Precautionary Bans or Sacrificial Lambs? Participative Risk Regulation and the Reform of the UK Food Safety Regime

This paper considers the impact of contemporary trends towards participative risk regulation on policy processes and outcomes. Using the example of reform of the UK food safety regime, the paper examines whether participative reforms are able to deliver their promised benefits and if not, why not. Empirically, the paper examines how in 2002 the UK's Food Standards Agency used a stakeholder decision-making process to manage the potential risks from BSE in sheep. The paper finds that the potential benefits of the stakeholder process were mitigated by a number of institutional factors, including: interpretative flexibility in representing consumer interests and the concept of precaution; restricted openness and exclusion of key stakeholders; and the supra-national regulatory context. The paper concludes that broadening participation per se does not necessarily produce more democratic or robust policy outcomes than closed processes, although it may have some limited value in improving public confidence in the regulatory regime.     

Economic policy elites and democratization

Is the authoritarian potential of policy elites a mortal threat to the consolidation of democracy in Latin America? This article suggests that in the context of democratic transitions, significant variations may exist in the performance of technocratic roles. In most countries in the region, elected governments faced the crisis of the 1980s by retaining markedly technocratic and exclusionary styles of policy-making. In Chile, a highly technocratic form of authoritarianism was succeeded by a novel pattern of pragmatic cooperation between technical and political elites. Democratic institutions were reestablished while a strong economic team enforced coherence and continuity in economic policy. Historical and institutional factors are used to show that Chile may now be nearer the democratic pole than other “hybrid” democratic-authoritarian regimes in the region.     

Unveiling patterns of contestation over Better Regulation reforms in the European Union

Regulatory reforms labelled ‘Better Regulation’ are a prominent item on the political agendas of most advanced democracies and the European Union. Governments adopt Better Regulation measures to strengthen their democratic legitimacy and increase their regulatory and economic effectiveness. Notwithstanding their rhetorical appeal, their design and implementation are susceptible to high levels of political contestation. We therefore ask: are there systematic differences in stakeholders’ demands for what Better Regulation should achieve? What explains these differences? We argue that conflict over Better Regulation is rooted in what stakeholders prefer as a regulatory system of governance. Stakeholders demand reforms that lead to one of the following three scenarios: deregulation, technocratic or participatory policy‐making. We examine stakeholders’ demands expressed in the EU. We find that national authorities responsible for coordinating Better Regulation and cross‐sectoral business organizations support deregulatory and technocratic reforms. Business and public interest organizations are equally supportive of strengthening participatory policy‐making.     

Feminists and Technocrats in the Democratization of Latin America: A Prolegomenon

Women's movements made important contributions to ending the period of authoritarian rule in Latin America, but their participation in the reconstruction of democratic politics has been more limited than expected. This paper argues that the enormous influence exerted by technocratic elites in the democratization process in Latin America has represented an obstacle to the improvement of women's status in the region. Gender-biased assumptions and practices have been only partially addressed, in part because the policy-making process is under the control of economists, a professional group with a particularly unfriendly stand towards gendered analysis. It is suggested that reforms within economics may help in the task of making democracy more responsive to the demands of women.     

INVOLVING STAKEHOLDERS IN ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES

Who should be included in efforts to develop accountability systems for public organizations? What is the impact of involving various internal and external stakeholders in a collaborative process to determine performance indicators? Involving a variety of participants can result in information that is perceived as being more useful; however, significant groups of stakeholders may be excluded from the collaborative process. The reasons for nonparticipation range from poor timing or oversight to deliberate decisions to forego involvement. This exploratory research suggests that the benefits from a collaborative process of identifying measures of program impact are minimal and the utility of including a large number of participants is questionable. Finding more effective methods to increase the impact and utility of stakeholder involvement may become increasingly important in meeting executive and legislative mandates to determine government performance. The implications for further study are discussed.     

