Restrictive Institutions and Critical Resources: Non-Profit Organisations and Volunteer Resources in the Russian Federation

Abstract

Resource management is essential for any organisation’s success. For non-profit organisations (NPOs) volunteers are a key resource. In this article, we examine how NPOs recruit, mobilise and manage volunteers in a challenging institutional and operational context. By drawing on a qualitative study of Russian health NPOs, our study highlights that the operational and institutional environment encountered by Russian NPOs leads to ‘management by network’ to acquire necessary volunteer resources. This pragmatic approach, whilst ensuring an organisation’s short-term survival, ultimately limits the type of volunteer recruited by Russian NPOs. The implications of these findings are also explored.     

"A Dime Store of Words": Liberty Magazine and the Cultural Logic of the Popular Press

Abstract

The essay posits the question of the end of May Fourth as a properly political sequence. If we consider May Fourth as a political movement, asking how it ends implies asking what kind of political subjects and political organizations were active then and ceased to be active at a certain point in time. Asking when and how the May Fourth movement ended implies, therefore, asking what ended. The essay analyzes a series of statements and actions signaling the “end” or the “defeat” of May Fourth in order to question whether there were collective practices, locations, and categories proper to the May Fourth period and how they got exhausted. Two elements appear to be crucial: the organizational structure of the xuehui and the category of “student.”     

An Empirical Investigation of the Factors Affecting the Use of Social Networks in Human Resources Recruitment

ABSTRACT

The main objective of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the use of social networks towards recruiting human resources for organizations. Through an in-depth review of the relevant literature, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among the sample and collected data were analyzed using PLS-Software. Results revealed that 50?75% of organizations use social networks in their organizations and all the identified effective factors in the use of social networks for human resources recruitment were confirmed, except for “hope for performance”. “Facilitating conditions” have the highest impact on the usage of social networks in recruiting, “Social influence” identified as one of the most important factors in people’s behavioral intention for the usage of social networks in recruitment and “Effort expectancy” had the least impact on behavioral intention. In addition, Gender and the level of education have no impact on the behavioral intention and the behavior of usage of social networking.     

BETWEEN STATE AND SERVICE INDUSTRY: GROUP AND COLLECTIVE WEDDINGS IN COMMUNIST SHANGHAI, 1949–1956

Abstract

Group weddings have commonly been associated with Republican China under Guomindang rule. Wedding ceremonies involving multiple couples, however, continued to be held in the People’s Republic of China throughout the 1950s and after. During the early 1950s, Shanghai’s commercial group wedding agencies marketed their services to local couples, and district governments organized what they termed “collective weddings,” hoping that couples would be more amenable to state marriage registration if they could participate in a ceremony. In 1956, the municipal government considered instituting a unified collective ceremony across Shanghai. By examining meeting minutes, letter exchanges, and records of internal government and business discussions, this article explores entrepreneurial and governmental attempts to standardize Shanghai’s group and collective weddings. Although commercial group weddings and state collective ceremonies served different purposes, their proponents faced similar organizational difficulties in the search for a standardized, economical wedding ceremony befitting “New China.”     

“Dieselgate:” How Different Approaches to Decentralization,the Role of NGOs,Tort Law and the Regulatory Process Affected Comparative U.S. and European Union Outcomes in the Biggest Scandal in Automotive History

ABSTRACT

The VW diesel emissions scandal (“dieselgate”) recounts how Volkswagen became ensnared in a self-inflicted and staggeringly costly cheating scandal that started in the U.S. and then spread to the European Union. This case study shows how fundamental differences in comparative public administration (CPA) between the U.S. and the European Union (EU) led to different consequences for one of the world’s largest and most highly-regarded European auto manufacturers with respect to four institutional variables: (a) approaches to decentralization, (b) the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), (c) civil (tort) law, and (d) regulatory environment.     

“Communities of Practice” as an Analytical Construct: Implications for Theory and Practice

Abstract

The “community of practice” (CoP) has emerged as a potentially powerful unit of analysis linking the individual and the collective because it situates the role of learning, knowledge transfer, and participation among people as the central enterprise of collective action. The authors?uo; surface tensions and highlight unanswered questions regarding CoP theory, concluding that it relies on a largely normative and under-operationalized set of premises. Avenues for theory development and the empirical testing of assertions are provided.     

The Non-profit Sector in Today’s Russia: Between Confrontation and Co-optation

Abstract

In present-day Russia, the government’s approach towards the non-profit sector is in many ways ambivalent and contradictory. The Russian government follows two opposing strategies: it largely suppresses independent and potentially critical NPOs, while at the same time co-opting those that function in line with government priorities. The essay analyses the ways in which NPOs have perceived the dual nature of governmental policies and how these policies have affected the non-profit sector in Russia’s regions. The essay argues that, by creating divisions between different types of NPOs, government policies have exerted a negative influence on the internal solidarity of the Russian non-profit sector.     

