Traditions of governance: interpreting the changing role of the public sector

The role of the state is changing under the impact of, for example, globalization. The changes have been variously understood as the new public management (NPM), the hollowing–out of the state and the new governance. This special issue of Public Administration explores the changing role of the state in advanced industrial democracies. It focuses on the puzzle of why states respond differently to common trends.
This introductory article has three aims. First, we provide a brief review of the existing literature on public sector reform to show that our approach is distinctive. We argue that the existing literature does not explore the ways in which governmental traditions shape reform. Second, we outline an interpretive approach to the analysis of public sector reform built on the notions of beliefs, traditions, dilemmas and narratives. We provide brief illustrations of these ideas drawn from the individual country articles. Finally, we outline the ground covered by all the chapters but we do not summarize and compare their experiences of reform. That task is reserved for the concluding article.     

Affirmative action review “report to the president”: implications of military affirmative action programs to current and new millennium affirmative action programs

This article reviews the Affirmative Action Review: Report to the President that was submitted to President Clinton in 1995. The Report points out the successes of equal opportunity/affirmative action initiatives in the military. The article considers the implications of the possible applicability of the military equal opportunity/affirmative action initiatives to other public and private organizations.     

The Future of the European “Social Model” in the Global Economy

This article examines the prospects for European welfare states in the context of globalization. It begins with a critical review of the globalization arguments. While there is some evidence that external constraints make life harder for policymakers seeking positive-sum outcomes, it is the combination of national debt and spending limits, plus domestic tax resistance, that really count in making expenditure-based social and employment policies more difficult in certain countries. In understanding the constraints and opportunities that will shape Europe's welfare future, globalization—crudely understood—is therefore much less influential than many suppose. While EMU has radically diminished national autonomy in exchange rate, monetary policy, and fiscal policy, there are also beneficial consequences for social policy and broader economic management. On the employment and social policy side, initiatives required to match greater flexibility with sustained security are now at the top of the EU agenda, and mechanisms for diffusing best practice across Europe are being put in place. Within this framework, European welfare states must place more emphasis on dynamic equality, being primarily attentive to the worst off, more hospitable to incentive-generating differentiation, and actively vigilant with regard to the openness of opportunity structures.     

Studying British government: reconstructing the research agenda

This article seeks to place the study of British government in a broader context by exploring the potential contribution of an anti-foundational epistemology. We seek to 'reinvent' a self-conscious, sceptical and tentative approach rooted in philosophy and history. The first section defines the Westminster model and the family of linked narratives: traditional sceptics, social science, radical theory, new public management. The second section outlines an anti-foundational epistemology, focusing on the notions of traditions, narratives, decentering and dilemmas. The third section applies this approach to one prominent school of thought about British government: policy networks. We argue that an anti-foundational approach will decenter networks, shifting the locus of analysis from the institutions to individuals, and focus on dilemmas to explain how networks change. Finally, we conclude there is no essentialist account of British government, only complex and diverse narratives, and no tool kit for solving problems, only lessons drawn from many stories.     

A survival model with dependent competing events and right-hand censoring: Probation and parole as an illustration

Researchers are frequently interested in estimating the elapsed time until the occurrence of an event, such as an arrest following release from prison, dissolution of a marriage, and death following the onset of a disease. Estimation is often hindered by the occurrence of a competing event, which prevents the event of interest from being observed, and by limited follow-up periods. A parametric procedure developed in this paper is suitable for dealing with nonrepeatable competing events when the events are correlated and when independent righthand censoring also exists. Weak distributional assumptions are accommodated by using a Box-Cox transformation and by explicit modeling of heteroscedasticity. The procedure is applied to data pertaining to failure on probabation and parole.     

Searching for civil society: changing patterns of governance in Britain

To understand governance, we ask who is telling the story from within which tradition. We argue there is no essentialist notion of governance but at least four conceptions each rooted in a distinctive tradition. The first section of the paper describes the relevant traditions: Tory, Liberal, Whig and Socialist. The second section describes the different notions of governance associated with each tradition; intermediate institutions, marketizing public services, reinventing the constitution and trust and negotiation. We explain these distinct conceptions of governance as responses to the dilemmas of inflation and state overload. In the conclusion, we summarize how and why traditions change, concluding, there is no such thing as governance, but only the differing constructions of the several traditions.     

Fragmented pathways to care: the experiences of suicidal men

Using qualitative methods, this study examined how, and under what circumstances, suicidal men used mental health services. In particular, the analyses focused on fragmented pathways to care. Fifteen men with a history of suicidal and aggressive behaviors and a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and/or antisocial personality disorder participated in semistructured interviews that consisted of questions about their mental health status and experiences with mental health and addiction services. Interviews were taped and transcribed. An iterative, inductive qualitative analytic process was used. Men followed a cyclical pattern wherein negative experiences with health care providers were said to be followed by avoidance of health care settings, crisis, and then by involuntary service utilization. Men identified five health care provider and three personal practices, and two types of episodes they believed to contribute to their fragmented pathways to care. Implementation of specialized interventions, and providing patients with more information and more opportunity to participate in decisions, may improve interactions between patients and providers and improve patients' mental health status.