Is the Future of SSR non-linear?

This article explores issues around security sector reform (SSR) and the involvement of the international community in peace-building. It argues that the international architecture which surrounds SSR privileges a particular form of knowledge that reflects a technocratic approach to security, and illustrates this by systematically examining the literature. Research on the literature itself shows that three core themes dominate: state-centric approaches, technocratic approaches, and approaches to local ownership. These comprise a current, linear approach to SSR that ignores much of the critical literature on peace-building. The article then goes on to draw on some of this critical literature to develop an alternative approach to SSR building using a non-linear approach which incorporates a better understanding of institutional politics, an emphasis on process rather than structures, and analysis of hidden politics.     

The Twilight of Westminster? Electoral Reform and its Consequences

The UK political system has long exemplified 'majoritarian' or 'Westminster' government, a type subsequently exported to many Commonwealth countries. The primary advantage of this system, proponents since Bagehot have argued, lie in its ability to combine accountability with effective governance. Yet under the Blair administration, this system has undergone a series of major constitutional reforms, perhaps producing the twilight of the pure Westminster model. After conceptualizing the process of constitutional reform, this paper discusses two important claims made by those who favor retaining the current electoral system for Westminster, namely that single-member districts promote strong voter-member linkages and generate greater satisfaction with the political system. Evidence testing these claims is examined from comparative data covering 19 nations, drawing on the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. The study finds that member-voter linkages are stronger in single member than in pure multimember districts, but that combined districts such as MMP preserve these virtues. Concerning claims of greater public satisfaction under majoritarian systems, the study establishes some support for this contention, although the evidence remains limited. The conclusion considers the implications of the findings for debates about electoral reform and for the future of the Westminster political system.     

The Worst of All Worlds? Electoral Reform and Britain's 2009 European Elections

At the 2009 European elections, Britain again elected its MEPs under the 'closed list' system of proportional representation (PR)—the third time it had done so since 1999. This article looks at claims that these elections vindicated PR by producing a 'fairer' relationship between the parties' share of votes and their share of seats, a truer reflection of diverse political allegiance in modern Britain, and (thanks to multi-member constituencies) a more efficient and sensitive system for representing voters. However, the article will also inspect the idea that the case for electoral reform was gravely weakened by the 2009 Euro elections. It will recall how PR again failed to boost turnout, again employed a method of counting that most voters did not understand, and again involved constituencies too large for meaningful representation. Furthermore, it will recall that PR allowed the election of two MEPs from the far-right British National Party. (With just 6% of votes, it is unlikely that the BNP would have secured seats under Britain's traditional electoral system.) The article will argue that, as a result, PR has had a centrifugal effect on the British party system and, potentially, a polarising effect on our political culture. Consequently, the article will assert that, owing to the success of the BNP in 2009, arguments about PR for Westminster have been 'ideologically neutralised'. The article will thus suggest that we can now take a more objective view of hung Parliaments and coalitions (the likely effects of PR at general elections), free from the assumption that they entrench centrist governments and progressive politics.     

Sharing the Rewards,Dividing the Costs? The Electoral Consequences of Social Pacts and Legislative Reform in Western Europe

Do electoral pressures provide an explanation for why governments offer pacts to unions and employers rather than acting through legislation when faced with the need to pass potentially unpopular reforms to welfare policies, wages, and labour markets? This article addresses that question by analysing whether governments’ pursuit of pacts affects their vote share and increases the probability that they gain re-election for 16 West European countries between 1980 and 2012. It is found that the presence of social pacts has a significant and positive effect on incumbents’ vote shares at the next election and also results in a higher probability of re-election. These results are conditioned by government type: While all types of governments benefit electorally from pacts, the electoral penalties from the pursuit of unilateral legislation on policy reforms harm single-party majorities the most, minority governments moderately, and coalition majorities the least.     

Elite Influence? Religion and the Electoral Success of the Nazis

In Weimar Germany, the Catholic Church vehemently warned ordinary parishioners about the dangers of extremist parties. We establish that constituencies' religious composition is a key empirical predictor of Nazi vote shares—dwarfing the explanatory power of any other demographic or socioeconomic variable. Even after carefully accounting for observational differences, Catholics were far less likely to vote for the NSDAP than their Protestant counterparts. The evidence suggests that this disparity was, in large part, due to the sway of the Catholic Church and its dignitaries. At the same time, we show that attempts to immunize Catholics against the radical left failed to achieve the desired result. To explain the puzzling asymmetry in the Church's influence at the ballot box, we develop a simple theoretical framework of elite influence in electoral politics.     

