Conceptualizing the Landscape of Decision Making for Complex Problem Solving

Complex problem resolution often involves the need for a pragmatic integration of knowledge from stakeholders with competing epistemic claims. The decision-making process regarding complex problem resolution is characterized by four basic sources of knowledge: disciplines, societies, organizations, and individuals. From the perspective of the public administration, we conceptualize the structure of the interactions between the disciplines and other sources of knowledge potentially relevant to the resolution of a public problem. To aid this exercise we examine a series of cases that we believe represent relevant aspects of complex problem resolution. We describe these basic interactions as collaborative, agnostic, or adversarial. This is a reorientation to the knowledge at play in the problem at hand. The study of public administration is well suited as a body of knowledge to address complex problems because it has a rich history of cooperation with other disciplines, practitioners, and stakeholders in the public.     

Unequal Laws and the Disempowerment of Women in the Labour Market: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

Institutions are defined as the set of rules that govern human interactions. When these rules are discriminatory, they may disempower segments of a population in the economic spheres of activity. In this study, we explore whether laws that discriminate against women influence their engagement in the economy. We adopt a holistic approach where we explore an overall measure of unequal laws also known as legal gender disparities and relate it to several labour market outcomes for women. Using data for over 59,000 firms across 94 economies, we find that unequal laws not only discourage women’s participation in the private sector workforce, but also their likelihood to become top managers and owners of firms. Suggestive evidence indicates that access to finance, property ownership, business registration, and labour market constraints are pathways by which legal gender disparities disempower women in the private sector.     

Why we should care about respect

Respect is a concept that is often used in political and social discourse, but is rarely adequately conceptualised. In this article it is argued that there are three very good reasons for caring about respect. First, self-respect is an integral part of our image of our self. Second, 'social respect' mediates our social interactions. Judgments of our merits and status are part of the everyday interactions that we engage in. Respect matters because it represents a way in which we are taken seriously by others. And, third, respect matters because it links to social justice. In this sense, there is a radical dimension to the concept of respect that has often been overlooked by radical theorists who have been over-enthusiastic in endorsing a view of morality as based in bourgeois liberalism. The article argues for a radical politics of respect that embraces liberal ideals and pushes them to their radical conclusions.     

Sexual violence issues in eastern DRC: processes of global and local co-constitution

According to Séverine Autesserre, there is a dominant culture within the field of international peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo that excludes any action at the local level. This dichotomy between the local and the global is also noticeable in terms of women's rights, where international human rights law and local customs are opposed. But in order to grasp the complexity of the emancipation movements of the female victims of violence in North Kivu, we must consider the multiplicity of the semi-autonomous social fields that regulate the lives of individuals on the local and global spheres, as well as the social actors’ interactions within these spaces. Using the results of an ethnography study carried out in North Kivu between 2011 and 2012, we will see that these actors not only construct law, but they also inhabit normative systems built and maintained by them.     

HOW POLITICIANS AND BUREAUCRATS NETWORK: A COMPARISON ACROSS GOVERNMENTS

Effective public administration relies on the passage of information through interpersonal communication networks. While we have a vast research literature concerning formal structures and roles in organizations, including public agencies and government institutions, we know far less about the flow of information through semiformal, voluntary interactions. In this paper we use a large survey to explore the networking patterns of politicians and bureaucrats and to compare these with the more formal structural attributes of hierarchy and functional specialization. Social network analysis and standard quantitative measures are used to examine which actors are most central in advice and strategic information networks and how this varies across governments. The results suggest that the communication networks of politicians and bureaucrats differ substantially, with politicians being surprisingly peripheral in their patterns of interaction. Differences across governments are also observed with some municipalities being markedly more hierarchical, cross‐organizational, and externally focused in their networking behaviour.     

Patronage,politics and performance: radio call-in programmes and the myth of accountability

The role of media in promoting political accountability and citizen participation is a central issue in governance debates. Drawing on research into the interactions between radio station owners, journalists, audiences and public authorities during Somali radio call-in programmes we argue that these programmes do not simply offer a new platform for citizens to challenge those who are governing but that they are also spaces where existing power structures reproduce themselves in new forms. We identify the ways the programmes are structured and the different motivations the audience has for participation. Three types of programmes are identified and their relationships with patronage, politics, and performance are examined. Rather than focusing on normative assumptions about the media as a tool of accountability, the article emphasises the importance of understanding radio programmes in their social and political environment, including the overlapping relationships between on-air and off-air networks.     

