Truth and Reconciliation as a Model for Change in Response to #MeToo

The U.S. criminal justice system is designed to handle extreme cases of sexual misconduct, but the system has not adapted well to less extreme (but no less important) sexually inappropriate behaviors. As our understanding of sexual misconduct and impropriety evolves, the need for a new system of accountability seems apparent. The authors call for a new approach to providing justice for survivors/victims: the adoption of a truth and reconciliation model. This model involves providing a public forum for survivors/victims to testify to the events of their victimization and for offenders to admit previous wrongdoing, take responsibility, and ask forgiveness. While it is not appropriate for handling illegal behaviors, a truth and reconciliation model would be ideal for incidents that are not illegal but violate our evolving social norms.     

Unprecedented Challenges,Familiar Paradoxes: COVID-19 and Governance in a New Normal State of Risks

This Viewpoint essay understands China's COVID-19 responses through the lens of six paradoxes, focusing on normal and non-normal governance, competing values, expertise and politics, centralization and decentralization, public and private, and technology and institutions. Preliminary lessons are drawn regarding pandemic governance: embedding resilience into all aspects of governance; developing a public value framework for pandemic governance and improving individuals' ethical capacity; institutionalizing policy capacity on pandemic governance and requiring expertise in relevant positions; balancing centralized coordination and decentralized responses with a stable and ready-to-work commanding center; enabling businesses and nonprofits for pandemic governance but regulating them appropriately; and enacting technologies to revolutionize pandemic governance with proper institutional safeguards.     

Book Reviews

Dionne, E.J. Jr. They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate the Next Political Era Gitlin, Todd The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America is Wracked by Culture Wars Hochschild, Jennifer L. Facing Up to the American Dream: Race, Class and the Soul of the Nation Kozol, Jonathan Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation Foster, Christopher D. and Plowden, Francis J. The State Under Stress Barberis, Peter The Elite of the Elite: Permanent Secretaries in the British Higher Civil Service Porter, Norman Rethinking Unionism: An Alternative Vision for Northern Ireland English, Richard and Walker, Graham (eds) Unionism in Modern Ireland: New Perspectives on Politics and Culture Clarke, Peter Hope and Glory: Britain 1900–1990 Harrison, Brian The Transformation of British Politics 1860–1995 Radice, Giles (ed) What Needs to Change? New Visions for Britain King, Preston (ed) Socialism and the Common Good: New Fabian Essays Perryman, Mark (ed) The Blair Agenda Stone, Diane Capturing the Political Imagination: Think Tanks and the Policy Process Denham, Andrew Think Tanks of the New Right Klein, Rudolf, Day, Patricia and Redmayne, Sharon Managing Scarcity: Priority Setting and Rationing in the National Health Service Lawson, Richard Bills of Health Disney, Richard Can We Afford to Grow Older? Brown, Alice, McCrone, David and Paterson, Lindsay Politics and Society in Scotland The Constitution Unit Scotland’s Parliament: Fundamentals for a New Scotland Act The Constitution Unit Regional Government in England     

Book Reviews

Jennie Lee: A Life (Patricia Hollis); Gordon Brown (Paul Routledge); Callaghan: A Life (Kenneth A. Morgan), Eric Shaw Whatever Happened to the Tories? The Conservative Party since 1945 (Ian Gilmour and Mark Garnett); Major: A Political Life (Anthony Seldon), Patrick Seyd Memoir of a Fascist Childhood (Trevor Grundy), Anne Poole The Revival of Right-wing Extremism in the Nineties (edited by Peter H. Merkl and Leonard Weinberg), Herman Lebovics Liberty before Liberalism (Quentin Skinner), Bernard Crick Parliament under Pressure (Peter Riddell); Parliament and the People (Philip Laundy), John Griffith Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy (Eamonn Callan); Citizenship in Modern Britain (Keith Faulks); Citizenship: Feminist Perspectives (Ruth Lister), Derek Heater The Audit Society: Rituals of Verification (Michael Powell), Rudolf Klein Cities for a Small Planet (Richard Rogers); Planning for Urban Quality (Richard Parfect and Gordon Power), Anja Amsel Holistic Government (Perri 6), Roger Levett     

The Impact of the Australian Government Job Network Contracting on Not‐for‐Profit Service Providers

This article examines the impact of Australian government contracting for the provision of Job Network services on not‐for‐profit organisations ¹ . The term not‐for‐profit is used to categorise organisations which are variously described as non‐government, non‐profit, community and third sector organisations ( Lyons 2001 ).     

