The Reform of Skill Formation in Russia: Regional Responses

Abstract

Effective systems of vocational education are crucial to economic and social development. However, the coordination of labour market demand and the supply of skill requires either well-functioning labour market institutions or institutionally embedded strategic partnerships among government, labour and employers. In particular, the transplantation of German-style dual education methods to a different environment poses significant institutional dilemmas. Russia presents a useful case for examining the conditions under which such arrangements can be established. Based on a series of interviews in six Russian regions and a set of case histories, we seek to draw testable hypotheses that can be applied to other settings.     

Feedback on Forensic Mental Health Assessments in a Juvenile Court Clinic Certification Program

Public-sector mental health systems have set forth specialized practice competencies for forensic mental health clinicians conducting court-ordered examinations. This study examined a sample of feedback letters to clinicians who submitted mid-training and final reports for review as part of the requirements for certification as a juvenile court clinician. The most common feedback points were insufficient/irrelevant historical data, problems with clarity/organization of the report, problems with interview/mental status examination, and problems with competency to stand trial data/opinions. Clinicians had fewer deficiencies in their final report compared to their mid-training report, supporting the perspective that forensic training and supervision is associated with better quality reports.     

Herod the Great and the Iudicium Domesticum: Legal Pluralism to Die For

The central question under consideration in this article is whether the various trials to which Herod, the well-known king of Judaea, subjected family members qualify as instances of the Roman iudicium domesticum. Modern debate among legal historians has been shaped by the views of two scholars in particular, Wolfgang Kunkel, who argues that one of them so qualifies, and Alfredo Mordechai Rabello, who contends that the rest do not, asserting that Herod simply followed the rules and procedures associated with a Hellenistic court. For the first time in modern scholarship, this article scrutinizes in detail all six examples of such trials. By itself, the evidence, though relatively copious, does not permit us to resolve this dispute as clearly and unambiguously as we would like. Much depends, for example, on precisely how one wishes to define the institution in question. Recent scholarly advances in the area of legal pluralism, however, point in the direction of a solution that does justice to both sides of this debate, as well as, perhaps, to Herod himself.     

Parliamentary Prorogation in Comparative Context

This paper examines the power to prorogue (or suspend) Parliament following the 2019 prorogation controversy in the UK. We outline the legal basis of prerogative-based prorogation, survey its uses in the UK and other Westminster systems, and compare it with equivalent rules in other European parliamentary democracies. The comparative perspective highlights the outlier status of the UK among comparable European democracies. In the UK, the absence of explicit legal limits on the use of prorogation gives the executive exceptional scope to employ the power for political purposes to sidestep Parliament. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for current discussions about the desirability of reforming the UK’s prorogation rules and placing express legal limits on the executive’s power.     

Sebastian Heilmann,Red Swan: How Unorthodox Policy Making Facilitated China’s Rise

Journal of Chinese Political Science -     

Trust and verification: balancing agency and stewardship theory in the governance of agencies

ABSTRACT

Many government services are delivered by (partially) autonomous agencies. Governments need effective measures for contracting, steering, and monitoring agencies and to balance control and trust. In the literature, control-based agency theory and trust-based stewardship theory have often been portrayed as alternative and competing approaches. In empirical studies in public administration, however, these approaches often find mixed and contradictory results. Against this background, this article analyzes how a combination of trust- and control-based approaches, explicitly founded on agency and stewardship theory, can help explain when participants find a given governance regime to be most satisfactory. A survey instrument is developed which, for the first time, fully measures the rich concept of stewardship theory in conjunction with agency theory. The analysis of the governance of Dutch agencies shows that government indeed combines governance solutions from both theoretical camps and illuminates under which conditions this combination is most satisfactory.     

Behavioral symmetry,rent seeking,and the Republic of Science

The Olsonian distinction between roving and stationary bandits outlines the rationale behind the transition from anarchy to the emergence of the predatory state. This two-bandit model may, however, be expanded to include more bandit types. In the case of Viking Age England, local English kings were unable to monopolize violence and defend their realms against competing Viking raiders. As the Vikings’ time horizon grew, so did the accumulated value of more formal taxation, and bandit types evolved in four steps. The first step is the Olsonian roving bandit, who executed Viking hit-and-run attacks and plunders during the second half of the tenth century. The second step is the gafol bandit; gafol is payment for leaving, paid to, among others, Swein Forkbeard. The third step is the heregeld bandit; heregeld is a tax to support an army for hire; most notably Thorkell the Tall’s. The fourth step is the Olsonian stationary bandit, i.e. the strongest military leader among the Vikings, Cnut the Great, settled down as the new king. Overall, the Olsonian two-bandit model can be expanded to a four-bandit staircase model, in which the new gafol and heregeld bandit types explain the steps from anarchy and short-run raiding to long-run formal taxation in a predatory state.

     

Ambivalence,Political Consensus and Conditionality: Support for Whistleblowing among Danish Employees

Whistleblower research is understandably focused around the protagonists of the practice. We still know surprisingly little about how whistleblowing is perceived in the wider population. Drawing on a representative survey of Danish employees (N = 1,709), this paper analyses how whistleblower public support is distributed along variables such as political preference, political interest and job type, and tests whether it is conditional on whistleblower motivation and type of wrongdoing. The paper finds that public support is strong but also ambivalent. It shows that support is evenly distributed along party preference. It also demonstrates that support is not uniform but conditional on the characteristics of the whistleblower situation. These insights are important for both social and political reasons in the present situation where whistleblowing seems to be on the rise. From a policy perspective, it offers policymakers an important evidence‐based navigation tool in devising whistleblower legislation.