorporated municipalities. While rural citizens generally oppose reforms, this opposition virtually disappears when only African-American citizens are examined. There are some important differences associated with the region of the state in which one resides. These differences are not as important as the message they convey. Reform efforts are important for improved governance in rural areas, but their success or failure may depend upon how accurately we assess the socio-political environment in which these reforms are introduced.     

Trust in the leadership of governors and participatory governance in Tokyo Metropolitan Government

This article examines the relationship between the trust in leadership of political leaders and citizen participation by analysing data on Tokyo residents. Among the four variables we used to designate types of, or attitudes towards, public participation, only actual participation has a positive influence on trust. The normative recognition of participation is associated with a critical attitude towards the government. As the unclear needs of citizens have the greatest impact on trust, citizens’ trust is built through relationships between citizens and not between citizens and their government. The importance of positive actions from the local government such as public officials and political leaders that stimulate citizen awareness to the point where citizens take interest in public administration, practice participation, and enlarge participation opportunities, is increasing. We also need to consider the limitations of citizen ability to understand public issues and reflection of their needs, and the limitations of participatory governance on the decision-making process.     

Friends or Foes? Nonstate Public Goods Providers and Local State Authorities in Nondemocratic and Transitional Systems

Ordinary citizens often welcome nonstate provision of public goods and social welfare, but government officials, particularly in nondemocratic and transitional systems, may view nonstate actors as political competitors. Drawing on a combination of qualitative and quantitative data from rural China, this paper finds that some kinds of nonstate participation in public goods and social welfare provision can actually make local officials more optimistic about their ability to implement state policies and elicit citizen compliance. Local officials often believe that coproduction of public goods and services with community groups in particular, often with community actors taking the lead, can build trust and social capital that can spill over into increased citizen compliance with state demands, a central element of state capacity. Simply increasing levels of public goods provision, however, is not associated positively with optimistic perceptions of local state authority and capacity. Moreover, other forms of nonstate participation such as coproduction between private businesses and local officials or substitutive provision by nonstate actors have less potential for building trust between officials and citizens and are not seen by officials as beneficial for increasing citizen compliance.     

Modern at last? Variety of weak states in the post-Soviet world

Scholarly interest has recently shifted from issues of democratic transition to those of state formation and state viability. The paper reviews scholarly contributions to understanding state weakness and suggests criteria and indicators to capture stateness in the former Soviet region. It suggests a preliminary ranking of the post-Soviet states along dimensions of national order, economic efficiency and political viability. The paper hypothesizes a causal mechanism through which state development in the region may occur by incorporating both structural and policy-related factors. It concludes that most states in the region can only be characterized as weak, and their urge to become modern is therefore yet to materialize.     

The state after modernism

In his book Democratic Governance Mark Bevir has highlighted a number of key issues facing those of us who want to understand the state and its role in governing. Not only has the role of the state changed significantly in the last 30 years but those changes need to be understood in terms of the implications for the nature of the state’s interaction with society and the ways in which the state exercises power within a democratic context. Perhaps what Bevir highlights most is how the conceptions of the state amongst elites is being challenged by changes in the form of government but more importantly by changes in the nature of knowledge and how citizens understand their relationship to the state. Whilst Mark Bevir is right to acknowledge the role and influence of ideas, he has a tendency to overemphasize their impact and as a consequence pays insufficient attention to the role that institutions and structures more generally play in mediating the way in which beliefs and ideas affect outcomes. This simplification leads to an overestimation of the degree of change that has occurred in Britain in particular and in states in general.     

Everyday Engagement in Spectacular Situations: popular participation in Colombian security provision

In the past three decades, citizen participation has been heralded as the hallmark of democracy and economic transparency. Yet citizen participation has not been limited to political and economic processes. In this paper I consider the incorporation of participatory measures in an arena frequently overlooked: security provision. I trace the origins, evolution and effects of efforts to increase citizen participation in security provision in Colombia. Despite notorious images of paramilitary forces, guerrilla insurgents and vigilante groups, citizen participation in security provision tends to be banal, boring and not particularly effective, as average people attend local meetings, work through state bureaucracy, and comply with new policy initiatives. I argue that insecurity in Colombia is neither a product of apathetic citizens nor of violent, uncontrollable mobs, but rather part and parcel of an emerging form of governance in which citizens are made responsible for their own security provision.     

