Why we need bricoleurs to foster robust governance solutions in turbulent times

The public sector frequently confronts a heightened societal turbulence triggered by an increasing number of unpredictable and disruptive economic, political, and environmental crises. How can the public sector respond to this challenge? This article argues, first, that to continue to provide relevant solutions, public governance must be robust in the sense of adapting and innovating policies, programs, and services in ways that facilitate the achievement of basic public ambitions, functions, and values in the face of challenges, stressors, and threats. Second, to build robust governance, public managers must engage in bricolage and become bricoleurs in order to flexibly combine elements from competing and co-existent public governance paradigms. Doing so necessitates the construction of institutions conducive to bricolage, that is, institutions that are characterized by a high degree of flexibility that allows for experimentation; institutions that foster inclusive deliberation, knowledge sharing and joint learning; and institutions that balance centralization with distributed agency.     

Service quality and the optimum number of members in intermunicipal cooperation: The case of emergency primary care services in Norway

Intermunicipal cooperation (IMC) is often used as a mean to reap scale benefits. Most studies on the effects of IMC focus on cost savings, while service quality is overlooked. In this study, the focus is set on input quality in a service characterized by high asset specificity and need for redundancy: emergency primary care. We analyze how mode of governance affect performance by (1) measuring whether IMC versus single-municipal production affects input quality and (2) identifying optimum scale of operation; effect of the number of participants in the cooperation on input quality. The findings indicate that cooperation weakens the input quality of medical workforce, but that this negative effect is balanced out as the number of participants increases, indicating that cooperation needs to reach a certain size to achieve optimum scale of operation. Concerning equipment, both cooperation in general and an increasing number of participants decrease the input quality.     

Why people want something for nothing: The role of asymmetrical illusions

Abstract. This article examines if and why mechanisms exist at the individual citizen level that may contribute to public sector growth — and whether such mechanisms can be altered through provision of information about the costs of public services.We test and find empirical support for the theory of fiscal illusion according to which citizens underestimate the costs of public services and therefore demand more public spending than if they had been fully informed. We also develop and find empirical support for a theory of asymmetrical illusions. This theory claims that producers and users of public services are more spending–minded than ordinary taxpayers — and that limited rationality contributes to this difference. However, the provision of information about the unit costs of public services can weaken these mechanisms of fiscal illusion and asymmetrical illusions. The test is based on tabular, logit, and experimental analysis of survey data from Odense, a Danish city with 175,000 inhabitants.     

Der Internationale Gerichtshof als Verfassungsgericht und Verfassungsvergleicher. Wähnen, Wunsch und Wirklichkeit

Der IGH fügt sich nicht ohne Weiteres in den Reigen der Verfassungsgerichte ein. Deshalb ist es hier nicht wie bei nationalen Verfassungsgerichten und mittlerweile wohl auch bei EuGH und EGMR möglich, direct zur Tagesordnung der Analyse der Verfassungsrechtsprechung und der Praxis der Verfassungsvergleichung überzugehen. Vielmehr ist vorab zu klären, ob der IGH überhaupt in einem mehr als metaphorischen Sinne als Verfassungsgericht angesprochen werden kann. Dies verlangt zunächst die Beantwortung der Frage, ob und inwieweit es "Verfassung" im Völkerrecht gibt. Bejahendenfalls ist zu untersuchen, in welchem Sinne der IGH diesbezüglich als Verfassungsgericht agiert. Die Existenz einer Völkerrechtsverfassung ist nämlich notwendige, aber nicht hinreichende Bedingung für die Etablierung des IGH als Verfassungsgericht. Der vorliegende Beitrag sucht diese Klärungen in mehreren Schritten herbeizuführen. Es wird sich zeigen, dass der IGH gewisse typische verfassungsgerichtliche Funktionen erfüllt. Ob damit die kritische Masse zur Adelung als Verfassungsgericht erreicht wird, ist zum gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt jedoch zu bezweifeln.     

Rape Victim Blaming as System Justification: The Role of Gender and Activation of Complementary Stereotypes

This research examined reactions towards female rape victims from a system justification perspective. Study 1 demonstrated that gender-related system justification motivation (Modern Sexism) predicted the propensity to blame a female rape victim among men, but not among women. Modern sexism predicted rape victim blaming among men even when statistically controlling for a general antipathy towards women, and the results were unaffected by social desirability concerns. Consistent with previous study on system justification theory, we demonstrated in Study 2 that system justification motivation can predict victim blaming also among women, provided that complementary stereotypes about women have been activated. By contrast, system justification motivation predicted men’s propensity to blame a rape victim irrespective of whether complementary stereotypes about women had been experimentally activated.     

