Professionals and Shifts in Governance

The position of professionals in public services is affected directly by public management reforms. This article systematically links different types of governance to professionalism, using Osborne's (2010 Osborne, S.P. 2010. The new public governance, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) distinction between Public Administration, New Public Management and New Public Governance. In the development of professionalism in the context of public management, one can observe an increasing fragmentation of sources of legitimacy, an accumulation of different professional requirements and a growing difficulty to distinguish professionals and non-professionals.     

NPM Reforms and Professionals in Health and Higher Education in Portugal

The aim of this article is to analyze comparatively how academics, physicians, and nurses positioned themselves in relation to the reconfiguration of power structures and decisional processes, under New Public Management influence, in the hospitals, and higher education institutions. The empirical data are gathered from a survey applied to the three professional groups. Quantitative results show that the three groups have similar positions concerning power concentration at institutions’ top governance. However, relevant differences emerge in their views concerning the organization and control of the social division of work and also of their professional practices.     

Policy Alienation of Public Professionals: A Comparative Case Study of Insurance Physicians and Secondary School Teachers

Currently, there is an intense debate on the pressures facing public professionals in service delivery. Several studies show increasing discontent among professionals toward policies they have to implement. In this article, we aim to contribute to this topic by analyzing this discontent of public professionals in terms of “policy alienation.” The policy alienation concept is used to frame the experiences of professionals in a coherent theoretical framework. We have used a qualitative comparative case study of Dutch insurance physicians and secondary school teachers to study the factors that influence the degree of policy alienation across different domains. Our article shows that facets of New Public Management are important in explaining the pressures on public professionals implementing public policies. However, others factors are also prominent, and the degree of the implementers' professionalism seems especially important. These insights help in understanding why public professionals embrace or resist the implementation of public policies.     

Robust governance for the long term and the heat of the moment: Temporal strategies for coping with dual crises

Today the world is confronted with dual crises: creeping and acute threats unfolding at the same time—for example, the manifestation of extreme weather events such as drought and flooding and the creeping crisis of climate change. To cope with dual crises, this article develops a novel temporal perspective that offers policy actors a repertoire of interrelated strategies for enhancing the robustness of institutional efforts. The repertoire consists of five temporal strategies that policy actors can use to navigate the twin challenges of immediate and latent threats in conjunction: strategic coupling of short-term shocks and creeping crises, crafting time horizons, molding the pace of public problem-solving, mobilizing anticipatory capacity through futuring techniques, and adaptive iteration of policy decisions. We illustrate the practical application of these strategies in an exploratory case study of adaptive water management in the Netherlands.

Samenvatting

De wereld wordt geconfronteerd met duale crises: sluipende en acute dreigingen op hetzelfde moment, zoals extreme weersgebeurtenissen als droogte of watersnood tegelijkertijd met de sluipende crisis van klimaatverandering. Om te reageren op duale crises, ontwikkelt dit artikel een nieuw repertoire van vijf temporele strategieën voor beleidsmakers om de robuustheid van overheidssystemen te vergroten. Dit repertoire bestaat uit de volgende strategieën: strategische koppeling van onverwachte korte termijn schokken en sluipende crises, tijdshorizonnen creëren, het tempo aanpassen van implementatie, het mobiliseren van anticiperende capaciteit door middel van scenariotechnieken, en de adaptieve iteratie van beleidsbeslissingen. We illustreren de werking van deze vijf strategieën aan de hand van een uitgewerkt voorbeeld van adaptief watermanagement in Nederland: de invoering van het programma Ruimte voor de Rivier.     

热话题与冷思考(二十三)--关于时代发展与政党现代化的一些思考

早在1996年,您就在<政党的危机--国外政党运行机制研究>一书中提出:"政党政治进一步现代化的问题已经提上日程."现在越来越多的人关注"政党现代化"这个问题,但在那时人们对"政党现代化"这个词还相当陌生,所以您的提法应该说十分"前卫".那么,您当时是如何考虑这个问题的呢?     

也谈苏联解体的一个原因--兼评美国学者科兹的几个论点

苏共及其社会主义失败的一个重要原因,是在苏共内部产生了一个特权阶层.美国学者科兹看到是这个特权阶层搞跨了苏共和苏联,却不懂得它产生的真正原因,而是把它归之于改革,进而得出了反对市场化改革的错误结论.历史已经证明,并将继续证明,社会主义不改革、不正确地进行改革,只能是死路一条.     

从宪法性条约到条约性宪法--欧盟宪法的进步与局限

欧盟宪法与以前的欧洲一体化重要条约的区别在于,它已经超越了"宪法性条约"而成为"条约性宪法".欧盟宪法主要是欧洲的联邦主义者借欧盟扩大之机推进欧洲政治一体化的产物.欧盟宪法既有其巨大进步的一面,也有其难以克服的局限性一面.相比于现实意义,欧盟宪法的象征意义更大.欧盟宪法在批准过程中遇到的挫折是可以克服的,但是欧盟领导人不应当把一体化仅仅当作目的,而忽略其他对欧洲前途来说更重要的政治任务.     

让昨天昭示今天--从世界社会主义运动的历史经验看"三个代表"

前苏东社会主义国家和我国社会主义革命建设过程中的历史经验教训证明,搞好社会主义不仅要有硬件,更要有软件.一方面要摆正社会主义建设过程中政治与经济的关系,另一方面要正确对待马克思主义、中国传统文化和西方文化的冲突与融合,解放思想,建设有中国特色社会主义."三个代表"的落脚点是实现、发展和维护广大人民群众的根本利益.     

Challenging the European Union: the rising powers and the USA in the Doha Round

In this article, the challenges posed to the European Union's (EU) role in trade policy and its implications for development policy during the World Trade Organization's Doha Development Agenda, also known as the Doha round, are highlighted. The authors argue that transformed power relations have created a situation characterized by role uncertainty, for the emerging powers but also for the EU. Priorities among multiple possible roles – in the existing trade regime, in relation to the global South and in the ongoing negotiations – become subject to redefinition. For the EU, heavily wedded to a multilateralist and reformist mission because of its own history, this process is particularly difficult. The EU's traditional role conceptions as a leader and a benign partner to developing countries have been challenged and partly replaced by a more realist approach.     

Examining the EU-China Relationship in the Aftermath of the Economic Crisis

ABSTRACT

This article examines how, if at all, the changed economic order in the aftermath of the economic crisis in 2008 has shaped the relationship between the EU and China. Theoretically, two prevalent opposing narratives in the public discourse are presented and linked to two crude versions of mercantilism and economic liberalism in the scholarly literature. The mercantilist line of reasoning posits that China will gain more political weight with its increasing economic strength. The economic liberal line of reasoning suggests that China’s economic weight does not translate into political power. These two opposing theoretical claims are examined by process tracing two most likely cases. This article concludes that despite its increased economic strength, China has enjoyed limited success in persuading the EU and its member states to change their position(s) on policy areas involving strategic interests.