‘Let's Win this Game Together’: Children's Rights Violations,Macro‐Securitisation and the Transformative Potential of the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil

Sport's transformative potential is known to support marginalised children, to deal with traumatic experiences and instil positive values; yet hosting mega sporting events (MSEs) can have negative impacts. Drawing on participatory research with favela‐based children during the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, this article argues that MSEs bring a macro‐securitisation of urban life, which causes considerable harm. This paper also suggests that the inclusion of children's voices in advocacy debates can challenge top‐down securitisation and might allow MSEs to foster further positive social transformation. Therefore, juxtaposed with causing harm, macro‐securitisations can open opportunities for children to take action and have their voices heard.     

THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN VOLUNTARY ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMMES: A FUZZY SET QUALITATIVE COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Voluntary Environmental Programmes (VEPs) have become increasingly popular in addressing environmental risks. While VEPs have attracted much scholarly attention, little is known about how they achieve their outcomes. This article seeks to better understand whether and how the roles of governments in VEPs affect their outcomes in terms of (1) attracting participants, and (2) their contribution to a desired collective end. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this article addresses a series of 31 VEPs in the building sectors of Australia, the Netherlands, and the United States. Of particular interest is a better understanding of what configurations of five specific governmental roles in VEPs are sufficient to attract participants and contribute to a desired collective end. Three ideal type roles for governments in VEPs, that are positively related to the two outcomes under scrutiny, are uncovered, and the article concludes with lessons on how governments may be best involved in VEPs.     

National parliamentary control and voting in the Council of the European Union

This article explores the different ways governments express dissent in the Council of the European Union (EU) through ‘No’ votes, abstentions and recorded negative statements. A game-theoretical model is presented that studies voting behaviour and analyses how the national parliaments’ levels of control over their governments’ EU policies affect it. It is concluded that governments that are strongly controlled by their parliaments are not more likely to express dissent. However, when they do express dissent, they vote ‘No’ more often. Parliamentary control depends on the presence of formal oversight institutions as well as the motivation of parliamentarians to hold their governments accountable. Empirical support is found in an analysis of votes on 1,387 legislative proposals that represent more than a decade of Council decision making in the period 2004–2014. This article contributes to the discussion on the involvement of national parliaments in EU affairs, and clearly distinguishes the different forms of dissent in Council decision making.     

FRAGMENTED OR CONNECTIVE PROFESSIONALISM? STRATEGIES FOR PROFESSIONALIZING THE WORK OF STRATEGISTS AND OTHER (ORGANIZATIONAL) PROFESSIONALS

Many professionals, especially organizational ones (managers, controllers, strategists), face difficulties in organizing their professional fields. Work ambiguities and dependencies on outsiders make it difficult to set homogeneous standards and shelter occupational domains. Professionalism tends to be fragmented. It is questionable, however, whether professionalization is a matter of either enforced regulation or fragmented regulatory forms. More connective forms of professional control might enable groups to establish professional domains, despite ambiguities and dependencies. In order to understand professionalization dynamics in public domains and the relevance of connective professionalism, we study the development of one particular field, strategists in government. We show that the professionalization of Dutch strategists is fragmented: strategists are a varied and mobile group; they have different ideas about work; they depend on many other actors and factors. We also show that strategists opt for either more enforced forms of professionalism, or less professional control. Finally, we show how they might establish connective professionalism. By enacting embedded work spaces, strategists can reconfigure their work. This is also relevant for other (organizational) professionals.     

Keeping the rascals in: Anti‐political‐establishment parties and their cost of governing in established democracies

Coalition governments in established democracies incur, on average, an electoral ‘cost of governing’. This cost varies across coalition partners, and is higher for anti‐political‐establishment parties. This is because, if such a party participates in a coalition, it loses the purity of its message by being seen to cooperate with the political establishment. In order to demonstrate that anti‐political‐establishment parties suffer an additional cost of governing, this article builds on the work by Van der Brug et al. and refines the standard cost of governing theory by ‘bringing the party back in’. The results of the analyses, based on 594 observations concerning 51 parties in seven Western European countries, cast doubt on the conventional concept of a cost of governing that pertains to all parties equally. The findings call for a major revision of the standard cost of governing literature, while adding a significant contribution to the debate on strategies against parties that may constitute a danger to democracy.     

INSTITUTIONAL LAYERING IN GOVERNING HEALTHCARE QUALITY

Since the 1980s, regulated markets and New Public Management have been introduced in the public sector across the world. How they have affected existing governance mechanisms such as self‐regulation and state regulation has remained largely unexplored, however. This article examines the origins and consequences of institutional layering in governing healthcare quality. Dutch health care, where a market‐based system has been introduced, is used as a case study. The results show that this market‐based system did not replace but modified existing institutional arrangements. As a result, hospitals have to deal with the fragmentation of quality demands. Using the concept of institutional layering, this study shows how different arrangements interact. As a consequence, the introduction of a certain policy reform will work out differently in different countries and policy sectors. Our ‘archaeological’ study in this layering can be seen as an example of how such incremental change can be studied in detail.     

Greening Industry Without Enforcement? An Assessment of the World Bank's Pollution Regulation Model for Developing Countries

The best comparative and overview source now available for knowledge about pollution regulation in developing countries is the 2000 World Bank policy research report called Greening Industry . The World Bank finds that there is a new model for pollution regulation in lower- and middle-level income countries that is an alternative to "traditional" command and control regulation. The new model stresses flexible norms and nonstate pressures on regulated enterprises coming from communities and markets. This article presents an investigation into this new model. It finds that the prevalence of weak law enforcement may undermine the new model's potential to control pollution in developing countries. It also contends that social and market pressures only occur under certain circumstances often not found in lower- and middle-level income countries. Therefore, the article concludes that developing countries require smart mixes of various regulatory instruments appropriate in the given state and nonstate regulatory capacities, instead of contrasting state and nonstate regulation.     

INTERORGANIZATIONAL UTILITY OF WELFARE STIGMA IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM*

The appropriation of “welfare stigma” or stereotypes about poor people's overreliance and abuse of public aid in two core criminal justice functions is examined: felony adjudication in a court system and space allocation in a jail. Through a comparative ethnographic study in which an abductive analysis of data (20 months of fieldwork) was used, we show that criminal justice gatekeepers utilize welfare stigma to create stricter eligibility criteria for due process in criminal courts and occupancy in jails. Specifically, the number of court appearances, motions, trials, jail beds, food, showers, and medical services is considered by professionals to be the benefits that individuals seek to access and abuse. Professionals view their role as preventing (rather than granting) access to these resources. The comparative nature of our data reveals that welfare stigma has interorganizational utility by serving two different organizational goals: It streamlines convictions in courts, which pulls defendants through adjudication, and conversely, it expands early release from jails, which pulls inmates out of the custody population. In the context of diminishing social safety nets, our findings have implications for understanding how discretion is exercised in an American criminal justice system increasingly tasked with the distribution of social services to the urban poor.