EXPERTISE AND POLICY‐MAKING: LEGAL PROFESSIONALS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Professional influence in policy‐making is generally believed to rest on professionals successfully laying claim to access to expertise – knowledge, understanding or experience – not available to others, above all politicians. On the basis of a 2005 survey of nearly 800 lawyers serving in local authorities in England and Wales, this article explores the relationship between specialization and political influence. Lawyers who shape policy use conventional routes for political influence, establish contacts with political officeholders, tend to identify less with the profession at large and are less likely to see themselves as specialists in any field of law. This means that the relationship between expertise and political power is complex and that the notion that professionals use their expertise to shape policy should be treated with some caution.     

ATTRACTION TO PUBLIC POLICY‐MAKING: A QUALITATIVE INQUIRY INTO IMPROVEMENTS IN PSM MEASUREMENT

This article presents improvements for the dimension of ‘Attraction to Public Policy‐making’ within the Public Service Motivation measurement scale. The literature concerning the theory behind this and a large number of empirical studies point out the shortcomings of this dimension with regard to both the contents and the methodology employed. This article deals in depth with the aspect of ‘Attraction to Public Policy‐making’ and, in contrast to the work carried out to date, tackles the open questions using a qualitative research strategy. The analysis of 21 partially structured interviews, which were conducted with administrative employees at the local government level, demonstrates that, while the empirical findings confirm the contents of the original dimension, the items selected for this in previous research are insufficient and can lead to measurement problems. This article suggests specific items for validation and improved measurement to be applied in future research.     

PROFESSIONALISM AND PUBLIC POLICY MAKING IN GREECE: THE INFLUENCE OF ENGINEERS IN THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORMS

The influence of Professionals in the formulation of public policies has been an issue of scientific research in the past decade. In this article we deal with a less examined as of this issue. Professional influence is analysed in the context of Greek public policy, where the intensely centralized administration is dominated by the demands of political clientelism. Focusing on the case of the influence of peers in local government reform between 1974 and 1989, the article reveals the role of Trofessiondism in the hesitant decentraiization of functions and resources to local authorities and the initiation of institutions that have allowed the birth and development of new organizations at the central and the local level. Given the shift towards partydirected patronage and the intense party politiciza-tion of professional and trade organizations, the central state aparatus and the local authorities in post-dictatorship Greece, professional influence in putlic policies is seen to be closely related to the rise of professionals in party hierarchies. The catalytic role of professionals in the promotion of reform policies reducing organizational diversity and fragmentation is understood within the context of the contradiction between the need to adapt state structures and practices in a rapidl changing international environment and the preservation of traditional political and acyministrative forces in key positions of the power structure.     

THE HISTORY OF GOVERNANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS: CONTINUITY AND EXCEPTIONS

THE HISTORY OF GOVERNANCE IN THE NETHERLANDS: CONTINUITY AND EXCEPTIONS
W.J.M. Kickert
Reed Elsevier, 2004, 121 pp., €17.85 (pb) ISBN: 9059014359     

TRANSACTIONS COSTS IN RURAL DECISION‐MAKING: THE CASES OF FUNDING AND MONITORING IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN ENGLAND

Public domain decisions in rural England have become more complex as the number of stakeholders having a say in them has increased. Transactions costs can be used to explore this increasing complexity. The size and distribution of these costs are higher in rural areas. Grouping transactions costs into four – organizations, belief systems, knowledge and information, and institutions – two of the latter are evaluated empirically: growth in the bid culture, and monitoring and evaluation. Amongst 65 Agents of Rural Governance (ARGs) in Gloucestershire, both were found to be increasing over time, but those relating to finance were a greater burden than those of monitoring: the latter can improve ARG performance. Increasing transactions costs in rural decision‐making appears to be at variance with ambitions of achieving ‘smaller government' through, for example, the Big Society. Smaller government is likely to be shifting the incidence of these costs, rather than reducing them.     

PRESENTATIONAL MANAGEMENT AND THE PURSUIT OF REGULATORY LEGITIMACY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF COMPETITION AND CONSUMER AGENCIES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND AUSTRALIA

Independent regulatory agencies, faced with multiple and often conflicting demands from regulatory stakeholders, yet operating at arm's length from government, may be under considerable pressure to demonstrate the legitimacy of their decisions and the regime they administer. This article considers how regulators employ presentational strategies to establish and maintain their legitimacy by documenting the findings of a comparative study of two independent agencies responsible for the regulation of trade practices in their respective jurisdictions: the UK Office of Fair Trading and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Its findings demonstrate that presentational activities may be an important means by which regulators give concrete expression to their obligations of transparency, promote the effectiveness of the regime they administer, and publicly demonstrate how their work serves the community. The mass media is relied upon by both agencies as the primary vehicle through which they seek to communicate to their targeted audiences and the public at large, actively seeking to manage the ambivalence that infuses the regulatory enterprise.     

