Performance-Related Payments in Local Governments: Do They Improve Performance or Only Increase Salary?

Personnel policies in public sector organizations are fundamental to improving public services, since they have an impact on both individual and organizational performance. Within the broad area of Human Resources Management (HRM), Performance-Related Pay Systems (PRPSs) are widely considered one of the cornerstones of public sector managerial reforms. Monetary incentives should be paid for performance achievements of single employees and/or teams, according to a defined set of objectives. While the role and appropriateness of PRPSs in the public sector have been widely discussed in the literature, in some countries monetary incentives have been used as a tool to increase individual salaries, without considering them as a motivating instrument in a wider HRM system. A small number of studies have been conducted to understand the limitations of this form of incentives and to investigate whether it can be replaced by different and more effective incentives in order to avoid the de-motivating effect caused by money, as recognized in the literature. This study tries to fill this gap investigating, through twenty-five interviews to informed respondents the effectiveness of existing PRPSs at Local government level in Italy both in terms of performance and motivation and the possibility to substitute monetary with non-monetary incentives. The findings suggest that the limitations of monetary incentives have been widely recognized, but it is still difficult to replace them with different and more effective alternatives.     

Decentralized Recruitment and Selection in Thailand: Friend or Foe to Local Public Administration?

This article draws attention to the advantages and disadvantages derived from decentralized recruitment and selection for a form of local public administrative unit, the municipality. This was examined within the context of Thailand, a unitary transitional country where bureaucratization and centralization had been the norms in its public administrative system for centuries. It argues that local fiscal management and reformed local government structure would not be successful when executed by incompetent local civil servants. To summarize, recruitment and selection function as a “vacuum” and “filter” that organizations employ to obtain proficient and skilled human resources for their organizations. In Thailand at the local level, it appears that discussions of recruitment and selection functions barely disguise the inept procedures that occur in reality. These are grounded in actions looking towards recentralization, local-cronyism, and nepotism that have traditionally rooted and underpinned the Thai local administration in the area of personnel administration.     

Corporatized Public Land Development Bodies in Australia: Who Are the Stakeholders and Why Are They Important?

This study examines post-corporatization activities of public sector organizations, which are expected to act according to commercial principles, but, at times, are also asked to undertake projects that are not profitable: community service obligations (CSOs). Managers of government-owned corporatized entities in land development are interviewed, and a focus group at a state Treasury department conducted. We determine, when undertaking CSOs, who are the stakeholders, as perceived by management, and why they are considered important. The stakeholders are government, community, treasury (as separate from government) and the relevant private sector. Values, in addition to power, urgency and legitimacy, influence stakeholder prioritization.     

Effectiveness of Ethics Codes in the Public Sphere: Are They Useful in Controlling Corruption?

This study aims at determining the real effect of the implementation of a code of ethics on the solution of ethical problems in the public sphere, considering corruption as the most important non-ethical behavior. With that aim, 154 national administrations whose information on ethical codes is available on the UN's website are analyzed.

Our findings stress the absence of any influence of codes on corruption problems in the public context, both in developed and developing countries. The level of education is the most important determining factor in the control of corruption, especially in developing countries.     

Who’s Socialising Whom? Regional Organisations and Contested Norms in Central Asia

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) represent competing sets of international norms in Central Asia. The contestation between these sets of norms has not led to a complete polarisation between members of the two organisations, however. Instead, the OSCE has used a range of discursive tactics to reduce political contestation, downplaying some contested issues and seeking shared discourses on security threats. This article explores these tactics and suggests that these discursive shifts may eventually threaten the normative identity of the OSCE and lead to the acceptance of a more hybrid set of security-related norms in the region.     

Do Smaller Firms Pay Less in the Caribbean? The Case of Trinidad and Tobago

This article constitutes the first study of the employer size wage effect for a Caribbean country, namely the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Using a rich micro-level data set we estimate the firm size wage premium in an empirical model of wage determination. Despite exploring a variety of theories, samples, estimation techniques and tests, we find that, consistent with the empirical literature, larger firms in Trinidad and Tobago pay higher wages than smaller firms, for equally productive workers.     

What Are You Prepared to Do? NATO and the Strategic Mismatch Between Ends,Ways, and Means in Afghanistan—and in the Future

This article examines ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) operations in Afghanistan as a way to get at the strategic disconnects in ends, ways, and means that the author believes are endemic to large-scale protracted stability and COIN (counterinsurgency) operations against adversaries who do not pose palpable existential threats to the members of an alliance. The article focuses mainly on the period that followed President Barack Obama's December 2009 announcement of a civilian and military “surge” in Afghanistan through the early stages of the ISAF offensive in Marjah, which began in February 2010. The article concludes that the fundamental strategic issue is that the Allies are not willing (or able) to devote enough resources to achieve their stated objectives. No matter how much the “Ways” might be improved, the “Means” are not sufficient to attain the “Ends.” Thus, what is needed is a more realistic understanding of what ISAF can accomplish in Afghanistan and what NATO might be expected to accomplish in future operations.     

Poverty and Disasters: Do Remittances Reproduce Vulnerability?