Are civil servants really public servants? a study of bureaucratic attitudes in the U.S., brazil,and korea

The proper role of civil servants in the development of public policy has been the subject of continuous commentary and debate. In the advanced industrial democracies the operation of increasingly complex programs in government has led many commentators to warn of the danger of “technocracy”-- a condition wherein professional career administrators more fully control the direction of public policy than do elected representatives of the people. Likewise, in less developed nations there is concern over the role of public administrators in the development of policy. The charge of indifference to and disregard for public involvement and sentiment is frequently heard. Using data from a survey conducted in the U.S., Korea and Brazil, this paper examines the extent to which civil servants in each country adhere to a technocratic outlook. We find that although societies that are more economically advanced are less likely to adhere to a technocratic view, there is considerable variation within each research setting. Specifically, we find that technocratic orientations are more likely to be held by men, those who hold more materialist value orientations and those holding managerial occupations.     

Rethinking Chile’s ‘Chicago Boys’: neoliberal technocrats or revolutionary vanguard?

The term ‘Chicago Boys’ remains closely associated with the orthodox neoliberal adjustment implemented in Chile by the Pinochet dictatorship. The conventional portrayal of the Chicago Boys is of a group of US-trained, technocratic economists who institutionalised neoliberal principles and technocratic prerogatives in public policymaking in Chile. This article will contend the Chicago Boys were much more than neoliberal technocrats: they were a revolutionary vanguard that designed and led a capitalist revolution and radically altered the material and ideological foundations of the nation.     

Economic Evaluations,Economic Freedom,and Democratic Satisfaction in Africa

This article assesses the relationship between democratic satisfaction and micro and macroeconomic factors in Africa. Studies have shown that economic factors represent a cornerstone of the democratic process. However, research has rarely accounted for the effect of economic freedom on satisfaction with democracy, and its conditional role on the effect of citizens’ economic evaluations, particularly in the context of Africa where democracy is still developing. Using various rounds of the Afrobarometer, the article analyses the link between citizens’ evaluations of the economy and economic freedom with their satisfaction with democracy in 32 African countries between 2002 and 2013. First, the findings show that the openness of the economic context and positive economic evaluations are associated with an increase in democratic satisfaction. Second, economic freedom and economic evaluations appear to have a conditional association with democratic satisfaction. In fact, positive economic evaluations are a less important factor for democratic satisfaction in contexts that have a freer economy.     

THE IMPACT OF OPEN DATA IN THE UK: COMPLEX,UNPREDICTABLE, AND POLITICAL

This article examines the democratic impact of the UK coalition government's Transparency Agenda, focusing on the publication of all local government spending over £500 by councils in England. It looks at whether the new data have driven increased democratic accountability, public participation, and information transmission. The evidence suggests that the local government spending data have driven some accountability. However, rather than forging new ‘performance regimes’, creating ‘armchair auditors’, or bringing mass use and involvement, the publication creates a further element of political disruption. Assessment of the use and impact of the new spending data finds it is more complex, more unpredictable, and more political than the rhetoric around Open Data indicates. The danger is that the gap between aims and impact invites disappointment from supporters.     

A STRATEGY FOR FORMULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF CODES OF ETHICS IN PUBLIC SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

Codes of ethics in public service organizations are designed to serve three purposes: provide enduring solutions to existing ethical problems, educate the public about the mission of the organization, and foster an ethical climate in the organization. There is no agreement in the literature as to how useful and effective codes are. This paper argues that codes of ethics can be effective with respect to these three goals, only if careful attention is given to the process of internalization of the code's provisions. Internalization is most likely to occur under two interrelated conditions: when members of an organization clarify, articulate, and establish integrated values systems; and when the ethical code is formulated and adopted as a consequence of a participatory democratic process. When members of the organization are able to relate the code's provisions to their personal integrated values systems, a greater compliance and commitment will prevail.     

Control,Historic Pitfalls,and the UK Nuclear Renaissance

In September 2015, the UK government announced that future taxpayers will underwrite the construction of two European-designed nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Partly financed by Chinese utility companies, this announcement presents a fait accompli with little democratic input. Few, if any, historic lessons evident from previous attempts to manage its nuclear industry appear to have been learnt. This paper discusses the announcement with reference to the governance of the UK’s historic nuclear legacy—specifically dealing with control, stakeholder engagement, and transparency—and its implications for a nuclear renaissance.     