The Impact of Microcredit on Child Education: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Rural China

Abstract

This article assesses causal effects of formal microcredit on children’s educational outcomes by using household panel data (2000 and 2004) in north-west rural China. The unobservables between borrowers and non-borrowers are controlled in static and dynamic regression-discontinuity designs. The static analysis reveals significant positive impact of microcredit on schooling years in 2000 only, and no influence on academic performance for either wave. The dynamic analysis shows progressive treatment effects on both longer schooling years and higher average scores. Formal microcredit improves education in the longer term compared to the short term, and hence may help relaxing the grip of educational poverty traps.     

Come,Let Us Pray! or,Modern Public Administration Has Failed

Abstract

By turning inwards and not using our collective expertise to become advocate “Cassandras” and “Jeremiahs,” who voice strongly and collectively that our society is in trouble in both the short and long run, our field of public administration has failed in its overall mission and has lost faith with the early public administrationists who were action-oriented rather than ivory-tower-oriented and who still managed to do a fair amount of publishing.     

Public contracting,policy preferences and minority business enterprises

About three years ago a Special Issue of the International Journal of Public Administration focused on the topic “Government Set-Asides, Minority Business Development, and Publi Contracting.”^(l) Much of the discussion in the issue addressed race conscious government set-aside programs in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in City of Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co. ⁽²⁾ The decision declared unconstitutional a local government minority business set-aside provision designed to help minority business enterprises (MBEs) obtain government contracts. At the time, the decision was applicable only to state and local governmental jurisdictions.⁽³⁾ Government set-asides involve the practice of providing minority contractors and subcontracting a certain percentage of a public jurisdiction's contract dollars.

In 1995 the Supreme Court in Adarand v. Pena ⁽⁴⁾ extended the Croson ruling to include set-aside programs in federal agencies. This Special Issues examines and discusses the Adarand decision and the developments that have followed. The first article by Mitchell F. Rice, “Federal Set-Asides Policy and Minority Business Contracting: Understanding the Adarand Decision,” reviews the Adarand decision and discusses the implications of the decision for minority business development. The next article by Audrey L. Mathews and Mitchell F. Rice, “Adarand v. Pena: Turning Challenges Into Opportunities,” uses a case study of two public preference programs to suggest how Adarand requirements may be successfully utilized to maintain set-aside preference programs.

The third article by Shelton Rhodes, “Mirmative Action Review ‘Report’ to the Presidents: Implications of Military Affirmative Actions Programs to Current and New Millennium Affirmative Action Programs,” reviews the Affirmative Action Review: Report to the President which was ordered by President Clinton soon after the Adarand decision. Rhodes considers the implications of the possible applicability of the successes of affirmative action and equal opportunity in the military, which is highlighted in the Report, to other public and private organizations. The final article by Wilbur C., Rich, “Presidents and Minority Set-Aside Policy: Race, Gender and Small Opportunities,” analyzes the impact of presidential leadership on minority set-asides policy and shows how politicians use set-asides to facilitate exchanges and cooperation with the business elites.     

Building the Capacity of the Voluntary Nonprofit Sector: Challenges of Theory and Practice

Abstract

As voluntary and community organizations in the UK (VCOs) expand their role in the provision of public services, they are under increasing pressure from governmental funders to improve their management and organizational systems - to “build their capacity.” This paper considers the theoretical and practical challenges posed by the idea of “capacity building.” It also looks at the challenges for VCOs of meeting the capacity building agenda while simultaneously retaining organizational distinctiveness and independence. Action research is proposed as a means to meet the challenges.     

Collective Remittances and Transnational Coproduction: the 3 × 1 Program for Migrants and Household Access to Public Goods in Mexico

Migrant hometown associations (HTAs) are mobilizing collective remittances to improve social welfare in their countries of origin. This paper assesses the effect of transnational coproduction of public goods in migrants’ places of origin by studying the 3?×?1 Program for Migrants. The 3?×?1 Program is a national social spending program in which the Mexican local, state, and federal government matches HTAs’ collective remittances to improve public services through cross-border public–private partnerships. The statistical analysis across municipalities that do and do not participate in the 3?×?1 Program shows that coproduction improves citizens’ access to public sanitation, drainage, and water, although not electricity. Moreover, a negative and statistically significant interaction term between 3?×?1 Program expenditures and family remittances reveals a substitution effect: in the presence of transnational coproduction, migrant households are less likely to improve public goods using family remittance resources, but in the absence of 3?×?1 Program participation they continue to improve their hometowns with family remittances. This research offers a theoretical mechanism and supporting empirical evidence of an important kind of intermediary institution improving social welfare in migrant places of origin.     