Social Ties,Collective Efficacy,and Crime-Specific Fear in Seattle Neighborhoods

While research suggests that individuals’ interactions with their communities—such as their social integration into the community and perceptions of collective efficacy—impact their perceived risk of victimization, only a handful of studies have examined the influence of these characteristics on crime-specific, emotional fear. Using the Seattle Neighborhoods and Crime Survey, we conduct multilevel models to examine whether social ties and collective efficacy are associated with perceived risk and emotional fear of violence and burglary. The results show that individuals’ social ties to the community are negatively associated with perceived risk, but not emotional fear of violence or burglary, while perceived collective efficacy is negatively related to both cognitive and emotional fear. Moreover, the results suggest that individuals’ social integration into the community functions through perceptions of collective efficacy to predict perceived risk; however, this process does not extend to emotional fear of either violence or burglary.     

Centred discourse,decentred practice: the relational production of Russian and Chinese ‘rising’ power in Central Asia

Abstract

This paper challenges dominant understandings of ‘rising powers’ by developing a decentred, relational account of Russia and China in Central Asia. We ask whether Moscow and Beijing’s regional integrative strategies do not guide, but rather are led by, everyday interactions among Russian and Chinese actors, and local actors in Central Asia. Rising powers, as a derivative of ‘Great Powers’, are frequently portrayed as structurally comparable units that concentrate power in their executives, fetishise territorial sovereignty, recruit client states, contest regional hegemony and explicitly oppose the post-1945 international order. In contrast, we demonstrate that the centred discourse of Eurasian integration promoted by Russian and Chinese leaders is decentred by networks of business and political elites, especially with regard to capital accumulation. Adopting Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of mimicry (subversion, hybridity) and J. C. Scott’s conception of mētis (local knowledge, agency), and using examples of Russian and Chinese investments and infrastructure projects in Central Asia, we argue that in order to understand centring discourse we must look to decentring practices at the periphery; that is, rising power is produced through ongoing interactions between actors at the margins of the state’s hegemonic reach.     

ONLY GOOD FENCES KEEP GOOD NEIGHBOURS! THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF MINISTRY–AGENCY RELATIONSHIPS AT THE SCIENCE–POLICY NEXUS IN GERMAN FOOD SAFETY POLICY

This article makes a further contribution to opening the ‘black box’ of micropractices in ministry–agency relationships. We argue that the mechanisms that come into play in the course of institutionalizing agencification reforms – such as renegotiating mutual roles and rules in ministry–agency interactions – are only poorly covered in the existing literature. To adequately address the negotiated and contingent nature of de facto agency autonomy and political control, we develop an interpretive approach based on the concept of ‘boundary work’. The empirical focus is on ministry–agency interactions at the science–policy nexus in the contested policy field of food safety. By studying actors' stories about the institutionalization processes following the fundamental reorganization of the German food safety administration in the wake of the BSE crisis from a longitudinal perspective, we show how actors manage boundary conflicts via increasingly differentiated backstage coordination.     

Critical barriers to joint production: datu politics and insurgent fragmentation in Southern Philippines

Abstract

In understanding how groups overcome collective action problems of mass mobilisation in civil wars, a joint-production explanation was put forth in the civil war literature. According to this explanation, collective action can be successful when leaders at the centre tie the public good – violence towards the overall goal of the movement – inextricably to private interests of actors at the peripheral levels of the conflict. It is through this logic of joint production that we can understand the failures of the Islamic insurgencies in Southern Philippines and the spiralling levels of violence. Where other movements cohered under a common identity, the Islamist insurgency in Southern Philippines saw high degrees of fragmentation. In this paper, I argue that cleavages of regionalism created by colonial disruptions of land and social relations became a critical barrier for insurgent joint production. Furthermore, interactions between these identities and the state can pose further collective action problems. In Southern Philippines, insurgent leaders are unable to cut across these cleavages, resulting in increasingly fragmented movements and protracted conflict. Therefore, I argue that a joint-production approach to understanding civil wars can be especially promising when culturally and historically situated to explain why collective action often fails in civil war.     

