Understanding Migration: The Case for Public Administration

ABSTRACT

Migration has emerged as a key issue for governments in the 21^st century. While multiple disciplines address migration, the study of public administration has been slow to do so. Given the complexities of migration policy implementation, and the multiple levels of government involved, public administration can add significantly to the current understandings of the phenomenon. This article examines what is known on migration, what still needs to be understood, and how public administration can assist in understanding migration.     

Women's Capabilities and the Right to Education in Bangladesh

The World Bank promotes women's education because it is an input into human capital. In the capabilities approach, education is a force that enables women to have expanded choices. Using data from in-depth interviews conducted in two villages in 1996 and 2000, we examine how rural Bangladeshis perceive women's education and to what extent those perceptions concur with the World Bank's instrumentalist view and with the capabilities approach. Parents educate their daughters because women's education is valued in the marriage market, and marriage is the best way to secure their daughters' well-being. Schooling has also enhanced women's capabilities by increasing their earning potential.     

The Road to Good Governance: Via the Path Less Accountable? The Effectiveness of Fiscal Accountability in Liberia

Accountability mechanisms are touted as a path to “good governance.” But are accountability mechanisms a sure route to achieving the objectives of “good governance”? Limited case studies have offered inconsistent evidence (Blair, 2000 Blair, H. 2000. Participation and accountability at the periphery: Democratic local governance in sex countries. World Development, 28(1): 21–29. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Charlick, 2001 Charlick, R.B. 2001. Popular participation and local government reform.. Public Administration and Development, 21: 149–157. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Devas &; Grant, 2003 Devas, N. and Grant, U. 2003. Local government decision-making-citizen participation and local accountability: Some evidence from Kenya and Uganda. Public Administration and Development, 23: 307–316. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). But empirical evidence of the relationships among principles of good governance—high citizen participation, low levels of corruption, high-quality service delivery—and accountability mechanisms is lacking. We examine the effectiveness of accountability mechanisms in Liberia and find relationships between measures of county level fiscal accountability and measures of good governance do not always produce expected results, making fiscal accountability mechanisms no guarantee for achieving goals of good governance.     

Risks and Opportunities in Gender Gaps to Access Shelter: A Platform for Intervention

In the context of the current global trends such as polarization of social groups and intensified poverty, there is a serious risk that gender gaps in access to shelter widen among the poor to the detriment of women's social, economic, and personal well-being. Paradoxically, these conditions also provide certain opportunities for women, including their greater community-based mobilization and leadership role. This paper examines these risks and the opportunities they bear upon and stresses the need for intervention in four areas of rights, access, security, and empowerment. The paper draws on a participatory research project carried out by the United Nations Gender and Habitat program in 1992 to 1999 in low-income settlements of Africa, South Asia, and Latin America.     

Rethinking global governance: a China model in the making?

This paper examines Chinese perspectives on global governance, an area in which China has increased substantially the depth and breadth of its participation. The paper attempts to draw a mainstream perspective to inform our understanding of some key aspects of China's foreign policy. It demonstrates that while China's statist preference appeals to some Third World countries, such a preference leads the country to clash with the West over how to tackle global issues collectively, particularly over humanitarian intervention. While the Chinese perspective is in the process of evolving and far from reaching maturity, it is questionable whether the global community led by the West would find the Westphalian practice that China embraces admirable.     

Child Trafficking,Child Soldiering: exploring the relationship between two ‘worst forms’ of child labour

While it may be intuited that human trafficking is an ineluctable component of the child soldiering experience, very little research exists to illustrate the tangible connections between these two ‘worst forms’ of child labour. The extent to which common reception points for trafficked children—such as slave-owning households, religious boarding schools and brothels—double as profitable reservoirs for recruiting commanders remains entirely unknown. Likewise, despite the clear financial incentive that some erstwhile commanders might have to traffic their former child combatants into civilian slavery, the prevalence of such practice is unknown. The purpose of this article is to delineate some of the most conspicuous academic gaps pertaining to the intersection of child trafficking and child soldiering.     

Why developing countries are just spectators in the ‘Gold War’: the case of Lebanon at the Olympic Games

At the Olympic Games, there is an increasing gap between developed countries that are investing more and more government resources into sporting success, and developing countries that cannot afford the “Gold War”, and are just spectators in the medal race. Based on studying a representative case, Lebanon, I investigate issues and interests of developing countries in the Olympics. On the political level, the main motivation for participation is global recognition. On the sporting level, developing countries seek to use Olympic participation as preparation for regional Games where success is more likely, serving as a soft power tool for regional influence.     

What is the opposite of corruption?

Corruption has turned out to be difficult to define and what should be counted as the opposite to corruption remains widely disputed. If the goal for a post-conflict society is not only to become democratic and prevent a return to violence but also to reduce systemic corruption, we need to know what it is that should be fought and how the opposite to systemic corruption should be conceptualised. To define the opposite to corruption, choices have to be made along four conceptual dimensions. These are universalism vs relativism, uni- vs multidimensionality, normative vs empirical and whether the definition should relate to political procedures or policy substance. As a result of this conceptual analysis, it is argued, a universal, one-dimensional, normative and procedural definition should be preferred. The suggested definition is that of impartiality as the basic norm for the implementation of laws and policies. This conceptual analysis ends with a discussion of why such a norm has historically and in the contemporary world been hard to achieve and why it is especially problematic in post-conflict societies.     

Therefore,Is Bureaucracy Dead? Making a Case for Complementarity of Paradigms in Public Administrative Thinking and Discourse

Public Administration has gone through conceptual development to inject renaissance and public value creation. The literature provides a battleground of ideas between bureaucracy, new public management and post NPM with the latter ones chastising bureaucracy. The new developments should be seen as perfecting and correcting some of the extremes of bureaucracy but cannot replace it entirely. Owing to the broad nature of the public sector coupled with complex goals, agencies and mandates; this paper argues for a synergistic relationship and harmonization of the principles espoused by each paradigm; because each may be applicable in specific context, sector and periods.