Tensions and cooperation in a multilevel system: Integrating district councils in city government in Bergen

This article deals with the fact that central–local relations in a multilevel system often seems to create tensions. A district council reform in the city of Bergen, Norway intended to decentralise authority within the political system of the city ended up with a more centralised relationship between central and local levels. With this observation as a point of departure we categorise decentralisation according to the degree of discretion available for the local level concerning a) objectives and b) means to reach the objectives. By combining these dimensions we identify two types of decentralisation; administrative and political. We claim that all central–local relations will exert features of both types. The mere presence of political bodies is therefore not sufficient to characterise a specific relation as politically decentralised. We conclude the article by discussing some conditions for successful multilevel governance. The conditions draw on experiences from the Bergen district reform, but may have relevance in a wider context.     

Politicized policy access: The effect of politicization on interest group access to advisory councils

Current scholarship often concludes that technical expertise is one of the most important commodities for interest groups wishing to gain access to political-administrative venues. Less attention has been given to politicization and the scope of societal support that interest groups bring to bear. Specifically, I hypothesize that the capacity of interest groups to supply broad societal support is decisive for gaining access in highly politicized policy domains. To test this expectation, the article combines a mapping of interest group membership in 616 Belgian advisory councils with survey data from more than 400 organized interests. The empirical analyses demonstrate that interest groups with broad support are more likely to gain access to advisory councils in highly politicized policy domains, but this effect is negatively moderated when interest groups involve their constituencies intensely in advocacy processes.     

Regional councils of governments at the crossroads: implications for intergovernmental management and networks

Councils of governments (COGS) have been subjected to powerful forces of change in the 1980s, due principally to drastic reductions in federal financial support. To survive, the councils have had to become more entrepreneural, to extend themselves in new directions They have scanned their local and regional task environments intensively for opportunities to form and/or join new networks and to provide more services in traditional and in new areas. The new style of council is described in this paper, using a market model. The model emphasizes opportunistic scanning of the regional task environment, and the assessment of issue networks as an iterative process in COG direction setting and implementation efforts.     

Florida's open meetings law and its effect on the policy making process in dade county: The administrative perspective

Open meetings laws are designed to make the process of governmental decision making more accessible to the general public. The objective of this study is to explore the views of key governmental officials on the operation and effects of Florida's open meetings (sunshine) law. The interviews uncovered considerable dissatisfaction with many of its provisions. Florida's sunshine law is one of the most comprehensive in the country and can provide insight on the potential effects of other state or local sunshine laws. The analysis is based upon the administrative perspective of city managers, city clerks and city attorneys in Dade County, Florida. This convenience sample of Dade County administrators perceives that significant costs are imposed by the operation of the sunshine law. There is a clear consensus that the presence of the media alters the process of policy making, increases the amount and degree of political posturing, increases the time to reach consensus, and inhibits the candor and openness of the deliberations. The respondents report that the open meeting provisions are so burdensome that council and board members routinely violate its provisions in order to discuss sensitive issues in private.     

Budgeting,policy and administration: patterns and dynamics in the U.S

This article examines the relationships between policy, administration, and budgeting I argue that the administration of government is directly and primarily influenced by changes in policy and budgeting. A conceptual framework of the interrelationship between these three factors is presented. This framework is applied to Schick's classic periodicization of twentieth century U.S. history. Three value orientations of budgeting—control, management, and planning—were evident at different times during these periods. The framework is then applied to the period since 1981, labeled a phase of limitation. This phase has been an unhealthy development in American government.     

Public administrators and policy legitimization: Policy analysis,politics and power

This article discusses the factors public administration faculty should incorporate into the curriculum in order to equip students to engage in the policy legitimization process. In order to produce leaders, public administration programs should emphasize the nature of the political system, an understanding of the legitimacy of subgovernments, the importance of coalition building and the psychological factors associated with policy choices.

Integration of policy analysis into the public administration curriculum requires that students be equipped with an in-depth understanding of both the political environment and the political process. This is true because public administrators are deeply involved in the stages of policy development, adoption, and implementation; activities which reach beyond the narrow confines of program management and into the realm of politics. Consequently, public administrators serve in a variety of capacities: as policy advocates, program champions, or as defenders of client interests. It is in these roles that public administrators move into the political arena. Policy analysis activities provide the discipline with the opportunity to move beyond an emphasis on a narrow concern with simply “managing” government and into the realm of policy choice, policy advocacy, political power and the exercise of leadership.

Public administration as a discipline, and teaching faculty in particular, face the challenge of increasing the relevance of the master's degree to policy leadership. Astrid Merget, past president of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, expressed this need for increased emphasis on policy leadership training quite eloquently in 1991:

“Our vision of the holder of a master's degree in our field is that of a leader, not merely a manager or an analyst. But we have not been marketing that vision.”⁽¹⁾

Merget attributes partial responsibility for the low public esteem of government service to the attitudes, teaching, and research activities of public administration faculty who have failed to link the “lofty” activities of government (environmental protection, health care, the promotion of citizen equality) with public administration. Accordingly, the academic standard of “neutrality” governing teaching and research acts as an obstacle to teaching the fundamentals of the goals of public policy. This professional commitment to neutrality places an emphasis on administrative efficiency at the expense of policy advocacy. The need, according to Merget, is to reestablish the linkage between policy formulation and policy management. Such a teaching strategy will enhance the purposefulness of public administration as a career. Failure to do so will relegate public administration programs to the continued production of governmental managers, not administrative leaders.

