Autonomy or organisation? Reforms in the Ghanaian internal revenue service

Autonomous Revenue Authorities (ARAs) have recently become a popular organisational reform to improve revenue collection in developing countries. The success of ARAs is commonly attributed to ‘autonomy’ which reduces political interference, and increases financial independence and managerial freedom. This article examines the case of the Ghanaian ARA – the Internal Revenue Service and argues that its strong performance is the result of not ‘autonomy’, but other more nuts and bolts reforms, specifically: (a) strategies designed to direct the focus of the IRS to different taxpayer segments, particularly the informal sector and (b) significant attempts to bring the tax administration closer to the taxpayer through decentralisation and improved taxpayer services. To the extent that autonomy enables ARAs to undertake these other reforms it forms an important piece of the picture, however, they do not require autonomy – they could well be adopted under traditional tax administrations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trade-based adoption of voluntary environmental programs in the developing world: Racing to the top or stuck in the mud?

Scholars have consistently found that firms in developing countries adopt voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) in high numbers when their major trade partners are home to many VEP-certified firms. This reflects the following dynamic: Importers based in countries with many VEP-certified facilities demand similarly sustainable production processes from trade partners, and so exporting firms in partner countries adopt VEPs to signal their sustainable practices. Studies have identified characteristics of developing countries that make local exporting firms more likely to adopt VEPs as a signal; however, there has been little analysis as to the country-level characteristics that make importers more (or less) likely to demand VEPs from suppliers abroad, beyond having many VEP-certified firms themselves. This study considers this matter, theorizing that VEP diffusion only accompanies exporting to countries with high levels of income and education, as well as a high number of VEP-certified firms. Panel data analysis provides support for the theory, showing that developing countries only experience trade-based diffusion of ISO 14001 (a widely adopted VEP) through their exports to countries with high income and/or education levels. In contrast, exporting to countries that lack these characteristics creates no such diffusion, even where importing countries’ VEP certification levels are high. Instead, such trade produces a “stuck in the mud” effect, as developing countries’ certification levels stagnate even as those of their import partners rise.     

What determines UN approval of greenhouse gas emission reduction projects in developing countries?

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), established by the Kyoto protocol, can generate substantial rents for project participants via the sale of Certified Emission Reductions. For this reason, supposedly technical decisions about the approval of CDM methodologies and about the registration of projects may be driven by benefits to specific countries or interest groups. Our econometric analysis of data for about 250 methodologies and about 1000 projects discussed by the CDM Executive Board (EB) so far, suggests that indeed, along with formal quality criteria, political-economic variables determine the final EB decision.     

Cohesion in the European community: Illusion or reality?

The EC's regional policy is faced with the issue of the impact of market integration on the goals of economic and social cohesion in the Community. There are two major approaches in the literature in predicting the consequences of market integration on cohesion. The first approach stresses the divergence of levels of development while the second predicts that a gradual reduction of disparities will take place. To test these two hypotheses an analysis of regional and national level data covering the first nine member states of the Community over a 40‐year period is conducted. The results demonstrate that there has been a constant and significant convergence in levels of economic and social cohesion in the Community and within nation states during the last 40 years.     

Weaponization of the Land and Property Rights system in the Syrian civil war: facilitating restitution?

The Syrian civil war has seen the weaponization of its land and property rights system by the primary combatant groups in the country. The government is the most robust in its use of the tenure system to locate, target, destroy, confiscate, cleanse and gain revenue by way of the institutions and attributes comprising the system. Based on fieldwork with Syrian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, this article describes seven ways the Syrian government is currently using the land and property rights system in its military-on-civilian engagements. While the objective of such use is presumably to permanently prevail over opposition civilian constituencies, the article describes how this actually creates evidence usable for effective restitution of lands and properties subsequent to the war.     

Do industry associations influence corporate environmentalism in developing countries? Evidence from Trinidad and Tobago

As environmental regulations increase, industry associations play a growing role in representing their respective members. This role has been documented in many industrialized countries but less so in emerging economies. In this study, we investigate the level of corporate environmentalism exhibited by member firms of two industry associations operating in Trinidad and Tobago. Using a two-stage Heckman regression that corrects for the endogeneity introduced by self-selection bias in the evaluation of voluntary choices, our findings indicate that firms that are members of the foreign-originated American Chamber of Commerce of Trinidad and Tobago appear to show stronger corporate environmentalism than those belonging to the locally formed Chamber of Commerce. Enhanced institutional pressures from these respective industry associations, peers and competitors within associations, access and exposure to best practices, networking opportunities and service bundling may explain these differences. These results suggest that environmental policy makers in emerging economies may be able to leverage foreign-originated industry associations to promote stronger corporate environmentalism. Policy makers may need to consider how to encourage local chambers to emulate the some of the institutional conditions of foreign-originated ones.     

