Administrative responsibility in a developing country: Theoretical considerations and the case of Zambia

Administrative weaknesses in post colonial Africa have not commonly been assessed against notions of responsibility. Regarded as involving both institutionalized controls and moral obligations, responsibility provides a useful means of assessing the limitations and weaknesses of administration. Having elucidated the ideal of responsibility, the article takes Zambia as illustrating a situation present in different third world countries where administration is unsatisfactory judged against the ideal. Weaknesses are elaborated and the reasons for failures discussed. Emphasis is placed on the overcentralization of control in the person of the President and the failure in staff development and training to recognize the importance of encouraging a sense of moral obligation and the undue emphasis on management techniques.     

TICOM: The Last Great Secret of World War II

Recent releases from the National Security Agency reveal details of TICOM, the mysterious 1945 operation targeting Germany's cryptologic secrets. Often mentioned by such authors as Kahn, Bamford, Parrish and Aldrich, for the first time the public has access to this information. This article provides a review in greater depth than has been previously covered in the open literature of the history of the TICOM operation, and its resulting intelligence, including the Germans' efforts against Soviet communications. In addition, some comments are provided on why TICOM has remained classified long after other similar information from World War II was declassified, and why locating TICOM documents is still difficult.     

Public affairs in China: exploring the role of brand fairness perceptions in the case of Mercedes‐Benz

Mr Sheng Wang demonstrated his perception of Mercedes‐Benz's unfair treatment and insensitivity to Chinese buyers by having his Mercedes sports coupe towed by a water buffalo through his Chinese hometown, Wuhan. But he did not stop there. Next, he ordered workers, specifically hired for this purpose, to pound the car with sledge hammers and sticks until the exterior was completely disfigured. Journalists love the story's inherent drama, and in subsequent days, media reports showed images of the car being towed and ultimately smashed. The event created strong public awareness about both Mr Wang's dissatisfaction about the treatment he received from Mercedes‐Benz and the subsequent Mercedes‐Benz's management reactions triggered by the event. In our paper, we explore this case in more detail, highlighting the crucial role of brand fairness in managing brands in China. Although brand managers implicitly emphasize the importance of fairness in branding strategies, brand management emphasizing fairness is an underdeveloped research concept. Our paper provides an understanding of theories and concepts of brand (un)fairness and brand fairness management illustrated by what we refer to as the Mercedes‐Benz case. We identify three dimensions of Brand Fairness Management: prevention, procedures, and outcomes. This framework will assist brand managers in China in developing successful brand fairness strategies and management programs. We posit that implementing these branding practices will increase the likelihood that consumers perceive the brand in question as fair, leading to an increase in loyalty and positive word‐of‐mouth. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Climate change,markets and standards: the case of financial accounting

Abstract

The paper examines unresolved attempts since 2005 to develop financial accounting standards for greenhouse gas emission allowances. It is a detailed empirical case study into how the large-scale experiment of carbon markets has manifested in a particular area of professional expertise – financial accounting. Theories about the role of standards usefully draw attention to the hidden work of standards in society and help explain why some things are difficult to standardise. However, there are notable gaps in conceptualising how standards are integral to wider processes of policy and technology change. Ideas from governmentality and hybrid markets (agencements) are therefore used to explore further the role of standards within markets, and provide a welcome avenue for thinking afresh about the relationship between climate change and standards.     

Development problems and planning in a resource-poor Pacific country: The case of Tuvalu

Tuvalu is an independent microstate and this account of its economic circumstances and prospects provides the context for discussion of administrative problems. The paper outlines the economic structure of the country and examines its economic resources and their potential; demographic trends are given attention, and the country's heavy dependence on foreign aid is explained. These features carry implications for the forms of public administration and development planning, and Tuvalu's current development plan and aspects of its public administration are discussed with this in mind. The article serves as a case study of the economy of a micro state and implications for administration in such a state.     

Surviving local government policy intervention: the case of embedded markets within a historical cultural cluster

China's name derives from “china” (porcelain), and “China” (pronounced as “Changnan”) is the former name of Jingdezhen, the capital city of porcelain—through whose exports of “blue‐and‐white” china the country gained international renown. The 2200‐year‐old porcelain cluster in Jingdezhen has survived through multiple empires with distinct policies towards the development of the city's dominant industry. This in‐depth case study examines interactions between local government and the business community to discover the effectiveness of policies and the perception of those policies by entrepreneurs through qualitative research employing Grounded Theory methodology. The centralized institutional structure in China contributes significantly to the findings of a total split of “government action” from “public perception” and leads to new considerations for policy‐makers to redesign their economic development strategies and plans to engender real effects in the desired direction. This paper also provides an exemplary lesson for historical cultural clusters seeking to escape from unfavorable policy interference. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public policy and privatisation: the case of the Qatari experience

This article uses a qualitative methodology employing the elite model to describe and analyse the complex interplay of political and economic factors in the privatization experience of the state of Qatar. The article begins by providing a theoretical framework for privatisation in the context of public policy and classifying policies of privatisation into two categories: macro‐ and micro‐privatisation. The second part uses this framework to discuss the factors that gives the Qatari experience its distinguished flavour. These factors include: elite legitimacy and social culture, bureaucratic power, international pressure and patron–client networks. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shot by the Messenger: Partisan Cues and Public Opinion Regarding National Security and War

