The mediating effect of good governance on the relationship between managerial roles and personal development： A structural equation modeling （SEM） approach

One of the challenges faced by public sector managers particularly is the problem of identifying and determining their roles, their personal development and how to effectively implement the concept of good governance in their organizations. Given a dynamic changing and continuing insight into public organizational effectiveness, public sector managers are rethinking how best they could accomplish their roles in order to attain their organization roles and objectives. This study examines the mediating roles of good governance in the relationship between managerial roles, development roles, strategic roles and personal development. In determining this relationship, a hypothetical model of the relationship among roles of public sector managers, good governance and personal development is developed. The results suggest that the managerial roles has more positive and significant influence on personal development than the development roles and strategic roles. Empirical study supports the institutional theory （Scott, 2001） in the hypothesized model. The empirical findings confirm that good governance has a significant and positive impact on the relationship between managerial roles and development roles to the personal development of public sector managers. This proves that the management system theory （Katz ＆ Kahn, 1966） is supported whereby public sector manager roles served as an input, while good governance as a process and personal development as an output. Based on empirical findings, it is suggested that personal development should be referred as an ideal social behavior of public sector managers. Overall, the study supports the hypotheses that good governance plays a mediating role in the relationship between public sector manager roles and personal development. This is consistent with governance theory （Lynn, 2001）. One particular contribution of this study is the development of structural equation model to determine the relationships between managerial roles, good governance and the personal dev     

Infinitely repeated contests: How strategic interaction affects the efficiency of governance

Contests over the scope and strength of regulation and governance are commonplace – and commonly repeated. The same players vie for the same government prize year after year: for example, environmental standards, government contracts, research grants, and public good provision. The open question is whether more rents are dissipated in repeated regulatory contests than onetime competitions. This question matters for regulation and governance because societies should design policies to waste the fewest scarce resources. According to some, the answer is “no”, but others say “yes”– more resources are wasted when people compete repeatedly for the same government prize. Herein, we use two game theoretic equilibrium concepts to help untangle the answer. Our results suggest non‐myopic contestants are more likely to behave as partners than rivals – provided the context is relatively sterile. Several common complications help break up the tacit partnership, including a disparity in relative ability, a shrinking prize, and additional players.     

Analyzing decentralized resource regimes from a polycentric perspective

This article seeks to shed new light on the study of decentralized natural resource governance by applying institutional theories of polycentricity—the relationships among multiple authorities with overlapping jurisdictions. The emphasis on multi-level dynamics has not penetrated empirical studies of environmental policy reforms in non-industrial countries. On the contrary, many of today’s decentralization proponents seem to be infatuated with the local sphere, expecting that local actors are always able and willing to govern their natural resources effectively. Existing studies in this area often focus exclusively on characteristics and performance of local institutions. While we certainly do not deny the importance of local institutions, we argue that institutional arrangements operating at other governance scales—such as national government agencies, international organizations, NGOs at multiple scales, and private associations—also often have critical roles to play in natural resource governance regimes, including self-organized regimes.

Institutions and Morality Policy in Western Democracies

This article investigates whether different political institutions such as executives, legislatures, parties, party systems, judiciaries, decentralization, constitutionalism, and referendums across 24 Western democracies are venues for debate across five individual morality policies. Using data since 1945, the article compares three theories of morality policy—(1) Policy Type leading to different institutional venues; (2) Two Worlds of religious/secular party systems; and (3) U.S./European exceptionalism. In order, the most frequently debated issues are abortion, same sex marriage, euthanasia, stem cells/assisted reproductive technology (ART), and capital punishment. There is considerable variation in the institutions and country groups that debate them although fewer differences in the Two Worlds model. Abortion, euthanasia, and same sex marriage are the most convergent issues across institutions, party systems, and country groupings while capital punishment and stem cells/ART show the most diverse patterns of deliberation. The general Policy Type model of morality policy is upheld, but varies institutionally by specific issues. The Two Worlds model is of some importance, but only on three issues. There also are regional differences between the United States, Europe, and non‐European democracies.     