Different Processes,Different Outcomes? Assessing the Individual‐Level Impacts of Public Participation

This article empirically investigates the relative efficacy of different direct participation processes. Specifically, it compares the effects of three types of participatory processes (public meetings, focus groups, and citizen juries) on participants' issue awareness, competence, empowerment, and trust in service professionals. The authors hypothesize that all three participatory processes will positively affect these individual outcomes but that the magnitudes of effects will differ across the three processes. Using data from field experiments, the authors test and find general support for the hypotheses. This study contributes to understanding of public participation, particularly in terms of the relationship between participatory design and outcomes.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Chris Rumford, European Cohesion: Contradictions in EU Integration Michael Burgess, Federalism and the European Union: The Building of Europe, 1950–2000 David McKay, Federalism and European Union: A Political Economy Perspective Dimitris N. Chryssochoou. I. B. Tauris, Democracy in the European Union Robert R. Geyer, Exploring European Social Policy Ben Rosamond, Theories of European Integration Colin Crouch, (ed.) After the Euro: Shaping Institutions for Governance in the Wake of European Monetary Union Richard Layard, The Case for the Euro Pat Thane, Old Age in English History: Past Experiences, Present Issues Stan Luger, Corporate Power, American Democracy, and the Automobile Industry Paulina Borsook, Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp through the Terribly Libertarian World of High‐Tech Charles Williams, Adenauer: The Father of the New Germany J. M. Ross, Forward to Basics—Back from the Brink: Can Humanity Rescue Itself? Larry Siedentop, Democracy in Europe Cécile Fabre, Social Rights under the Constitution: Government and the Decent Life Sebastian Reinfeldt, Nicht‐wir und Die‐da: Studien zum rechten Populismus Christa Zöchling, Haider: Licht und Schatten einer Karriere Klaus Larres with Elizabeth Meehan, Uneasy Allies: British–German Relations and European Integration since 1945     

National memory: The duty to remember,the need to forget

Ronald Koven has served as a correspondent in France for twenty-four of the past thirty-two years, successively as the de Gaulle watcher of the International Herald Tribuneand as the Paris correspondent of the Washington Post(for which he was the diplomatic editor and the foreign editor) and the Boston Globe.He concentrates on surveying and coordinating aid for independent news media in Eastern Europe.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this issue. Once Upon a Time in America
NINA FISHMAN Resisting McCarthyism: To Sign or Not to Sign California's Loyalty Oath, by Bob Blauner. Don't blame Bush on Strauss
Lars Fischer The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss, edited by Steven B. Smith. Afghanistan: not a barbarous country of savage people
Grahame Hunter Butcher and Bolt: Two Hundred Years of Foreign Entanglement in Afghanistan, by David Loyn. Protesting is good for you
Ilaria Favretto Voices of the Valley, Voices of the Straits: How Protest Creates Communities, by Donatella della Porta and Gianni Piazza. The Internet: a school for life?
Brian Groombridge Learning through Life: Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning, by Tom Schuller and David Watson. The Internet and Democratic Citizenship: Theory, Practice and Policy, by Stephen Coleman and Jay G. Blumler. Right‐wing spectres
Vassilis Fouskas Twenty‐First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy, edited by Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell. Macmillan: the unflappable politician?
Peter Catterall Harold Macmillan, by Charles Williams.     

Cyber Security Responsibilization: An Evaluation of the Intervention Approaches Adopted by the Five Eyes Countries and China

Governments can intervene to a greater or lesser extent in managing the risks that citizens face. They can adopt a maximal intervention approach (e.g., COVID-19) or a hands-off approach (e.g., unemployment), effectively “responsibilizing” their citizens. To manage the cyber risk, governments publish cyber-related policies. This article examines the intervention stances the governments adopt in supporting individual citizens managing their personal cyber risk. The authors pinpoint the cyber-related responsibilities that several governments espouse, applying a “responsibilization” analysis. Those applying to citizens are identified, thereby revealing the governments' cyber-related intervention stances. The analysis reveals that most governments adopt a minimal cyber-related intervention stance in supporting their citizens. Given the increasing number of successful cyber attacks on individuals, it seems time for the consequences of this stance to be acknowledged and reconsidered. The authors argue that governments should support individual citizens more effectively in dealing with cyber threats.     

