Governments,trade unions and the macroeconomy: An expository analysis of the political business cycle

We have briefly reviewed the state of the art of research on the political business cycle in the context of a simple textbook model of the macroeconomy. It has been demonstrated that the government-generated political business cycle vanishes as expectations turn rational. Even then, however, non-inflationary policies apparently are time inconsistent. Hence, democracies seem to be stuck with some sort of inflationary bias.Countries with fairly centralized wage bargaining and strong labor unions have to deal with a second political source of instability in the macroeconomy: if the labor union's program contains political items such as equal educational opportunities for working class children, extended co-determination, a more equal distribution of wealth, and the like, they will prefer to see those parties in power who show the best prospects of implementing those items. So the trade union's wage bargaining strategies take into account how bargaining results influence the state of the economy and, hence, the reelection prospects of the ruling government — and they will do so in different ways, depending on whether the union prefers the government to the opposition party or vice versa.     

Comparing Implementation of Internet Diffusion in the United States and France: Policies,Beliefs, and Institutions

Comparing Internet diffusion policies in the United States and France from an implementation perspective brings to light institutional and historical differences, even though both countries used the same top‐down approach. We find that France not only followed the technological lead of the United States in information technology but also emulated some of its more business‐oriented approaches in the implementation of the Internet, despite its own longstanding tradition of government intervention in industrial and commercial matters. This policy shift appears to be spurred by the global economy. Traditionally state‐controlled national economies are now increasingly leveraging private interests for successful industrial policy. When applying Sabatier and Jenkins‐Smith's advocacy coalition framework to the American and French diffusion of the Internet, we find policy communities actually expanding to private and public actors, including industry captains, legislators, and civil servants. These subsystems work together through classic lawmaking and lobbying under technological and economic constraints.     

The New Managerialism and the Policy Influence of Consultants in Government: An Historical–Institutionalist Analysis of Britain, Canada and France

Following the rise of the New Public Management (NPM) in the 1980s, policymakers increasingly mobilized management consultants from the private sector in the course of reforming their bureaucracies. To describe this situation some coined the term "consultocracy," assuming that the emergence of the NPM created a growing demand for business management expertise in government circles that allowed consultants to penetrate the state and become powerful policy actors. Rather than taking these matters as given, I ask how has it been possible for consultants to become (or not) influential players in the process of administrative reform. It is argued that Britain, and to a lesser extent Canada, have been more likely than France to give rise to a "consultocracy" when implementing NPM reforms in the 1980s because in these two countries, management consultancy emerged earlier and is more strongly developed than in France because of its historical link with accountancy. Whereas French consultants only began to enter public administration in the 1980s, British and Canadian consultants have been involved in the last 30 years in the construction of the state's management capacities. Through their participation in these institution-building processes, they established networks of expertise with the state and acquired the experience of work in government. Over the years, this created opportunities for consultants to make their voices heard in the inner circles of decision-making and made possible the exercise of influence that they are now said to have on policy.     

MANUFACTURING FIRMS' VIEWS OF GOVERNMENT ACTIVITY AND COMMITMENT TO SITE: IMPLICATIONS FOR BUSINESS RETENTION POLICY

Relationships between a variety of firm characteristics and perceptions of government are investigated. Then views about government are considered in connection with firms' commitment to their present location. One finding that is well supported is that taxes and regulations (at least for this sample and within this region) are a source of considerable dissatisfaction. Satisfaction with government services does not come near "offsetting" the displeasure with taxes and regulations. Larger firms are more likely to have unfavorable perceptions of government constraints, but more likely to have favorable views about government services. There is no evidence from this data that high tech firms differ significantly from other firms in their views about government. In regards to implications for business retention, the findings support the notion that state governments seeking to market their state to businesses located elsewhere might turn a greater proportion of attention to businesses currently residing in the state.     

