Winners and losers: Conflict management through strategic policy engagement

In high-conflict policy debates, individuals often make strategic decisions about the ways in which they engage in efforts to influence the direction of the debate. Some individuals act to expand the scope of the conflict, whereas others would prefer to contain the scope of the conflict and maintain status quo. This study empirically examines the relationship between activities of political engagement and goals of conflict expansion or containment in a particular setting in which there are clear “winners” and “losers.” This research first explores the tactics an individual undertakes as either conflict expansion or containment. The patterns uncovered are then tested against sectoral affiliation, to draw conclusions about key factors that explain some variation in policy engagement. Findings confirm that there are predictable patterns to engagement decisions, paving the way for future testing in different policy arrangements.     

Challenges of managing local elections in transitional and developing countries: an illustrative essay

The purpose of this investigation into local elections in developing and transitional countries is to highlight typical challenges to the management of local elections, emphasizing the difficulties that appear to be peculiar to local as opposed to national elections; and help explain why they often turn out to be more difficult to manage than national elections, are of less interest to the public, and often less satisfactory in outcome. It gives attention first to differentiating between categories of subnational elections, and then deals with a number of problems faced in local elections. These are size, scale and complexity of managing such elections, lack of public interest, potential for local manipulation, challenges to fair or adequate media coverage and campaign finance arrangements. The article sets out to challenge simplification and optimism about local elections in developing and transitional societies. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The strategic management challenge: Modernizing local government. Part two

As local government undergoes internal modernization, it faces the challenge of strategic management. This challenge includes the need to coordinate the newly decentralized elements of government; the need for organizational development and cultural change, so that values and behavior within the organization keep pace with structural developments; and the need to manage uncertainty, as local governments face an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing environment. Empirical studies show that strategic management capabilities have not developed evenly across a broad international sample of reform cities. However, the successful program in Christchurch, New Zealand, offers suggestions for other cities.     

Transitioning policy: co-production of a new strategic framework for energy innovation policy in the Netherlands

This article describes policy–science interactions in a transition process in which we were involved as scientists. We describe the interactions that occurred in a project for the fourth National Environmental Policy Plan in the Netherlands. The project was successful in that it produced a new concept and set of principles for policy to deal with persistent problems such as global climate change, which were used in the national policy plan. The new concept was that of transition and the principles were: policy integration, long-term thinking for short-term action, keeping multiple options open and learning-by-doing and doing-by-learning. Retrospectively, we ask ourselves: what factors facilitated the acceptance of the first ideas about transition management? Reconstructing the events and drawing on interviews with key individuals involved, we have tried to find the key factors for the adoption of the ideas developed in the project. Finally, we reflect upon our role as scientists-advisors and the role of others in the development of a new story line and set of principles for policy. Our own assessment, 8 years later, is that we were engaged in boundary work.     

Review essay: Spaces of political possibility

Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. David Harvey, 1996. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 468 pp. £12.99 paperback. ISBN: 1 55786 681 3     

Campfire decision-making and strategic management: A politics and leadership approach to economic development

Privatization is recommended unconditionally by some scholars as the optimal means for achieving economic development. While privatization can be helpful medicine, it provides no universal cure for all the ills associated with low economic growth. A country's economic and political institutions are intertwined. Mandating privatization without being mindful of both political and economic consequences to such a policy can bring undesirable consequences during and after policy implementation. This paper proposes that to enhance the likelihood of economic growth a leader should blend economics with politics. Sensitive political leadership can stimulate a bonding among citizens, a bonding which can generate the commitment to risk by investing personal savings, to work the long hours which much precede the rewards, and often to be satisfied by a job well done rather than with material reward. Analogous to the chief executive officer of a successful corporation, the effective political leader involves stakeholders, steers decision processes, takes reasonable risks, encourages private investment, and rations public resources according to national priorities. Collective decision-making guided by the political leader, who also acts as a strategic manager during implementation, is offered as a model for development.     

Participatory environmental management: Contradiction of process,project and bureaucracy in the Himalayan foothills

Using comparative Asian experience of organizational change, this article analyses the experience of an Indian organization responsible for environmental management in the Himalayan foothills of Uttar Pradesh (UP) in moving from a standard Indian public sector approach to rural development and environmental management, to a new participatory approach. Successive World Bank funded watershed management projects in the Himalayan foothills were widely held not to have achieved and sustained their full potential in the past, largely due to an absence of effective local management of assets after the projects' end. On the other hand communities and groups have shown on a small scale a capacity to manage resources in a sustainable way. The Government of Uttar Pradesh's (UP) European Union (EU) funded Doon Valley Project has been through a first phase in which a participatory method of village level planning has been initiated. The article addresses the required changes and constraints involved in this first step of transformation. These include issues to do with organizational structure and procedures, training, gender and other social issues, and the dynamics of organizational change. The implications of a participatory approach are far reaching. The ‘off the shelf’ schemes that Government has offered to individuals, groups and communities in all watershed management as well as other rural development programmes are challenged both by the specificities of the Himalayan environment, and by the adoption of a genuinely participatory approach. Allowing people to decide how they will manage their hillsides requires an ability to facilitate that process. Facilitators need to have the flexibility and creativity to offer a variety of technical and managerial possibilities such that individuals, groups and communities can choose what suits them best. Constraints derive partly from the Government's set procedures and schemes in rural development, and from its advocacy of particular well worn technology packages. Constraints also derive from the way in which the whole project has been handled by Government and the Commission of the European Union from the beginning, and from the way in which technical assistance has been organized. It is important that governments and donors learn from such experiences so that future participatory environmental management work can have a greater chance of success.     

