Breaking the glass ceiling,but facing a glass cliff? The role of organizational decline in women's representation in leadership positions in Dutch civil service organizations

Despite efforts to increase gender diversity and equality worldwide, women are still underrepresented in leadership positions in public bureaucracies. This article speaks to the debate on how organizational context, more specifically organizational decline, may influence gender representation in such leadership positions. Based on role congruity theory and glass cliff theory this article empirically examines whether and how excessive workforce reductions are associated with changes in the representation of women in leadership positions in Dutch civil service organizations. Panel analyses on administrative data show that women's representation in leadership positions varies over time, but is not significantly affected by excessive workforce reductions. Overall, the analyses do not provide evidence for a glass cliff for women in Dutch civil service organizations. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.     

Representative bureaucracy,international organizations and public service bargains

Academic interest in the administrative aspects of international organizations is on the rise. Yet, an issue that has received little attention is bureaucratic representation—the extent to which international bureaucracies are representative of the polity that they serve. The article theorizes the rationales for and forms of representative bureaucracy in international organizations by combining insights from the representative bureaucracy literature with the ‘public service bargains’ framework. It argues that bureaucratic representation is highly relevant in international organizations, given the diverse polity these organizations serve and their precarious legitimacy. It distinguishes three types of representational ‘bargains’ between international organizations and those they serve, centred on power, equal opportunities and diversity, and discusses under which conditions each type of bargain is likely to be struck. The argument contributes to discussions about representative bureaucracy in international organizations and to broader theoretical debates about international public administration.     

BUREAUCRATIC VALUES AND RESILIENCE: AN EXPLORATION OF CRISIS MANAGEMENT ADAPTATION

The concept of resilience has gained currency as a motif under which governments have sought to improve their responses to crises. At the heart of this agenda is an understanding that crisis management must be adaptable. Yet crises continue to expose the intransigent nature of central bureaucracies. This article addresses this issue by exploring how bureaucratic values can affect the ability of agents to adapt to the challenges of crises. Data are generated from a series of interviews with crisis managers who operate in a policy chain that connects the European Union to the United Kingdom. The data indicate that two well‐entrenched bureaucratic value‐sets, relating to efficiency and procedural rationality, have profound consequences for the resilience agenda.     

Representative Bureaucracy in the Public Service? A Critical Analysis of the Challenges Confronting Women in the Civil Service of Ghana

In the public administration literature, the debate concerning the representation of minorities in the public bureaucracy continues to attract attention. The idea is that passive representation may lead to active representation with the later helping to develop policies and programs that will benefit minorities. Consequently, a number of governments have been implementing policies to enhance the involvement of minorities in public services. The Ghana government has not been left out in this endeavor. Since 1957, it has continued to institute measures to ensure a fair gender representation in the bureaucracy. This notwithstanding, the upper echelons of the bureaucracy continue to be dominated by males despite the over representation of women at the lower levels. What are the challenges confronting women in the public sector that make it difficult to achieve active representation? In this article, we examine the challenges confronting women to achieve active representation from a representative bureaucracy perspective.     

Drink,Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll: Financing Loyalist Terrorism in Northern Ireland — Part Two

Though the main loyalist groups have now been observing cease-fires for nearly five years, the fund-raising activities of these organizations has continued unabated. Following from the previous article on this subject, this paper gives an account of the various fund-raising methods which are currently being used by the loyalists. Particular attention is focused on the controversial topic of drug dealing. Related to this topic, the article considers in detail the emergence in 1996 of the splinter group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). The rise and subsequent fall of this faction provides a telling case study in the importance of understanding the fund-raising methods and policies of terrorist groups. The article concludes that the financial dimension to terrorism in Northern Ireland presents an as yet unrecognized and extremely serious obstale to lasting peace.     

BETTER REGULATION IN EUROPE: BETWEEN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND REGULATORY REFORM

Can the European regulatory state be managed? The European Union (EU) and its member states have looked at better regulation as a possible answer to this difficult question. This emerging public policy presents challenges to scholars of public management and administrative reforms, but also opportunities. In this conceptual article, we start from the problems created by the value‐laden discourse used by policy‐makers in this area, and provide a definition and a framework that are suitable for empirical/explanatory research. We then show how public administration scholars could usefully bring better regulation into their research agendas. To be more specific, we situate better regulation in the context of the academic debates on the New Public Management, the political control of bureaucracies, evidence‐based policy, and the regulatory state in Europe.     

Representing minorities in the city. Education policies and minority incorporation in the capital cities of Estonia and Latvia

This article explores the relationship between minority city-level and state-level political representations through the analysis of the contested implementation of state education policies in Tallinn and Riga. Referring to the US debate on this issue, the article asks what role minority incorporation into city-level power structures can play for its substantive representation. The comparison between Tallinn and Riga reveals two potential answers to this question. The case of Riga illustrates how city-level representation can be an alternative representative channel through which the minority can put pressure on state government and magnify its political voice within the country's democratic space. On the contrary, the case of Tallinn illustrates how a municipality can be an alternative locus of representation, which does not guarantee minority empowerment but rather entraps the minority at the local level within the implicit understanding that the minority (or at least the parties that get the minority vote) can “have its share” locally, but it cannot hope to influence state policies. The comparison between the two cases reveals different levels of legitimacy of the minority's voice in the democratic debate of Estonia and Latvia, and shows the risks and opportunities linked to the two models of minority city-level incorporation.     