Can participation be induced? Some evidence from developing countries 1

Influenced by Amartya Sen, over the last decade, The World Bank has allocated nearly US$80 billion to local participatory development projects targeting poverty, improved public service delivery, and strengthened social cohesion and government accountability. But the success of these programs is hindered by both endogenous local factors and flawed program design and implementation. Two especially important local obstacles are (1) entrenched interests of political agents, civil bureaucrats, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with either incentives to resist or capabilities to appropriate program resources, and (2) poverty and illiteracy, as the poor and illiterate participate less and benefit less from participatory projects than do the wealthier, more educated, and more connected. After reviewing hundreds of participatory projects, three lessons are clear for program planning. First, contextual factors like inequality, history, geography, and political systems (among others) are important. Second, communities do not necessarily have a ready stock of ‘social capital’ to mobilize. Third, induced participatory interventions work best when supported by a responsive state – donors cannot substitute for a non-functional state, and successful programs combine enlightened state action from above with social mobilization from below. Future participatory development projects would benefit substantially from revised planning and considerably more attention paid to evaluation and monitoring. Project managers have historically paid little attention to context, monitoring, or evaluation, in part because The World Bank’s operational policies did not provide incentives to do so. Donor agencies should also exercise greater patience and allow for flexible, long-term engagement to facilitate contextual and programmatic learning, including learning from failure.     

Gaining access or going public? Interest group strategies in five European countries

Interest groups differ in the strategies they use to influence public policy. Some mainly try to gain access (i.e., have direct contact with decision makers), whereas others tend to ‘go public’ by launching campaigns that aim to mobilise the broader public. In this article it is argued that group type – namely the distinction between business associations, professional associations and citizen groups – is a major determinant of the choice of strategy. The effect of group type, however, is conditional on the group's endowment with material resources and the issue context: the differences across group types are largest for resource‐rich associations and associations active in distributive policy fields. Original data from surveys of national associations in five European countries (Austria, Germany, Ireland, Latvia and Spain) enable the assessment of this argument. The theoretical expectations are supported, with the results having relevance for the normative evaluation of political systems and the positive study of interest group influence.     

The evolution of cleavage voting in four Western countries: Structural,behavioural or political dealignment?

Since the heyday of cleavage voting in the 1960s and 1970s, the majority of studies presents evidence of a decline in cleavage voting – caused by either structural or behavioural dealignment. Structural dealignment denotes changes in group size responsible for a decrease in cleavage voting, whereas behavioural dealignment concerns weakening party–voter links over time. A third phenomenon posited in this article is the collective voting abstention of certain (social) groups, here referred to as ‘political dealignment’, which results in a new type of division of voting versus abstention. The purpose of this article is to examine the three underlying mechanisms for the decline in social class and religious cleavage voting across four Western countries (Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States) over the last 40–60 years using longitudinal post-election data. The results prove a strong presence of political dealignment and increasing turnout gaps regarding both the class and religious cleavage. Furthermore, whenever a decline in cleavage voting is present, it is mainly caused by changes in the social groups’ behaviour and less by changing social structures in a country.     

Japan’s ‘pro-nuclear civil society’: Power in the analysis of social capital and civil society

ABSTRACT

Civil society research can be categorized into a school in the tradition of Gramsci focusing on social movements and a Tocquevillean school focusing on associations and social capital. The author reviews both schools’ research on the Japanese case and analyses a number of pro-nuclear citizen groups built up by the Japanese nuclear industry. The author analyses their financial data and historical development to demonstrate that they have been built up as countermovement by the nuclear industry. The author traces their mobilization processes to criticize the social capital approach. In Japanese political science, traditionally a dense web of hierarchical associations and ties of obligation have been seen as enforcing clientelism and top-down political control. This makes Japan an interesting case for the social capital approach. Social capital researchers have reinterpreted hierarchical networks as indicators of a strong civil society. Taking into account Bourdieu’s notion of social capital challenges this view and supports arguments of state influence forwarded by parts of the Gramscian school.     

Citizenship in the Faroe Islands: Participant,Parochial or Colonial?

