Executive-Led Governance or Executive Power ‘Hollowed-Out’—The Political Quagmire of Hong Kong

New Zealand has long enjoyed a reputation as a country with a corruption‐free state sector. However, social change and the state sector reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, have rendered that status less secure. While hard‐core corruption does not yet appear to be a major problem, what constitutes corruption can be a function of changing public perceptions and attitudes. Four main types of behaviour of public officials are identified, all of which have a bearing on how corruption is perceived. In New Zealand, there is casual evidence that hard‐core corruption might be more common today than in the past, but the official attitude to the possibility of it increasing seems to be overly sanguine, partly as a result of a very narrow definition of corruption. Vigilance could be enhanced by a stronger role for Parliament's agency, the Office of the Controller and Auditor‐General.     

A rise of state activism in a competitive industry: The case of Russian retail trade law of 2009

The paper is aimed at exploring the Russian state return to the highly competitive industry of retail trade by adopting restrictive industry-specific legislation in 2009. We reveal a new precedent model of governance using the liberal rhetoric of the competition protection to justify intervention in interfirm contractual relations. We use survey data collected from 843 retailers and suppliers in 2013 to demonstrate that the new legislation had not achieved the proclaimed goals. The paper concludes that instead of market facilitation, the new state activism leads to the further suppression of business and the subversion of antimonopoly policy.     

The Toxic Politics of Bangladesh: A Bipolar Competitive Neopatrimonial State?

In order to understand the structural dimensions of the problems concerning democratic governance in Bangladesh, this article seeks to explicate whether or not Bangladesh is a neopatrimonial state. This article examines contemporary Bangladesh politics with a particular focus on the notion of neopatrimonialism and with special reference to the personalization of state power. The concept of neopatrimonialism has great utility in explaining leadership behaviour in a dysfunctional democracy such as Bangladesh, where personalized exchanges, exploitation of bureaucratic and state mechanisms and political scandals are common. I argue that Bangladesh is a special variant of the neopatrimonial state, which I suggest to be bipolar neopatrimonialism. I contend that since independence, successive governments and political leaders always attempt to monopolize state power in various ways. The patron-client society of Bangladesh helps political leaders to personalize the state power they possess. To monopolize state power, the political elites of Bangladesh create networks and alliances, relying on exchanges to meet their objectives. In this regard, state elites use elements of the state and political system to mediate these exchanges.     

Institutions and Development in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis

We review the theoretical literature on the concept of institutions and its relationship to national development, propose a definition of the concept, and advance six hypotheses about institutional adequacy and contributions to national development. We then present results of a comparative empirical study of existing institutions in three Latin American countries and examine their organizational similarities and differences. Employing the qualitative comparative method (QCA) proposed by Ragin, we then test the six hypotheses. Results converge in showing the importance of meritocracy, immunity to corruption, absence of “islands of power,” and proactivity in producing effective institutions. Findings strongly support Peter Evans’ theory of developmental apparatuses.

The Relationship Between State Government Performance and State Quality of Life

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between government performance and quality of life in the American states. We contend that the management capacity of state governments should have direct, tangible impacts on the overall social and economic well‐being of state citizenry. In order to test this idea, we examine the influence of state management capacity (using the 1999 Government Performance Project grades), alongside other economic and political variables, on two prominent measures of state quality of life—The Morgan Quitno “Most Livable State” Index and State Policy Reports' (SPP) “Camelot Index.” We find that both state economic conditions and governmental policy priorities have significant impacts on state performance levels. But, our results clearly indicate that the management capacity of state governments also contributes directly to improving the overall quality of life for state citizens.     

Westminster constitutions in the South Pacific: A “policy transfer” approach

Constitutional crises in Fiji and Solomon Islands and donor concerns about “good governance” raise older questions about the appropriateness of introduced constitutions to local conditions. This article analyses the process of transfer of “Westminster” constitutions in island states of the Pacific. It considers the factors that facilitated or constrained transfer into and within the region. It also considers cases where alternatives to Westminster were considered but rejected by the local leaders. The article concludes that Westminster has been spread by replication, almost irrespective of underlying social and political conditions.     

The Limits of Governance: How Far Does Policy Analysis Travel in International Relations?

ABSTRACT

This article retraces the mutual rapprochement between Policy Analysis and International Relations and addresses its limits. Looking beyond the circle of advanced liberal-democratic economies, three limits are discussed: the need to specify the prerequisites of different modes of governance; to consider the relations of power and domination in these processes; and to look beyond regulatory issues at the political and societal conflicts surrounding policy diffusion.     

Citizen Participation in Governance Through Representation: Issue of Gender in East Asia

Abstract

In the modern age, although East Asia represents some of the most successful economies such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and (now) China, the level of political and administrative development in the region remains controversial. One of the major indicators of such politico‐administrative development is the extent of citizen participation in governance through various democratic means, including the formation and expression of public opinion, people's involvement in government decisions and deliberations, and direct representation of citizens in governing institutions. However, the direct representation of citizens is considered one of the most effective modes of participation in institutions such as legislature, cabinet, and bureaucracy. In this regard, although the representation of women in these governing institutions has gained global significance, it still remains relatively weak in most East Asian cases. This article evaluates the extent of such women's participation in governance through representation in East Asia, examines the major factors constraining this representation, and suggests remedial alternatives to improve the situation.     

Reforming Sticky Institutions: Persistence and Change in Turkish Agriculture

The recent revival of interest in institutions in development studies favors the analysis of macroinstitutions and questions of institutional origination and change. But a strong emphasis on mid-range, sectoral arrangements, and a refined notion of continuity, can also improve our understanding of institutions in late developers—one by facilitating a thick view of institutions while offering a sharp perspective on the current institutional reform agenda, and the other by casting new light on instances of irregular change and failed or partial reform. The trajectory of Turkey’s agricultural support regime is used as a case to substantiate this argument. Building on an analytic distinction between resilience and persistence, the article explains the dynamic continuity of populist-corporatist forms of market governance in Turkish agriculture, despite the neoliberalism of the 1980s and 1990s and radical institutional reform efforts of the 2000s.

Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics

Important research programs within New Institutional Economics advance culturalist arguments to explain failures of economic development. Focusing on the work of Douglass C. North and Avner Greif, this article argues that such arguments rely on an essentialist conception of culture that is both historically inaccurate and analytically misleading. Greif’s work in particular rests on a selective use of empirical data that ultimately distorts the deductive models that are at the core of his work. As a result, both scholars use culture to account for outcomes that are more adequately explained as the product of social conflict and political struggles—struggles in which culture plays a far more contingent and destabilizing role than the one they attribute to it. What is needed, I argue, is to link arguments about the persistence of inefficient institutions with a sociologically informed conception of culture as an ensemble of resources that enhance rather than constrain the scope of individual agency. To come to terms with the effects of culture on institutional formation and change it is necessary to replace the essentialism articulated by North and Greif with a strategic-instrumentalist view in which culture is compatible with a wide spectrum of economic behaviors, individual actions, and thus institutional trajectories.