Abstract

In many low-income countries, remittances are important in sustaining people’s livelihood and become even more significant during disasters. Meanwhile, the literature suggests that remittances are mainly accessible to middle and upper-income households, rather than to the poorest, thus implying differential capacities amongst households to overcome crises. The present study uses cyclone Evan that hit Samoa in December 2012 as a case study to test this hypothesis. It focuses on the village of Tafitoala and draws on interviews and participatory activities undertaken with the poorest households of the community. It indicates that the poor receive little to no remittances and that they struggled more than the rest of the community to cope with and recover from the cyclone. Their lack of access to remittances had negative consequences on the security and sustainability of their livelihoods. We conclude that remittances reproduce or even increase both inequalities and vulnerabilities existing within the community of origin.     

Analysing the Impact of Price Shocks in Rural Economies: Do Household Responses Matter?

We analyse the impact of higher food prices on rural households in Tanzania focusing on the often neglected role of households’ behavioural responses. We introduce a new framework which considers the production response jointly with substitution effects in consumption and takes into account households’ market participation choices. Taking into account behavioural responses on consumption and production can significantly alter the sign and magnitude of the welfare impact in the long run.     

The Russian Radical Right Movement and Immigration Policy: Do They Just Make Noise or Have an Impact as Well?

This article examines how, if at all, the mobilisation of the Russian Movement Against Illegal Immigration has had an impact on changes in Russian policies. Little is known about the outcomes of radical right movements in general or the Russian radical right in particular. The Movement Against Illegal Immigration has arguably played a role in shaping negative public attitudes towards immigration. On the other hand, the Russian government has not adopted any clear nationalistic anti-immigration policy frame. We show that disruptive events of Movement Against Illegal Immigration's mobilisation have caused reactions in terms of the elite discourse on immigration and restrictive immigration legislation.     

Do donors promote corruption?: the case of Mozambique

Donors inveigh against corruption, yet give more aid to corrupt governments. Debate continues on the causes of developing country corruption, but with little consideration of the possibility that the behaviour of donors may unintentionally promote corruption. This article looks at the example of Mozambique, where corruption grew rapidly in the 1990s. It argues that the donor community is prepared to tolerate quite blatant corruption if the elite rapidly puts into place ‘market‐friendly’ policy changes. The article notes that the Mozambican elite is divided, but the group which challenged high level corruption also criticised World Bank adjustment policies; donors opted for the corrupt faction that told the donors what they wanted. Donors try to avoid the issue by concentrating on institutional reform, which the corrupt faction has so far been able to bypass. The issue is compounded by Mozambique's reputation as one of the World Bank's few success stories in Africa, and donors are reluctant to besmirch that image by publicly raising the corruption issue.     

What's the Problem in Public Sector Workforce Recruitment? A Multi-Sector Comparative Analysis of Managerial Perceptions

Public sector workforce recruitment is problematic, but the nature of that problem is not clearly defined. Workforce recruitment is essentially a matching problem that requires managers to recruit desired employees in available labor pools. This research asks whether sectoral differences and competition for labor affect whether public managers frame the major problem of workforce recruitment as the size, qualifications, or work ethic of the labor pool. Using survey data from about 2,300 managers from two US states, problem attributions are modeled using multinomial logit. The findings suggest that the public and nonprofit sectors find it more problematic to recruit qualified employees than the private sector, but public and nonprofit agencies hold a comparative advantage over the private sector in recruiting employees with sufficient work ethic. Therefore, public and nonprofit managers should emphasize retention and training to leverage their comparative advantage in recruiting employees with work ethic while addressing a comparative disadvantage in recruiting qualified employees.     

Islam in Tanzania and Kenya: Ally or Threat in the War on Terror?

This article explores the historical emergence of Islam in East Africa, details the political background of Tanzania and Kenya, the role of Islam in each country, and U.S. foreign policy in the region. The recent U.S. strategy of intelligence-sharing with Kenya, training and military support to both Kenya and Tanzania, and air strikes in Somalia are assessed. In addition to the current military emphasis, the United States should incorporate more “soft” options, such as the promotion of democratic governance in these nascent democracies through political assistance in constitutional, judicial, and law-enforcement reform, as well as encouraging greater inclusion of Muslims in the political system.     

Unpacking the Diaspora Channel in New Democracies: When Do Migrants Act Politically Back Home?

Migrant influence on politics back home has arguably become broader and deeper in the wake of a widespread convergence between out-migration and democratization. This article seeks to identify the structural conditions under which migrants from post-1980 democracies are likely to activate the “diaspora channel” of political influence back home. Specifically, I identify, explain, and code two sets of incentives likely to induce migrants to engage in home-country politics from abroad: (1) socioeconomic incentives generated by cross-border linkages and migrant characteristics likely to predispose them toward broader forms of transnational engagement and (2) political incentives generated by diaspora politicization and formal access to the political process in the home country. I score these incentives in 40 developing countries and then generate hypotheses about the degree to which migrants from these countries are likely to activate the diaspora channel through participation in home-country elections, lobbying for policy changes by the home-country government, or transnational coproduction.     

Ethnic Identity and the Nation?CState in the Era of Globalization: the Case of Cyprus

This paper addresses the philosophical question whether the nation?Cstate will be entering a final phase of demise or whether it will continue to prosper within the framework of the era of regional blocs and globalization. In order to do so, we briefly put forward some theoretical premises in relation to the nation?Cstate and globalization and how they have affected each other. This discussion also draws from the recent experiences of the international economic crisis and how the EU reacted in relation to the serious economic crisis of Greece. We also assess the case of Cyprus within the framework of this discussion. The question raised in relation to Cyprus is whether there can be an integrated society that encourages a particular common value system and also respects the ethnic identity of citizens and communities. A major question is whether the EU can offer the framework for such an outcome.