CO-OPTATION, COMMODIFICATION AND THE MEDICAL MODEL: GOVERNING UK MEDICINE SINCE 1991

Self-regulation and autonomy are traditionally treated as distinctive elements of how professions are governed in contrast to other occupations. For medicine, these elements provide a collective medium of governance (through the institutions of professional self-regulation) and an individual medium (through the practice of 'clinical autonomy'). Both are reinforced by the intellectual dominance of the so-called 'biomedical model' of health and illness. Analysts generally agree that, in many countries, both self-regulation and clinical autonomy are under significant challenge. But it is less obvious that, in the UK at least, the biomedical model has effectively been co-opted for managerial purposes to support the commodification of medical care. Thus ideas that have traditionally been considered as supporting medical dominance have transpired to be a source of weakness for the profession.     

The changing relationship between the state and the voluntary philanthropic sector: special reference to Singapore

There has been a significant proliferation of voluntary philanthropic organizations to deliver basic services in the current context of anti-welfare neoliberal policies pursued by the state. While there are numerous studies and publications on these voluntary organizations, the nature of their relationship with the state remains relatively under-researched. This article attempts to explore this issue in the case Singapore where, in the absence of an active welfare state, the voluntary philanthropic organizations—especially the Voluntary Welfare Organizations (VWOs)—have played a crucial role in serving citizens’ welfare needs. In evaluating the nature and determinants of this state-VWO relationship, the article examines some relevant theoretical models and applies them to the Singapore case.     

How Stable and Reasonable is Postcommunist Public Opinion? The Case of the Czech Republic

The quality of democracy depends on both politicians and citizens. While most attention has focused on politicians, this paper looks at citizens. There has been some scepticism about whether the postcommunist public is prepared to rule their countries. The legacies of communism and the rigours of the transition may have produced citizens whose opinions are unstable and ill-informed and therefore a poor basis for democratic policy making. This paper tests this proposition by considering the nature of public opinion in the Czech Republic. Its main conclusion is that postcommunist public opinion is more reasonable than conventional wisdom suggests. Opinions on most policies change slowly if at all and when they do change the changes are prompted more by gradual shifts in mores than by political manipulation. This suggests that citizens in the region are prepared to have a significant voice in policy making.     

Arab–Kurdish Relations and the Future of Iraq

Abstract

The Iraqi Kurds now not only possess their most powerful regional government since the creation of Iraq following World War I (the Kurdistan Regional Government—krg), but also play a prominent role in the Iraqi government in Baghdad, holding the posts of president, foreign minister and several other cabinet positions. After a great deal of wrangling, the Kurds managed to maintain their strong position in al-Maliki's new Baghdad government finally cobbled together in December 2010. This dual governmental role stood in marked contrast to the situation that existed before the events of 1991 and 2003, when the Kurds were treated as second class citizens and worse. The ultimate question is for how long this unique Kurdish position of strength will last. Many Arabs still resent the Kurdish claims to autonomy as a challenge to the Arab patrimony and see a federal state for the Iraqi Kurds within Iraq as simply a prelude to secession forced upon the Arabs at a moment of temporary weakness following the war in 2003. When will the Iraqi Arabs organise themselves and start trying to reduce the power of the Kurds again? This paper will analyse this developing situation and tentatively conclude that the two sides are most likely to continue to coexist in a troublesome but peaceful relationship.     

Citizenship in Pakistan: state,nation and contemporary faultlines

The research investigates young Pakistanis' self-articulation of their relationship with the state and what factors play a role in determining their views. The article argues that beyond the issues traditionally seen as causing the instability of the Pakistani state (which include sectarian and ethnic faultlines as well as the role of the army), there is another – between ordinary citizens and the state. Although there are provincial differences, people at large feel alienated by the state and the concept of citizenship has become hazy as it is often mixed up with the issue of identity. Given the paucity of rights and responsibilities and the lack of political participation, the problems across Pakistani society are ever increasing. The research used a mixed methods approach and 1300 questionnaires were collected in 27 different education institutions across three provinces. On aggregate response the research found that there is a high sense of belonging to the nation, yet paradoxically also a high sense of alienation with regard to the state. Whilst most of those surveyed professed awareness of their rights and duties, as well as political awareness, political participation was very low. The qualitative section of the questionnaire exemplified the level of alienation and anger felt by many across the various institutions and provinces.     

