TQM in the courts: Maybe so,maybe not

Courts are prime candidates for the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) but also difficult settings in which to implement it. The leadership structure of courts discourages strong leadership but also requires negotiation and mediation to install new programs, so an effective chief judge can bring most of the governing body--the other judges--along when a decision is made to adopt TQM. As turnover on the bench is slow, the governing body remains throughout the period needed to institutionalize TQM. Courts already have a valuable and useful tool for thinking about “customers” and using data effectively in the Trial Court Performance Standards. Courts have been slow to adopt TQM to date, but there is growing interest and several leadership courts using TQM to improve various court functions. Courts' work mostly is processed in assembly-line fashion; using TQM's principles can help courts improve productivity, recognize and respond to customer needs more readily, and generally be better able to obtain taxpayer support. The courts are at once prime candidates for Total Quality Management (TQM) and a setting in which TQM is a hard sell. This article will explore why both elements of this statement are true. Acknowledging the difficulties, this article nonetheless concludes that TQM can and should be sold and that the courts will be better for the effort. Most Americans do not understand how courts work.(') Even less do they understand how courts are managed or why courts should involve any different management issues from other public agencies. To understand both the difficulties in having TQM accepted in courts and the fertile ground they offer, it may help to explore briefly the management context.     

Impediments to the implementation of voluntary codes of conduct in production factories of the Global South: so much to do,so little done

A common consequence of the fragmented supply practices of multinational corporations are unfair and exploitative working conditions in the global South. Many corporations face this, and the resulting reputational damage, by installing voluntary codes of conduct in their supplier factories, leading to a vast range of implementation practices by the factory managers. Despite this effort, the literature shows that the positive impact of these codes on labour conditions in such factories remains insufficient. This article argues that this insufficiency is rooted in the exclusiveness and eurocentrism of codes of conduct and elaborates on why corporations tend to prefer influencing certain labour conditions over others. It concludes by briefly discussing multi-stakeholder organisations as a possible solution to these predicaments, and points the way to further research on the topic.     

Why we are so bad,and what we can do about it: On the state and civic virtue

The ‘80s were the decade in which scholars in such diverse fields as ethical philosophy, political science, and public administration rediscovered the importance of character in public life: what another generation called civic virtue. The ‘90s, I hope, will be the decade in which this insight passes from academic journals into the legislative and administrative arenas. Why is the subject so urgent? Reason one. As even James Madison, the theorist of “pitting ambition against ambition,” knew and admitted - and as recent ethical disasters in public life have reminded us - it is simply impossible to design an administrative system that will run both justly and efficiently without any need for civic virtue on the part of the people who run it. Reason two. It is one thing to talk about civic virtue; it is another to do something about it. The practical difficulties are enormous, and need to be both deeply studied and widely discussed. After all, civic virtue is a scarce commodity. To what extent can it be cultivated? And to what extent can it be supplemented with such administrative devices as “pitting ambition against ambition” without, in the end, undermining it? This article addresses both questions, but especially the second, giving particular attention to the unanticipated consequences of state intervention in the development of civic virtue.     

时代向前发展理论不断创新——纪念邓小平逝世10周年

世纪伟人邓小平留给我们的精神财富非常丰富,最可贵的就在于他的理论创新精神.在新世纪,世界风云变幻莫测,国际关系错综复杂.在新世纪,中国面临战略机遇期,改革开放和现代化建设进入转折时期,机遇与挑战并存.理论的力量在于创新.以胡锦涛为总书记的党中央紧紧把握时代发展方向,在建设有中国特色的社会主义伟大事业的实践中,创造性地发展了邓小平理论.     

Generalists and specialists in executive politics: Why ambitious meta‐policies so often fail

This article contributes to the politics of policy‐making in executive government. It introduces the analytical distinction between generalists and specialists as antagonistic players in executive politics and develops the claim that policy specialists are in a structurally advantaged position to succeed in executive politics and to fend off attempts by generalists to influence policy choices through cross‐cutting reform measures. Contrary to traditional textbook public administration, we explain the views of generalists and specialists not through their training but their positions within an organization. We combine established approaches from public policy and organization theory to substantiate this claim and to define the dilemma that generalists face when developing government‐wide reform policies (‘meta‐policies’) as well as strategies to address this problem. The article suggests that the conceptual distinction between generalists and specialists allows for a more precise analysis of the challenges for policy‐making across government organizations than established approaches.