Social policy, freedom and individuality

Contemporary social policy lacks an account of the ends it serves. The reason for this is a laissez-faire policy regime where property right overwhelms the right of each individual to be a self-determining person. Laissez-faire policy creates a scarcity of public resources where a universalistic social policy cannot be afforded. A narrowly targeted social policy designed for the poor prevails: it is one where the poor are subject to state coercion. In the more expansive social policy associated with social democracy, the outcome of equality is championed but there is no coherent account of how this end can be reconciled with achieving freedom. The universal idea of the self-determining person is the basis of a rationale for social policy. Thus the end that social policy should serve is the development and sustaining of an individual who has the set of capabilities that he or she requires to be free in the sense of self-determining.     

Constitutions for new democracies: Reflections of turmoil or agents of stability?

Despite the widely held view in newly emerging democracies that constitutions are mere words on paper or that parchment barriers cannot render a state stable or democratic, those who draft such documents commonly act as if words ARE of consequence. The difficulty, however, is that contemporaneous conflicts too easily intervene so as to corrupt the drafting process and to preclude optimal constitutional design. The specific principle of design most likely to be violated is the proposition that we treat all parts of the constitution as an interconnected whole and that we not try to assess the consequences of one part without appreciating the full meaning of all other parts. This essay illustrates this violation by looking at the new Russian constitution, ratified by direct popular vote in December 1993, with special attention paid to that document's treatment of federalism. We offer the additional argument, however, that even contemporary research in political institutional design pays insufficient heed to this principle.     

Cosmopolitan citizenship

Traditional statist approaches to citzenship emphasise the rights and duties which individuals have as members of bounded sovereign communities. They deny that citizenship has any meaning when detached from the sovereign nation‐state. Theorists in the Kantian tradition have used the idea of world citizenship to refer to obligations to care about the future of the whole human race. This article extends the Kantian approach by arguing for a dialogic conception of cosmopolitan citizenship. What distinguishes this approach is the claim that separate states and other actors have an obligation to give institutional expression to the idea of a universal communication community which reflects the heterogeneous character of international society.     

Employers,the state and the politics of institutional change: Vocational education and training in Austria,Germany and Switzerland

An in‐depth comparison of Austria, Germany and Switzerland shows that the employers' constellation and the elites of the public education administration affect patterns of institutional change. If large firms are the dominant actors and collaborate with elites in the public education administration, institutional change follows a transformative pattern. If small and medium‐sized firms are in a strong position and have the power to influence public elites according to their interests, self‐preserving institutional change results. The article also shows that it is not so much trade unions as small and medium‐sized firms that act as a brake on transformative change. The article adds to the literature of institutional change by arguing that specifying and explaining patterns of institutional change requires that sufficient scope be allowed for actors' creative handling of institutions. It also suggests that in order to differentiate between self‐preserving and transformative change, one has to specify the important institutional dimensions that sustain an institution. The article combines Mill's method of agreement and difference.     

Tracing the roots of social citizenship: Jane Addams’ thought between formal rights and moral obligation

The modern social citizen is a dual figure: at one and the same time a legal-universal abstraction and a particular living being with specific capacities, proclivities and attitudes. The Settlement movement from the late nineteenth century articulated and shaped both universal and particular dimensions of social citizenship. It contained the imperative of guidance of individual conscience and the modern discourse of universal social rights. The article demonstrates that it is impossible to maintain a division between, on one side, the subject of individualizing pastoral care originating in religious poor relief and philanthropy, and, on the other side, formal rights based on universalism and the modern state. The Settlement movement lies at the pathway of belief, subjective interpretation and respect for the particular person and at the pathway of factual knowledge of social patterns and large-scale policy reforms. The focus on the particular person as subject was the legacy of Christian piety, whereas the concept of universal citizen was associated with the rise of social science at the University of Chicago. We explore this paradox of the particular and the universal through the work of Jane Addams as both sociologist and founder of Hull House.     

