The Evolution of a Global Labor Governance Regime

During the last decade, the approach by businesses and governments toward labor and social issues at the global level has fundamentally changed. Industrial relations are rapidly internationalizing by developing new actors and forms of governance to deal with the regulation of labor. This article looks at the evolution of self‐regulatory standards in the global labor governance debate. Key is that notwithstanding problems with the lacking legal framework of global regulation and enforceability, patterns of local self‐regulation, norm‐setting, and international codes lead not only to higher expectations of the behavior of transnationally operating firms but also to an indirect pattern of regulation. The article argues that particularly the adoption of the core labor standards by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the setup of the Global Compact by the UN serve as points of convergence. A plethora of voluntarist initiatives that converge over time toward a shared understanding of labor standards is part of the transformation of global labor governance institutions.     

Legislating deliberative engagement: Is local government in Victoria willing and able?

Growing dissatisfaction with representative democracy and concomitantly, the increasing expectation that citizens assert more influence over public policy have seen the emergence of more participatory and deliberative forms of governance in public management practice. This article explores the attempt of the state government of Victoria, Australia to legislate for mandatory deliberative engagement as part of its local government strategic planning instruments. The ambition of the reform was significant; however, it was almost unanimously rejected by the local government sector. Based on analysis of the key themes that emerged from the submissions made during the 3-year Victorian Local Government Act Review process, we explore the limitations and barriers to implementing deliberative engagement practice at a local government level. We demonstrate that whilst the promise of participatory democracy might have been compelling, in the case of Victoria there were a series of contextual and capacity considerations that needed to be taken into account before the implementation of such reforms were pursued.     

乡村振兴进程中协商民主嵌入乡村治理的内在机理与路径选择

协商民主作为重要的民主制度设计和治理形式,对于优化乡村治理具有极为重要的意义与价值。将协商民主嵌入乡村治理,实现协商民主与乡村治理的有效融合,契合党和政府推动乡村振兴战略顺利实施的迫切需要。协商民主嵌入乡村治理体系和治理过程,不是单纯的制度吸纳和整合,而是包括制度嵌入、行动嵌入和认知嵌入在内的多维嵌入结构和过程。从全国各地的治理实践来看,民主协商机制尚未真正嵌入乡村治理的各个环节和各个领域,协商民主的制度优势和治理功能未得到充分发挥。为此,必须加快协商民主嵌入乡村治理的进程,将协商民主理念嵌入到广大农村基层干部和群众的认知之中,形成有事好商量的思维方式和行为习惯;不断健全与完善协商民主的各种体制机制,促进协商民主制度优势转化为乡村治理效能。     

Cyber insurance and private governance: The enforcement power of markets

In the last half decade, cyber insurance has emerged as a multi-billion-dollar industry with the authority to set and enforce standards of security behavior. Although cybersecurity has become a concern of national policymakers, insurers appear to have supplanted the state to play an influential role in governing some aspects of client behavior. This paper explores private governance by cyber insurance firms and evaluates two competing explanations for its emergence – either that the private sector advanced to set and enforce cybersecurity standards for financial gain, or that the state retreated from its responsibility to regulate and private sector actors filled the gap only as necessary. To find an answer between these explanations, this article develops a single outcome case study of the American cyber insurance industry. Following a theoretical introduction to private governance and its manifestation through insurance, the article examines the insurance process and its application in cybersecurity, the key role of standards, and the mechanism of enforcing those standards. The article concludes by identifying key elements of this market-based enforcement and discussing implications for crafting effective private governance in other domains and public policy.     