REGULATION AS SOCIAL POLICY: HOME EVICTIONS AND REPOSSESSIONS IN THE UK AND SWEDEN

This article asks how the UK and Sweden regulate, prevent, or mitigate the consequences of mortgage‐related household eviction and repossession. Contrary to initial expectations, the findings show a growth and diversity in both regulation and social spending in the UK intended to address this social issue; something that has not occurred in Sweden. In the UK's liberal ‘regulatory welfare regime’, the aim is to prevent the eviction and repossession of vulnerable borrowers who have defaulted on their housing loan. In the Swedish social democratic ‘regulatory welfare regime’, effort focuses instead on minimizing the risk of default before it occurs rather than after the fact. These findings offer a more nuanced understanding of the relations between regulation and welfare more generally, demonstrating that regulation may be used as a form of social policy once the welfare state has failed, as a safety net of last resort.     

Central banks under stress: Reputation,accountability and regulatory coherence

This symposium homes in on an area of public administration that has been through a period of significant change in the last ten years. Since the global financial crisis, central banks have expanded their operations in financial markets, buying up vast quantities of assets as part of expansive monetary policy strategies. They have also played a leading role in the reform of financial regulation and have been entrusted with enhanced authority to supervise financial institutions. This activity has taken place amid heightened political contestation, with central banks increasingly viewed as the quintessence of a technocratic mode of governance that eschews traditional democratic control. The purpose of this symposium is to consider how central banks’ reputation, accountability and regulatory roles have changed since the financial crisis, and what those changes tell us about the balance of power between independent regulatory agencies and elected policy‐makers.     

Analysing managerial perceptions of when and how to structure public involvement in public-private partnerships

Previous research highlights what managers perceive to be the purposes of public involvement in public-private partnerships (PPPs) and the need for addressing stakeholder concerns unique to PPPs. Yet, we have little evidence of how particular modes of participation benefit particular goals of participation in this context. Through canonical correlation analysis (CCA) of survey data collected in the U.S., this study examines the modes and sequencing of 14 public involvement activities in respect to 10 goals of public involvement in this context. The results indicate that selections among modes of participation are contingent upon when they are introduced. Respondents prefer widening stakeholder involvement early in the project development phase and during the contract implementation phase, but not during the later phases of contract design. Respondents also assign more value to engaging local citizens than their respective political leaders, particularly at mature stages of the PPP’s implementation phase.     

What happens after a local referendum? The effect of direct democratic decision-making on protest intentions

Proponents of direct democracy claim that participation in decision-making stimulates future engagement. However, there is also evidence showing that participation is lower in systems that provide comparatively more opportunities for direct democratic involvement. Hence, it is unclear whether direct democratic involvement promotes or discourages other forms of political participation. In this study, the relationship between direct democratic involvement and the intention for political protest is evaluated empirically, based on data that was gathered in the scope of a local referendum in Belgium. Unique two-wave panel data from before and after the referendum is complemented by qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with local policymakers and citizens. While the findings generally support the claim that direct democratic involvement fosters future participation, there is no indication that the relationship is mediated by political efficacy. Apparently, the theory of participatory democracy is also useful in societies that have little experience with direct democratic decision-making.     

The Public Governance of Collaborative Spaces: Discourse, Design and Democracy

This article investigates the relationship between democratic practices and the design of institutions operating in collaborative spaces, those policy and spatial domains where multiple public, private and non-profit actors join together to shape, make and implement public policy. Partnerships are organizational manifestations of institutional design for collaboration. They offer flexibility and stakeholder engagement, but are loosely coupled to representative democratic systems. A multi-method research strategy examines the impact of discourses of managerialism, consociationalism and participation on the design of partnerships in two UK localities. Analysing objective measures of democratic performance in partnerships and interpreting the discursive transition from earlier practices in representative democratic institutions we find that institutional designs for collaboration reflect different settlements between discourses, captured in the distinction between club, agency and polity-forming partnership types. The results show how the governance of collaborative spaces is mediated through a dominant set of discursively defined institutional practices.     

