How much is an MPA worth? public administration education and federal career success

Using a one percent sample of federal personnel records, this paper compares the grades, salaries, job authority, and occupations of MPA-holders to those of federal employees with graduate degrees in business administration, law, the social sciences, and other fields. Even after the race, sex, experience, age, and educational levels of employees have been accounted for, a graduate degree in PA appears to increase career success more than most graduate education and at least as much as an MBA degree. PA programs remain a minor source of managerial personnel, however, and may become less important as competition with business and law schools increases.     

Comparing China’s frontier politics: how much difference did a century make?

In response to foreign demands for concessions and territories, China’s last imperial court in the early twentieth century executed reforms to strengthen fiscal, personnel, military, and cultural control over its frontier regions. However, in so doing, it provoked an awakening of the national consciousness of the elites of non-Han ethnic minorities there. Much has changed over the past 100 years regarding the governance of China’s frontier territories of Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang, with the diffusion of nationalist claims among increasing numbers of the ethnic minority populace, heightened focus of foreign actors on the humanitarian and rights situations of the ethnic minorities, and greatly extended reach and firmer grip of the central government. What remained unaltered is the “state integration” purpose of Chinese regimes, as manifested in the practices of “internal colonialism” or “ethnic assimilation,” which has led to grievances and resistance by China’s ethnic minorities against the Chinese state.     

Citizen involvement in public policy: Does it matter how much is at stake?

Public administrations increasingly try to find new ways to involve citizens in policy-making. However, many democratic innovations draw in only a fraction of the public. Why? I hypothesize that we observe such low participation rates because there is often not enough at stake for citizens. I test this with a preregistered survey experiment on citizens' intentions to participate in participatory budgets in the Netherlands. I fielded the experiment among a sample of citizens that had just experienced a participatory budget (N = 225) and among a population-based sample (N = 1369). I operationalized the stakes as the amount of public money about which citizens can decide. The results show that more money generally does not increase citizens' intention to participate. Supplementary analyses confirm the experimental findings and provide reasons how and why the stakes involved (do not) matter for citizens' involvement.     

‘Radical social democracy’: a concept that has much to say to social democrats in Turkey

This article aims to link theory and practice by connecting the experience of social democracy in Turkey with the theory of radical democracy and thereby elaborate on the notion of ‘radical social democracy’ in the sense Chantal Mouffe used the term. Parallel to the repeated electoral successes of the governing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi – AKP), the academic literature has become increasingly AKP-centred and, concomitantly, social democracy debate has become unproductive in Turkey. However, social democratic parties, notably the Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi –CHP), have been playing important roles in Turkish political life. Thus, this study endeavours to open a new window to the social democracy debate in Turkey by attracting attention to the central concepts of radical democracy such as anti-essentialism, hegemony, antagonism, collective identities, chain of equivalence, all of which are considered as functional for radical social democracy.     

“Feminists make too much noise!”: generational differences and ambivalence in feminist development politics in Ghana

Despite the crucial role feminist movements play in securing progressive development policies, legislation and socio-legal protections for women, labeling women’s rights issues as feminist has contradictory, mostly negative, effects on the women’s movement in Africa. This paper discusses research findings that show that older women (activists) are more likely to self-identify as feminists than younger women in Ghana. I argue that, while resistance to feminism may have roots in anti-imperialism, socio-cultural and economic privileges play a crucial role in such resistance at an individual level. Based on findings discussed in the paper I suggest the following. First, the perceived threat of feminism to African socio-cultural norms dialectically enhances opportunities for advancing women’s rights in development planning through a more transformative civil liberties route as opposed to a “special victims’ unit” approach. Second, further empirical research is needed to assess the impact of various intersecting variables (class, age, ethnicity, sexuality, religion and geographical location) on feminist politics in Africa.     

‘It all does not matter that much in the European Union’—Migrant Transnationalism and the Transformation of Post-Communist Citizenship Discourse

Observing a case of transnational migration between Estonia and Finland, this article investigates how the experience of living in a Western democracy alters discourses of citizenship amongst people who have been socialised into the concept while living in a post-communist country. Through a discursive approach, the article demonstrates that, notwithstanding 25 years of democratic transformation, the norms of post-communist citizenship remain different from the Western liberal and republican norms. However, European Union citizenship plays an important transforming role on the discursive level.