From Convergence to Divergence: Reforming Australian Local Government

The article maps local government reform in the six Australian states over the last decade. It identifies an earlier phase of reform that focused primarily on redefining the roles and relationships within local government, especially between state and local governments, principally through the reform of the state local government Acts. As state reform agendas have shifted more to focus on managerial improvement, significant differences between local government reforms between states have emerged, in focus, process and outcomes. These differences are such that the role of local government itself has been refocused in several states away from the traditional local democracy values that have for so long underpinned this third sphere of government.     

Inside Collaborative Networks: Ten Lessons for Public Managers

This paper offers practical insights for public managers as they work within interorganizational networks. It is based on the author's empirical study of 14 networks involving federal, state, and local government managers working with nongovernmental organizations. The findings suggest that networks are hardly crowding out the role of public agencies; though they are limited in their decision scope, they can add collaborative public value when approaching nettlesome policy and program problems.     

治理现代化视野下机关事务管理创新:从制度优势到治理效能

作为保障机关有序运行的重要制度设定,机关事务管理面多事杂任重,创新机关事务管理是实现从“制度优势”转向“治理实效”的重要一环。实现机关事务管理现代化,其本质是从“广度”到“深度”的深刻转变:新时代下的机关事务不再仅仅强调业务广度方面上的面面俱到,更期望其能在强化政府自身建设、优化政府职能等更深层面扮演积极角色。改革开放以来,我国不断推进机关事务领域改革,不仅仅是对其职能的不断调整,其本质在于对宏观行政体制变革的主动回应与渐进调试,是国家治理体系建构中的重要一环,并在此过程中逐渐形成职能现代化、体制法治化、行为职业化、能力智慧化等制度优势。基于行政管理要素构成的分析视角,职能体系、职权范围、管理体制、人力资源都将是创新机关事务管理的必要路径。     

Building Consensual Institutions: Networks and the National Estuary Program

Currently, many approaches to solving policy problems seek to create community-based, less coercive solutions that are creating the conditions for the birth of new regional governmental institutions. We argue that networks form the core of these emergent structures and that federal programs can play a positive role in developing local networks. Our empirical work compares networks in estuaries included in National Estuary Program with networks in comparable estuaries that were not. We find that the networks in NEP areas span more levels of government, integrate more experts into policy discussions, nurture stronger interpersonal ties between stakeholders, and create greater faith in the procedural fairness of local policy, thus laying the foundation for a new form of cooperative governance.     

Inside the Cartel Party: Party Organisation in Government and Opposition

This article assesses the internal dynamics of the cartel party model. It argues that a party's endeavour to increase its societal reach by opening membership boundaries while keeping candidate selection local (two tendencies ascribed to this model), and the general need to maintain party unity, are difficult to reconcile. Therefore a fully fledged cartel party is organisationally vulnerable, which reinforces its resort to selective benefits (i.e. political appointments, patronage) whenever in government to satisfy organisational demands, a trigger intensifying party–state relations which is usually overlooked. Further, the dominant view of the ascendancy of parties' 'public face' needs to be qualified: the Irish Fianna Fáil, with its permeable boundaries and local candidate selection, reflects the cartel party model without a cartel at the party system level. Majoritarian dynamics have forced Fianna Fáil repeatedly into opposition which reveals the following: Fianna Fáil as a cartel party can afford to neglect its infrastructure on the ground as long as it is controlling government resources. In opposition its leadership initiates reforms to reinvigorate the party's infrastructure since it is pressed to generate organisational support through other means than distributing benefits.     

From Blair to Brown: The Condition of British Government

Peter Hennessy examines the conduct of central government since 1997, especially Cabinet processes during the build-up to the Iraq war of 2003. He discusses the degree to which both Blair and Brown over the past months have appeared to run against aspects of the governing style of the administrations they have jointly dominated. He assesses what Gordon Brown's floated idea of a written constitution might mean in practical terms and makes a particular case for a War Powers Act.     

From Semi-presidentialism to Parliamentary Government: Political and Constitutional Developments in Finland

Within the framework of a 'mixed constitution', the Finnish political system wavered during a period of 80 years between genuine parliamentarism and effective semi-presidential rule. The new constitution, adopted in the parliament almost unanimously and carried into effect on 1 March 2000, aimed to reduce the powers of the president and to bind the exercise of the president's remaining powers more tightly to the cooperation of the parliamentary government. The constitution will act as a buffer, preventing any recurrence of the presidential activism of the 1960s and 1970s, and the political climate is in fact amenable to the further development of parliamentary modes of operation. It is clearly to be expected that the strengthening of the parliament–government axis and the reduction of the president's powers will distance the head of state from the everyday policy making and emphasize his or her role as a support of the government of the time, a moderator in conflicts and a mirror of popular opinion. In the future, the functioning of the political system will not be directed so much by reference to the political capital and personal activities of the president, but rather by reference to the parliamentary constellation, party interrelations and the ebb and flow of governing coalitions.     

