Old and new politics: The Dutch peace movement and the traditional political organizations

Abstract. On the basis of data on the Dutch peace movement, we study the relationship between traditional organizations of political intermediation such as parties, unions and churches with a new social movement on the local level. After having argued for the relevance of the institutional context, the general structure of new social movements and the particular structure of the movement under consideration with regard to this relationship, we first present evidence confirming our claims that we are dealing with new social movement. Then we show that the relationships in question are quite elaborate confirming the hypothesis that political activity within traditional organizations and new social movements is to some extent cumulative. More generally, the results imply that the development of the peace movement and other new social movements in the Netherlands is not indicating a diminishing legitimacy of the Dutch political parties.     

BEWARE OF MANAGERS NOT BEARING GIFTS: HOW MANAGEMENT CAPACITY AUGMENTS THE IMPACT OF MANAGERIAL NETWORKING

Networks and managing in the network have been central concerns of public management scholars for years ( Provan and Milward 1991 ; O’Toole 1997 ; Agranoff and McGuire 2003 ; Herranz 2008 ). The literature has investigated the extent of networks ( Hall and O’Toole 2004 ), the appropriate way to measure networks and networking behaviour ( McGuire 2002 ; Meier and O’Toole 2005 ), and the role that networking plays in improving organizational performance ( O’Toole and Meier 2003 ). Although there are qualifications in the literature to the rosy scenario that managing in the network is always a good thing ( O’Toole and Meier 2004 ), and although the benefits of managerial networking show diminishing returns ( Hicklin et al. 2008 ), there has not been much investigation of the factors that enhance or detract from networking's impact on performance. This study examines the interactive relationship between management capacity and managerial networking using a panel of several hundred public organizations over an 8‐year period. The empirical results show that managerial capacity does interact with networking and enhances the positive impact of networking over an array of performance indicators. At the same time, building managerial capacity is a central management choice, and that decision has ramifications for organizations that are not always positive. The paper concludes with the managerial implications of the strategic choice to build management capacity.     

Smart Power

President Barack Obama pledged in his first TV interview—with the Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya—that America under his watch would "listen with respect and not dictate" to the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has further announced that this country will no longer just throw around its military might but will pursue a "smart power" approach by tempering the use of hard weaponry with the "soft power" of persuasion and cultural attraction. Or, as Madame Secretary's husband Bill has put it, America will now lead through the power of example instead of the example of power.
The first exceedingly complex test of Obama's smart power strategy will be how to end George W. Bush's misguided "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Pakistan, keeping al-Qaida at bay without being swallowed by the quagmire of tribal politics. An array of experts from New Delhi to Paris offers their views in this section.     

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.     

Surveying American State Police Agencies About Lone Wolves,Far-Right Criminality,and Far-Right and Islamic Jihadist Criminal Collaboration

This study presents state police agencies’ perceptions about three significant terrorism issues on which there is little empirical research. All three issues have significant implications for understanding the role of state police agencies in responding to terrorism threats. First, the authors investigated whether the respondents believed that supporters of specified extremist movements tended to commit crimes as lone wolves, with others, or both alone and with others. Second, they were asked to provide data to gauge how often far-right extremists committed 13 crime types that varied in magnitude and motivation. Third, they were asked if they had knowledge about whether far-right extremists and Islamic jihadists had cooperated to commit crimes. These data were collected by surveying the 50 state police agencies in the United States. The results indicate that state police officials are concerned with both group and lone-wolf activities. Importantly, there was variation in the potential for lone-wolf crimes when comparing different types of extremist movements. The results indicate that far-right extremists are involved in a range of terrorist, preparatory, and routine criminal activities, but this involvement varies by region. Two state police agencies also indicated that they knew of Islamic and far-right collaboration. The study identified two other instances of direct collaboration and a number of other interesting cases through open source searches. The article concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the findings and outlines directions for future research.     

The Effect of Political Discussion in Producing Informed Citizens: The Roles of Information,Motivation, and Elaboration

Recent studies have demonstrated a strong empirical relationship between political discussion and political knowledge. However, as of yet there has been no clear discussion or demonstration of how political discussion translates into increased political knowledge. The present study proposes three explanations--exposure (similar to the two step flow), anticipatory elaboration (linking work on uses and gratifications and news information processing), and discussion-generated elaboration (focusing on how discussion itself can influence information processing)--for this observed empirical relationship. In order to test these three explanations, data from the 2000 ANES and a local community survey during the 1996 presidential election were employed. Findings suggest that the direct relationship between discussion and knowledge may be mediated through motivations and information processing behaviors. These findings support the anticipatory elaboration and discussion-generated elaboration explanations while questioning the exposure explanation, and link well with recent findings on the cognitive mediation model.