Turning Up the Heat: Partisanship in Deliberative Innovation

Two forum types have featured prominently in deliberative practice: (1) forums involving partisans (such as key 'stakeholders') and (2) forums involving non-partisans (such as 'lay citizens'). Drawing on deliberative theory and cases from Germany, we explore the relative merits of these forum types in terms of deliberative capacity, legitimacy and political impact. The two types offer deliberative governance something different. Non-partisan forums such as citizens' juries or consensus conferences rate favorably in deliberative capacity, but can fall short when it comes to external legitimacy and policy impact. Contrary to expectations, partisan forums can also encounter substantial legitimation and impact problems. How can designed forums contribute to deliberative democratization, given that partisanship is an inevitable fact of politics? We offer some suggestions about how deliberative theory and practice might better accommodate the reality of partisanship, while securing benefits revealed in non-partisan forums.     

协商民主视野下的人民政协制度建设

以协商民主理论为参照,分析中国人民政治协商制度框架中已有制度的特点和应有制度之建设,从中可获得若干启发:即协商民主所追求的价值理念与人民政协制度建设的理念相契合;协商民主所期望的实践成果在人民政协制度建设中有具体体现;协商民主所引发的广泛讨论为中国人民政治协商制度建设改革提供了民意基础。     

‘If This Was a Normal Situation’: Challenges and Potentials for Deliberative Democratic Peacebuilding in Kosovo's Emerging Governance Networks

The link between public administration and conflict resolution is traditionally understood through the ‘democratic peace’ thesis, which holds that war is less likely in democracies than in non‐democracies. Limited success with post‐conflict democratisation missions has opened space for renewed research on three strands of ‘deeper democracy’: decentralisation, participation and deliberation. This article reports on the study of deliberative democratic practices in emerging governance networks in Prishtina. Through an investigation of three contentious issues in Prishtina's public spaces, research combines documentary sources with field interviews with governance actors to identify factors that enable and constrain the scope for deliberative decision‐making in governance networks. Case studies point to six main influences: ‘securitisation’, trust building, ‘mandate parallelism’, structural patterns of inclusion and exclusion, network structures and the properties of governed public spaces. In addition, two frames are found to be particularly resistant to deliberative engagement: Kosovo's status and ethnic identities. We formulate a tentative conclusion to be further investigated: in contexts where distrust is high, deliberative governance requires a rigid adherence to an overarching reference framework that can create discursive space within which relative deliberation can take place. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can the market help the forum? Negotiating the commercialization of deliberative democracy

Deliberative ideals have become commercial goods bought and sold in an expanding consultancy market. In this market, demand is generated by government and advocacy groups seeking innovative ways to engage with the public. On the supply side are a growing number of commercial organizations selling deliberative goods and services such as process design, facilitation and evaluation. This paper characterizes the nature of this deliberative market, and considers its implications for democracy and contemporary governance. An analysis of deliberative consultants finds that their professional world is more akin to a ‘community of practice’ rather than a marketplace. But the development of this community of deliberative practitioners could go in opposing directions. On the one hand consultants could become the entrepreneurs of deliberative democracy, promoting and demonstrating its benefits for policy making. On the other hand, if the motivations for deepening democracy are fully replaced by business imperatives and competition, then the deliberative project would be severely undermined. Rather than predict the future, the paper identifies some of the opportunities and challenges for democratic governance as elements of deliberative democracy are commodified.

The New Governance: Practices and Processes for Stakeholder and Citizen Participation in the Work of Government

Leaders in public affairs identify tools and instruments for the new governance through networks of public, private, and nonprofit organizations. We argue the new governance also involves people—the tool makers and tool users—and the processes through which they participate in the work of government. Practitioners are using new quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial governance processes, including deliberative democracy, e-democracy, public conversations, participatory budgeting, citizen juries, study circles, collaborative policy making, and alternative dispute resolution, to permit citizens and stakeholders to actively participate in the work of government. We assess the existing legal infrastructure authorizing public managers to use new governance processes and discuss a selection of quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial new governance processes in international, federal, state, and local public institutions. We conclude that public administration needs to address these processes in teaching and research to help the public sector develop and use informed best practices.     

