WOMEN’S MOVEMENTS AND NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT: HIGHER EDUCATION IN SWEDEN AND ENGLAND

This article considers change in academe in Sweden and England, focusing on gender equity and the new public management reforms. In drawing on social movement theory, it is argued that public sector agendas in these countries have been affected by the influences of their respective women’s movements as well as by the new public management. The article explores these developments through the experiences of a group of employees whose voices are heard infrequently in the literature, those in middle‐level academic positions in universities who are responsible for delivering change. It is argued that the rational, hierarchical, masculine discourses of the new public management offer challenges to women’s movement supporters, whose influences and responses are examined. It is contended that the use of social movement theory, as a vehicle through which to conceptualize change, offers a number of insights. These are: the contribution made to gender equity by women who are not self‐defined feminists or strongly committed to equal opportunities, known as femocrats; the contribution made by some supportive men to gender equity; and the potential for future collective opposition to the new public management from women’s movements.     

Death by a Thousand Grants? The Challenge of Grant Funding Reliance for Local Government Councils in the Northern Territory of Australia

In July 2008, the local government sector in the Northern Territory of Australia underwent wide-sweeping reforms whereby 53 councils, most of which were located in remote Indigenous communities, were amalgamated into eight regional shires. The dominant justifications for these reforms focused on internal ‘deficit’ views about the community council sector, including lack of competent and ethical staff, managerial workforce instability, inefficient use of resources, and poor oversight as the primary causes of chronic underperformance and dysfunction. This paper identifies and discusses the under-scrutinised role of grants revenue dependency and volatility in the demise of remote small councils in the Northern Territory. We analyse financial data to demonstrate the extreme volatility in year-on-year grants funding. With their high dependency on grants revenue, such volatility and unpredictability resulted in councils being hamstrung in their ability to strategically plan and ensure stability in service delivery, infrastructure management and employment provision. We argue that these fiscal dynamics, fuelled by hierarchical intergovernmental relations, contributed significantly to dysfunction in the sector, as well as mutually reinforcing pre-existing structural and endogenous weaknesses. This argument runs against the common conceptualisation of the sector as requiring of externally imposed structural reform. We conclude by suggesting that there are factors additional to scale that need to be incorporated into analysis of the effects of amalgamation policies on remote councils.     

PATH DEPENDENCY AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: THE CASE OF INDUSTRIAL EMISSION CONTROL IN SWEDEN

Theory‐independent measures of institutional change can be developed by identifying and tracking changes in institutional reproduction mechanisms. Such measures can then be used to assess the empirical validity of theoretical models of institutional change. This article performs an analysis of reproduction mechanisms in a case study of a Swedish institution for emission control during the period 1960–2000. The analysis reveals the existence of a highly path dependent institutional development, powerful enough to withstand a wide‐ranging institutional reform implemented in the late 1990s. The case study supports a gradualist model over a punctuated equilibrium model of institutional change, but the analysis also demonstrates the need for path dependency theory to pay greater attention to the question of how micro‐level institutional interaction generates aggregate patterns of change and stability.     

HOW POLITICIANS AND BUREAUCRATS NETWORK: A COMPARISON ACROSS GOVERNMENTS

Effective public administration relies on the passage of information through interpersonal communication networks. While we have a vast research literature concerning formal structures and roles in organizations, including public agencies and government institutions, we know far less about the flow of information through semiformal, voluntary interactions. In this paper we use a large survey to explore the networking patterns of politicians and bureaucrats and to compare these with the more formal structural attributes of hierarchy and functional specialization. Social network analysis and standard quantitative measures are used to examine which actors are most central in advice and strategic information networks and how this varies across governments. The results suggest that the communication networks of politicians and bureaucrats differ substantially, with politicians being surprisingly peripheral in their patterns of interaction. Differences across governments are also observed with some municipalities being markedly more hierarchical, cross‐organizational, and externally focused in their networking behaviour.     

Modern dependency: A “crucial case” study of Brazilian government policy in the minicomputer industry

Conclusion Brazil’s minicomputer industry has become dependent on government import policy, government financing and domestic private business. The growth in the domestic component of this industry between 1974 and 1981 suggests that incremental government policies (short of a transformation to socialism) can alter Brazil’s level of dependency on MNCs, concerning at least one industry–the minicomputer industry. Therefore, the Brazilian minicomputer model advances the dependency question from “what is dependency and why does it exist?” to “how can one improve its position in a dependency situation?” Relative success in the minicomputer industry cannot be construed as victory over Brazil’s dependency on MNCs, which may alter its economic and political relationship with other countries. Instead, it illustrates a viable model for improving a developing country’s dependency situation. This infant industry strategy is given more credence due to the rekindling of protectionism by all nations. A definitive evaluation of Brazil’s minicomputer policies cannot be rendered until this industry has progressed in its growth cycle. As indicated earlier, signs of both success and failure are evident. In addition, several events may restrict growth in Brazilian minicomputer firms: (1) restriction of funds due to the enormous foreign debt, (2) corrupt or inappropriate management, (3) unsuccessful transfer of technology, or (4) intrusion of smaller and less expensive microcomputers into uses now served by minicomputers. Thus, how effectively Brazil can get out of its overall dependency trap will depend not only on how well it can apply the minicomputer industry model to other industries, of course, given that the model does succeed in the long–run. But it will also depend on how well Brazil can deal with the problems listed above. 0259 0255 V 2     

