UK corporate governance: To what end a new regulatory state?

This article questions the importance of recent changes in the regulation of UK corporate governance. Michael Moran has observed that a new regulatory state is emerging. In the case presented here new authority was created but little changed substantively. Under Labour and Conservative ministers, governance policy was reactive and cautious. For all the new institutional capacity, governance problems and policies were conceived within existing structures of power and advantage. Any ambitions to social control that threatened the political-economic status quo were ruled out. While this may be no surprise, it suggests regulatory reorganisation need not herald dramatic change, even when politicised.     

Transnational delegation in global environmental governance: When do non‐state actors govern?

Non‐state actors – including firms, non‐governmental organizations, and networks – are now a permanent fixture in environmental politics. However, we know surprisingly little about when states choose to delegate to non‐state actors through multilateral treaties. This paper provides an historical picture, tracing patterns of delegation to non‐state agents in a random sample of multilateral environmental agreements from 1902 to 2002. I introduce a new unit of analysis – the policy function – to understand what non‐state actors actually do as agents. I find that analyses of delegation are sensitive to the unit of analysis; patterns of delegation at the treaty level are very different from those at the level of individual policy functions. While overall the decision to delegate to non‐state actors – what I term transnational delegation – is rare, it has grown over time. Complex treaties, those with secretariats, and those focused on the management of nature are more apt to delegate to non‐state actors. Non‐state agents fill a small, but growing role in multilateral environmental treaties.     

Privatisation in Botswana: the demise of a developmental state?

This article argues that efforts by the Government of Botswana to embark on privatisation of some parastatals as well as contracting out the provision of certain services with the main intention of enhancing productivity and strengthening the private sector will not have a negative effect on the strength and nature of the existing strong developmental state. It is argued that the cautious and pragmatic approach adopted by the government, coupled with the fact that privatisation in Botswana is embraced voluntarily (that is not imposed on the country by either the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a condition for financial assistance), hiving off parastatals to the private sector will not result in the weakening and ultimate demise of the state as it has happened in some countries within Sub Saharan Africa. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Institutionalizing fairness in financial markets: Mission impossible?

This article analyzes the institutionalization of process‐oriented regulation, namely: regulatory institutions that allow firms to adapt regulation to their individual circumstances, while holding them to account for the adequacy and efficacy of their internal compliance systems. The article's main focus is on the strategies sought by compliance professionals to attain managers' receptiveness to regulatory expectations. It analyzes British financial firms' responses to a process‐oriented regulatory initiative, which sought to transform the widespread culture of product “mis‐selling” in this industry. Three key arguments and hypotheses are put forward: first, it is suggested that the existing theoretical literature on process‐oriented regulation overly stresses managers' rational, profit‐maximizing motivations for (non‐)compliance, whilst overlooking their emotive motivations. Second, it is proposed that managers' emotive resistance is expected when regulatory expectations challenge firms' “organizational identities” and thereby their individual identities. Third, it is hypothesized that when process‐oriented regulation poses a threat to organizations' identities, its institutionalization will entail delegation of the design and subsequent implementation of compliance systems to managers outside compliance, and reframing of regulatory expectations into existing businesses discourses and methodologies.     

Searching for ‘pockets of effectiveness’ in weak governance states: Preliminary examination of the securities and exchange commission of Myanmar

After decades of military rule, internal conflict, and international isolation, Myanmar has embarked on a course of institution building. In light of Myanmar's low rating on the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators (World Bank Group), the nation faces an enormous challenge in developing public institutions that meet its needs and expectations. This challenge includes development of institutional capacity that will allow Myanmar to participate in international economic affairs. A step in this direction involves the creation of a securities exchange market mechanism. The current study considers the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Myanmar (SECM) to support securities regulation. It applies a novel organization level of analysis strategy that considers SECM as a ‘pocket of effectiveness’ (POE) in the context of a low-performing public institutional setting in terms of the good governance criteria of responsiveness, accountability, and transparency (RAT). While the study finds evidence of progress in building Myanmar's securities regulation, it also finds limits in RAT development that challenges the SECM's potential designation as a ‘POE’. Based on feedback from proximate stakeholders in the daily work of the SECM, recommendations are offered for revised policies and practices in order to resolve them.     

