THE LISBON AGENDA AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP POLICY: GOVERNANCE IMPLICATIONS FROM A GERMAN PERSPECTIVE

With the Lisbon Strategy and mandate, the European Commission committed itself to promoting entrepreneurship as a major driver of innovation, competitiveness, and growth. This paper demonstrates that the renaissance of entrepreneurship policy along with the implementation of the Lisbon Agenda resulted in the localization of policy‐making, and re‐strengthened policy‐makers on the ground to successfully mobilize directly at the supranational level. Furthermore, it shows that EU entrepreneurship policy‐making has contributed to a shift from hierarchical government to a more horizontal and interactive form of governance in the new German Laender which were highly exposed to Structural Funds and the Lisbon Agenda. The focus of analysis on the sub‐national level helps to fill an academic void in Europeanization and governance literature. By integrating a region‐ and policy‐specific perspective, this contribution goes beyond theorizing the regional dimension of Europeanization in a multi‐level governance scheme.     

THE FUTURE OF PORTUGUESE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND A NEW AGENDA FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION SCIENCES IN THE 21st CENTURY

This paper addresses the changing role of the Portuguese state, the present priority assigned to the process of reform and the new challenges to be overcome by public administration. Such processes are demanding a new agenda for education and research in public administration sciences, shifting from the public law paradigm to an interdisciplinary problem‐solving approach and giving special attention to 10 key areas of study, which we describe in the final section of the paper. It should be noted here that the opinions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the position of their institutions.     

FISCAL FEDERALISM, PROFESSIONALISM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF AMERICAN STATE GOVERNMENT

A combination of political and economic forces have helped to return the states to the centre of the political stage. Whether measured by objective indicators (employment, share of government expenditure, elasticity of state revenues) or political institutional changes (the rise of career governors, the increasing influence of the intergovernmental lobby and the spread of state responsibilities), the states have become increasingly important in the formulation and implementation of American domestic policies. However, these changes have by no means reduced the level of intergovernmental conflict. On the contrary, cuts in federal expenditure, the introduction of block grants and public opposition to increases in state and local taxation are likely to intensify debate on distributional questions at the state level.     

THE DIFFICULT TRANSFORMATION OF STATE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN PORTUGAL. EUROPEANIZATION AND THE PERSISTENCE OF NEO‐PATRIMONIALISM

Portugal has been characterized by a late discontinuous democratization process. This contribution discusses the case of state and public administration reform in Portugal by using approaches from democratization, modernization and Europeanization theories. In order to understand the Portuguese case, the concept of ‘neo‐patrimonialism’ is used. We characterize Portuguese public administration as still having ‘neo‐patrimonial’ features, and therefore is still in transition from old closed‐minded practices such as particularistic decision making or clientelistic relationships to new open‐minded ones. The ‘new’ governance agenda combines new public management instruments and a growing flexibilization of public administration towards networks with non‐statal actors and has certainly led to some improvement in the quality of the services associated with public administration. Although is still too early to assess, top‐down and horizontal Europeanization processes, particularly since the late 1990s, may have contributed to a more reflexive approach in moving towards a more endogenous strategic vision based on the needs of the Portuguese state and public administration.     

PROFESSIONAL AUTONOMY AND PASTORAL POWER: THE TRANSFORMATION OF QUALITY REGISTERS IN SWEDISH HEALTH CARE

In the context of the recent transformation of control in Swedish health care, the changing role of quality registers are analysed as a vivid example of how professional groups become involved in new modes of regulating professional work. Based on a critical appraisal of the main currents in the research on NPM, it is argued that understanding ‘the productive side of power’ is an underexploited theme. The main part of the article is devoted to a detailed analysis of how a seemingly insignificant, but in its consequences important, professional practice was transformed from a resource for clinical research, an entirely professional concern, to a tool for hierarchical control. In the concluding sections, a number of important conditions for the successful use of ‘soft power’ in modern societies are identified and discussed.     

DECENTRING POLICY NETWORKS: A THEORETICAL AGENDA

This introduction starts by specifying the theoretical and analytical framework underpinning the range of essays in this special issue. It then provides an overview of the existing literature on policy networks and network governance in order to identify what a decentred approach might contribute. What follows is an account of decentred theory, a discussion of the potential alternatives it can offer to existing accounts and how these might be achieved through reconstructing networks by appealing to notions of situated agency and tradition; it concludes by considering the potential methodologies to be employed, with particular emphasis on ethnography.     

PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM IN DUTCH HIGHER EDUCATION: THE ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION OF THE UNIVERSITY

During the past few decades traditional state‐centred governing arrangements have been critiqued and replaced by alternative modes of governance. Higher education is one of the public sectors where such shifts in governance have been seen. As a consequence of the reshuffling of authority and responsibilities across the different levels in Dutch higher education, universities as organizations have become important foci of attention in the system’s coordination. The main question addressed in this article is to what extent we can speak of an organizational transformation of Dutch universities. Based on conceptual ideas from researchers such as Greenwood and Hinings (1996), Ferlie et al. (1996) , and Brunsson and Sahlin‐Andersson (2000) , we use a framework that focuses attention on the concepts of the construction of identity, hierarchy and rationality to systematically analyse the various aspects of transformations of professional organizations.     