新经济与政府创新

新经济作为一种最新的经济形态和发展概念已经震动了全球。虽然人们尚未能精细地描绘它的未来走向 ,但它来势凶猛 ,尤其是对现有政府职能的挑战 ,更是前所未有的。如果我们不主动去接近它 ,研究它 ,不注意迎接挑战 ,我们将很可能因为缺乏技术和精神准备而被新经济的浪潮所淹没。清晰地把握经济的特点以及它对政府职能的新要求 ,对我们来说已是一个很迫切的问题。一、新经济是以网络为基础、以技术为动力、以创新为灵魂、以全球为舞台的经济形态。首先 ,网络是新经济的主要界定因素。网络不等于互联网。网络是任何媒介点的互联组合。一个网络…     

从碎片化到整体性：基层政务服务数据的治理

大数据对社会生产生活的各个方面产生了巨大的影响,政府、企业、民众都在大数据浪潮中享受其带来的裨益,但是大数据在带来便捷的同时,也带来了挑战。在基层政务服务中数据碎片化现象尤为突出,具体表现为基层政务服务的数据烟囱化、数据丛林化和数据鸿沟化。促进基层政务服务数据从碎片化向整体性转化的数字治理工具主要有三种,即块数据、区块链和主权区块链。治理基层政务服务数据碎片化的具体路径在于:以基层政务服务数据系统化来治理数据烟囱,以基层政务服务数据集成化来治理数据丛林,以基层政务服务数据信息化来治理数据鸿沟,从而实现基层政务服务数据从碎片化到整体性的治理。     

Virtual Government: What Will Remain Inside the Public Sector?

Around the world, the public sector is changing in ways which challenge the Weberian or bureaucratic paradigm. If we are to comprehend these changes, we must abandon the binary model of public and private sectors and better understand the non-state public sector. Looking to historical and international examples, this article asks what has to remain inside the state. While acknowledging that there are significant drivers for reform, it argues that the size of government — large or small — should not be a matter of ideology.     

New-Style Councils, New-Style Councillors: From Local Government to Local Governance

The aim of this article is to contrast an empirical study on the changes in the attitudes and behaviors of local politicians with recent literature on local governance. To undertake this task, the article brings together the results of about two hundred in-depth interviews with local councillors from nine Catalan local councils over two different periods of time: 1986–1987 and 1998–1999. Through comparison with the results of the interviews carried out in the '80s and '90s, the work confirms a tendency toward change, which with a few slight adjustments, can be made to fit with those academic contributions that claim the appearance of certain strategic, pluralist, and relational styles of government.     

The Welsh Liberal Democrats: From Government to Opposition and Then Back Again?

For over 50 years from 1945 onwards, the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats were either in decline in Wales or struggling to survive from election to election. Since 1997, however, there has been a steady evolution in the party's electoral and political strength. Over this past decade, the Welsh Liberal Democrats, as a state party, have experienced a change in electoral fortunes that has on occasions put them into national political power well in advance of their federal counterparts in England. As an autonomous state party within a federal structure, the Welsh Liberal Democrats have been able to take like a duck to water to the arrival of devolution in the form of the Welsh Assembly. This article examines how the evolution of the party has occurred and, in particular, the role that has been played by the Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Members in Welsh politics. The article also explores not only the strengths but also the weaknesses that still dog the Welsh party as it seeks once more to become a major force in Welsh politics.     

Urban Government Innovation: Identifying Current Innovations and Factors that Contribute to Their Adoption

This article presents two new sets of information regarding local government innovation. Using survey techniques, the research establishes a list of 22 modern local government innovations and identifies what are considered by local government professionals to be the top three mainstream local government innovations and cities leading in their usage. The research uses statistical techniques and previous research on the topic to test what effect factors related to the 100 most populated U.S. cities have on innovation usage. Among other variables, consistency, the population size, size of the advantaged population, and number of Democratic voters are found to be positively related to innovation on usage by cities.     

政府临时机构管理与行政效率

临时机构是政府管理的重要手段,是对政府常设机构职能缺陷的一种弥补,有利于行政效率的提高.但是,临时机构的过度膨胀和管理失控,则加重了政府财政负担,反而影响了政府工作部门正常职能的发挥,降低了行政效率.因此,必须加快临时机构立法进程,规范临时机构管理;深化行政体制改革,明确临时机构作用边界;完善临时机构监管体系,提高临时机构管理透明度.