Cultural variations in management practice: an exploration of the management trainer's dilemma

This article is a contribution to the debate on cross-cultural transfer of management practice. It describes the difficulties experienced in introducing ‘western’ management theory in a Pakistan government training centre; considers the social and cultural context and the local management style; analyses the differences in six key areas of management and discusses their implications for management trainers; and proposes a ‘middle way’ to ensure that management material is culturally acceptable and practically appropriate. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Realism and constructivism in Southeast Asian security studies today: a review essay

The post-Cold War debate among positivist and post-positivist theorists of international security - particularly realists, liberals and constructivists - has not diminished. Both realism and constructivism have now been established as the key intellectual competitors in Southeast Asian security studies. Following a brief intellectual history of Southeast Asian security studies, this paper reviews the major works of two political scientists who are leading authorities: Michael Leifer, a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a realist; and Amitav Acharya, a professor at York University and a constructivist. This review essay makes the following argument: constructivism is more insightful than balance-of-power realism, but it is more likely to conform to a sophisticated balance-of-threat theory - a form of ‘minimalist’ or ‘soft’ realism - which can help explain the daunting tasks of security-community building.     

General Blotto: games of allocative strategic mismatch

The Colonel Blotto game captures strategic situations in which players attempt to mismatch an opponent’s action. We extend Colonel Blotto to a class of General Blotto games that allow for more general payoffs and externalities between fronts. These extensions make Blotto applicable to a variety of real-world problems. We find that like Colonel Blotto, most General Blotto games do not have pure strategy equilibria. Using a replicator dynamics learning model, we show that General Blotto may have more predictable dynamics than the original Blotto game. Thus, adding realistic structure to Colonel Blotto may, paradoxically, make it less complex.     

Performance of the new rural development management system in thailand: A view from the korat development pilot project

Development management in national rural development has been the subject of much discussion as old-style integrated rural development planning met with increasing criticism. The Royal Government of Thailand is currently attempting to arrive at comprehensive reform of the development management system within the framework of implementation of its national five-year plans. This article highlights the reforms and the analysis of past failures. It introduces the new management organization and some procedural highlights. A first experiment with the new system which is currently being carried out in the province of Nakhon Ratchasima is documented, and the opinion of government officials on its performance is reported. The overall reaction is positive: the system does provide a more coordinated implementation. Two bottlenecks remain, however: project monitoring and evaluation should be strengthened; and additional technical training in development planning is needed.     

Implementing transition management as policy reforms: a case study of the Dutch energy sector

Proposals to alter large-scale socio-technical systems through government actions in order to promote goals such as sustainability are highly uncertain policy projects. What is being proposed is the replacement of specific elements of existing policy ‘mixes’—the goals and means—by others, in the expectation of avoiding counterproductive or sub-optimal policy outcomes. While laudable, such efforts are fraught with risks; including the possibility of the creation of sub-optimal policy mixes or of failed reform efforts with resulting poor outcomes. This article develops a model and typology of policy regime change processes and outcomes following Thelen and others in arguing that complex policy mixes typically emerge through one or more of four processes, ‘drift’, ‘conversion’, ‘layering’ and ‘replacement’, and that the expected outcomes of these different processes in terms of their ability to meet initial expectations are linked to the manner in which policy goals and means are (or are not) combined in a consistent, coherent and congruent fashion. This propensity is illustrated through examination of the case of energy transition management as practiced in the Netherlands.     

The American tradition of the experimental treatment of elections: A review essay

The American tradition of experimental investigation of electoral phenomenon indicates that the medium, as well as the message, is important. Highly controlled experiments give insight into the nature of voter decision making. The importance of partisanship is especially pronounced. Field experiments probe the effectiveness of the mediums of telephone, mail, and personal contact as well as the message dimensions of moralistic and rational appeals in actual electoral campaigns. Collectively, these experimental studies allow strong inferences about electoral behavior.     

Two models of the urban crisis: An analytical essay on banfield and forrester

This essay examines the arguments and evidence used in two recent models of the urban crisis—Edward C. Banfield'sThe Unheavenly City and Jay W. Forrester'sUrban Dynamics. Although Banfield's model is sociological and Forrester's is economic and physical, both imply that not much can be done to alleviate urban problems and that positive programs may make them worse. The authors of this critique contend that the articulation of argument and evidence is inadequate to support the implication. They advocate that promising current programs be refined on the basis of evidence and experience and that policymakers continue to search for efficient new programs through social experiments.