Research has shown that messages of intra-party harmony tend to be ignored by the news media, while internal disputes, especially within the governing party, generally receive prominent coverage. We examine how messages of party conflict and cooperation affect public opinion regarding national security, as well as whether and how the reputations of media outlets matter. We develop a typology of partisan messages in the news, determining their likely effects based on the characteristics of the speaker, listener, news outlet, and message content. We hypothesize that criticism of a Republican president by his fellow partisan elites should be exceptionally damaging (especially on a conservative media outlet), while opposition party praise of the president should be the most helpful (especially on a liberal outlet). We test our hypotheses through an experiment and a national survey on attitudes regarding the Iraq War. The results show that credible communication (i.e., “costly” rhetoric harmful to a party) is more influential than “cheap talk” in moving public opinion. Ironically, news media outlets perceived as ideologically hostile can actually enhance the credibility of certain messages relative to “friendly” news sources.

Responding to War on Capitol Hill: Battlefield Casualties,Congressional Response,and Public Support for the War in Iraq

Recent scholarship argues that how members of Congress respond to an ongoing war significantly influences the president's strategic calculations. However, the literature is comparably silent on the factors influencing the public positions members take during the course of a military venture. Accounting for both national and local electoral incentives, we develop a theory positing that partisanship conditions congressional responses to casualties in the aggregate, but that all members respond to casualties in their constituency by increasingly criticizing the war. Analyzing an original database of more than 7,500 content‐coded House floor speeches on the Iraq War, we find strong support for both hypotheses. We also find that Democrats from high‐casualty constituencies were significantly more likely to cast antiwar roll‐call votes than their peers. Finally, we show that this significant variation in congressional antiwar position taking strongly correlates with geographic differences in public support for war.     

Internal markets in the public sector: the case of the British National Health Service

This article discusses the application of internal markets to the publicly financed British National Health Service (NHS). The objective of internal markets is to obtain, through the stimulus of competition, greater efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness to consumer needs than would be obtained through continued direct government provision. There have been real advances in the NHS attributable to the internal market, not the least of which is a growth of debate, dynamism, experimentation, and entrepreneurial attitudes that contrasts sharply with the glacial pace of change prior to 1990. However, there is also a sense in which the reforms have, thus far, failed to achieve all their promoters hoped for. It is far from clear that efficiency gains exceed the high transaction costs associated with the reform. Competition remains restricted, information is inadequate, and the regulatory and legal framework is flawed. Lack of transparency and a clear publicly stated ‘end vision’ of the reform process, together with a refusal to evaluate it systematically, have heightened already intense controversy. This has blurred the fact that the internal market is not a panacea and cannot alone be expected to solve the problems of a health service where demand is accelerating faster than the resources available through taxation. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

War crimes prosecutors and intelligence agencies: the case for assessing their collaboration

Whilst recognizing important distinctions between different types of intelligence agency, and a range of possible contradictions between the imperatives governing the two types of agency, it is necessary to overcome the one-side quality of much existing literature, whose critique of the subversion of the rule of law by intelligence agencies tends to preclude any appreciation that such agencies can play a supportive role for war crimes prosecutors. This article challenges the assumption that analysis of the histories of Western intelligence agencies and the study of war crimes trials must be studied as entirely separate and sharply demarcated fields of inquiry; it advocates an interdisciplinary research programme, informed by a series of indepth historical case studies, capable of addressing issues arising from the interaction between these two institutional fields. The proposed research agenda could illuminate aspects of the contemporary role – and future potential of both intelligence agencies and war crimes prosecution bodies. It would investigate tensions between the prosecutors need to employ intelligence agencies to gather trial credible evidence and detain indicted defendants, often by covert and legally questionable means, and the constitutional justifications for holding war crimes trials by reference to the need to reassert the rule of law in the wake of lawless genocide.     

Early warning versus concept: the case of the Yom Kippur War 1973

This article begins with a definition of the terms ‘early warning’ and ‘surprise’, and examines whether the failure of Israeli Intelligence to warn Israeli decision-makers in 1973 conforms to these definitions. After examining the conventions of Israeli military intelligence regarding anticipating a surprise, and the conceptions on which these were based, the article demonstrates how events in late 1973 indicated a possible Arab attack on Israel, but also the manner in which the Concept used to measure these warnings proved more resilient than the warnings. Discussions in the few days preceding war, when information was accumulating, are subjected to particular attention. The development of a sub-conception, with the original framework allowed and changed the forecast from ‘no war’ to ‘low probability' of war. The persistence of the Concept is attributed to both strategic intelligence and also to the doctrine of deterrence. Like deterrence, intelligence success is hard to measure. One can never be sure that a surprise attack has been prevented as a result of early warning.     

Pressure-group influence and institutional change: Branch-banking legislation during the Great Depression

Between 1931 and 1935 the change in the state laws governing the organizational structure of banking was significant. Twenty-two states relaxed restrictions over branch banking, even though many had previously prohibited it. We apply a model of pressure-group and rent-seeking behavior to investigate the reasons underlying this remarkable shift in the institutional arrangements for regulating the structure of the banking industry. The findings indicate that the extraordinarily high rate of bank failures tipped the political balance toward the pro-branching forces in many states. However, in a number of states growth in the influence of branch and group bankers and increases in urbanization were largely responsible for the relaxation of restrictions over branch banking.