European Gender Mainstreaming: Promises and Pitfalls of Transformative Policy1

abstract Gender mainstreaming requires a radical redefinition of policy values and practices. This initial discussion explores the way the mainstreaming approach attempts to change the definitions of the situation so that equality in gender relations becomes an element at the point of departure. Factors that may affect whether gender mainstreaming will become an institutional innovation include the extent to which there is a commitment to a gender mission, the level of sophistication in terms of gender and policy issues in the administrative setting, the level of resistance to gender equality, and the extent to which gender experts play a role. This article investigates the role of these contextual factors as related to experiences in the European Union Commission and several states in Northern Europe.     

The Promises and Pitfalls of Devolution: Water Pollution Policies in the American States

This article investigates state reactions to the relativelydecentralized federal policy structures that are now in placefor non–point source water pollution control and assessesthe extent to which state policies are living up to the promisesof the policy devolution agenda. It develops and presents measuresof state non–point source policy activism for all fiftystates and analyzes the likely sources of variation in statepolicies. In so doing, it finds evidence that the "promisesof devolution" are not being fulfilled across all states. Theanalysis also yields insights that can contribute to the developmentof new and more flexible federal-state policy arrangements ina policy area that has been characterized by command-and-controlregulation.     

Pitfalls of Contracting for Policy Advice: Preparing Performance Budgeting Reform in Estonia

The goal of this article is to analyze the challenges involved in contracting for policy advice with the example of performance budgeting reform in Estonia in 2009–2011. The Estonian Ministry of Finance has sought to prepare a major change in the budgeting system by outsourcing the analytical preparation of different aspects of the reform to various private sector organizations. The case study seeks to identify the challenges and pitfalls involved in contracting for policy and management advice in the area of a major public sector reform. The Estonian experience shows that such a reform strategy can run into serious problems, including fragmented and inconsistent reform plan, limited learning, and high transaction costs. The contractualization of reform preparation has constrained deliberations on the planned changes to the strategic planning and budgeting system among the stakeholders and undermined the democratic legitimacy of the reform.     

Reshaping the State: Administrative Reform and New Public Management in France

This essay examines the administrative reform process in France since the late 1980s. The key reforms undertaken during this period have sought to delegate greater managerial autonomy to the ministerial field-service level. We undertook semistructured interviews with officials in the field services of three French ministries (Education, Agriculture, and Infrastructure) in the Champagne-Ardennes region, as well as with members of the wider policy communities. The capacity of the field services to adopt a proactive approach to management reform depended on five key variables: internal organizational dynamics; the attitude of the central services to mesolevel autonomy; the degree of institutional receptivity to change; the type of service delivery, and the extent of penetration in local networks. The Infrastructure Ministry was more receptive to management change than either Education or (especially) Agriculture, a receptivity that reflects the institutional diversity of the French administrative system, and that supports new institutionalist arguments. The essay rejects straightforward convergence to the New Policy Management norm. Changes in public management norms require either endogenous discursive shifts or else need to be interpreted in terms of domestic registers that are acceptable or understandable to those charged with implementing reform.     

Notes on social indicators: Promises and potential

Widespread interest in social indicators—indeed, what may be characterized as a new social movement—has developed among both social scientists and policymakers. The concept of social indicators, however, continues to be diffuse and there are exaggerated claims of the utility of indicators. Deficiencies in both conceptualization and method limit the potential of indicators for such tasks as priority setting and program evaluation. Moreover, the development of social accounts, based on the analogy with economic accounts, is fallacious. Redirection in effort and more realistic claims can reduce the possibility of an eventual decline in work on indicators and enhance the value of the movement for both policymakers and social scientists concerned with the analysis and prediction of social change.     

Enterprise Reorganization and Social Insurance Reform: The Development of Early Retirement in France and Germany

What explains the decline in the labor force participation rates of elderly workers at the end of their working lives? Why have governments been unable to revert towards early exit from the labor market? This paper provides an actor‐centered analysis of the development of early retirement, highlighting the political negotiation among unions, employers, and governments over the distribution of the costs of these measures and the division of control over the initiation of these policies. By analyzing developments in France and Germany, the paper points to the failure of these negotiations to arrive at policy outcomes that close off the labor shedding of large firms.     