Mutual and Self Perceptions of Opposing Advocacy Coalitions: Devil Shift and Angel Shift in a German Policy Subsystem

In political conflicts, actors tend to assume that opponents behave maliciously. This phenomena is part of the “devil shift,” which was introduced in advocacy coalition framework research. We present a multivariate analysis of the perceptions of motives and actions of opposing coalitions in a political conflict and thereby analyze a major dimension of the “devil shift” and of its antonym “angel shift.” The conflict concerning the German infrastructure project Stuttgart 21 serves as a case study. We show that the radicalness of policy‐specific beliefs is the most important predictor for the intensity of mutual misperception in the researched conflict. The results further point to a more systematic inclusion of an actor's deep normative core beliefs in future analyses of distorted perception. Another central finding relates to the importance of the personal environment: actors in the subsystem share the same policy core beliefs with the majority of people in their personal environment.     

Shifting cultivation,contentious land change and forest governance: the politics of swidden in East Kalimantan

Swidden has historically been one of the most widespread land uses in upland Southeast Asia. In recent decades, swidden systems across the region have undergone rapid transformation. While most analyses focus on swidden as a livelihood practice, we direct attention to the political nature of swidden. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork and household surveys from two villages in East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia, we examine the politics of swidden along two key dimensions. First, at the household level, we describe swidden as a land control strategy. We identify territorialization and speculation as drivers of ‘contentious land change’ in swidden systems under pressure from expanding plantations and mines. Second, at the village and district levels, we examine the politics of swidden within new forest governance arrangements. Control of swidden has provided a focus for multi-stakeholder forest governance, but with ambivalent effects, developing village land management and livelihoods at a cost of temporary increases in swidden clearing and with minimal impact on deforestation for industrial land uses. Our analysis suggests forest governance efforts will be ineffective in eliminating contentious land change or reducing district-level deforestation until they address plantation and mining expansion as the dominant direct and indirect drivers of forest conversion.     

金砖国家粮食安全合作评析

粮食安全与否,对人、国家和国际体系的安全都意义重大。它所产生的威胁具有高度跨国性、扩散性、嬗变性、多层面性和多向度性,是典型的非传统安全。实现粮食安全,要超越以国家为中心的传统安全观念和手段,建立以共同、综合、合作、可持续的新安全观为基础的粮食安全治理体系,构建多层次和大规模的非传统安全共同体。金砖国家粮食安全合作,有利于提升各成员国的粮食安全水平,促进金砖国家落实《2030年可持续发展议程》,提高金砖国家参与全球粮食安全治理能力,推动全球粮食安全治理改革,构建金砖国家命运共同体。作为金砖国家非传统安全合作的重要组成部分,金砖国家粮食安全合作基本确立了合作架构,初步搭建农业科技信息平台,金砖农业实力不断壮大,全球粮食安全治理中实现有限合作,具有了金砖国家非传统安全共同体的雏形。但其仍然面临着合作动力减弱、合作机制不完善和合作领域亟待深化的挑战。只有金砖国家真正树立并践行新安全观,才能聚合各方诉求,加强合作动力,深化气候、科技创新、农业贸易投资便利化、信息交流与共享等领域的合作,完善政府、科研、企业三位一体的合作机制,推动全球粮食安全治理体系向更加有利于发展中国家的方向发展。     

Points of departure: re-examining the discursive formation of the Hate Crime Statistics Act of 1990

Leung’s article re-examines the political and legislative history of the debates that led up to the passage of the 1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act, in particular the 1980 House committee hearing on Increasing Violence against Minorities and a 1983 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report entitled Intimidation and Violence: Racial and Religious Bigotry in America. Both identify organized white supremacy as the cause of the nation’s epidemic of racial intimidation and violent bigotry in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many significant recommendations were made, but data collection became the first piece of legislation to address the national problem of hate violence. Leung seeks to explain why. By analysing the relationship between committee hearings, the key report and the political context of the Reagan administration, he demonstrates how ‘hate crime’ became an object of knowledge, and how its definition had implications for policy development.     

The Nature of Contracting Hazards in Public–Private Partnerships—Evidence from Ireland

The use of public–private partnerships (PPP) for the procurement of infrastructure and related services can be a complex and challenging process. This article adopts a transaction cost regulation perspective to examine two PPP cases from Ireland that encountered significant obstacles to successful procurement. It finds that both procurements met hazards including uncertainty about the viability of the bids and opportunistic behavior by preferred bidders that held quasi-monopoly positions. The public nature of both cases provided a fertile ground for opportunistic behavior by political opponents and other “interested” parties. The analysis shows how the governance of PPPs is shaped by the attributes of the transactions and the interaction of economic and political hazards that create transaction costs.