State effects and the effects of state building: institution building and the formation of state-centred societies

This article discusses the assumptions underlying state-building efforts and the effects of these efforts. It addresses two main questions: why has state building not led to the establishment of effective states? And what are the effects of statebuilding? It is argued that these efforts have been based on an institutionalist model of the state derived from a Weberian framework, and that the basic reason why state building has failed is that the creation of effective states requires the creation of state-centred societies, where both material and symbolic resources are concentrated in the state. This is very difficult to achieve for external actors. But, although state building has not achieved the kinds of effects associated with effective states, it has nevertheless had significant effects. These include, first, accentuating the patrimonialism which has led to state weakness in the first place; second, reductions in national sovereignty as external actors’ substantial influence on policy agendas renders the state itself subject to control and regulation by actors external to it; and, third, perpetuating the idea of the state, while undermining the possibility of creating actual states which conform to this idea.     

Corruption and Popular Support for Democracy and Government in Transitional Contexts: The Case of Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

Many studies have argued that corruption undermines perceived democratic legitimacy, trust in state institutions, and government support. However, few prior studies have included transitional or hybrid regimes in their analyses, or simultaneously examined multiple aspects of this relationship. Using focus groups and a nationally representative survey conducted throughout a tumultuous transitional period in Kyrgyzstan, we find evidence for our hypotheses that citizens with greater corruption concerns will be more pro-democratic when evaluating democracy or its institutional components in the abstract; yet, they distrust existing government institutions. Even in a hybrid regime lacking democratic experience, citizens exhibit attributes of distrusting democrats.     

Humanitarian aid and host state capacity: the challenges of the Norwegian Refugee Council in Colombia

How can humanitarian actors operate in a host state with significant subnational variations in willingness and capacity to meet its obligations? This is an issue of pressing importance, given the expansion of humanitarian aid to middle-income countries with growing state capacity, but with persistent infrastructural weakness in their periphery. The article illustrates the challenges and potentialities of engaging these states through the case study of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in Colombia. It describes the way the NRC has located its offices in peripheral areas, and how its activities have fostered the rule of law, successfully using rights-based approaches to strengthen subnational state institutions, activate and mobilise citizen demands and bridge national and subnational administrations. The article concludes that these activities, operated by officers with extensive practical knowledge and local trust networks, can open the way for durable solutions for humanitarian crisis, but can also provoke backlash from subnational actors.     

State Power and Its Implications for Civil War Colombia

The following article examines the relationship between state power and civil war in Colombia. It presents three key findings. First, state weakness has provided armed groups with the political opportunity for rebellion. In this respect, most rebel consolidation takes place in areas of Colombia that lack a strong state presence. Second, the growth and evolution of Colombia's armed groups are directly related to their ability to loot exportable natural resource commodities. In stateless areas of Colombia, rebel consolidation tends to take place in areas where the drug trade is also present. Third, the conditions of civil war have led insurgent groups to mimic some of the basic functions and attributes of statehood. Colombia's conflict is more than just a manifestation of popular frustration; indeed, this article shows that civil war is also a form of state-building.     

Dangerised youth: the politics of security and development in Timor-Leste

International organisations, the national government and civil society alike have identified youth as a potential threat to the stability of the young state of Timor-Leste over the last decade. In this article, I ask how these actors define the danger of youth and what reasons they identify for the potential threat of young citizens for the society and state. Guided by a theoretical framework of Critical Security and Development Studies, I argue that while political manipulation as reason for youth violence was a prominent part of the security discourse in the years after the crisis in 2006, the discourse on the danger of youth in very recent international and national documents has been depoliticised. Despite decreasing numbers of youth-related violence, the threat construction has not vanished; rather, the language on youth has been adapted to the existing international discourse on violent youth as a threat to successful development. In this way, international and national actors have sustained the image of a society in need of management.     

PRIVACY AS ROGUERY: PERSONAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION IN AN AGE OF TRANSPARENCY

A fundamental shift has occurred in the relationship between the state and the individual regarding financial privacy. The onus is now on citizens to show why governments should not have access to their personal financial information, rather than governments having to show why they should. This article argues that this shift has come about in large part because of the activities of autonomous and influential transnational networks of regulators. These regulatory networks have systematically favoured administrative efficiency and transparency at the expense of privacy in designing responses to financial crimes. Evidence is drawn from an examination of recent policy developments in countering tax evasion, money laundering, and the financing of terrorism. Currently, the principle of financial transparency suggests that financial privacy inhibits the fight against criminals and terrorists; by extension, asserting a right to privacy indicates some kind of roguery afoot.