Bargaining asymmetry in technology transfer; A games theoretical approach

The present paper, by use of a cooperative game theoretical construct, attempts to provide a theoretical basis for the observed asymmetry of POI technology bargaining outcomes which does not depend on assumptions of imperfect knowledge, unequal bargaining strength and the like. In particular, it is argued that where the valuation of surplus based on cost‐ benefit analysis exceeds that which results from the use of domestic market prices, the division of financial surplus will favour the firm. A corollary is that since such an outcome depends on symmetrical information, the use of cost‐benefit techniques will be as important to firms as to governments. The argument deals with the role of accounting conventions in determining taxable surplus, and is extended to cover various forms of surplus disguise, of which the use of transfer pricing is the standard example.     

Gender-responsive budgeting: A budget reform to address gender inequity

In recognition of gender inequities, more than 80 countries have applied a gender perspective to their budget process, initiatives referred to as gender-responsive budgeting (GRB). Research on GRB initiatives has focused on whether they reduce gender inequities. However, if it is to have a lasting effect, GRB must reform the budget process and become integral to government administrative routines. We examine the experiences of several countries with GRB initiatives and identify the key factors explaining implementation success or failure. We find that these factors are similar to those that explain the success of earlier budget reforms focused on efficiency and effectiveness. While the equity objective of GRB differentiates it from other budget reforms, these factors provide the context for understanding GRB initiatives. Although gender parity is just one dimension of social equity, the success of GRB initiatives shows that governments can use their budgets to meet social equity objectives.     

Women’s political representation and transparency in local governance

Despite the growing interest on the influence of gender in local government, the relationship between women’s political representation on municipalities, as council member or as female mayors, and transparency is an under-researched topic. This article analyses the political representation of women in Spanish local councils and their influence on the level of transparency. Results show that women’s political representation in municipalities has a positive influence on the level of transparency, increasing information transparency and reducing information asymmetry.     

How learning aggregates: a social network analysis of learning between Swedish municipalities

Using a unique data set of learning among all 290 Swedish municipalities, we use social network analysis to analyse how learning networks aggregate nationally. To facilitate this analysis, we describe five ideal-typical patterns of aggregation: core-periphery, small world, top-down regionalism, bottom-up regionalism and urban hierarchy. Each of these ideal-types has important implications for how ideas, information and innovation will circulate among municipalities. Social network analysis allows us to both isolate these patterns and to appreciate composite patterns. The analysis indicates that Swedish municipalities are a small-world network with regional and hierarchical elements. County seats serve an important role as network hubs.     

Are School Committees a Source of Empowerment? Insights from Tanzania

Studies on user committees often critique the claim that membership to these committees empowers people. In this article, we use survey data on empowerment school committees in Tanzania to find out whether school committee membership is a source of empowerment of people at the local levels. Our findings suggest that membership in itself has limited impact on empowerment, while access to information and gender are the major sources of empowerment. However, the role of membership to the school committee is significant insofar as it can expose members to critical information on school issues.     

Heterogeneous Effects of Urban Land Titling: A Replication of ‘Property Rights for the Poor’

We replicate the analysis of Sebastian Galiani and Ernesto Shargrodsky’s (GS) influential 2010 article ‘Property rights for the poor: effects of land titling’. GS use a natural experiment in a poor urban area of Buenos Aires to find that land titling increases housing investment, reduces household size, and increases child education, but does not do so through increased use of credit. The original questionnaires and raw data are not available and the existing variables provided by GS allow only a limited replication analysis. Despite these limitations, we successfully reproduce the original findings published by GS, and find these results are robust to alternative specifications. We also find heterogeneous effects regarding gender and education level of the original squatter.     

A Critique of the Use of Path Dependency in Policy Studies

Path dependency is an important notion in diachronic approaches to understanding social and political processes. The first section of this paper examines the application of path dependency to policy studies; the advantages of the concept in understanding policy development are highlighted by examples from pension policy and social housing policy in the UK, and the EU budget. The next section considers several criticisms of path dependency: (1) it is a fashionable label for the intuition that 'history matters' without a clear and convincing account of decision-making over time; (2) it explains only stability and not change; (3) its normative implications are confused and mostly left unexplored. The final section concludes that path dependency, despite being theoretically inchoate and difficult to operationalize empirically, is a valid and useful concept for policy studies. However, its proper application demands sensitivity from scholars to other temporal dynamics that may operate in policy development.     

