The challenge of evaluating systemic change: the case of public management reform

At what stage of reform in the public sector does it become possible to conduct a thorough appraisal of results and how does one know when this stage has been reached? How should such an assessment be undertaken? By what methods can comprehensive and far-reaching systemic reforms be evaluated in the arena of public management during recent decades, particularly in countries like Australia, Britain and New Zealand? Most assessments have focused upon specific changes in management practice including the introduction of performance pay, the move to accrual accounting, the growth of contracting-out, the separation of policy and operations or the devolution of human resource management responsibilities. Alternatively, they have dealt with management changes in particular policy domains –such as health care, education, community services or criminal justice –or within a particular organization (department, agency or private provider). By contrast, there have been relatively few macro evaluations –comprehensive assessments of the impact of root-and-branch changes to the system. The problems of evaluation in the arena of public management are inherently complex and the way ahead is by no means clear. This article offers some broad reflections on the limitations to policy evaluation in the field of public management, and more particularly explores the obstacles confronted when assessing the consequences of systemic management reforms. It focuses on recent changes in the New Zealand public sector to illustrate the general themes because these reforms constitute one of best examples of systemic change anywhere in the world.     

Within and beyond citizenship: alternative educational initiatives in the Arab society in Israel

In recent years, Arab-Palestinian citizens in Israel are in search of ‘a new vocabulary of citizenship’, among other ways, by resorting to ‘alternative educational initiatives’. We investigate and compare three alternative schools, each challenging the contested conception of Israeli citizenship. Our findings reveal different educational strategies to become ‘claimants of rights’, yet all initiatives demonstrate the constraints Arab citizens face while trying to become ‘activist citizens’ (E.F. Isin, 2009. Citizenship in flux: the figure of the activist citizen. Subjectivity, 29 (1), 367–388.).     

Strategies of Minority Struggle for Equality in Ethnic States: Arab Politics in Israel

This paper challenges existing theories of radicalization and secession that are presented as “natural” tendencies of minority nationalism. It demonstrates the affinity between the strategies of national minorities and those of social movements, claiming that excluded minorities seek to reframe and expand the meaning of their citizenship, as do social movements, by utilizing the structures of opportunities available to them through citizenship and by mobilizing whatever resources possible to improve their status. Minorities utilize the opportunities embedded in their citizenship, despite its shortcomings, before ever moving to alternative strategies that may jeopardize the valued incentives that were achieved so far as citizens. The paper demonstrates its theoretical hypothesis by examining the changes taking place in the strategy adopted by the Arab minority in Israel. This minority has chosen to abandon accommodative politics and is adopting a more active and challenging strategy vis-à-vis the state. In contrast with common claims that conceive Arab politics as a tendency towards strategies of radicalization and confrontation with the state, this paper demonstrates that recent changes in Arab politics seek to expand the meaning of citizenship beyond liberal limits and adapt it to new conditions in order to meet the minority's expectations of full and equal citizenship.     

Security sector reform and the challenge of vertical integration

The poor performance of conventional security sector reform (SSR) programming, especially in fragile and conflict-affected states, has led to growing calls for the development of a new generation of reform strategies capable of transcending the state-centrism of earlier approaches and delivering sustainable security dividends to insecure populations. This paper reflects on the challenges of second-generation SSR, with a particular emphasis on the imperatives of reconciling different understandings of ownership, of rendering SSR processes more inclusive, and of acknowledging the realities of non-state security provision. The paper suggests that at its core, SSR is about strengthening state-society relations, and that second-generation SSR will ultimately be judged on how effectively it comes to terms with the argument that genuine and sustainable change can only emerge through an endogenous process of relationship transformation, in which insiders, not outsiders, are the primary agents of change.     

论公安院校的警务化管理

警务化管理是公安院校的主要管理方式。警务化管理对培养公安院校学生政治性、纪律性和警察意识、方便管理等方面具有积极的作用。但是,随着学生个性成长及实践中警务化管理与教学的冲突,迫切需要进一步完善。警务化管理首先应当突出学生的主体地位,强调学生参与;其次应当以服务于教学为主要理念;同时要突出公安特色;在具体手段上,应当强调刚柔并济。     

The challenge of public sector reform in EC accession countries: reflections from the Baltics,especially Latvia

This article considers some of the key issues in reforming the public sector in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Drawing on the experience of donor funded projects, some conclusions are drawn about the process of public sector reform with particular reference to Latvia. In particular, it is argued that the process will take time but strategic choices need to be made in the absence of obvious demands from within the country. Several constraints are noted which together constitute formidable barriers to progress. However, the results of work to date provide some optimism for pilot approaches to strategic budgeting in reformist ministries. A simple checklist is used as a yardstick for progress in the main areas of public administration reform. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New public management reform in New Zealand: The collective strategy phase

This paper examines the New Public Management movement in New Zealand. Specifically the focus is on the financial management of central government departments and the shift in emphasis from management in the public sector to management of the public sector, that is, from defining management in terms of where it takes place to defining it in terms of the nature and outcome of the task.     

The strategic management challenge: Modernizing local government. Part two

As local government undergoes internal modernization, it faces the challenge of strategic management. This challenge includes the need to coordinate the newly decentralized elements of government; the need for organizational development and cultural change, so that values and behavior within the organization keep pace with structural developments; and the need to manage uncertainty, as local governments face an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing environment. Empirical studies show that strategic management capabilities have not developed evenly across a broad international sample of reform cities. However, the successful program in Christchurch, New Zealand, offers suggestions for other cities.     