THE CARTE SCOLAIRE IN FRENCH EDUCATION: A STUDY OF DECISION- MAKING IN A CENTRALIZED SYSTEM

The carte scolaire (school map) has been developed since 1963 as a device for planning long term development of educational provision at the secondary school level, down to prescribing what specialist provision should be made in individual establishments. The carte scolaire is approved by the Ministry of Education on the proposition of the Rector of the Académie (the regional authority for secondary education) and after consultation with representatives of local communities and specialist interests.
Information gained from official documents and interviews with practitioners is used to develop a detailed picture of this neglected area, and to assess the criticisms made by administrators and commentators. Particular stress is placed on examining the dominance of the technocrats, the boundaries within which the devisers of the carte scolaire operate, and the effectiveness (or otherwise) of long-term educational planning.     

SUPRANATIONAL GOVERNANCE OR NATIONAL BUSINESS‐AS‐USUAL? THE NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION OF EU STRUCTURAL FUNDS IN THE NETHERLANDS AND DENMARK

The partnership principle in EU cohesion policy was introduced in order to involve subnational authorities and interest organizations in policy formulation and implementation. In this article we examine how the member states have reacted to this call for a new way of making public policy. We argue that the multi‐level governance literature and the critics of the multi‐level governance framework have not examined implementation structures properly, but have focused on regional influence. We conduct a comparative analysis of the Dutch and Danish implementations of the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund. Our findings show that when examining implementation structures it becomes clear that member states are in full control of the re‐allocation of EU funds. They show that Denmark and The Netherlands have been able to absorb EU cohesion policy within already existing national implementation structures of labour market policies and regional development. One central theoretical implication of our study is that the focus of studies of any fundamental re‐allocation of power resources in cohesion studies should comprise the entire network of implementation rather than the strategies of its individual component actors.     

POLICY‐LEARNING AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY INTEGRATION IN THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY, 1973–2003

This article uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) ( Sabatier and Jenkins‐Smith 1999 ; Weible and Sabatier 2007 ) and a refined version of the social learning approach of Peter Hall (1993) to assess and explain policy change in the Common (Agricultural) Policy (CAP) with a special view on Environmental Policy Integration (EPI). Three stages of EPI are discerned that move from central to vertical and later horizontal EPI, complementing an impact model of agriculture and the environment with a public goods model. Reform debates appear as prolonged and iterative battles over the institutionalization of new ideas which are finally incorporated into the existing policy framework. The policy network increasingly reflects cross‐policy interdependencies and includes superior authorities, rendering the notion of a policy subsystem problematic. Contrary to the social learning model, the major (although not the most radical) change proponent dominates the policy community while superior authorities tend to intervene on behalf of the status quo. The argument is developed on the base of interviews with policy‐makers in Brussels.     

NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN ITALY AND THE NETHERLANDS: THE CASE OF ACTIVATION POLICIES

This article discusses the growing importance of operational reforms in the context of welfare state transformation processes, and the role that principles of new governance play in shaping these reforms. It focuses specifically on one social policy area considered crucial in reforming welfare states: the provision of activation services that aim at increasing the employability and labour‐market participation of people dependent on benefits or social assistance. The article argues that besides the reforms of the programmatic aspects of social policies and social services (formal policy reforms), reforms of the way in which policies and services are organized, administered and delivered (operational policy reforms) have received increasing attention as a ’second strand’ of welfare state reforms. It illustrates this by analysing and comparing reforms of the provision of activation services in two European countries: Italy and The Netherlands. The article not only reveals the growing emphasis in both countries on operational policy reforms which are to an important degree inspired by principles of new governance, but also shows significant similarities and differences in their concrete manifestations, which could be interpreted as pointing out processes of ‘path‐dependent convergence’.     

AFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AND JOB SATISFACTION: A CROSS‐NATIONAL COMPARATIVE STUDY

Public managers across countries are faced with challenges of attracting and retaining high‐quality employees in the context of widespread financial constraints and increasing inter‐sectoral competition. These changing circumstances have reinforced the need to enhance public employees' affective organizational commitment, which is related to important outcomes such as employees' performance and retention. However, we know little about the factors that can positively influence affective organizational commitment in a cross‐national context. This study applies a cross‐national comparative approach using data from four US states (Oregon, Florida, Washington, and Utah) and India to examine the factors influencing affective organizational commitment. We focus mainly on the effects of job satisfaction, which is considered to be the most important antecedent of affective organizational commitment. Our findings indicate that, in both countries' contexts, job satisfaction has a significant positive impact on affective organizational commitment. We also examine the US–India differences in the levels of affective organizational commitment. Findings indicate that, compared to the four US states of Oregon, Florida, Washington, and Utah, affective organizational commitment is significantly higher among Indian public managers.     