Conclusion: The Future of Belgian Federalism—Between Reform and Swansong?

This article summarizes the main arguments of the special issue. It also probes into the deficiencies of the Belgian federal system and argues that the most recent crisis of Belgian federalism (2007–11) is not the result of rising socio-economic differences between Flanders and Wallonia, but the consequence of building a bipolar federation on to a split party system. The article concludes by identifying some potential roadmaps (federal reform, confederalism, and the referendum) for the future.     

The Future of Leadership in Public Universities: Is Shared Leadership the Answer?

Leadership of public universities has come under fire—from scandals, from funding, from students, from every direction. Top‐down leadership of institutions of higher education has been described as a “disease.” Shared governance—a mechanism of faculty representation in the leadership and decision‐making processes—a seeming alternative, has been described as “a recipe for paralysis.” In this article, the authors proffer shared leadership as a potential elixir for leading public institutions of higher learning, unleashing creative potential, focusing on pressing strategic imperatives, and enabling sustainable systems that leverage true talent to maximum effect. It is time to move beyond the moribund myth of top‐down heroic leadership and beyond the bureaucratic, political quagmire of the current state of affairs in shared governance. Is shared leadership the answer?      

Does Partisan Self-interest Dictate Support for Election Reform? Experimental Evidence on the Willingness of Citizens to Alter the Costs of Voting for Electoral Gain

Political Behavior - Elite support for modifying electoral institutions and policies generally depends on whether a proposed change is expected to improve their party’s electoral prospects....     

How do Voters' Strategic Behaviors Mediate the Impact of Electoral Systems on the Effective Number of Electoral Parties? An Experimental Study

This article presents the results of an experiment that looks at the relationship between electoral systems, strategic voting and the effective number of electoral parties. The study is based on experiments conducted with groups of 21 participants. The experiments consisted of a series of elections involving four parties. Two main treatments were applied. First, four different voter distributions were created. Second, there were two kinds of electoral systems under which the subjects voted. The analysis indicates that voters do not coordinate on the same parties under different electoral rules. Importantly, we find that the classic type of strategic voting identified by Duverger (1954 Duverger, Maurice (1954) Political Parties (New York: Wiley). [Google Scholar]) is reinforced by a different type of strategic voting identified by Cox (1997 Cox, Gary W. (1997) Making Votes Count – Strategic Coordination in the World’s Electoral Systems (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), namely “strategic amplifying voting”. The results show that classic strategic voting reduces the effective number of electoral parties while strategic amplifying voting increases the latter. Overall, we show that voters' strategic behaviors mediate the impact of the electoral system on the effective number of electoral parties.     

Which Electoral Formula Is the Most Proportional? A New Look with New Evidence

A ranking exists in electoral systems research of differentelectoral formulas—the mathematical functions governingthe conversion of votes into legislative seats—in termsof both proportionality of seats and votes and favorabilityto the largest party. I reexamine this issue with new methodsand new evidence, attempting to cross-validate previous rankingsusing a larger and more controlled data set and more preciseparametric methods than have been applied previously. The resultsby and large confirm previous knowledge but also illuminateseveral important new facets obscured in previous investigations.For example, at common ranges of district magnitude (from 5to 15 seats), it is shown that electoral formula may matterat least as much as district magnitude in shaping proportionality.     

Is the Relationship Between Political Responsibility and Electoral Accountability Causal,Adaptive and Policy-Specific?

Political Behavior - Will voters hold an incumbent more electorally accountable for the quality of a policy outcome if the incumbent’s political responsibility for the underlying policy...     

Security Sector Reform,Statebuilding and Local Ownership: Securing the State or its People?

It is widely acknowledged that while local ownership is one of the core principles of successful Security Sector Reform (SSR) programmes, the concept is narrowly interpreted in terms of who owns what. Moreover, the focus of SSR is often on building state institutions, rather than building the relationship between people and the state, which further limits the extent to which people, particularly at the community level, are engaged in SSR processes. It is argued that without ensuring meaningful and inclusive local ownership of SSR programmes, public trust and confidence in state security and justice sector institutions will be limited. Crucially, this will leave the state vulnerable to renewed outbreaks of conflict. To rectify this it is proposed that a hybrid SSR approach be promoted by incorporating community safety structures into SSR programmes.     

Is Activity-Based Costing Up to the Challenge When It Comes to Privatization of Local Government Services?