Governance Structure and Administrative Corruption in Japan: An Organizational Network Approach

Traditional studies of the Japanese bureaucracy have emphasized effective governance through a close government–business nexus. Yet this network relation creates corruption, especially at a high level of administration. Adopting an organizational network approach, this article provides a critical analysis of the causality between network structures and administrative corruption. Examining financial and public works policies, this article finds that amakudari- and zoku-driven network relationships, which have been reinforced by sociocultural bases, are vertically and exclusively structured and substantiate corruption in administration. Policy making on the basis of such network relations not only results in mismanagement in administration and the distortion of the market disciplines but also delegitimizes the governance system by destroying public trust in government. This article suggests that bringing greater heterogeneity and citizen participation to administration through diversity management and e-government would reduce administrative corruption in Japanese governance.     

Governing health and safety at lower tiers of the computer industry global value chain

Global brands remain under increasing pressure to ensure labor standards and codes of conduct are met by their suppliers. Little is known about how this is addressed by lower tier suppliers. We investigate whether, and how, occupational health and safety standards permeate down the computer industry value chain. We compare first and second tier suppliers' engagement with a private voluntary industry code, the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct, and the publicly regulated European Union Directive on the Restriction of Hazardous Substances. We find the industry code absent at the lower tier, yet second tier suppliers do implement the European Union Directive. This is achieved without support from public agencies or global value chain linkages. Our findings question the emphasis placed on chain governance in studies of labor compliance in global value chains, and suggest that alternative and complementary approaches may be required for effective labor compliance throughout the value chain.     

Participatory storylines and their influence on deliberative forums

For all the recent discussion on the virtues and vices of public deliberation, surprisingly little attention has been given to how deliberative procedures actually operate in different policy contexts. This article takes up this task with a specific focus on how deliberative designs such as citizens' juries and consensus conferences interface with their participatory context. The concept of the participatory storyline is developed to describe the competing narratives associated with a policy issue on who constitutes the public” and how “they” should be represented and involved in the policy process. An analysis of two Australian cases reveals how existing participatory storylines can productively or destructively influence deliberative forums. The empirical research suggests that a more productive deliberative procedure is one that supports or “speaks to” existing narratives on what constitutes public participation. Under these conditions key policy actors are more likely to engage in the deliberative process and endorse its outcomes. Some suggestions are provided for how practitioners can better anticipate the way a deliberative forum might interface with its participatory context.     

Five Arguments for Deliberative Democracy

Five arguments in favour of deliberative democracy are considered. These focus on its educative power, on its community-generating power, on the fairness of the procedure of public deliberation, on the epistemic quality of its outcomes and on the congruence of the deliberative democratic ideal 'with whom we are'. The first four arguments are shown to be inadequate. The fifth argument, it is claimed, not only provides the most convincing defence of deliberative democracy but can also be used to decide rationally between competing interpretations of the deliberative ideal. By way of illustration, the essay concludes with a critical discussion of the rival versions proposed by Rawls and Habermas.     

To Manage Is to Govern

Governance structures constrain and enable the actions of public managers. Principal–agent theory has played a dominant role in our understanding of governance structures. This theory suggests that politicians create relatively static governance structures in a top–down fashion and hold managers accountable for mandated results. In other words, public managers are influenced by governance structures but do not affect governance structures. However, we argue that public managers do affect governance structures, and, in order to understand how this influence takes place, we need a new way of thinking about governance structures. We propose thinking about governance structures as relationships created through the interactions of people in different and reciprocal roles that are relatively dynamic. Public managers are an important source of the multiple, reciprocal, and dynamic interactions that produce governance (relationship) structures. As such, managers are accountable not only for policy outcomes, but also for the appropriateness of the relationships they create and support.     