French Caribbean organizations and the ‘Black question’ in France

Abstract

Collective remittances are a particular kind of flow, which is gaining more and more attention. It puts into light the role of diaspora associations in promoting the development of the origin countries. The aim of the article is to analyze how diaspora associations cope with development issues and the impacts of these activities in terms of migrants' new forms of citizenship. It draws attention on the relationship between diaspora and transnationalism stressing that, nowadays, the immaterial dimension of ethnic belonging encompasses also a material dimension made of cross-border connections; thus, allowing migrants to participate on the both shores of migration. Using the concept of the Political Opportunity Structure, the article shows the role played by the host country on the way migrants organize themselves and on how they act as citizens at home by engaging in development actions. The comparative approach puts into evidence that the different characteristics of Ghanaian migrants in Italy and in the UK shape transnational development actions but in a different way than one would expect: the relative lack of integration seems to stimulate migrants to better development actions at home since, in so doing, they can be recognized as actors also in the place where they live.     

RESTRUCTURING WEBERIAN BUREAUCRACY: COMPARING MANAGERIAL REFORMS IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES

In much of the international public administration literature, New Public Management (NPM) already appears to be bogged down in a quagmire of critical revisions and assessments. Although some criticisms are well founded, there can be no doubt that NPM represents a trend which has considerably affected public‐sector decision‐making worldwide. This article takes the examples of the Southern European bureaucracies, where NPM‐inspired reforms were introduced later than in the English‐speaking world, but have nevertheless played a decisive role in the political agenda of both socialist and conservative governments. The paper presents the results of a comparative study of administrative reforms in five European countries as well as the USA during the 1980s and 1990s. The comparison is based on three specific dimensions (central bureaucracies’ formal structure; civil service organization; administrative processes), enabling us to systematically measure and compare the progress of the various countries subsequent to the cycle of managerial reforms.     

LOCAL AUTHORITY BUREAUCRACIES: RESPONSIBLE,REPRESENTATIVE, OR DIVERGENT? EVIDENCE FROM SMALL POLITICAL SYSTEMS IN NORWAY

The political power of modern bureaucracies may be viewed as a democratic challenge. In fact, many reforms in the public sector aim to strengthen control over these bureaucracies, either by politicians or by citizens. This article argues that the need for control will depend on the degree of interest divergence between bureaucracy on the one hand, and politicians and citizens on the other. Still, attitudes in the three groups are seldom compared directly. Here, the attitudes towards different issues in the three groups are compared, within four small Norwegian municipalities. The results indicate that attitudes of local bureaucrats only to a limited degree diverge from those of politicians and the public, with one exception: attitudes towards so‐called ‘New Public Management' reforms. Implications for control over bureaucracies are discussed.     

The phenomenon of suicide bombing: a review of psychological and nonpsychological factors

This article reviews the literature on the phenomenon of suicide bombing. It addresses the question of just how much a psychological understanding of the individuals involved can aid in prevention. The article looks at historical, epidemiological, and cultural perspectives and compares the nonpsychological and psychological approaches to suicide bombing. On the basis of the material available it seems that social processes such as group-dynamic indoctrination and political factors are decisive in analyzing this problem. Cultural, nationalistic, and religious factors are important. The conclusion is that in suicidal bombing, suicide is instrumental in the context of war, not in the context of psychopathology. Suicide bombing is instrumental in realizing fatalities, and it is only one of many weapons. The act of killing in warfare is more important to understanding suicidal terrorism than the act of suicide. This explains why psychological profiling of suicidal terrorists has to date not been successful.     

The Inter‐American regime of citizenship: bridging the institutional gap between democracy and human rights

Recent years have brought about a strengthening of inter‐American co‐operation in the areas of both human rights and democracy. Up to now, however, little attention has been devoted to the manner by which these two components of the inter‐American system are connected. The central argument of our article is that the concept of a citizenship regime provides an essential vehicle for bridging this gap. This notion makes it possible to recognise hemispheric changes regarding human rights and democracy as two sides of the same dynamic: the building of a more integrated inter‐American community. Anchored in a historical approach, the first part of the article explains how the OAS has been able to transform many of the features within the state–citizen relationship throughout the Americas. The second part goes on to demonstrate how the consolidation of the inter‐American citizenship regime remains fragile and incomplete, confronted by major challenges of both a domestic and an international nature. What we are seeing is a thin form of citizenship but one that helps reshape our understanding of the region.     

POLITICAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND PERFORMANCE AUDIT: THE CASE OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL IN NORWAY

Performance audit is widely used in public administration, but, at present, little empirical evidence exists on its usefulness and contribution to accountability. Based on survey data from 353 civil servants in Norway, this article analyzes the auditees' perceptions of the audit. Performance audit was seen as useful by a majority of the auditees. If auditees agreed to audit criteria and assessments, were allowed to influence the process, had favourable opinions of the reports, and believed that the State Audit Institution contributed to accountability and improvement, then they regarded it as useful. Reports used for accountability purposes were not perceived as less useful. The auditees' administrative level, the use of the report to further interests, and attention from politicians, the media, and the Parliament impacted on the accountability dimension. These results indicate that performance audit can influence civil servants, but the influence is contingent on how the audited civil servants perceive the performance audit.     

Administrative Styles in the OECD: Bureaucratic Policy-Making beyond Formal Rules

As we know from comparative public policy, bureaucracies contribute to a considerable degree to the contents and the ways of policy-making. One important driver of administrative policy-making are their specific “styles” or “cultures”. “Administrative styles” are understood here as the standard operating procedures and routines that characterize the behavior and activities of administrative bodies in initiating, drafting and implementing policy. In this article, we convey the concept of Administrative Styles to the level of International Organizations (IOs) and apply it to the Organization for Economic Development and Co-Operation (OECD). The article proceeds in three steps: First, the concept of administrative styles is introduced and refined. Drawing on expert interviews with OECD staff, we secondly show that consideration of OECD administrative styles significantly advances the literature’s understanding of the organization. Finally, we give an outlook on new research avenues and the relevance of our findings for the study of International Public Administrations (IPAs) more generally.     

Practice,Pirates and Coast Guards: the grand narrative of Somali piracy

In this article I develop a practice–theoretical account to provide the first systematic investigation of the justification of Somali piracy. Arguing for an understanding of piracy as a ‘community of practice’, I show how this community is organised by a ‘grand narrative’ that projects piracy as a quasi-state practice of the protection of sovereignty against foreign intruders. Paying attention to narrative provides an explanation for the persistence of piracy and assists us in understanding the phenomenon. Relying on publicly available interviews with pirates, I deconstruct this grand narrative and detail the different functions of the narrative in the light of situations in which it is told. The article develops an alternative perspective on piracy based on the study of practice, narrative and situation that provides new avenues for the study of clandestine, illicit or violent practices.     

Waiting for Godot: Sustainable development,international trade and governance in environmental policies

The current environmental crisis calls for a sustainable style of development and draws attention to a new ecological dimension in social life that poses hitherto unforeseen challenges to the social sciences and to the everyday concerns of citizens, governments and private interests. Consequently, it is appropriate to attempt a critical overview of governance issues around the formation and implementation of environmental policies designed under the framework of sustainable development. After a brief introduction on how global perceptions about sustainable development have evolved, this article subsequently focuses attention on the main thrust of the emerging international environmental regime, and the multilateral environmental treaties embodied in it. Specific governance issues pertaining to environmental policies are also critically reviewed, particularly interrelations with the trade regime. The article concludes by spelling out some comments on research issues for the future, with a view to charting the environmental governance agenda lying ahead of us.     

Ten years after: revisiting the determinants of the adoption of municipal corporations for local service delivery

Research on the use of municipal corporations to deliver local and regional public services has evolved significantly in the past decade. Most of this work addresses the performance of this service-delivery mode in relation to local bureaucracies. However, much less is known about the drivers for the adoption of municipal corporations in the first place. This article reviews the main determinants of adoption – service characteristics, institutional and regulatory settings, political constraints and financial conditions – and highlights the need for comparative research across countries.     

A dialogic approach to understanding regime conflicts: the case of the development agenda

Despite the fact that early work on international regimes conceptualised them as dialogic in nature, this fundamental regime property has remained relatively underdeveloped. Drawing on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and his circle, this article proposes a dialogic framework for understanding regimes and the political struggles that constitute them. Focusing on the contextual and relational properties of signification processes within a regime, one of the key arguments is that neither their dialogic nature nor the trajectory and outcome of a particular conflict can be understood without giving full attention to language as a power-laden form of action. By focusing on how language and discourse are implicated and put to work in a particular instance of regime contestation, namely the Development Agenda proposed by a group of developing countries’ representatives at the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2004, efforts are made not only to bring to the fore the political and ideological nature of the ‘shared understandings’ without which a regime would not exist, but also the manner in which they are reproduced and reinvigorated, even by acts that set out to challenge them.     

Examining Nepalese Forestry Governance from Gender Perspectives

This article examines Nepalese forestry governance from gender perspectives. We argue that gendered institutional norms and values are associated with forest-governing institutions, such as forest bureaucracies, shaping the nature, and extent of women’s involvement in decision-making processes in the Nepalese forest bureaucracy. Studies on Nepalese forestry reveal that substantial progress has been made in forming policies and initiating activities for including women in forestry governance of Nepal; however despite this, gendered dynamics create difficulties for women to enter and progress in the forestry profession, thereby creating gendered employment territories through institutional, legislative, normative, and infrastructural measures.