This article analyses citizenship and political culture in the Faroe Islands based on a quantitative survey carried out in summer 2004. Located theoretically in the tradition of Scandinavian citizenship investigations and its predecessors in the 'civic culture' tradition of Almond and Verba, four areas of citizenship are analysed: political engagement, democratic participation, political efficacy and democratic identity. The main hypothesis is that the character of citizenship in the Faroe Islands is very similar to that found in the Scandinavian countries in general. While most of the results found confirm this hypothesis, there are a number of special features that demand alternative explanations. Thus, the fact that the Faroese score much below the Scandinavian average concerning 'postmodern' forms of political participation like political consumption or boycott of goods, and that gender differences are bigger than in other Scandinavian countries when it comes to female representation in the Faroese parliament and in government, seems better explained by the relative remoteness of the islands from the Scandinavian political and cultural mainstream (the parochialism hypothesis). Also the fact that the Faroese are much less confident in speaking at public meetings, sending letters to newspapers or complaining to authorities than, for example, Danes in general calls for an alternative explanation. As these features go together with much less knowledge about and confidence in the Danish parliament ('Folketinget') and a lower level of efficacy towards the parliament than among Danes in general, the most likely explanation seem to be found in the way in which Danish supremacy has affected political culture in the Faroe Islands (the colonialism hypothesis).     

Lobbying the state or the market? A framework to study civil society organizations’ strategic behavior

This article lays out a framework for the conditions under which a civil society organization lobbies the state and when it turns to the market. This strategic choice cannot be understood solely from within current frameworks of lobbying strategies; insights from interest group studies must be complemented with the social movement literature's understanding of market‐based strategies. We build an overarching framework by extending the inside and outside lobbying dichotomy to include strategies that target the market. We also argue that it is crucial to understand the relations between both lobbying venues, as their relative power affects the choice not only between inside or outside lobbying, but also between the state or the market. The result is a richer framework more suited to capture the breadth of contemporary civil society organization lobbying behavior and, more importantly, to facilitate the comparative assessment of different strategic choices in future empirical research.     

In the woods: darkness at noon or Sunday in the park with Lin?

I discuss Elinor (Lin) Ostrom’s long journey into complex social systems and draw attention to her reliance on induction and the methods of experimental science. In her own words, the simple “organism” she has experimented on is a particular type of human situation—the common pool situation. I compare the philosophy of science associated with the European Enlightenment to Lin’s approach. I discuss the implication of problem difficulty and complexity for institutional policy, and conclude by comparing the tragedy of the commons to the tragedy of the anticommons, claiming that little is known empirically about the existence of the latter phenomenon.     

Brexit: A Cliff Edge or a Small Bump in the Road?

It is becoming increasingly accepted, not least by the Prime Minister and opposition leadership, that the negotiation of a comprehensive trade relationship with the EU is necessary to prevent the UK economy falling off a ‘cliff edge’. This concern is shaping the UK's strategy towards negotiations with the EU and has provided at least part of the motivation for the UK to consider requesting a transition period to facilitate the Brexit process. But how accurate are these fears? What evidence is there for the existence of a ‘cliff edge’? How disastrous would it be for the UK to revert to trading with the EU on the same basis as most other countries in the world, namely according to World Trade Organisation rules? This article seeks to address these issues and it highlights a number of implications for policy makers which flow from understanding the available evidence a little more clearly.     

Recent reform of intelligence in the UK: Democratization or risk management?

The recent flurry of intelligence legislation in the UK can be taken to mean that Britain has democratized its intelligence services in line with other western democracies. However, this argument is rejected. The changing role of intelligence, particularly in the area of ‘serious and organized crime’, altered the environment in which intelligence services operate and meant that they lost their monopoly of control over information. It is more a process of risk management than democratization. The Intelligence Services Act 1994 and the role of the new oversight body, the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, are also assessed.     

Is there an export‐ or import‐led growth in emerging countries? A case of BRICS countries

The BRICS economies could be considered a world number one trading group in one respect and emerging economies in another. The study applied both Johansen cointegration methodology for the long‐run relationship and Granger causality test for the direction of causality for the period of 1979–2018. The study findings confirmed that the growth‐led exports (GLE) hypothesis model is relevant for India, South Africa, and China, while exports‐led growth (ELG) hypothesis model is relevant for both Brazil and Russia. The growth‐led imports (GLI) hypothesis model is relevant for Brazil, India, China, and South Africa, while import‐led growth (ILG) hypothesis model is relevant for Russia. Hence, based on the findings, we confirmed that trade‐led growth hypothesis is valid. Finally, the results show that domestic and global demand contributes to a larger trade; countries that are labor‐abundant generate employment and foster economic growth.     

Public sector efficiency: leveling the playing field between?OECD countries

In this paper we seek a robust methodology for the measurement of the relative public sector efficiency of 19 OECD countries over the period 1980?C2000. We estimate relative efficiency scores for five disaggregated accounts of public spending as well as for aggregate public spending. Then, we use a semi-parametric econometric method to isolate the impact of government inefficiency from the inefficiency arising from the socioeconomic environment and luck. To verify the validity of our index, we use it to examine a number of well-established relationships in the public choice literature, which have only been tested using local government data.