Moment of Stasis: The Successful Failure of a Constitution for Europe

The 2005 French and Dutch negative votes on the Constitution open up a space of conceptualisation, not only of Europe's relation to its demos, but significantly to its failures. Through a critical analysis of mainly Niklas Luhmann's systems theory, the article proposes taking a distance from traditional constitutional dogmatics that are no longer capable of dealing with the paradox of contemporary society, and more specifically with the eventual resurgence of the European project as one of absence and stasis: the two terms are used to explain the need, on the one hand, to maintain the 'absent community' of Europe, and, on the other, to start realising that any conceptualisation of the European project will now have to take place in that space of instability and contingency revealed by the constitutional failure. The relation between law and politics, the location of a constitution, the distinction between social and normative legitimacy, the connection between European identity and demos, and the concept of continuity between constitutional text and context are revisited in an attempt to trace the constitutional failure as the constitutional moment par excellence.     

Interaction between EU carbon trading and the international climate regime: synergies and learning

This article discusses the developing interaction and cross-scale effects between the company-focused EU emissions trading (ETS) and the country-focused international climate regime, in particular the Kyoto Protocol. Key questions discussed are first, what has been the character of selected interactions so far—synergistic or disruptive? Second, what kinds of interaction mechanisms have been driving the interactions; normative, cognitive, or utilitarian? Third, with regard to cross-scale effects, has significant learning taken place between institutions at different levels? Four sub-cases of interaction are analysed: first, the interaction between the Kyoto Protocol as source and the ETS as target which started after the adoption of the Protocol in late 1997. Second, a next phase of interaction started in 2004 when the EU states started to develop national allocation plans (NAPs) where bringing in credits/allowances developed under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) became one compliance strategy. Third, the opposite relationship is examined, i.e., with the ETS as the source and the Kyoto Protocol institutions as targets. The first phase started after the adoption of the 2003 ET Directive and with the developing ETS possibly leading to a more rapid and extensive CDM development than would otherwise have been the case. Fourth and finally, a separate case of interaction deals with the possible role the ETS plays and could play for an emerging global carbon market. Key findings are that these cases are mainly of a synergistic nature. Furthermore, in order to understand the driving forces, it is necessary to draw upon several interaction mechanisms, particularly cognitive and utilitarian ones. Finally, as to cross-scale learning, the post-2012 global regime may avoid pitfalls related to the allocation process experienced by the ETS. But the learning and diffusion potential should not be exaggerated.     

Symptom Validity Testing in Claimants with Alleged Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Comparing the Morel Emotional Numbing Test, the Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology, and the Word Memory Test

In independent medical examinations, unjustified claims of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are to be expected at an increased rate. In a prospective study, consecutive cases of patients claiming PTSD who underwent independent neuropsychiatric evaluation were analyzed. For 61 adult patients, results of three symptom validity tests (Morel Emotional Numbing Test, Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology, and Word Memory Test) were available. Seventy percent of all claimants showed probable negative response bias in at least one of the three tests, 25% in all three tests. High probability of negative response bias was associated with symptom overreporting and demonstration of cognitive deficits in performance tests. The results indicate that high rates of uncooperativeness must be expected in civil forensic patients with claimed PTSD. A multi-method approach to the assessment of response distortion in PTSD claimants is indicated.     

The democratizing impact of governance networks: From pluralization,via democratic anchorage,to interactive political leadership

Initially, governance networks were intended as tools for making public governance more effective. Yet, scholars have argued that governance networks also have the potential to democratize public governance. This article provides an overview of theoretical arguments pertaining to the democratizing impact of governance networks. It claims that the initial celebration of the pluralization of public governance and the subsequent call for a democratic anchorage of governance networks should give way to a new concern for how governance networks can strengthen and democratize political leadership. Tying political leadership to networked processes of collaborative governance fosters ‘interactive political leadership’. The article presents theoretical arguments in support of interactive political leadership, and provides an illustrative case study of a recent attempt to strengthen political leadership through the systematic involvement of elected politicians in local governance networks. The article concludes by reflecting on how interactive political leadership could transform our thinking about democracy.