Administrative Easing: Rule Reduction and Medicaid Enrollment

Administrative burden is widely recognized as a barrier to program enrollment, denying legal entitlements to many potentially eligible individuals. Building on recent research in behavioral public administration, this article examines the effect of voluntary state reductions in administrative burden (administrative easing) on Medicaid enrollment rates using differential implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Using a novel data set that includes state-level data on simplified enrollment and renewal procedures for Medicaid from 2008 to 2017, the authors examine how change in Medicaid enrollment is conditioned by the adoption of rule-reduction procedures. Findings show that reductions in the administrative burden required to sign up for Medicaid were associated with increased enrollments. Real-time eligibility and reductions in enrollment burden were particularly impactful at increasing enrollment for both children and adults separate from increases in Medicaid income eligibility thresholds. The results suggest that efforts to ease the cognitive burden of enrolling in entitlement programs can improve take-up.     

Does social media matter in developing democracies? Examining its impact on citizen political participation and expression in Uganda

This study examines the impact of citizens' use of social media for political participation and expression in developing democracies of Africa in particular Uganda. Findings from studied N = 2,400 respondents, evidenced social media does matter in the developing democracy of Uganda as the second most preferred form of media (.95 ± 2.37). Findings also showed the use of social media for political participation in persuading others to vote for a given candidate or party was positively correlated r = .043*(p value at .05), n = 2,400, and p = .035 with R² = .002. Future studies should examine the use of social media platforms for policy implementation, civic engagement, and inclusiveness.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Incomes and the Welfare State: Essays on Britain and Europe, by A. B. Atkinson. Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment, by Paul Pierson. Managing Policy Change in Britain: The Politics of Water, by William A. Maloney and Jeremy Richardson. Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change, by Stanley Fish. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, by Will Kymlicka. The Rights of Minority Cultures, edited by Will Kymlicka. Globalisation in Question: The International Economy and the Possibilities of Governance, by Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson. Economic Growth and Political Change in Asia, by Graham Field. American Exceptionalism: A Double-edged Sword, by Seymour Martin Lipset. Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France, by Zeev Sternhell, trans. David Maisel. Strategies for Self-Govemment: The Campaigns for a Scottish Parliament, by James Mitchell. The Germans: Power Struggles and the Development of Habitus in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, by Norbert Elias, edited by Michael Schröter, translated from the German and with a preface by Eric Chinning and Stephen Mennell.     

Book Reviews

Armstrong, David, Lloyd, Lorna and Redmond, John From Versailles to Maastricht: International Organisation in the Twentieth Century Brubaker, Rogers Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe Gillespie, Paul (ed) Britain’s European Question: The Issues for Ireland Hesse, Joachim Jens and Wright, Vincent (eds) Federalizing Europe? The Costs, Benefits, and Preconditions of Political Systems Hooghe, Liesbet (ed) Cohesion Policy and European Integration: Building Multi-level Governance Laffan, Brigid (ed) Constitution-building in the European Union Lane, Jan-Erik, McKay, David and Newtown, Kenneth (ed) Political Data Handbook: OECD Countries, 2nd edn Page, Edward C. People Who Run Europe Smith, Michael New Cloak, Old Dagger: How Briain’s Spies Came In From the Cold Urban, Mark UK Eyes Alpha: The Inside Story of British Intelligence Herman, Michael Intelligence Power in Peace and War West, Nigel The Secret War for the Falklands: The SAS, M16 and the War Whitehall Nearly Lost Jones, Tudor Remaking the Labour Party: From Gaitskell to Blair Thompson, Noel Political Economy and the Labour Party Shepherd, Robert Enoch Powell Webster, Charles The Health Service since the War, vol. II: Government and Health Care—The British National Health Service, 1958–1979 Adams, Adrian and So, Jaabe A Claim to Land by the River: A Household in Senegal Strange, Susan The Retreat of the State: The Diffusion of Power in the World Economy Vatikiotis, Michael J. Political Change in Southeast Asia: Trimming the Banyan Tree Jacobs, Michael/Real World Coalition The Politics of the Real World Landauer, Thomas K. The Trouble with Computers: Usefulness, Usability and Productivity MacKenzie, Donald Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change     

Connecting with New Partners in COVID-19 Response

The COVID-19 crisis has called for the mobilization of diverse resources and coordination through administrative networks. This mobilization has brought to light the challenges involved in the recruitment and retention of diverse administrative networks. This Viewpoint essay reviews the importance and difficulties of maintaining diverse administrative networks. The review is followed by concrete strategies for building and maintaining diverse networks in Norman, Oklahoma. The lessons emphasize the role of active and imaginative recruitment and a realistic assessment of the challenges facing members of the network that can interfere with their participation.     