Informal Countermessaging: The Potential and Perils of Informal Online Countermessaging

Abstract

Online countermessaging—communication that seeks to disrupt the online content disseminated by extremist groups and individuals—is a core component of contemporary counterterrorism strategies. Countermessaging has been heavily criticized, not least on the grounds of effectiveness. Whereas current debates are focused on the role of government and large organizations in developing and disseminating countermessages, this article argues that such approaches overlook the informal production of countermessages. Recognizing the appetite for “natural world” content among those engaged in countermessaging, this article highlights some of the potential benefits of informal approaches to countermessaging. At the same time, the article also acknowledges the risks that may result from closer working between countermessaging organizations and informal actors.     

The Leaderless Nexus: When Crime and Terror Converge

This article argues that the breakdown of hierarchical structures in illicit organizations is creating new opportunities for criminals and terrorists to collaborate. The rise of networked organizations has given greater independence to criminals and terrorists who previously answered to a clear chain of command. These members are now willing to engage in operations that before had been off-limits because the leadership believed the activity would hurt the organization's broader mandate. The result is that a “leaderless nexus” is beginning to emerge between criminals and terrorists. The phenomenon has far-reaching and dangerous implications for U.S. security, and should be thoughtfully considered as lawmakers debate homeland security reform.     

The Relationship Between State Government Performance and State Quality of Life

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between government performance and quality of life in the American states. We contend that the management capacity of state governments should have direct, tangible impacts on the overall social and economic well‐being of state citizenry. In order to test this idea, we examine the influence of state management capacity (using the 1999 Government Performance Project grades), alongside other economic and political variables, on two prominent measures of state quality of life—The Morgan Quitno “Most Livable State” Index and State Policy Reports' (SPP) “Camelot Index.” We find that both state economic conditions and governmental policy priorities have significant impacts on state performance levels. But, our results clearly indicate that the management capacity of state governments also contributes directly to improving the overall quality of life for state citizens.     

A Dialectical Approach to Online Propaganda: Australia’s United Patriots Front,Right-Wing Politics,and Islamic State

Abstract

This article examines how the United Patriots Front (UPF), an Australian far-right organization, has communicated its ideology with reference to right-wing politics in Australia, Western Europe, and the United States, and through allusions to Islamic State. The investigation uses critical discourse and documentary analysis and a framework derived from the theory of Pierre Bourdieu to analyze textual and audiovisual postings on UPF Facebook pages, YouTube channels, and Twitter accounts. Relevant to the discussion are Bourdieu’s interdependent theories on “doxa” as a condition in which socially constructed phenomena appear self-evident, and “habitus” and “field,” which explain how structures and agents, through their reflexive behavior, become dialectically situated.     

Making Visible the Invisible: Visuality,Narrativity, and Victimhood in Greek Cypriot Memorials

Political memorials and memorial locations in Cyprus function as “figures of memory” that regulate political rhetoric, detect (hi)story-telling, and shape identities, both on a collective as well as on an individual level. Although they seem to go unnoticed in the citizens’ daily routines, they exert profound influence in Greek Cypriot society where remembering and honoring the dead fighters according to the socially institutionalized religious and social rites constitute fundamental prerequisites of “belonging.” The paper will argue that the esthetics applied on the memorials along with their density on the island and the commemoration of individual fighters blur the boundaries between private and public and foster the collective awareness of us. At the same time, line us with the awareness of the self because of the emotional impact visual narratives exert on both a collective and an individual level. Memorial narratives secure a “homogeneous array of reactions” and become powerful propaganda tools because they are the pivotal vehicles in the perception of loss and instruments in the construction of victimhood within the Greek Cypriot society. The paper will sustain that the effect intense exposure causes interacts with the workings of implicit memory, influences dispositions, behaviors, and mental structures and radically intervenes in the process of reality perception.     

To What Extent Can the January 25 Revolution Be Seen as a “Bifurcation” in the Life Stories of Egyptian Migrants in France?

ABSTRACT

The revolutionary process initiated in Egypt in 2011 triggered a surge in Egyptian-led organizations in the public arena in Paris. This article examines the issue of the “biographical impacts of commitment” and applies the “life history approach” to these Egyptian activists. Our basic hypothesis is that the opening up of political perspectives in Egypt may be understood as a bifurcation process in such individual trajectories. It may have entailed a series of disruptions in everyday life to the extent of causing these Egyptian migrants to reconsider their positions within the French context.