After its initial success in the private sector, activity-based costing (ABC) has been embraced by the public sector as an analytical tool that can be used to improve the efficiency of government operations, especially in the area of the privatization of operations. Despite claims that ABC can greatly enhance the evaluation of how to most efficiently deliver services, there are significant obstacles that must be overcome before ABC can be effectively implemented. In order to underscore the challenges facing successful ABC execution in the public sector, the use of activity-based cost accounting by the City of Indianapolis for its privatization initiatives is discussed. Generally ABC is not up to challenge of providing local governments with the tool necessary to comprehensively evaluate direct services and determine which are candidates for contracting out or privatization.     

Does Choice Bring Loyalty? Electoral Participation and the Development of Party Identification

Party identification is known to influence almost all aspects of political life. How this attachment develops across the adult life cycle, however, remains unknown. I argue that people reinforce their partisan predispositions by voting for their preferred party. Voting entails a choice over a set of alternatives. This choice is likely to induce rationalization. In so doing, it provides signals of group identity, which in turn strengthens people's partisan ties. Testing this hypothesis is made difficult because it implies a reciprocal relationship between partisanship and vote choice. I address this problem by using vote eligibility as an instrument of vote in a sample of almost equally aged respondents. The results indicate that elections fortify prior partisan orientations. Moreover, they do so not by increasing political information. Rather, it is the act of voting for a party that, itself, bolsters partisan attachment. This act leaves a long‐lasting imprint on people's partisan outlooks.     

What Future for the Ombudsman?

The ombudsman institution, in both the public and private sectors, is increasingly identified with the ethos of consumerism and the protection of consumer rights. The current trend is exemplified and reinforced by the EU ADR Directive and by the government response to a recent inquiry into complaints conducted by the Public Administration Select Committee. This article argues that the dominant consumerist ethos diminishes the ability of the ombudsman institution to fulfil its potential. If the ombudsman institution, in particular as manifest in the office of the UK Parliamentary Ombudsman, is to serve the public interest, it must instead promote human rights principles and constitutional morality, adopt a process that is marked by public reasoning and participation and seek by a whole‐system approach to realise a vision that is integrated and truly democratic.     

All Aboard? Evidence-Based Management and the Future of Management Scholarship

ABSTRACT

The research-practice gap has emerged as an acute problem in management scholars' internal professional debates. Evidence-based management (EBM) has been proposed as a remedy, and it is gaining adherents. This article offers a critical examination of the EBM proposal and its justification. The proposal is found to be poorly conceived and justified. Therefore, a search for a different response to the same concerns is in order. The direction of search is to understand how existing scholarly practices offer advice to actors in managerial roles. While advice-giving scholarly practices are diverse and disconnected, a commonality is that they define design issues and offer value- and knowledge-based argumentation schemes for resolving them. An alternative to EBM can be envisioned: to strengthen the management field's network of design-oriented approaches to advice-giving. By employing the unorthodox style of a dialogue, this article shows how common ground about EBM and its alternatives can be established among management scholars who identify with conflicting intellectual traditions.     

The Next 100 Years? Reflections on the Future of Intelligence

Abstract

A growing interest in the history of intelligence might be a way to learn more about not only the past, but also the dynamics shaping the future of intelligence. Intelligence is an evolving activity and the twentieth-century experience must be regarded as a phase in an ongoing transformation of its institutions, methods and roles. At least six fundamental processes can be identified as relevant to this re-shaping of intelligence in long perspective; the decreasing hegemony of national intelligence, the rise of new fields of knowledge with intelligence relevance, the diminishing relative importance of exclusive sources and methods, the rise of new actors producing and providing intelligence, the loss of an intellectual monopoly in a competitive knowledge environment and finally an increasing demand for reliable assessments and verification in a fragmented world of information.     

How Does Islamist Local Governance Affect the Lives of Women?

How do women fare under rule by Islamists? Whereas some scholarly work suggests that Islamists are effective at providing the type of social services that benefit women most, other studies contend that Islamic groups support “pro‐male” policies and cultural interventions that disadvantage the well‐being of women. In order to adjudicate between these views, I compare two neighborhoods in Greater Cairo that are similar on a number of dimensions but in one, a militant Islamist group came to dominate local politics, whereas in the other, strongmen ruled the streets in the absence of a strong state presence. Using an original data set of retrospective health histories for women in each neighborhood, I find that women subject to governance by the Islamic group enjoyed better outcomes related to reproductive health than a statistically matched set of women in the comparable neighborhood while being no more likely to marry early or drop out of school.