Australian Democracy and Priveleged Parliamentary Speech

This article responds to recent cases of parliamentary speech which reflect the ascendancy of a totalising 'mainstream' approach to public discourse and a political leadership that may, at times, be overly attentive to the majority-rule dimension of democracy. These developments spark a more general discussion of the phenomenology of privileged parliamentary speech, the role of speech freedoms in liberal democratic orders and the duties of parliamentary representatives within them. I make two general conclusions. First, the ways in which we normally argue and think about free speech will not generally apply to the speech of parliamentarians because their speech rights cannot be universalised. Secondly, even if parliamentary speech could be treated as standard speech there would be no legitimate defence (from a liberal democratic point of view) for a strictly populist approach to its use since this could undermine the deliberative function of parliament and lead to the violation of other important liberal democratic principles.     

Moral Pluralism, Political Justification and Deliberative Democracy

We can make progress in political justification if we avoid debates about the extent of moral pluralism. Just by having a political view we are committed to its realization but also to its defence upon justifying grounds. It would be inconsistent to seek to realize my view in ways that undermined my ability to justify it. Yet justifying a view implies that I am open to challenges to it, and that perpetually draws me potentially into dialogue with all others, regardless of my will, and into structures which allow an inclusive dialogue to take place, with decisions being made, on the basis of open public discussion, with which I may disagree. Thus a form of deliberative democracy, probably with representative institutions, is justified, without any normative assumptions being made.     

Political Conflict over Time

We study a model of electoral competition in which politicians must decide whether to initiate the provision of some public good and, afterward, how much of the public good to supply. The model illuminates how a project's implementation affects elections and, conversely, how electoral considerations influence decisions about implementation. Under well-defined conditions, politicians will either implement projects that they do not like or delay projects that, absent electoral concerns, they would support. The model further reveals how the perceived benefits of holding office can impede the production of public goods about which there is broad consensus. And depending on facts about the program's structure and the electoral landscape, a policy's implementation can either mitigate or exacerbate political conflict.     

Do public sector organizations ensure labor ethics? Perspectives from ethics and workplace spirituality in Bangladesh's garment sector

The suppression of labor rights is a matter of serious concern in developing countries. Yet little is known about the role of public agencies in protecting the rights of underprivileged employees. Hence, this study aims to examine the reasons behind the persisting labor exploitation in private enterprises despite the presence of public governance and labor codes. Data was collected through in-depth interviews as well as archives from different external and internal agencies of privately owned garment enterprises in Bangladesh including public administrators and multinational retailers. Kantian ethics and Islamic moral principles were used as theoretical lens to evaluate the labor practices of enterprises. This study contributes to the existing literature by introducing a process model of labor exploitation that depicts multinational power and poor governance to be the main drivers for the abuse of labor ethics. Specifically, political influence and institutional corruption drive poor governance. Public power is exercised to suppress marginalized labor institutions rather than enact labor codes. We found that ethical and spiritual values are not reflected in labor practices and practical suggestions on enacting labor ethics through which the fair enforcement of public power is offered.     

Samuel Huntingtons demokratische Wellen — viel Lärm um Gischt?

Concern is growing among political scientists about the apparent public and political irrelevance of much of the discipline’s output. This raises questions about the relationship between the academic and the public success of what political scientists do. Samuel Huntington’s The Third Wave is a prominent example of a work that is not only much quoted in the discipline, but also much read by a wider public. Searching for factors responsible for its success, an analysis of the book reveals that, while blatantly violating minimal standards for scientific work, it satisfies in an exemplary fashion essential prerequisites for broad public success. Huntington’s success and prestige thus seems to give us reason to be concerned no less about the scientific standards of our discipline than about its public visibility.     

群体性事件的原因与防范:协商民主的分析视角

社会转型时期以利益矛盾为主的群体性事件呈现上升趋势。群体性事件频发暴露出公民利益表达渠道的不畅通和公共政策的局部失衡,也反映出政府在利益协调、协商治理方面能力的不足。产生群体性事件的深层次原因是公民权利保障机制不完善,公共参与缺失造成的制度供给不足、应得权利失衡和权力缺少有效监督。从协商民主的视角看,扩大公共参与和实现协商治理是解决社会冲突的适宜选择。