HOW POLICY‐MAKERS (REALLY) UNDERSTAND GLOBALIZATION: THE INTERNAL ARCHITECTURE OF ANGLOPHONE GLOBALIZATION DISCOURSE IN EUROPE

There is a growing acceptance in the literature of a potentially significant causal role for ideas about globalization in shaping the trajectory of policy and institutional reform in contemporary Europe. Yet we still know remarkably little about policy‐makers' understandings of globalization, save those they choose to declare publicly. This paper contributes to the important task of operationalizing empirically this key set of ideational variables. Using factor analysis of new survey data collected by the authors it maps and compares UK and Irish policy‐maker's understandings of, and orientations towards, globalization. The analysis reveals considerable similarities in the ordering of assumptions and attitudes towards globalization between the two country cases and between civil servants and parliamentarians. Yet it also shows some subtle and intriguing differences between policy‐makers' responses in the UK and Ireland and between elected and unelected officials. Intriguingly, it also suggests a significant disparity between politicians' private understandings and public discourses of globalization, with the former less necessitarian in tone than the latter. Above all, it suggests that Anglophone globalization discourse in Europe is principally structured in terms of a number of dimensions which relate to the acceptance or rejection of a series of core neoliberal premises. In effect, the terms and internal architecture of globalization discourse in the UK and Ireland are defined by neoliberal assumptions, to the extent that they provide the core point of reference and orientation for even the most sceptical and critical of views.     

EXPLAINING DECISION‐MAKING IN GOVERNMENT: THE NEO‐DURKHEIMIAN INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

In understanding styles of political judgement in government decision‐making, explanatory limitations of rational choice, prospect theoretic, historical institutional, groupthink, and other approaches suggest that there is space for developing other frameworks. This article argues that the neo‐Durkheimian institutional theoretical framework deserves serious consideration. It shows that it offers a powerful causally explanatory framework for generating theories of decision‐making in government which can be examined using historical comparative research designs. The value of the concept of a ‘thought style’ for understanding political judgement is demonstrated, and contrasted sharply with ideology. The theory argues that informal institutions explain thought styles. Well‐known cases from the Cuban missile crisis, and the Wilson and Heath governments illustrate the argument. The article rebuts criticisms offered of the neo‐Durkheimian institutional framework in the literature. Finally, it identifies recent developments and innovations in the approach that make it especially suited to explaining political judgement in government decision‐making.     

META‐GOVERNANCE: VALUES,NORMS AND PRINCIPLES,AND THE MAKING OF HARD CHOICES

Meta‐governance – or governance of governance – is a concept that raises questions regarding how values, norms and principles underpin governance systems and governing approaches. Values, norms and principles pertain both to substantive governance issues, for instance, related to sustainable resource use, and to governance system issues in themselves, for instance, regarding their institutional design. This article deals primarily with the latter. Thus the interactive perspective serves as basis for developing a coherent set of meta‐governance principles. We argue that an explicit, deliberated and decided upon set of meta‐governance principles as an integral part of governance can help in making hard substantive governance choices easier. Interactive learning plays a key role in governance processes when public and private governing actors have to make such hard choices. In the article, examples from natural resource governance will serve as illustrations for the more conceptual argumentation and reasoning.     

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE: A CASE STUDY IN THE USE OF PRIVATE NON-PROFIT MAKING ORGANIZATIONS IN THE PROVISION OF WELFARE BENEFITS

Some of the key features of co-operation between the State and other sectors (private, voluntary and informal) in providing welfare benefits are illustrated in the experience of the National Health Insurance scheme which operated in this country between 1911 and 1948. This is the only example in the UK of a major welfare scheme operating over a considerable period which utilized private, if non-profit making, organizations as responsible agents for administration. Under the scheme certain categories of working people were compelled to insure themselves against sickness. The scheme was administered and benefits paid through a multiplicity of independent 'approved societies', with insured people free to choose which society they belonged to. Contributions were paid by employers as well as employees, with a state subsidy on top. This study indicates that any future development of joint welfare provision with the private sector must overcome certain inherent divergencies in values between the public and private sectors.