A Case of Strange Bedfellows in the EU: An Institutional Perspective on the French–Swedish Cooperation on Alcohol Control

Some relationships in modern politics may intuitively be more difficult to understand than others. This article deals with what might be referred to as a case of strange bedfellows, i.e. the French–Swedish cooperation on alcohol control in the European Union (EU). The French government has actively supported the Swedish government on several occasions in discussions and disputes over alcohol control policy issues at the EU level, and this article presents and discusses three different interpretations of this support. It is concluded that, rather than reflecting current economic calculations or matching policies, the French support should be viewed in relation to an institutional perspective emphasising the importance of historical paths and inefficient histories.     

Candidates' policy platforms and election outcomes: The three faces of policy representation

Abstract.   Recent empirical studies by Alvarez and Nagler, Erikson and Romero, and others conclude that candidates' and parties' policy platforms only modestly affect their electoral support. This suggests that candidates/parties can win elections even when their policies differ sharply from the policy beliefs of the constituencies that elect them. This raises the question: How can voters exercise control over government policies via elections? We report applications to American and French presidential election data that suggest three paradoxical conclusions. On the one hand, we find that presidential candidates can moderate their policies with at most a modest change in vote share, but if they move by the same amount to a more extreme position, they face severe vote losses that could cripple their election prospects. Alternatively, movement by both candidates in the same direction or a policy shift by the voters may have a major effect on the outcome.     

La Grande Nation and Agriculture: The Power of French Farmers Demystified

France is considered a strong state, but French governments have always fiercely defended the interests of French farmers in European and global negotiations. Why would a ‘strong state’ be unable to resist farm lobby pressure? Is agriculture an exception to the French ‘strong state’ rule? This article offers a structural model of varying state sensitivity to interest group pressure, and argues that farm lobby pressure cannot fully explain French foreign policy on agriculture, as governments often go against farmers' preferences and as the level of pressure varies more than the continuity of governmental preferences. From an analysis of the negotiations on the CAP and the GATT in the 1960s and in the 1990s it emerges that ideational constraints played a major role in French obstinacy. The defence of French identity as La Grande Nation, necessitating a presence in world agricultural markets, and the defence of a strong Europe under French leadership as a counterweight to the United States, have guided French preferences without regard to the farmers' positions.     

The Technology Trap and the Role of Political and Cultural Variables: A Critical Analysis of the E‐Government Policies

More than a decade after the first introduction of the e‐government policies, early enthusiasms on its immediate benefits on the quality of democracy have undergone critical review. E‐government implementation worldwide has proved that technology alone does not necessarily provide more access and more participation. Massive technological intervention is not enough for reinventing government online. Hence, other variables should be taken into consideration. Factors concerning political culture, cognitive frames and mentality, administrative traditions, as well as the country‐specific peculiarities play a relevant role in determining if and how e‐gov initiatives can succeed or fail. In this article, it will be argued that any opportunity and push for change and actual influence on administrations, governments, and societies, prompted by the new technologies, should endure important variables of political, social, and cultural nature. The political and socio‐cultural variables then overcome the technological one and we can state that politics (still) determines (e‐)policy.     

Revenue Cyclicality and Changes in Income and Policy

The past two recessions have proved alarming to state government finances. In 2001, a relatively shallow national recession led to a severe downturn in state revenues that took three years to unwind. In the wake of the recent economic downturn, signs of fiscal stress are readily apparent. In this paper, we investigate whether the revenue patterns surrounding these two recessions are the result of state government revenues having grown more sensitive to economic conditions. We find that the responsiveness of revenues to measures of business cycle conditions has grown since the 1990s. We use data on state government revenues, state‐specific information on economic conditions, and measures of state policy to examine fiscal performance and budgeting practice over the economic cycle. Our findings suggest that increasing income cyclicality, in particular of investment income, has made state revenues more responsive to the business cycle since the mid‐1990s. We also find that changes in policy making have served to increase revenue cyclicality.     

