Tracking the Evolution of a Single Instrument Can Reveal Profound Changes: The Case of Funded Pensions in France

Paygo pension schemes are said to be difficult to transform. However, the study of the French pension system shows that progressively, funded schemes play a greater role in the transformation. This change has been possible, despite path‐dependent forces, through four sequences. First, the change is based on a diagnosis shared among most actors, which challenges the instruments chosen in the past. Second, the new instruments are chosen in opposition to the past. Third, the new measures are adopted on the basis of an ambiguous, even contradictory, agreement. Finally, the new instruments expand incrementally, but their development is leading to cumulative change and a profound transformation of both the logic and the structure of the pension system.     

The Future of Public Sector Pensions

The dramatic rise in life expectancy and longer retirement has created serious concerns about the long‐term affordability of public sector pensions. Drawing on insights from a recent inquiry into public sector pension reform, commissioned by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition and led by the author, this article outlines the challenge faced by policy makers and sets out how it should be addressed. It argues that, with 12 million people active in this part of the pensions system, and estimates that the gap between contributions and payments will grow from £3bn to £10bn in the next decade, the government has no choice but to enter the ‘lions’ den’ of pensions’ policy. It contends that any long‐term solution is to be crafted cannot be based solely on economics, but must also answer fundamental questions of ethics and equity.     

Mass Political Support in Sweden: Retesting a Political-Economic Model

This paper tests a model of mass political support for Sweden, 1967–1974. The model is composed of two economic variables (the Consumer Price Index and assessments of the short-run employment situation) and two non-economic variables (media criticism of government and media pessimism). The model performs very well, accounting for approximately two-thirds of the variance in the popularity of the governing party, the Social Democrats. The most impressive showing is made by the unemployment variable, but the Consumer Price Index and media criticism also make important contributions. Concluding discussion centers on the implications of these findings for our understanding of Swedish politics and for the validity of political-economic models of mass political support.     

The Urban Policy-making and Development Dimension of Fordism and Post-Fordism: A Toronto Case Study

This paper investigates urban policy-making and development from a regulation theory perspective. It describes major Toronto urban trends of the past 50 years in order to gauge their conformity to changing regulation conditions. Results indicate that in the 1950s and 1960s, policies in Toronto were in accord with the Fordist mass consumption and welfare orientation. They also suggest a coincidence between the post-1995 period of public-sector retrenchment and the market-driven nature of post-Fordism. The intermediary period, however, was dominated by unsuccessful efforts at maintaining Fordist-type policies in a regulation context shifting towards post-Fordism. These findings confirm the non-functionalist interpretation of links between policy-making and regulation professed by regulation theory researchers. They also cast light on the role the city plays in the changing nature of regulation. Assertive metropolitan planning and socially balanced sub-divisions characteristic of the Fordist period of regulation gradually made way for market-driven development. With a reduced government presence, urban development has become less co-ordinated and more socially polarised, thus reflecting at the urban level society-wide features of post-Fordism.     

Service Delivery: The Audit Dimension

Reporting of performance information on public sector services has increased substantially in recent years. The audit of such information, however, is still relatively uncommon. In 1989 the Audit Office in New Zealand was confronted with a legislative requirement to audit Statements of Service Performance (SSPs). This paper backgrounds New Zealand's shift in emphasis from program effectiveness audits to the audit of non-financial performance information, describes the development of audit methodology in this area and identifies lessons learned.     

The State in Environmental Management: The Ecological Dimension

A focus on 'modern' industrialized societies obscures both the great antiquity of the state and the powerful selective pressures that have led to the dominance of interstate competition, especially warfare. In pursuit of power, elites encouraged population growth and intensified the exploitation of the natural resource base, with progressively more severe ecological impacts. Modern technology has vastly amplified the problem. Though it makes possible sophisticated environmental management, that has been neglected for the demands of the military—industrial system. These ill-effects are reinforced by ignorance of ecology and inadequacy of traditional political thought. A major adaptive challenge faces modern states: to use their knowledge and resources for more humane, environmentally sensitive management and perhaps achieve a novel kind of steady state, or to renew emphasis on short-term competitive considerations.     

Democracy,Government Spending,and Economic Growth: A Political-Economic Explanation of the Barro-Effect

The paper develops a political economicargument for the recently observed inverseu-shaped relation between the level ofdemocracy and economic performance. A modelis constructed that shows why and howpolitical participation influences thespending behavior of opportunisticgovernments that can choose an optimalcombination of rents and public goods toattract political support. If the level ofdemocracy remains comparably low,governments rationally choose rents as aninstrument to assure political support.With increasing democratic participation,however, rents become an increasinglyexpensive instrument while the provision ofpublic goods becomes more and moreefficient in ensuring the incumbentgovernment's survival in power. As a consequence, an increase in democracy tends toraise growth rates of per capita income.However, the beneficial impact of democracyon growth holds true only for moderatedegrees of political participation. If –in semi-democratic countries – politicalparticipation increases further,governments have an incentive toover-invest in the provision of publicgoods. This model allows to derive and testthree hypothesis: Firstly, based on asimple endogenous growth model, weempirically substantiate our hypothesis ofa non-linear, inverse u-shaped relationbetween the level of democracy and growthof per capita income. Secondly, we showthat the impact of government spending oneconomic growth is higher in moredemocratic countries. Thirdly, wedemonstrate that the level of democracy andgovernment share of GDP are correlated in au-shaped manner.     

Change in the Spatial Dimensions of Party Conflict: The Case of Japan in the 1990s

The political landscape of Japan changed drastically in the early 1990s with new parties forming, the main government party losing power temporarily, and the traditional rival parties forming a coalition government. This article examines how the spatial dimensions of party conflict changed according to surveys of the mass public. Contrary to theoretical expectations based on the stabilizing effects of party identification, we find that the structure of public attitudes toward the parties changed considerably as the party system changed. Abrupt changes in the party system were reflected in changed cleavage patterns. Independence increased during this period and changed from being perceived as a separate dimension to being seen as part of an anti-politics-as-usual dimension.     

1492: The discovery of Japan

Columbus and the Discovery of Japan, by Richard Nelson. Royal Shakespeare Company, the Barbican Theatre, London, July 1992.     

The Social Dimension of Political Values

Political Behavior - Worries about the instability of political attitudes and lack of ideological constraint among the public are often pacified by the assumption that individuals have stable...     

The International Dimension of Subnational Self-Government

In recent decades, complex interdependence as well as domesticissues have encouraged many constituent governments of largernational polities to assert an international competence of theirown, primarily in matters touching upon their respective jurisdictions,such as trade promotion, foreign investment, employment andrights of foreign workers, environmental and energy issues,and tourism. Two forms of the resulting paradiplomacy are identified:transborder regional regimes (dominantly based on informal consociationalprocesses) and "global micro-diplomacy" which bring constituentgovernments, including those of major cities, into direct contactwith foreign national and constituent governments. Examplesof the latter include the permanent representations of U.S.states and Canadian provinces in Tokyo, Brussels, Frankfurt,and London. The international initiatives of constituent governmentsevoke various reactions from national governments, ranging fromlack of concern to positive or highly negative responses, dependingon their perception of these activities as being politicallymarginal, complementary with, redundant to, or conflicting withnational foreign policy. From these activities there emergesthe concept of a territorial state as a multivocal actor. Neithera blessing nor a curse, subna-tional presence on the internationalscene has become a fact of life in an interdependent world.