The Slippery Slope: Struggling for Equity in the Academy in the Era of #MeToo

The complexity of the sexual harassment language of the #MeToo movement creates discontinuities that may muddy intended communications. Yet understanding this language provides a fuller picture of the experiences that women face. Gender harassment has persisted in the workplace despite long-standing antidiscrimination policies, perhaps because of a universal failure to recognize all forms of it—some of which are more pervasive and common than sexual abuse. This article considers the ability of the academy to affect sexual harassment in public administration. It discusses the implications of gender harassment, the least recognized form of sexual harassment, and makes recommendations for overcoming gender barriers in the academy and in practice. Evidence-based guidance for advancing women in the academy may create more equitable and just spaces for teaching and learning. Public administration classrooms and scholarship represent critical opportunities to recognize patterns of organizational practice and systematically redress gender harassment in the workplace.     

A Multidimensional Reputation Barometer for Public Agencies: A Validated Instrument

Reputation is of growing interest for the study of public bureaucracies, but a measurement that can discern between the subdimensions of reputation and is validated on real-life audiences has remained elusive. The authors deductively build, test, and cross-validate a survey instrument through two surveys of 2,100 key stakeholders of the European Chemicals Agency, the European Union chemicals regulator. This empirical tool measures an agency's reputation and its building blocks. This scale represents an important contribution to reputation literature, as it allows scholars to distinguish and measure which aspects of reputation public organizations are “known for” and build their claim to authority on, as well as how the profiles of public organizations differ. The authors find that direct stakeholder contact with the agency is necessary for stakeholders to be able to evaluate the separate dimensions of reputation independently. Evidence for Practice

• This study equips practitioners with a reputation barometer tailored to the public sector. It allows them to measure the reputation of their organization, in a differentiated fashion, among different stakeholder groups.
• While public organizations increasingly engage in reputation management activities, a potential caveat that emerges from our exercise is that managers might be steering in non-astute directions. While our study shows that, as for private actors, “performance matters,” procedural and moral aspects also weigh heavily in the eyes of stakeholders when it comes to public regulators.
• To secure a positive organizational image and the authority crucial for public agencies to operate, the performance management turn in the public sector may need to be supplemented by an enhanced organizational attention to procedural and moral aspects.

     

Harnessing Market Competition in PPP Procurement: The Importance of Periodically Taking a Strategic View

Public‐Private Partnerships (PPP) procurement is routinely portrayed as offering greater scope for harnessing competitive market forces to secure Value for Money (VfM) than traditional procurement approaches ( OECD 2008 ). The aim of this article is (a) to demonstrate the importance of periodically taking a more systematic and strategic view when assessing VfM in PPP procurement ( OGC 2003 ), and (b) to develop an analytical framework for such an analysis. Road infrastructure procurement in South East Queensland is used as a case study to test the usefulness of the proposed framework, and to show how a narrow focus on individual contracts increases the risk of overlooking overdependence on one supplier ( OGC 2003 ). Discussion focuses on the need to combine detailed analysis of individual contracts with longitudinal analyses of market competitiveness when assessing best VfM.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: M. A. Jones , Local Government and the People: Challenges for the Eighties Robert H. Simmons , Achieving Humane Organization, Malibu, California, Daniel Spencer. Leon Glezer , Tariff Politics: Australian Policy-Making 1960–1980, Melbourne Geoffrey Hawker , Who's Master, Who's Servant? Reforming Bureaucracy, Sydney T. J. Barrington , The Irish Administrative System, Dublin Gerald Rhodes , Inspectorates in British Government, London Hugh Saddler , Energy in Australia: Politics and Economics, Sydney Brendan Hensey , The Health Services of Ireland, third edition, Dublin J. P. Casey , The Office of the Attorney General in Ireland, Dublin     

Reviews

Books Reviewed: Betts, Katherine, The Great Divide: Immigration Politics in Australia Bennett, Tony, Emmison, Michael and Frow, John, Accounting for Tastes: Australian Everyday Cultures Elliot, Lorraine, The Global Politics of the Environment Gabbitas, O. and Eldridge, D., Directions for State Tax Reform