提升公安消防部队基层管理效益的路径选择

提升消防部队基层管理效益,必须从确立管理观念入手,积极贯彻以人为本的根本要求,不断改进管理方式方法,加强管理干部队伍建设。     

Arab Modernities: Islamism,Nationalism, and Liberalism in the Post-Colonial Arab World

Mumia Abu‐Jamal, ALL THINGS CENSORED. Edited with introduction by Noelle Hanrahan; foreword by Alice Walker (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2000).

Eric Parens and Adrienne Asch, eds., PRENATAL TESTING AND DISABILITY RIGHTS (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2000).

August H. Nimtz, Jr. MARX AND ENGELS: THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEMOCRATIC BREAKTHROUGH (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2000).

Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, eds. with Greg Albo and David Coates, WORKING CLASSES: GLOBAL REALITIES. SOCIALIST REGISTER 2001 (London, New York, and Halifax: The Merlin Press, Monthly Review Press, and Fernwood Press, 2000 and 2001).

James Blaut, EIGHT EUROCENTRIC HISTORIANS (New York: Guilford Press, 2000).

Susanne Jonas, OF CENTAURS AND DOVES: GUATEMALA'S PEACE PROCESS (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000).

Bertell Oilman, HOW TO TAKE AN EXAM...AND REMAKE THE WORLD (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2001).     

The Impact of Advertising and Media on the Arab Culture: The Case of the Arab Spring,Public Spheres,and Social Media

The Arab world has experienced some unprecedented social movements, labeled by the media as the Arab Spring. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of public policy, advertising, media, and public spheres on the Arab Spring. The media and economic policies enacted in the Arab world in the 1990s played a significant role in changing consumer culture in the Arab region, resulting in significant changes in public policy. Two studies were conducted to test how the change in consumer culture along with new public polices in the region contributed to the uprisings.     

Organizational reform within government: accountability and policy management

The article considers, from a United Kingdom perspective, the ways in which relations between Government Departments and Agencies are organized to ensure clarity of roles and effective accountability; and also looks at the ongoing need for effective policy management at the centre of Government. It describes the progress of the Next Steps programme, examining its successes and perceived weaknesses. In particular, it rehearses the debate running in the UK on the question of Ministerial accountability, and considers the distinctions between responsibility and accountability, and between policy matters and operations. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

The collective Jew: Israel and the new antisemitism

For Theodor Herzl, Zionism, in the sense of a political movement to establish a sovereign Jewish state, offered the only workable solution to the problem of antisemitism. Some commentators today speak of a 'new anti-Semitism'. They claim, first, that there is a new wave or outbreak of hostility towards Jews that began with the start of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000 and is continuing at the present time. Second, and more fundamentally, the 'new anti-Semitism' is said to involve a new form or type of hostility towards Jews: hostility towards Israel. This is the claim under discussion in Klug's paper. The claim implies an equivalence between (a) the individual Jew in the old or classical version of antisemitism and (b) the state of Israel in the new or modern variety. Klug argues that this concept is confused and that the use to which it is put gives a distorted picture of the facts. He begins by recalling classical antisemitism, the kind that led to the persecution of European Jewry to which Herzl's Zionism was a reaction. On this basis, he briefly reformulates the question of whether and when hostility towards Israel is antisemitic. He then discusses the so-called new form of antisemitism, especially the equation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. He concludes by revisiting Herzl's vision in light of the situation today.     

Social Media and Revolutionary Waves: The Case of the Arab Spring

This article argues that during the Arab Spring social media served as a tactical tool of mobilization, communication, and coordination; as an instrument of domestic and international revolutionary contagion; and, critically, as a means of enhancing pan-Arab consciousness which, in turn, was fertile soil for that contagion. These three interrelated functions are best analyzed using a revolutionary wave theoretical approach. In its absence, the Arab Spring becomes a patchwork of analytically incoherent “cascade protests.” In fact, the Arab world witnessed an extremely coherent process of revolutionary contagion whose liberal and democratic ideology was disseminated transnationally by social media. The impressive speed, scale, and effectiveness of this contagion would have not been possible without the effect of the Arab public sphere—itself partially enabled by social media—on the increasingly cohesive pan-Arab consciousness. Fundamentally, the Arab Spring was the first revolutionary wave ever to reflect the change in power relations originating in the rise of new communication networks.     

The impact of intelligence on decision-making: the EU and the Arab Spring

This article examines the 2007 EU all-source intelligence assessment ‘Worst Case Scenarios for the Narrower Middle East’ and the lack of policy response to the warning provided. SIT-6577/07 mostly predicted and provided forewarning on some of the events lately known as the Arab Spring, as well as a rise of anti-European terrorism, and an increase of refugees and migrants in the European Union. The article offers a post-mortem analysis of the key judgements and main findings of the most significant intelligence product declassified by the EU and discusses the main question: Why the warning was not effective?     

New public management and the reform of French public hospitals

New public management (NPM) is not only an Anglo‐Saxon debate but also a French one, with some of its elements constituting structural components of the French state apparatus. How did it make its way into French hospitals? What core mechanism was at the center of NPM implementation in hospitals? We discuss the redisorganization of the health system under NPM, as it attempted to reassert the central government's power over regions and how it alienated the medical profession. The paper highlights inherent contradictions and other false promises within NPM. It was unable to contained cost, could no enhance accountability or increase civil participation. We then investigate post‐NPM reforms in French healthcare. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.