The integration of policy analysis into the public administration curriculum affords the discipline with the opportunity to focus on policy leadership and escape the limitation associated with an emphasis on program management. Teaching policy analysis skills cannot, and should not, be divorced from the study of politics and the exercise of political power. This is true because politics involves the struggle over the allocation of resources, and public policy is a manifestation of the outcome of that political struggle. Public policy choices reflect, to some degree, the political power of the “winners” and the relative lack of power by “losers.” The study of public policy involves the study of conflict and the exercise of power.

Teaching public administration students about the exercise of power cannot be limited to a discussion of partisan political activities. Public administrators serve in an environment steeped in the exercise of partisan and bureaucratic power.⁽²⁾ It is practitioners of public administration who formulate, modify and implement public policy choices. Such bureaucratic activity is appropriate, provided that it is legitimated by the political system. Legitimacy can be provided to public administrators only by political institutions through the political process.

Teaching public administration students about policy analysis and policy advocacy necessitates an understanding of the complexities associated with the concepts of policy legitimacy and policy legitimization.     

Politics and implementation of criminal justice policy among county justice agencies: an arizona case study

In this get-tough-on-crime era there is an emphasis on arresting, prosecuting, and sentencing people who engage in illegal behavior. But a large percent of those arrested are never brought to trial because they have not been served with warrants commanding them to appear for trial. This is a classic case of implementation failure. It is a structural rather than a bureaucratic problem that cannot be resolved because of the way American county government and politics are structured. This study describes the situation in Maricopa County, Arizona, discusses recommendations for alleviating it and the implications for implementation theory.     

Regional governors and the Kremlin: the ongoing battle for power

This article examines the relationship between heads of regional administrations (governors) and the federal government in Russia since 1992. It looks at the methods with which governors have enhanced their powers vis-a-vis Moscow and at the policies of the federal authorities aimed at preserving some form of control over regional officials. The article argues that the gubernatorial elections of September 1996–March 1997, which gave almost all governors a popular mandate, will not considerably change the balance of power in center-periphery relations, despite fears to this effect among members of the Presidential Administration.     

Ethiopian female domestic labour migration to the Middle East: patterns,trends, and drivers

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the trends, patterns, and determinants of Ethiopian domestic labour migration to Arab countries. The primary motive behind migration is to move out of poverty and to improve family living standards through remittances. Migration to Arab countries has intensified due to social networks, expansion of illegal agencies, and the relative fall of migration costs. This movement is also the result of a shift in demand away from Asian domestic workers who tend to seek higher wages, to cheap labour source countries such as Ethiopia. This underlines not only the complexity of human mobility across national borders but also indicates the importance of conceptualising this movement in a broader global perspective, going beyond the traditional push-pull factors embedded in origin and destination countries. Female domestic migrants have received marginal attention from policy-makers and their vulnerability to various forms of abuse and exploitation has continued over the years.     

Migrant employment,recessions, and return migration: Some consequences for migration policy and development

After bringing approximately 13 million foreign migrants into Europe's industrial regions, the governments of many of these countries, among them France, Switzerland, West Germany, and the Netherlands have imposed severe restrictions on further immigration. Along with this move are the attempts by many countries to attract migrants back to their home countries. The recession of 1973 decreased the need for migrant labor and resulted in high levels of unemployment. The hard working migrant of the 1950's and 60's grew to become the politically active striker and social/political/financial burden on the state. Most governments have decided that future economic development will depend on technology, not labor production. The labor market structure of migrant workers helps explain why laid-off migrants do not return to their home countries. Political and economic conditions in the homeland also determine the amount of migrant return. The mere existence of a secondary labor force in an immigration country may make it easier to remain in that country. Incentives and financial inducements are needed to attract migrants home.     

The economic impact on Colusa county of a cut in the supply of water to the glenn Colusa irrigation district

This study estimates the economic impact of a court ordered cut in water supply resulting from environmental regulations. The objective of the court order was to save the Chinook Salmon which get caught in the pump that is used to distribute the water to farm land. Since the cut would cause major decreases in agriculture production, we used IMPLAN, an input-output model, to measure the multiplier effects on one county's economy due to resulting crop losses. The study estimates total losses in income and jobs when no irrigation water is available from July 15 through November 30 during a typical year.     

Regional Offices in the New NHS: An Analysis of the Effects and Significance of Recent Changes

This article reports on a two-year, multi-method, qualitative study in two regional offices in the UK National Health Service of the changing role of the regional tier from the autumn of 1994. The nature of the changes from fourteen semiautonomous regional health authorities to eight regional offices of the NHS Executive, whose staff became civil servants, are described together with the way this reorganization changed the role and relationships of NHS Executive HQ, the regional offices and the field. By the end of our research in the autumn of 1996, the change from regional health authority to regional office had gone well in the two regional offices studied; they had become smaller organizations, had established closer working with HQ and believed they had more influence over policy, while retaining good relations with health authorities. Emerging issues from the changes and some of their implications are discussed, particularly the pressures towards greater centralization and the particular forms that these have taken, despite the aim, and in part the achievement, of greater devolution, and the cultural differences between the NHS and the civil service. We conclude by assessing what the future holds for regional offices, in the light of the recent NHS White Paper (Secretary of State for Health 1997)     

Corruption in India: Control measures and consequences

Much has been written on corruption in the Third World. Studying the phenomenon of transactional corruption, however, is fraught with many shortcomings. The insidious corruption of subverting the regimes or abusing the constitution for political or partisan gain is paid little attention. This article analyses corruption in India within its social, cultural, and political contexts. The workings of the various anti‐corruption measures are also examined. The concept of regime corruption is studied. The article concludes that curbing corruption largely depends upon the social attitudes. In particular, the political parties should not only take the blame for the current situation, they should also play an active role in correcting the pernicious practice of corruption.