New media and governance in conflict

The role of new media in shaping the interactions of formal and informal leaders with their audiences is frequently misunderstood and often narrowly focussed on electoral processes and political competition. By weaving together strands of scholarship on political communication and political settlement while engaging with concepts of hybrid governance and leadership more prevalent in the African studies literature, this article takes a different, wider focus. We attempt to knit a framework that challenges normative assumptions on institutional communicative practices and considers the role of power, leadership and communications in both exacerbating and mitigating violent conflict in emerging and consolidating democracies. By bringing together disparate strands of scholarship that are rarely in dialogue, we question a characterisation that contrasts vertical mainstream media with more horizontal and inclusive social media, arguing that a more nuanced view of the political significance of these spaces is required, one that highlights their interplay and blurs the boundaries between online and offline. In doing so, the article places power at the centre of analysis to examine how entrenched relations of patronage can be left unscathed, transformed or even reinforced by networked forms of communication.     

“Double transformations:” nation formation and democratization in interwar East Central Europe

Following the collapse of empires and the subsequent founding of self-determined nation-states, East Central Europe experienced a turning point after World War I. The new states had to transform themselves from branches of a multi-ethnic empire to independent nation-states, as well as from a system of monarchy to democracy at the same time. We argue that one cannot really understand why democracy failed in almost all East Central European states after World War I if one does not take into account the extreme challenges of this “double transformation” consisting of the interactions of the two tightly interwoven processes of nation formation and democratization. Therefore, we deem it necessary to develop a broader research program that addresses the complex interlacement of these two fundamental transformations of politics and society.     

Conceptualizing racialized black political activity within European spaces: a political opportunities approach

African presence in Europe can be traced back to Roman times, yet African peoples within European spaces are continually perceived and often treated as new migrants with no sense of an historical attachment to European soil. This paper seeks to understand and challenge this conception of black migrants to Europe by focusing on the community and political activities of black subjects in European spaces. Using Britain as a primary reference point, the paper argues that the unfolding nature of black political activity in European spaces emerges as a result of dynamic interactions between black protagonists and the state. The nature of these interactions it is argued are racialized in character and that black community organizations and individuals play a crucial role in determining the forms and nature of political activity and outcomes that operate under the guise of minority ethnic mobilization. This paper argues a point that is often overlooked in the literature that focuses on African and other immigrants to Europe as recent migrants with problems. The paper uses a refined political opportunities approach and focuses on state practices and black community organizational practices between the First and Second World Wars to outline the varied nature of black community and political activity in an era of state antagonism towards black populations at home and abroad. The paper argues that context, state power and action, and the activities and ideas of black community organizations interact in dynamic ways to account for the changing nature of black political activity in European spaces.     

COOPERATIVE INTERACTIONS AMONG FRIENDS AND FOES OPERATING WITHIN COLLABORATIVE GOVERNANCE ARRANGEMENTS

Perhaps nowhere is the inclination to interact with friends over foes more apparent than in the realms of politics and policy, and public managers increasingly operate within collaborative governance arrangements that are highly politicized. To further the existing knowledge on policy‐based interactions, this article examines factors that lead to cooperative interactions between foes. The Advocacy Coalition Framework, Resource Dependence Theory, and Policy Analytical Capacity are utilized to examine effects of resources and beliefs on interactions of climate policy supporters and opponents within Colorado. Despite the contentious nature of climate policy, a majority of individuals interacted equally with friends and foes, with opponents more likely to interact with foes. Extreme beliefs made individuals more likely to interact with friends, while resources had mixed effects. These findings offer an improved understanding of cooperative interactions between foes, which may help public managers operating within collaborative governance arrangements to promote greater cooperation and understanding.     

Cream-skimming at the frontline: The role of administrative literacy

The notion of cream-skimming—defined as the propensity to prioritize clients who have a higher likelihood of meeting bureaucratic success criteria, including organizational goals—is at the heart of street-level bureaucracies. However, there is often no direct information available to street-level bureaucrats whether clients will actually meet bureaucratic success criteria. This study argues that street-level bureaucrats assess clients' potential to reach these criteria via their administrative literacy—a client's capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic information and services from public administrations—as displayed in social interactions. Therefore, this study elaborates on the role of clients' administrative literacy and its effects on cream-skimming behavior. Using data from two experiments, we show that public employees prioritize clients with higher levels of preparedness and effective communication strategies. These findings suggest that cream-skimming is not just a rational cost–benefit analysis, but strongly influenced by social dynamics within public encounters.     