Path Dependency and the Reform of English Local Government

This paper uses the concept of path dependency to examine the changes to the political management structures of English local government. We note how the possible experience of decreasing returns among some local authority actors combined with the powerful intervention of politicians within New Labour at the national level led to a significant break from past policy and the imposition of measures to establish a separate executive that was claimed as a radical step forward for local democracy. Using survey data from the Evaluating Local Governance research team ( http://www.elgnce.org.uk ), we explore the establishment of a separate political executive in all major local authorities and map out the style of decision-making that is emerging. We find that some established institutional patterns reasserted themselves in the process of implementation, but that increasing returns are not as great as some theorists of path dependency would suggest and they may be a force for system change as well as for stability.     

A Profile of Violent Offenders in Spanish Prisons

In Europe, it is relatively uncommon to find studies that investigate the criminal profiles of violent offenders, especially infrequent are those that pay special attention to offenders’ mental health/substance use disorders and histories of violence during childhood. The current research explores whether inmates who are incarcerated for violent offenses (n = 536) in Spain are different in terms of the aforementioned factors as compared to inmates incarcerated for non-violent offenses (n = 536). Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that violent offenders, as compared to their non-violent counterparts, were more likely to be younger, younger at the time of their first arrest, single, use alcohol, receive treatment in prison for anxiety or schizophrenia, and report physical abuse during childhood.     

PUBLIC SECTOR PAY BARGAINING: COMPARABILITY, DECENTRALIZATION AND CONTROL

Public sector pay, as a key component of public expenditure, has been a major issue for government since the mid-1970s. This article analyses public services pay bargaining since 1979 and examines the continuing tension between the control of public sector pay levels on the one hand and the wish to make pay levels more responsive to external market forces on the other.
The article concentrates on the changes in pay bargaining in the public services. It does not purport to provide a detailed economic analysis of the outcomes of the various phases in public sector pay policy, but does attempt to explain the process implications of the political contingencies and rationale driving government policy on pay determination. In particular it notes the resilience of national pay-setting arrangements and pay comparability throughout most of the period under review, despite the political rhetoric, emphasizing the pragmatism of government policy. The latter section of the article reviews the current policy, with its emphasis on decentralized pay determination, and considers these new developments within the context of private sector collective bargaining theory.
The evidence from the private sector suggests that pay determination in the private sector is complex and that levels of bargaining relate to various factors. Decentralization is neither a panacea for poor performance nor necessarily problem free. Devolved pay determination can lead to problems of control over costs and, in the context of high levels of trade union organization, to pay'leapfrogging'. The article concludes that there is a continuing contradiction between the role of the government as an employer, keen to devolve pay decisions to local level, and that of economic regulator with responsibility for the wider economy. This continuing tension indicates that decentralized pay bargaining in the public sector will be limited in its scope by some form of central government control.     

International patron-client relationships: A conceptual framework

Dependency theory has cast new light on the workings of the international political economy, and on the relations between more and less developed countries. Insofar as dependency theory aims at specifying generalsystemic constraints on the behavior of Third World states, its ability to explain/predict how particular Third World states respond to these constraints is limited. Our concern is with the foreign policy responses of the LDCs. The comparative foreign policy approach to this question has attempted to account for cross-national variation in foreign policy responses of LDCs with variation in theirdomestic features, i.e., attributes, capabilities, and regime types. Here we suggest that an understanding of the foreign policies of the LDCs can be enhanced by adding an explicitly dyadic perspective to dependency and comparative foreign policy approaches, conceptualized as a form of patron-cliency.     

Women in the Korean Civil Service

Abstract

Are organizational characteristics, such as agency type, size, and growth, linked to female representation in the Korean civil service? This study analyzes the aggregate data regarding the female workforce in the Korean civil service in 2001 through multiple regression analysis. Findings indicate that the Korean women are likely to be underrepresented in most national agencies and severely underrepresented at higher‐level grades. While the Korean women doubled in the civil service for the last two decades, employment of women at the highest grade levels did not improve significantly. Redistributive agencies are directly linked to female representation in the Korean civil service regardless of grade levels, whereas agency size and growth are not related to female employment representation. To achieve gender equality and to expand female senior executive feed levels, the Korean government has provided the quotas for successful female applicants in the civil service entrance examinations at the lowest through middle level grades since 1996. The use of quotas and policies for gender equality could lead to changes in the entire public workforce, particularly fair representation at higher‐level positions as well as the elimination of agency and occupational segregation.     

Municipalities and Facebook Use: Which Key Drivers? Empirical Evidence from Italian Municipalities

New information and communication technologies are changing the relationship between municipalities and citizens. Municipalities are using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as social media to connect and interact directly with citizens. The aim of this study is to explore how municipalities use Facebook, construct a synthetic indicator to measure the use of Facebook by local government, and find out which drivers predict its diffusion through a quantitative methodology: ordinary least squares regression. A sample of Italian municipalities during 2013 is analyzed. The results suggest that the political position, the gender of the Mayor, the geographical position, the financial autonomy of municipalities, and the citizens’ wealth seem to predict the diffusion of Facebook use by municipalities.