Management information bulletins and social services managers

Partnership and participation have co-evolved as key instruments of New Labour's agenda for the ‘modernisation’ and ‘democratic renewal‘ of British local government. It is often assumed that partnerships are more inclusive than bureaucratic or market-based approaches to policy-making and service delivery. This article argues that partnership working does not in itself deliver enhanced public participation; indeed, it may be particularly difficult to secure citizen involvement in a partnership context. The article explores the relationship between partnership and participation in a wide range of local initiatives, exemplifying difficulties as well as synergies. The article concludes that public participation needs to be designed-in to local partnerships, not assumed-in. A series of principles for the design of more participative local partnerships is proposed.     

Public management and productivity towards an appraisal of the productivity of alternative forms of public service delivery

Although independent administrative units are used worldwide as alternate forms of public service delivery, only limited systematic knowledge is available as how to apply these organisational forms with the maximum positive effects. This paper aims to explore the productivity gains achieved by administrative units increasing their degrees of independence, shifting from organisational independence to budgetary and legal independence. Focusing on self-operating decentralised units, on public law enterprises and on publicly owned private law enterprises, this appraisal reveals that continuously increasing independence is accompanied by productivity gains, but, depending on varying service delivery conditions--in terms of divergent service concepts or notions of productivity--this may be in terms of quality of output, technical efficiency or allocative efficiency.

Consequently, in order to make the best possible organisational choice, a contingency model has to take into consideration that alternative forms of service delivery find their maximum positive effects not only under varying task contexts but equally in the pursuit of different productivity targets.     

Public administrators and policy implementation--a social work perspective

Professional social workers in both macro and micro settings are vitally concerned with public policy, particularly that of social welfare policy, and its implementation. They are keenly aware of the quality and quantity of services and other end products of policy implementation. Social workers serve as public administrators and staff many public and private agencies that form the delivery system network. They are also concerned with social problem-solving as is the public administrator, and see themselves as behavior change agents. Their generalized value perspective addresses the political conflicts arising from the nature and causes of poverty and inequality, the role of government in society, and the nature and methodology of the decision-making process. Organization and administration become means to ends, not ends in themselves.

The conclusions arise that public administrators will have to assume more governmental responsibility, rather than less. This is seen as a natural evolutionary outgrowth of the need to regulate increased conflict fueled by growing interdependence and rapid societal change. While public agencies are continuing results of governmental intervention, they are condemned to operate in the midst of paradox.     

A social impact assessment of the nuclear fuel services facility at west valley,New York

This paper sets forth a research methodology to evaluate the social impact of projects on people. The data and measurement techniques are drawn from a preliminary social impact assessment of the Nuclear Fuel Services facility in West Valley, New York. In addition to collecting socio-economic and demographic information on the region, a survey of West Valley area residents was conducted. Respondents were questioned about their level of awareness of the issues surrounding the plant, their knowledge about the issue sphere, the nature and level of awareness of the issues surrounding the plant, their knowledge about the issue sphere, the nature and level of their concern regarding the facility, and proposed policies to deal with the plant. A major finding is that residents living in the region are apprehensive about the health dangers that can result from radioactive contamination of the environment, and favor removal of the plant and restoration of the area. How the results of our study were incorporated into the policy making process is discussed at the conclusion of the paper.     

Contracts,resource use and productivity in sharecropping

This article identifies the contractual terms in sharecropping that result in efficient use of resources. Evidence is then presented from Pakistan to comment on the manner in which landlords ensure that sharecroppers fulfil the terms. It is shown that landlords in general specify contract terms that encourage sharecroppers to adopt new techniques of production. Productivity comparisons are also made for farms under different tenancy contracts to conclude that share‐cropping tenancies do not appear to result in output loss even when technology is changing.     

全球公共产品视角下新冠肺炎疫苗供给困境、中国路径与挑战对策

2020年暴发的新冠肺炎疫情对全球卫生安全构成了严重威胁,也给全球卫生治理带来了重大挑战.新冠肺炎疫苗是战胜疫情的关键产品工具.在全球公共产品的视角下,新冠肺炎疫苗供给困境集中体现在供给总量与需求总量严重失衡、产业链分布不均、美国供给意愿与能力弱化三个方面.作为负责任的大国,中国从国内层面积极研发疫苗、区域层面主动展开...     

Foreign direct investment,financial development and economic growth

This article argues that the development of the financial system of the recipient country is an important precondition for FDI to have a positive impact on economic growth. A more developed financial system positively contributes to the process of technological diffusion associated with FDI. The article empirically investigates the role the development of the financial system plays in enhancing the positive relationship between FDI and economic growth. The empirical investigation presented in the article strongly suggests that this is the case. Of the 67 countries in data set, 37 have a sufficiently developed financial system in order to let FDI contribute positively to economic growth. Most of these countries are in Latin America and Asia.     