DOES PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY WORK? AN ASSESSMENT TOOL

In recent years, there has been a drive to strengthen existing public accountability arrangements and to design new ones. This prompts the question whether accountability arrangements actually work. In the existing literature, both accountability ‘deficits’ and ‘overloads’ are alleged to exist. However, owing to the lack of a cogent yardstick, the debate tends to be impressionistic and event‐driven. In this article we develop an instrument for systematically assessing public accountability arrangements, drawing on three different normative perspectives. In the democratic perspective, accountability arrangements should effectively link government actions to the ‘democratic chain of delegation’. In the constitutional perspective, it is essential that accountability arrangements prevent or uncover abuses of public authority. In the learning perspective, accountability is a tool to make governments effective in delivering on their promises. We demonstrate the use of our multicriteria assessment tool in an analysis of a new accountability arrangement: the boards of oversight of agencies.     

Democratization through education? Theory and practice of the Czech post-revolution education system and its reforms

The transformation process from an authoritarian/totalitarian system entails many institutional changes, however, the individual citizen is often being overlooked in this chaotic, fast-paced process and his or her “transformation” into a democrat is taken for granted. The changing socio-political system and its exigencies may lead to nostalgia and social frustrations, which in turn cause democratic backsliding. In order to cultivate a democratic society and avoid future backsliding, the post-communist states quickly set out to reform their educational systems, both in form and substance. By reviewing the reform process of the Czech educational system and discussing the prevailing legacies left by the communist regime, the article will show that through the “destruction” of the former system and its de-monopolization, decentralization and de-ideologization, the state deliberately lost significant means and power to transform Czechs from “homo sovieticus” to “homo democraticus” and is now left with a dependence on the highly autonomous schools and their propensity to foster democratic generations that will uphold the democratic state in the future. This paradox is reminiscent of the so-called Böckenförde dilemma, claiming that the liberal democratic state “lives by prerequisites which it cannot guarantee itself”.     

DEMOCRACY AND GOVERNANCE IN PAKISTAN'S FRAGMENTED SOCIETY

This paper examines Pakistan's recent democratic experiment in the framework of governance defined as the process of exercising power in the pursuit of common goals. Legitimacy, institutions and performance constitute the process of governance. Legitimacy refers to the consent of the governed and the rule of law. Institutions include deliberately created legal frameworks, laws, legislatures, executives and judiciary as well as customs, values and norms that emerge through practice. Effective governance requires congruence between the formal and informal institutions. Performance refers to the accomplishment of common objectives and judicious use and allocation of public resources. Good governance assumes the existence of democratic institutions. Governance occurs in a context and environment that not only shapes the process but over time is shaped by governing practices. The civil society and the market institutions provide the large part of the environment.     

Trends in the Governance and Governing of Schools in England

Abstract

This article identifies and develops themes in changes in the governance and governing of schools in England in the last 40 years. The themes are: the drive to improve school performance and pupil attainment; the depoliticisation of school governing; the development of school governing as managerial scrutiny; the growth in the influence of Ofsted; the increasing diversity of institutional forms and governing structures; the increasingly conflicting roles of school governing bodies; the development of the role of the head teacher in governance; the overall decline in the influence of the local authority in school governing and governance; the changing influences on the stakeholder model; and changes in the nature of governing, effectiveness and future prospects. The analysis draws on recent research reports and relevant statutes, policies and guidance. Two main arguments develop. First, a tension is at work in the system generally between (peripheral/school) autonomy and (central/government) control and direction, which has significant implications for the role of the local authority. Second, the stakeholder involvement and democratic accountability purposes of school governing have shifted towards an explicit purpose of improving institutional performance, which is configured in a relatively narrow way. This change has implications for the way that the legitimacy of school governance is viewed.