Governance without a state: Can it work?

In this article we explore how much state is necessary to make governance work. We begin by clarifying concepts of governance and the “shadow of hierarchy” and we follow this clarification with a brief overview of empirical findings on governance research in developed countries. We then discuss the dilemmas for governance in areas of limited statehood, where political institutions are too weak to hierarchically adopt and enforce collectively binding rules. While prospects for effective policymaking appear to be rather bleak in these areas, we argue that governance research has consistently overlooked the existence of functional equivalents to the shadow of hierarchy. We assert that governance with(out) government can work even in the absence of a strong shadow of hierarchy, we identify functional equivalents to the shadow of hierarchy, and we discuss to what extent they can help overcome issues of legitimacy and effectiveness in areas of limited statehood.     

Experimentalist governance in the EU: The emperor's new clothes?

Most students of the EU agree by now that it is best described as a governance system. There is far less consensus on what kind of governance the EU actually features: modern, postmodern, network, cooperative, innovative or simply new? Sabel and Zeitlin have advanced yet another concept. This paper discusses the added value of their “experimentalist governance” (EG), as presented in an edited volume published in 2010, for understanding and explaining the nature of EU policymaking, addressing four questions: First, to what extent is EG distinct from existing concepts of governance? Second, how pervasive is EG in the EU when compared to alternative forms of governance? Third, what is the effect of EG on EU policy outcomes, on the one hand, and the overall architecture of the EU, on the other? Finally, does EG solve or exacerbate the EU's democratic deficit?     

The European Commission and fiscal governance reform: a strategic actor?

The intensification of the financial and economic crisis in Europe has added a new impetus to the debate over the possibilities for securing supranational fiscal integration within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Since the literature on the European Union’s response to the crisis is dominated by the study of intergovernmental politics, this article considers the previously neglected role of the Commission. A framing analysis of the Commission’s crisis discourse is operationalised here, which is supplemented by interviews with senior officials located in the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN) during key phases of the crisis. It is found that a supranational reform agenda was never internalised by the Commission. Instead, the Commission acted strategically by framing the crisis around intergovernmental fiscal discipline. These findings suggest that, in line with the ‘new intergovernmentalist’ thesis, supranational institutions themselves may not be as ‘hard-wired’ towards supranationalism as is often assumed.     

Remunicipalization in German cities: contesting neo-liberalism and reimagining urban governance?

After two decades of widespread privatization, German municipalities have started to re-purchase privatized companies. At the same time, social movements are campaigning for remunicipalization, promoting it as a means of achieving greater urban democracy, though these objectives are often divergent from those of municipalities concerned with reasserting local state autonomy. With reference to Berlin, the paper discusses how remunicipalization campaigns might contribute to post-neo-liberal urban governance. It presents a preliminary frame for developing progressive remunicipalization movements centred on three elements of contestation: rejection of neo-liberalism; connection to other and broader struggles; and commoning as an alternative form of urban governance.     

Business as usual? Civil society organizations in a marketized Swedish welfare state

ABSTRACT

This article aims to examine the participation of pensioners’ organizations in a context of marketization within local elderly care. The literature on New Public Management (NPM) points out different views on the effects of marketization on the participation of civil society organizations within the decision-making process. One view states marketization implies less of participation by civil society organizations since this stands in conflict with inherent values of NPM, such as efficiency and the citizen as customer on a market. An opposite view states that marketization does not cause this effect, i.e., civil society organizations participate in the same manner as before. The empirical investigation consists of results from a questionnaire sent out to pensioners’ organizations in Swedish municipalities with a marketized elderly care. The main result is that marketization does not cause any major crowding out effect on civil society organizations from the decision-making process. However, according to the survey, there exists a variation in this respect – participation varies between municipalities.     