Coupling citizens and elites in deliberative systems: The role of institutional design

A significant shortcoming in contemporary deliberative systems is that citizens are disconnected from various elite sites of public deliberation. This article explores the concept of ‘coupling’ as a means to better link citizens and elites in deliberative systems. The notion of ‘designed coupling’ is developed to describe institutional mechanisms for linking otherwise disconnected deliberative sites. To consider whether it is possible and indeed desirable to use institutional design to couple different sites in a deliberative system, the article draws on insights from a case study in which a mini‐public was formally integrated into a legislative committee. The empirical study finds that it is not only feasible to couple mini‐publics to legislative committees, but when combined, the democratic and deliberative capacity of both institutions can be strengthened. To be effective, ‘designed coupling’ requires more than establishing institutional connections; it also requires that actors to step outside their comfort zone to build new relationships and engage in new communicative spaces with different sets of ideas, actors and rules. This can be facilitated by institutional design, but it also requires leaders and champions who are well‐placed to encourage actors to think differently.     

Hegel’s Relational Organicism

Abstract

This paper is concerned with organic conceptions of socio-political life and is concerned with the rehabilitation of organicism as a positive social ontology. It demonstrates that: organicism does not necessarily imply the negation of individuality by a monolithic society, and; that G. W. F. Hegel’s references to the state as organic do not imply social holism. With Hegel’s organicism, as with Idealist organicism generally, what is found is a relational rather than a holistic social ontology. This relational ontology is one that addresses the tension between individualism and holism by theorizing the reciprocal or recursive nature of social relations; thus neither society nor the individuals within it can be seen as either purely determined or purely determining, each contributes to the constitution of the other. In making this case the paper provides both: a conceptual articulation of relational organicism which shows that it is an instructive and coherent positive social ontology, and; a historical account of its emergence into Idealist thought in the work of Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel. Through developing this account of the organic relation this paper seeks to offer a conception of socio-political life that provides resources for thinking through both the tension between holism and atomism in social theory and the tension between liberal individualism and communitarian collectivism in political theory.     

From Measurement to Management: Breaking through the Barriers to State and Local Performance

The Winter Commission’s aspirations for improvement of governance at the state and local level resulted in proposals to modernize public institutions and systems to remove the barriers on executive and managerial authority to act. Improving government performance and accountability to citizens requires leadership to empower employees by reducing rules, increasing discretion, and rewarding innovation. The performance measurement movement and its related performance management movement are public management trends of wide influence in state and local government that are both an adjunct to, and a reflection of those aspirations. Case studies of cities that have sought to develop and use performance measurement and engage citizens demonstrate great potential to improve governance and manage for results that citizens want. But even exemplary jurisdictions face challenges using evidence‐based, data‐driven performance management approaches. Promoting best practice requires better scholarship to understand the determinants of successful implementation, adoption, and use of performance measurement. The outcomes of performance management systems are generally unmeasured and little is known about their cost effectiveness or endurance over time. The promise is there, but our expectations should be tempered.     

Homeownership and Wealth among Low- and Moderate-Income Households

Abstract

Although currently neither politically nor fiscally feasible, the notion that access to inexpensive, presumably high‐quality housing should be a government‐guaranteed universal right would be a terrible idea even if it were popular and affordable. The proposition fails on three counts. It isn't necessary. It doesn't make economic sense. And, most compelling, were such a policy to be implemented, its putative beneficiaries would not thank us.

Even if we should not promulgate “a right to decent, affordable housing,” we want to assure that all Americans have access to decent, affordable housing. Happily, we can count on the private housing market (coupled with rising prosperity) to serve 95 percent of the country's households. Serving the remaining 5 percent requires concerted measures to scale back onerous housing regulations that prevent the private housing sector from meeting the needs of lower‐income and untypical households.     