Public Intellectuals, Online Media, and Public Spheres: Current Realignments

The phenomenon of public intellectuals (PIs) continue to be debated, as their status and significance evolve under changing historical circumstances. I suggest PIs still play an important role in democracies, despite alterations in their circumstances, activities, and practices. While most of the familiar questions remain, it is important to take into account a number of changes that impact on PIs, their situation, and their activities. I explore the contingencies that make possible, as well as delimit and alter, the phenomenon of PIs in contemporary democratic societies. The discussion is organised around three sets of evolving circumstances in which PIs are inexorably embedded: the structural setting of mediated public spheres, with a particular emphasis on the online sector; the dynamic realm of practices associate with online civic participation more broadly; and lastly, the cultural and political climate of democratic societies confronted by serious dilemmas. The interface of these circumstances is ushering PIs into a new historical phase, where the web obviously looms large yet where the contours are still taking shape. These circumstances put new demands on PIs.     

Public Policies, Private Strategies and Local Public Spending Bodies

Local Public Spending Bodies (LPSBs) occupy an important position in the contemporary structures of governance in the UK. As exemplars of many of the diverse characteristics of the New Public Management, LPSBs inhabit the fuzzy space between the public and private spheres, both in terms of organizational structure and service delivery. One finding from recent research into the internal governance of three kinds of LPSBs – Further Education Colleges, Housing Associations and Training and Enterprise Councils – was that the language of strategy predominated over that of policy on the boards of such organizations. In this article we assess the significance of this finding. We contend that the two terms are not interchangeable and that a vital distinction needs to be maintained between them. Specifically we argue that policy refers to collections of decisions grounded in public values whereas the concept of strategy, particularly as currently understood in the context of the New Public Management, refers to the positioning of an organization in its struggle to survive and grow. We conclude that LPSBs have been invited to behave strategically within a framework of increasingly centralized policy objectives and resource allocations.     

Towards developing new partnerships in public services: users as consumers, citizens and/or co-producers in health and social care in England and Sweden

The causes and effects of marketization of public services have been analysed extensively in the literature, but there is relatively little research on how those policies impact on the development of new forms of governance, and the role of users in these new arrangements. This study reviews examples of competition, freedom of choice and personalized care in health and social services in England and Sweden, in order to examine the type of relationships emerging between the user/consumer vis-à-vis market driven providers and various agencies of the state under the marketized welfare. The article focuses on the possible roles users might assume in new hybrid arrangements between markets, collaborations and steering. A user typology: namely, that of a consumer, citizen, co-producer and responsibilized agent in various governance arrangements, is then suggested. The article concludes by arguing that pro-market policies instead of meeting the alleged needs of post-modern users for individualized public services are likely to promote a new type of highly volatile and fragile partnerships, and create a new subordinated user who has no choice but to ‘choose’ services they have little control over.     

Nepali fuelwood production and consumption: Regional and household distinctions,substitution and successful intervention

This article uses household data from Nepal's two major populated regions (and 27 of 59 districts within those regions) to examine fuelwood consumption and production. In contrast with a purely market assessment, household analysis includes production which is consumed in the producing household. The household regressions yield coefficients and elasticities that are very different from and more reliable than a comparable assessment of market demand and supply. Household results generally support the hypotheses that expenditures on fuelwood are a small share of total household activity and that fuelwood is not sufficiently scarce to alter household behaviour. Fuelwood is sufficiently scarce, however, to alter behaviour for those households in the hill region that do not participate in market exchange. These households may be the best targets for public market interventions designed to alter fuelwood supply and deforestation.     

Public administration,executive power,and constitutional confusion

This article examines the ambiguity in the meaning of executive power in both the text of the U.S. Constitution and in subsequent judicial interpretations. This ambiguity has had a profound impact on the constitutional position of the public administration. In the recent independent counsel case, the U.S. Supreme Court offered a restrictive interpretation of the President's constitutional powers to remove subordinate officers. This new interpretation could lead to increased congressional control over administrative agencies.

The proper place and function of the public administration, unfortunately for the public administration, have been and remain inherently ambiguous because of the longstanding confusion about executive power in the Constitution of the United States. Richard Neustadt captured this ambiguity nicely when he noted that the two great themes that have characterized the American presidency have been “clerkship” and “leadership.”⁽¹⁾ There is no easy formula to bring clerks and leaders together to make them march in lock-step, and yet the President is clearly both. Today we may tend to emphasize his role as leader with imperial pretensions and Nixonian excesses still relatively fresh in our memories, but this is only a question of emphasis. No one denies that the President is a legally accountable officer who must do the bidding of the Congress. This is the clerkship side of the presidency.

Herbert Storing counsels against any effort to cut the Gordian knot and to try to determine once and for all just what it is our President is supposed to be: clerk or leader. “The beginning of wisdom about the American presidency,” Storing maintains, “is to see that it contains both principles and to reflect on their complex and subtle relation.”⁽²⁾ Following Storing's advice, this essay reflects on the inherent ambiguity of the executive power that provides the constitutional foundation of the public administration. First, we examine the text of the Constitution and the meaning of executive power at the time of the founding. Then we study the confusion that the Supreme Court has created in its efforts to draw practical conclusions for presidential personnel management from the constitutional grant of “the executive power” to the President in relation to the removal power. Third, we examine some of the recent problems of executive power that surfaced in Watergate and became salient in the important constitutional debate over the special prosecutors, those most unwelcome intruders into the inner precincts of the Reagan administration.