WEBER AND KAFKA: THE RATIONAL AND THE ENIGMATIC BUREAUCRACY

Max Weber's and Franz Kafka's respective understandings of bureaucracy are as different as night and day. Yet, Kafka's novel The Castle is best read with Max Weber at hand. In fact, Kafka relates systematically to all the dimensions in Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy and give us a much‐contemplated parody, almost a counter‐punctual ideal type, based on four key observations: bureaucratic excesses unfold in time and space; a ‘no error’ ideology generates inescapable dilemmas; inscrutability is a life condition in bureaucracy; civil servants end up walking on the spot, just like the figures in Escher's painting: Ascending and Descending. Nevertheless, Weber and Kafka can both be right. While Kafka looks at the bureaucratic phenomenon through persons who are marginalized, Weber's perspective is historic‐comparative and top‐down. Are the observations of the one more correct than the other? The question is meaningless. As two opposite poles, Weber and Kafka ‘magnetize’ each other.     

THE INTERNET AND DEMOCRACY: THE CAUSAL LINKS BETWEEN TECHNOLOGY AND POLITICS

Abstract

This paper strives to explicate the causal links between changing technology and democratic governance. Its overarching goal is to define the relevant concepts of communication and governance and more importantly, to focus empirical observations on the critical dimensions of a multifaceted phenomenon. The analysis focuses on three key links in this causal chain. The first is the effects of technological in novation on different communication activities. The second link involves the role communication and information play in democratic governance. The final is the social and political mechanisms by which technological innovations are introduced within and transform democratic processes and institutions. We argue that a sharper understanding of these three essential links will enable the growing numbers of researchers interested in electronic democracy to employ the massive social experiment the Internet represents to clarify and further democratic theory itself.

The rise of the Internet has led to a burgeoning literature on the probable effects of emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) on democratic processes. The breadth of the debate is impressive, largely due to the complexity of democratic governance and the historic implications of the information age. Those venturing into this literature, however, are met with a confusing tangle of propositions, many of which are contradictory and all of which are interrelated in unexplicated ways. Fears of social polarization due to inequitable access to ICTs or of increasing govern-ment intrusion into our private lives are juxtaposed against the promise of rejuvenated political participation engendered by new communication channels. Visions of citizens being empowered by ubiquitous access to government information are tempered by warnings of information overload.

This paper strives to clarify the links between changing technology and democratic governance. Analysts observe technology driving a number of profound changes in our communication systems: costs are plummeting, advanced capabilities are becoming increasingly easy to use, interconnected networks enable users to access information stored on millions of computers, the Internet enables whole new populations to broadcast content, and real time as well as asynchronous multicasting support entirely new modes of communication. Unfortunately, much of the writing on electronic democracy treats technological advance as a deus ex machina inextricably leading to a certain final outcome. Critical causal links remain implicit. In what ways does the Internet improve and qualitatively change existing and already quite advanced communication systems? What specific roles do information and communication play in democratic governance? What are the social and political mechanisms by which technologies affect democratic processes and institutions?

Greater attention to these linkages is warranted for a number of reasons. Both democratic governance and modern communication systems are complex and multifaceted. Theory is needed to define the relevant concepts and to focus empirical observations on the critical dimensions of these phenomena. Moreover, the history of technological prognostication is littered with faulty predictions of the impacts of new technologies.[1] Pool, I., ed. 1977. The Social Impact of the Telephone 502Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.  [Google Scholar] These impacts only become apparent slowly over many years, and they are often small and unanticipated.[2] Abramson, J.R., Arterton, F.C. and Orren, G.O. 1988. The Electronic Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics 331New York: Basic Books. They argue that television did not significantly effect campaign politics until the late 1960s, about 20 years after the boom in television broadcasting began. See also, Berry, J.M.; Portnoy, K.E.; Thomson, K. The Rebirth of Urban Democracy; The Brookings Institution: Washington, DC, 1993; 326 pp. In their thorough examination of the effects of formal citizen participation mechanisms, they found that political institutions designed to improve communication between citizens and their local governments led to only small changes in political outcomes, processes, and citizen attitudes. [Google Scholar] Consequently, researchers require a comprehensive understanding of the phenomena under investigation to interpret the long-run implications of intermediate outcomes. Finally, with a sharper understanding of the linkages between technology and governance, researchers will be better prepared to employ the massive social experiment represented by the Internet to clarify and further democratic theory itself.

This project extends well beyond the scope of a single paper, and our aims here are accordingly modest. We do not present a grand theory of communication technology and governmental reform. Rather, we define the necessary elements of such a theory and elaborate these elements employing existing concepts from communication studies, political science, and other disciplines. The paper proceeds as follows. We begin by noting five empirical observations that must shape theory. Then we proceed to define and discuss three necessary elements of a theory of communication technology and democracy. Conclusions follow.     

POLICY NETWORKS AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN INSIDER AND OUTSIDER GROUPS: THE CASE OF THE COUNTRYSIDE ALLIANCE

Unsurprisingly, a great deal has been written about the role of interest groups in contemporary societies. Here, we focus on two sets of concepts that have had influence in the UK literature: the distinction between 'insider' and 'outsider' groups originally developed by Grant (1978, 2000) ; and the classification of policy networks developed by Marsh and Rhodes (1992 ; see also Marsh and Smith 2000). We have two aims in this article. First, we use these concepts to consider the role of the Countryside Alliance (CA) in the UK, which, at least in terms of membership numbers and media exposure, is one of the most interesting phenomena on the contemporary interest group scene. Second, we use the case study of the CA to cast light on the utility of these two sets of concepts and consider how they might be integrated. As such, this article is divided into two substantive sections. First, we identify the issues raised in the literature on, first, insider and outsider groups and, then, policy networks. In the second section we examine the role of the CA.