The Freedom of Desire: Hegel's Response to Rousseau on the Problem of Civil Society

The ever-growing body of literature on civil society can benefit from a return to the original theoretical articulation and defense of the concept in the work of G.W.F. Hegel. Specifically, this article suggests that Jean-Jacques Rousseau's influential critique of civil society remains unanswered and argues that Hegel responded with a sweeping and sympathetic institutional design that remains relevant today. Hegel agrees with Rousseau that commercial society aggravates the dissatisfaction of its members, and that educating individual desire through institutional design is necessary to solve this difficulty. However, modern states need not adopt Rousseau's extreme and impracticable solution. Hegel's concrete, market-based associations of civil society render desires satiable and elevate them to accord with the common good, while still maintaining the freedom and distinctness of a pluralistic modern society.     

The Settlement and Process of Devolution: Territorial Politics and Governance under the Welsh Assembly

Devolution has been the most notable feature of the Labour government's plan to modernize the constitution. Principal consideration is given to Wales and to events since the formation of the National Assembly, which are examined by recourse to theoretically informed analysis on territorial politics and the nature of governance. The central question concerns the extent to which the Assembly can develop an autonomous policy position. Contemporary theories argue that internal and external developments have left central government in a less powerful position, which potentially can further augment the prospects for devolution. Events prior to and after the formation of the Assembly question whether government has moved into a new phase of development. Central government still commands an extensive range of resources and powers, especially over territorial bodies. At the same time, comparative analysis shows that such institutional parameters need not remain fixed. There is institutional space within the state for these powers to be contested and that the continued significance of territory can act as the basis of such political struggle.     

G.W.F. Hegel on Self‐Determination and Democratic Theory

This article claims that the major alternative models of contemporary democratic theory—the aggregative, deliberative, and agonistic models—are grounded on a norm of self‐determination, but each conceptualizes this self‐determination in a different, and one‐sidedly narrow, way. G.W.F. Hegel provides a conceptual scheme in which to understand the development and synthesize the insights of these three articulations of self‐determination. He also argues that the political embodiment of a complete self‐determination must be founded on economic self‐interest, though a self‐interest expanded to a concern for the common good through the experience of self‐government in one's economic and political associations. Thus, rather than separating economic and political spheres, as contemporary democratic theorists do, Hegel makes a case that modern self‐determination requires a structural harmony between these spheres.     

Church–state separation Swedish-style

The ‘events approach’ claims for a new explanation of cabinet termination and cabinet survival in parliamentary democracies. The failure of the universal laws set by the culturalist approach and the party system approach raised the question whether one should search for random or probabilistic events of cabinet termination and survival. It is argued that the events approach fails both for the epistemological weakness of its premises and for the poverty of its empirical conclusions. A reappraisal of theoretical enterprise is advanced and a new research perspective is sketched, which requires a more careful treatment of the non‐uniform institutional features of parliamentary democracies.     

Between Integration and Freedom: School Segregation in Critical Perspective

In the Danish case, school segregation is recognized as a crisis of society, but it is also a crisis in the deeper sense that central actors disagree about in what sense it is a crisis. This raises the general questions: In what sense is school segregation a problem? What exactly is the crisis? Though these are partly normative questions, in Scandinavian contexts we can interpret them in light of the internal value‐commitments of society. Accepting this premise allows us to build on the empirically informed and philosophically rigorous work of Elizabeth Anderson according to which segregation should be viewed in light of the imperative of social integration. The demand for citizens’ equal participation in the main institutions of society is, according to her, already entailed immanently if a society is broadly commitment to democracy. Finding this immanent democratic approach to be insufficient considering widespread concerns with respecting parental freedom, this article discusses the more value‐integrative approach found in the political philosophical work of Hegel. According to this approach, our value‐commitments to both social integration and individual freedom can be integrated if central public institutions reflect a complex structure of recognition. On the basis of both of these two steps, the article suggests ways of understanding and tackling the crisis of school segregation in a Scandinavian setting.     