‘Responsibilty’ as a strategy of governance: regulating people living with AIDS and lesbians and gay men in Ontario

This paper investigates responsibility/irresponsibility as an important regulatory strategy, in two instinct but interrelated social sites – people living with AIDS and HIV, and lesbians and gay men, especially within the Canadian province of Ontario. This responsibility/irresponsibility technique of governance is developing in response to the struggles of people with AIDS and community-based AIDS groups and lesbians and gay men and the alternative strategies of regulation articulated through these struggles. Practices of ‘resistance’ and activism alter the grounds of hegemonic regulation/governance and point towards new techniques of governance. I show how responsibilizing and normalizing strategies in the context of social struggles over AIDS and sexual regulation allows for those constructed as ‘responsible’ to be managed through forms of self-regulation and professional forms of goverance of their live. For those who continue to be constructed as ‘irresponsible’ forms of criminal law, policing and public health governance are called into action.     

Policy processes sans frontières: interactions in transnational governance of global health

Policy Sciences - National policy on global health (NPGH) arenas are multisectoral governing arrangements for cooperation between health, development, and foreign affairs sectors in government...     

Intelligence-led Peacekeeping: The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), 2006–07

In the slums of Haiti, where pistol and machete wielding gangs dominated the populace through murder, intimidation, extortion, and terror, a UN peacekeeping mission managed to established law, order, and government control. The United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH) succeeded by ‘taking on’ the gangs in a series of military and police ‘search and arrest’ operations in 2006–07. The achievement was made possible by thorough ‘intelligence preparation of the environment’. This paper tells the story of the ‘intelligence-led’ military–police–civil operations and how they transformed the Haitian slum of Cité Soleil from a foreboding place inaccessible to police for years to one in which the UN workers could safely walk its streets. The functions, structures, problems and challenges of the mission's intelligence capability are described, especially the work of the Joint Mission Analysis Centre (JMAC). Human intelligence proved to be key, while technologies helped considerably. Within the United Nations, intelligence remains a controversial and sensitive matter but the Haiti mission provides a valuable model of how to gather and use actionable intelligence.     

Inaction,under-reaction action and incapacity: communication breakdown in Italy’s vaccination governance

This article explores why governments do not respond to public compliance problems in a timely manner with appropriate instruments, and the consequences of their failure to do so. Utilising a case study of Italian vaccination policy, the article considers counterfactuals and the challenges of governing health policy in an age of disinformation. It counterposes two methods of governing vaccination compliance: discipline, which uses public institutions to inculcate the population with favourable attitudes and practices, and modulation, which uses access to public institutions as a form of control. The Italian government ineffectively employed discipline for a number of years. Epistemological and organisational constraints stymied its efforts to tackle a significant childhood vaccination compliance problem. With a loss of control over the information environment, vaccinations were not served well by exogenous crises, the sensationalism of the news cycle and online misinformation. Hampered by austerity, lack of capacity and epistemic shortcomings, the Italian government did not protect the public legitimacy of the vaccination programme. Instead of employing communications to reassure a hesitant population, they focused on systemic and delivery issues, until it was too late to do anything except make vaccinations mandatory (using modulation). The apparent short-term success of this measure in generating population compliance does not foreclose the need for ongoing governance of vaccine confidence through effective discipline. This is evident for the COVID-19 vaccination campaign, with many Italians still indicating that they would not accept a vaccine despite the devastation that the disease has wrought throughout their country.

     

Political influence on historical ESA listings by state: a count data analysis

We use count data analysis to examine the influence that a state’s congressional subcommittee representation (with oversight of the US Fish and Wildlife Service) has on the number of species that are added to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) list in each state each year (1973–2004). Explanatory variables include: (1) ecological—species type, NatureServe’s “at-risk” assessment, federal land area, rainfall, and coastal location; (2) demographic—population density, hunting/fishing participation, and farming area; (3) political—League of Conservation Voters’ environmental scores and party affiliation. “Pro-environment” (“pro-development”) representatives appear to have increased (reduced) ESA listings in their states.     

Towards a Critical Theory of Cultural Pragmatics: The Márkus Road

ABSTRACT

At the time of his death in 2016 György Márkus’s magnum opus on the culture of modernity that he laboured on throughout his post-Budapest period remained unfinished. This paper attempts to reconstruct the theory of Cultural Pragmatics that lay at the core of this immense project. The intention is to retrieve the key ideas of Márkus’s understanding of modern cultural relations by reviewing the terms of his critique of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault on the issue of authorship. A distinctive Márkus road in the study of cultural modernity offers itself as a rich contemporary research programme for the future.