Elite Interviewing: Approaches and Pitfalls

Interviews are one of the major tools in qualitative research, although there is a limited literature on the subject of interviewing generally and elite interviewing particularly. The aim of this article is to introduce some of the issues involved in elite interviewing to researchers new to the use of the technique. Emphasis is also placed on the need for the interviewer to know his/her subject thoroughly, and to be prepared to be flexible in an interview situation. The information is based on the author's own recent experience of interviewing a number of top civil servants, both serving and retired.     

Operational social systems modeling: Pitfalls and prospectives

As myriad social problems press for attention and resolution, a variety of individuals have joined the search for means to understand and manage those problems. An important component of the search is the use of analytic methods and models, which are being relied on to a large and unprecedented extent. Social systems modeling appears to have a future of both high potential and growth. However, as is the case with many emerging and evolving fields, operational or applied social modeling has had its share of failures and only limited successes, and it will undoubtedly continue to do so. This essay concentrates on what appear to be several of the key, unresolved problems impeding full and productive use of these methods and techniques. It is both a summary assessment of experiences to date and a blueprint for work yet to be done.An earlier version of this essay was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C.; on February 15, 1978.     

Ethnoreligious Politics in France: Jews and Muslims

This article focuses on the relationship between the two major ethnoreligious communities – the Jews and the Muslims – and the state in France, as reflected in lobbying, electoral behaviour, and public policies. It shows how the evolution of that relationship, an aspect of the politics of ethnicity, religion and multiculturalism, has been both a cause and a consequence of modifications in approaches to secularism, communitarianism and affirmative action. Finally, it deals with the question to what extent this development corresponds to a pluralist or corporatist model of politics and argues that changes in the relationship between state and society suggest an evolving accommodationist pattern increasingly similar to that of the United States.     

Socialism in France: An appraisal

The Mitterrand Era. Edited by A. DALEY. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. Pp.xiv + 285, index, £45.00 (cloth). ISBN 0–333–63265–6.

France during the Socialist Years. Edited by G. RAYMOND. Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1994. Pp.xi + 278, £41.50 (cloth). ISBN 185521–5187.

The Politics of Fun: Cultural Policy and Debate in Contemporary France. Edited by D. LOOSELEY. Oxford: Berg, 1997. Pp.xv + 279, biblio, index. £34.95 (cloth); £14.95 (paper). ISBN 1–85973013–2 and ‐153–8.     

France in Mali: rapid reaction

On 11 January 2013 France initiated military operations against Islamist rebels in Mali in order ‘to stop the terrorist aggression … make Bamako safe … and enable Mali to recover its territorial integrity’. It hopes that the current ground and air offensive will be limited in duration. But this will depend on several factors, including the effectiveness of its planning and intelligence, and the tactics of the opposition. If Bamako is to reassert its authority over the country's ungoverned north, the capacity of Mali's military will need to be dramatically enhanced.     

Comparative nationalism: the Basques in Spain and France

Abstract. Little research on peripheral nationalism goes beyond the case study approach. Comparative studies provide greater understanding of national self-identification by comparing different ethnic groups, yet encounter difficulties in rigorously delineating specific non-group causal factors. This study adds to our insights into peripheral nationalism by comparing self-identification within the same group but in two different political systems. Study of the Basques in both Spain and France permits a comparison of the same group, thus imposing an analytical control on ethnicity, under two different sets of state policy directions. Utilizing survey data, this investigation found sharp differences in national self-identification in the Basques in Spain and France. The argument is advanced that, even when other explanatory factors are considered, this difference in Basque identification should be understood in light of the different policy stances taken over time by the central governments in Paris and Madrid toward their respective Basque minorities. While initially counter-intuitive, it is suggested that toleration and non-repressive policies toward such minorities may actually serve in the long term to decrease peripheral national identification.