A new deal for France's regions and linguistic minorities

Since the Second World War France has experienced an upsurge of regionalistic and ethnic nationalist movements. There has been mutual interaction between these movements and the French left, particularly the Socialist Party. As a result, the policies of the Socialist government since May 1981 have included a wide programme of decentralisation which went some way to meeting the demands of the movements. But the continuing Jacobinism of the Socialists has imposed limitations and has led to a strengthening of the movements' moderate forces as well as to a splitting off and further hardening of the ‘purs et durs’ elements.     

Bureaucrats and Markets in China: The Rise and Fall of Entrepreneurial Local Government

Local government entrepreneurship in China in the reform era is argued to have been, on balance, instrumental to growth and market-oriented reform.¹ Economic factors are emphasized in explaining both its rise and anticipated decline. Undeveloped markets and established local state trading networks favored agencies of the local state in exploiting business opportunities arising from deregulation. However, market development and increasing autonomy of firms are now reducing the advantage of local government business agencies, and they face a diminished and changed role.     

How Can Business Share Responsibility for Disaster Resilience?

This paper contributes to knowledge of disaster resilience policy implementation in Australia and proposes measures to strengthen partnerships between government and the business sector to enhance national disaster resilience capacity. In Australia, business makes a significant contribution to disaster relief and recovery. Even so, there are unexplored opportunities to enhance the role of business in disaster resilience, particularly through partnerships with government. The extent that state, regional and local‐level disaster plans engage business in disaster relief and recovery is described and their relatively less prominent involvement in disaster resilience is discussed. Examples of disaster resilience policies and their capacity to influence business practices to support disaster resilience are introduced with suggestions for how they can be enhanced. Some potential benefits and pitfalls of public–private sector collaboration are explored and it is noted that, in disaster resilience settings, these risks can be ameliorated through appropriate implementation.     

Interest group strategies in multi‐level Europe

• This article analyzes the political responses of French and Italian business associations to Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in the EU. I propose and test the empirical relevance of a multi‐level lobbying model for multi‐tiered systems, a model assumed by, but never systematically examined in, the pluralism literature. Data for this ten‐sector cross‐national panel study come from personal interviews with the presidents of French and Italian business associations. The interviews were held at the beginning and the end of the euro implementation process. The research shows that organized groups routinely overstep their territorial jurisdictions to lobby across multiple levels of government in multi‐level Europe. The degree of state political decentralization is a statistically significant variable in explaining the choice of lobbying target. This ‘crucial comparative case study’ finds that, in adjusting to deeper economic integration, regional associations in France focus their energy on the central government, while Italian groups favour the regional government.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Disentangling governance: a synoptic view of regulation by government, business and civil society

Governance became a catch-all concept for various forms of steering by state and non-state actors. While it pays tribute to the complexities of steering in poly-centred, globalised societies, its fuzziness makes it difficult to oversee who actually steers whom and with what means. By focussing mainly on actor constellations, the article disentangles governance into seven basic types of regulation, four of them representing public policies with varying degrees of government involvement and three depending solely on civil society (civil regulation), on businesses (industry or business self-regulation) or on both (civil co-regulation). Although each of the seven types is well known and extensively researched, they are rarely joined in a synoptic view, making it difficult to grasp the totality of contemporary governance. After introducing the seven basic types of regulation and co-regulation, the article addresses the interactions between them and it adds the widely used concepts of hybrid regulation and meta-governance in distinct ways. The synoptic view provided here helps to comprehend how governmental deregulation has been accompanied by soft governmental regulation as well as “societal re-regulation”. The concluding discussion emphasises that this “regulatory reconfiguration” is the cumulative product of countless, more or less spontaneous initiatives that coincide with forceful global trends. It also stresses that the various forms of regulation by civil society and business actors are not simply alternatives or complements to but often key prerequisites for effective public policies. Although the essentials of the typology developed here can be applied universally to a variety of policy issues, I focus it on how businesses are steered towards sustainable development and Corporate Social Responsibility.     

The Future of Renewable Energy in Australia: A Test for Cooperative Federalism?