Bodies and Bullying: The Interaction of Gender,Race, Ethnicity,Weight, and Inequality With School Victimization

The problem of bullying among youth is receiving more attention because of long-lasting detrimental consequences of victimization at school. Research demonstrates that gender, race, ethnicity, and weight are separately linked to bullying victimization; however, little is known about the interaction of these factors in relationship to victimization at school. This study utilizes the 2005/2006 Health Behavior in School-Aged Children (HBSC) data to investigate how bodies (i.e., gender, race, ethnicity, and weight) matter with youth victimization. Drawing from the 2005/2006 HBSC sample consisting of 7,143 youth, findings indicate that interactions of gender, race, ethnicity, and weight are linked to school bullying victimization.     

Impact of Internal In-Migration on Income Inequality in Receiving Areas: A District Level Study of South Africa

The impact of internal migration on regional income inequality of the receiving areas has hitherto gone largely unstudied. This dearth of literature is especially surprising because income inequality and in-migration into urban centres of growth are two issues that many developing economies are faced with and tackling these issues effectively involves understanding the interactions between these two related phenomena. This study is therefore a first attempt to analyse the impact of internal in-migration on receiving areas and is placed in the context of South Africa. Based on a conceptual analysis, the study argues that in-migration into the formal sector of the receiving areas will in general reduce inequality while in-migration into the informal or unemployed sector increases inequality. Using individual panel data the study further tests empirically at the district level the impact of in-migration and finds that rising urban inequality in urban areas can be attributed at least in part to rural-urban migration. This works through both the wage as well as employment channel. The employment channel can be said to have a stronger impact than the wage channel as indicated by the coefficients estimated through our system GMM regression analysis.     

The oppression/emancipation nexus in ongoing power struggles: Village—Power dynamics in Western Nepal 1

Abstract

How can we gain a more nuanced understanding of power struggles than is assumed under the ‘power as domination’ perception that attributes power to dominant actors who exercise control over others, and thus dichotomises domination and emancipation? This article addresses this question by exploring the power dynamics underlying ‘participatory’ public works in a village in western Nepal. Drawing on an alternative analytical framework that brings together Giddens' ‘structuration’ perspective and the Foucauldian notion of power, the case study illustrates that dominance and resistance are interwoven in day-to-day social interactions, and that the existing social order is continually being readjusted. The article concludes by discussing this study's implications for proponents of empowerment, namely the need to ascertain the emancipatory potentials that are immanent in daily power contestation, and then to develop strategies that compensate for the limitations of everyday struggles.     

The Best Laid Plans: The Impact of Informal Rules on Formal Institutions in Transitional Regimes

How do informal institutions influence the formation and function of formal institutions? Existing typologies focus on the interaction of informal institutions with an established framework of formal rules that is taken for granted. In transitional settings, such typologies are less helpful, since many formal institutions are in a state of flux. Instead, using examples drawn from post-communist state development, I argue that informal institutions can replace, undermine, and reinforce formal institutions irrespective of the latter’s strength, and that the elite competition generated by informal rules further influences which of these interactions dominate the development of the institutional framework. In transitional settings, the emergence and effectiveness of many formal institutions is endogenous to the informal institutions themselves.     

The interdependence of mobility and faith–an introduction

The introduction to the special issue draws together theoretical and analytical strands that run through the four papers. As the four papers illustrate, devotion and mobility, belief and trajectory, go hand in hand. The main argument is that the religious movements discussed in this special issue are not local phenomena attempting to transcend fixed boundaries: they are transcendence, in the sense that they always are (and have been) part of the border land between global and vernacular, modern and traditional. They are not at the border: they are the border. Concepts such as mobility, postcoloniality and translocality are being discussed, which in turn lead to a problematization of concepts such as “Africa” and “Diaspora”. A second strand that combines the various papers is that trajectories along which religious practitioners travel are not nicely established routes, rather these are constantly “interrupted”; travellers move between localities, hopping from one hub to another. Such an approach allows a focus on networks and concrete interactions; and it destabilizes the assumed homogenous tracts along which Africans (or Pentecostalists) venture into the world “out there”.