New Labour and the Public Sector in Britain

In Britain, New Labour has a distinctive public philosophy that contains an ideal often found in the socialist tradition—that is, citizens attaining moral personhood within and through the community. Old Labour generally sought to realize such an ideal in a universal welfare state characterized by a command form of service delivery. New Labour has responded to dilemmas, akin to those highlighted by the New Right, by transforming this model of the public sector. It conceives of the state as an enabler acting in partnership with citizens and other organizations, delivering services through networks characterized by relationships of trust. We explore this distinctive public philosophy through its ethical vision and then its implications for welfare reform and the delivery of public services.     

Institutions and representation: How institutional rules shape political recruitment in French regional elections

This article attempts to develop an approach to political recruitment that combines the study of strategies deployed by candidates, party officials and local leaders, with an analysis of the effects induced by the institutional environment within which they act. It is suggested that institutional ‘rules’ specific to French political life shape the competition among political actors who participate in the selection of candidates standing for regional election. More specifically, political recruitment can be fully understood only if three kinds of institutional variables are combined: the rules of the regional electoral system; the organisational features of political activity at the local level; and, above all, the variety of non‐codified norms and criteria which orient the perceptions and beliefs of the political groups involved in the selection process. The main empirical conclusion is that institutional variables engender ‘unexpected effects’ which modify traditional mechanisms of local elite recruitment.     

AIDS and the politics of rights in South Africa: A contested terrain

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa has drawn particular attention in recent years, not only because of the country's high rates of infection but also because of the highly contentious debates between the state, AIDS NGOs, and scientists over AIDS policy. The national AIDS lobby in South Africa, including groups such as the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), has been forcefully articulating a rights-based discourse as a strategy to realize particular normative claims on the state. I examine these recent public debates and challenges to the human rights based response to AIDS that has gained consensus internationally among AIDS NGOs, governments, doctors and medical researchers. I explore the limitations of framing political demands in terms of the constitution and within a rights-based discourse in the present are of globalization and neo-liberalism, where the state’s capacity to respond to the social welfare demands of its citizens has declined, and where the protection of universal human rights requires that powerful transnational actors, in addition to the state, be held democratically accountable.     

东方哲学智慧与辩证法的新规律——谈“分合互动律”

黑格尔的欧式辩证法,侧重"分",即从"一分为二"的角度去说明矛盾存在于事物内部,并且是发展的动力。而中国哲学侧重"合",从"合二为一"的角度说明矛盾的性质及认识的规律。如果把矛盾的"分"与"合"、"一分为二"与"合二为一"结合起来,则可以在矛盾规律的本体论与认识论方面达到更高的境界。这就是"分合互动律"的含义。     

Reemployment Services in the Netherlands: A Comparative Study of Bureaucratic, Market, and Network Forms of Organization

Progress in New Public Management research requires careful comparison of different organizational approaches to public tasks, preferably within a single political and institutional setting. This paper presents a study of three approaches to reemployment services, a recent development in the Netherlands. How do bureaucratic, networked, and market‐based forms of organization function with regard to the new public aim of second‐tier reemployment in the Netherlands? It appears that there is no simple dependence between performance and instrumental or organizational features. Even in the setting of a single welfare state, intricate interactions exist between performance, stakeholder interests, and institutional conditions. Given the importance of these interactions, New Public Management research would benefit by shifting focus away from organizational performance toward a “politics of institutional structuring.”     

Community‐Based Organizations and Institutional Work in the Remote Rural West

The institutional landscape for public land management in the U.S. West underwent a seismic shift in the 1990s as the long‐dominant resource extraction paradigm was replaced by the ecosystem management paradigm. Here we analyze the efforts of community‐based organizations (CBOs), entities that emerged in some locations across the West to help their respective communities navigate the transition from resource extraction to environmental stewardship. Despite their formal status as civil society actors, in practice CBOs came to fill various institutional gaps by taking on roles traditionally assigned to both the state and the private sector. We use a case study approach to examine how the Hayfork, California–based Watershed Research and Training Center engages in institutional work within a setting that is at once both open and constrained, as the rural community within which it operates lacks strong state‐ or industry‐led development trajectories while remaining constrained by the legacies of past institutions.