In the context of the Australian federal system industry development will be influenced by the policies of each sphere of government. When announcing a set of policies in 1997 to develop the renewable energy industry the Australian federal government acknowledged the need for a cooperative approach between all governments and industry. The objective of this article is to analyse the government policies over the 1997–2007 period to promote the development of the renewable energy industry in Australia. The article highlights a number of factors that have served as barriers to the development of the industry. The research provides important insight into the difficulties associated with establishing cooperative national arrangements in areas of state government responsibility in the Australian federation. The lessons also inform the current debate on the policy initiatives needed to more effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions from stationary energy from the increased availability of renewable energy .     

Beyond the Developmental State: The Cultural Roots of "Guerrilla Capitalism" in Taiwan

This article seeks to contribute to the emerging literature on moving "beyond the developmental state" by tracing the important role of "guerrilla capitalism" in Taiwan's political economy. The success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with little linkage to the state in Taiwan strongly suggests that more than state leadership must have been involved in the island's "economic miracle." The SMEs are quite important for the overall economy, especiaiiy the export sector where they have long accounted for more than half of total exports. Their success has resulted from the practice of "guerrilla capitalism" which includes aggressive and even audacious pursuit of business opportunities, extreme flexibility in rapidly filling even small orders, atten tion to quality and design, audacious bidding, participation in complex networks of subcontracting, and only partial observation at best of government regulations and international laws, such as those regarding intellectual property rights. The emergence of guerrilla capifalism, in turn, can be explained by the long-sfanding challenge in Chinese history to "official" Confucianism by a "heterodox counterculture" that is quite conducive to entrepreneurship and small-scale business activities.     

Democracy Interrupted: The Anti-Social Side of Intensified Policing

In 2015 and 2016, France was hit by some severe terror attacks. Following these attacks, the country experienced increased xenophobia in the form of anti-Muslim actions (anti-social peer punishment), and the French government reacted by declaring a state of emergency and intensifying policing activities such as house searches and police stops. Here, I analyze these reactions and show that intensified policing, even though well intended, can be associated with considerable anti-social effects. Furthermore, I will show that the state of emergency was associated with some dynamics that are worrisome for a democracy. Lastly, I will situate the findings in the conceptual distinction between institutional and peer punishment of behavioral science.     

The Political Foundations of Trust and Distrust: Reforms and Protests in France

This article argues that the high level of protest activity in France is, at least partly, the result of distrust between the government and the trade unions, and that such distrust is inevitable in a society where unions are sometimes strong enough to mobilise against the government but not confident in their own future strength. This trust problem can be overcome if governments are willing to make institutional changes that commit them to future policies, but such political engineering is costly and unstable, which explains why governments sometimes prefer open confrontation. The empirical part of the paper analyses four French social and labour market reform initiatives in the 1990s and 2000s, demonstrating that the ideas developed in this article help to explain important features of contemporary French policy-making.     

Defensive versus Offensive Approaches to Administrative Reform in France (1988–1997): The Leadership Dilemmas of French Prime Ministers

From 1988 to 1997, all French prime ministers launched administrative reform programs with numerous concerns for increasing efficiency, strengthening responsiveness, or redesigning political and administrative roles within the state. However, these initiatives have never led to radical and disruptive changes. The institutional legacy seems to have strongly constrained the politics of administration. What, then, is the meaning of launching administrative reforms within the French political power configuration, and how does it “fit” with the way leaders try to establish their political authority? This article provides two empirical studies of different prime ministers (Michel Rocard under the Mitterrand presidency and Alain Jupp under the Chirac presidency) that can explain the nature of the French governments' commitments to these issues. It argues that understanding administrative reforms requires a mixture of institutional and actor‐centered explanations, because these policies are really leadership challenges to the preexisting institutional order. As such, they are reflexively shaped or constrained by what they try to control and define. This paper shows that for a French prime minister to define the administration as a problem while building his own leadership can jeopardize the resources he will get from that same bureaucratic administrative system. This “power‐reform dilemma” may explain why administrative reforms have proven more politically effective as an instrument of order‐affirming impulses rather than as a disruptive strategy.