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.     

HOW NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORMS CHALLENGE THE ROLES OF PROFESSIONALS

ABSTRACT

The article discusses the relationship between New Public Management reforms and professional roles in European countries. The author presents the traditional autonomous role of professionals and argues that this role is challenged in New Public Management reforms. Then the author looks more closely into the comparative European literature on New Public Management reforms to find general messages about the specific challenges for professionals. And the Danish way of implementing New Public Management reforms is introduced with a specific combination of decentralisation, managerialism and democratisation. Professionals are faced with all of these reform strategies and each of them raises important research questions in a study of reforms and roles. Finally the author presents the few European comparative studies on actual changes in professional role as a consequence of New Public Management reforms and the result is the upcoming of maybe a new interactive role and professional managers. The result calls for further studies into these new roles.     

Iran and Terrorism: The Transatlantic Responses

Since 1979 the United States and several European countries have accused the Islamic Republic of Iran of supporting terrorism. This article does not seek to examine the validity of these accusations. Rather, it analyzes how Washington and Brussels have sought to change Tehran's policy. Special attention is given to organizations such as Hizbollah, Hamas, Jihad, and Mujahideen-e Khalq. In addition, Ayatollah Khomeini's Fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the Mykonos trial, and the Flatow Amendment are discussed. The article highlights the differences between the American and European approaches toward Iran and suggests that more cooperation between the two sides of the Atlantic is needed.     

The Force of a Weak Field: Law and Lawyers in the Government of the European Union (For a Renewed Research Agenda)

Rather than considering legal and judicial arenas as the mere surface of the weighty social processes that shape European integration, this article contends that they are actually one of the essential spaces where the government of Europe is being produced. To account for this paramount role played by law in EU polity, two hitherto unexplored research paths are followed. First of all, a socio-historical perspective focuses on the critical junctures at which Law has been formalized as a science of European government providing critical devices for integration. Second, a more sociological stance is taken in relation to the functioning of the "European legal field" (ELF). A preliminary inquiry leads to its characterization as weak , with porous internal and external borders. This article argues that this weak autonomy is what makes it strong and influential when it comes to shaping the representations and principles of EU government.     

MANAGING EUROPE FROM AN IRISH PERSPECTIVE: CRITICAL JUNCTURES AND THE INCREASING FORMALIZATION OF THE CORE EXECUTIVE IN IRELAND

This article analyses the management of European Union (EU) business by the Irish core executive. More specifically, it investigates the demands placed by EU membership on the Irish system of public administration and how the system has responded to these demands. Employing an institutionalist analytical framework, the article maps the formal and informal organizational and procedural devices or structures used to manage EU affairs in Ireland, as well as dissecting the key relationships that govern this management process and the role of the domestic agents actively involved in the EU’s governance structure, the cadre or boundary managers. The article also explores in a dynamic way the development of the capacity for the management of EU affairs in Ireland over time. Using the concepts of path dependence and critical junctures, we illuminate how key system‐management decisions became locked‐in over time and we isolate the triggers for significant adaptational change, be they domestic or external. Adaptation to EU business in Ireland was path‐dependent and consisted of gradual incremental adjustment. This system of flexible adaptation generally served Ireland well as the EU’s policy regime expanded and evolved, but in response to the shock rejection of the Nice Treaty by the electorate in 2001, significant formalization of the Irish system occurred with the establishment of new processes and rules for managing relations between the core executive and the EU.     

Elite networks and worldviews during the Yel'tsin years

Conflict characterised Russian elite politics during the Yel'tsin years. This article adopts a network approach to understand the sources of elite contention in one Russian locality between 1994 and 2000. The findings suggest that elite conflict during the Yel'tsin years had its roots in structural and cultural forces deeper than control over official positions and differences in socio-demographic characteristics. The article reveals that elites fragmented over time into factions. Rather than having a unifying culture, elites from different factions held distinct worldviews that were patterned by their networks. The characteristics of their worldviews matched the structural properties of elite factions and reinforced differences between them.     

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS AND THE POLICY PROCESS

Government departments are central organizations in the development of public policy. Yet there is very little literature on the political role of departments, their internal relationships and their relationships with other departments and other government actors and institutions. This article reviews the extant literature on government departments. It argues that much of the existing research has either focused on the role of the Prime Minister or it has been institutional and static, providing an analysis of the administration and organization of departments rather than political interactions. The article therefore provides an alternative research agenda which stresses the need to examine the relationships and networks that exist within and between departments and how departments react to events and interests in the outside world.     

IS THE TREATY OF MAASTRICHT AN ADEQUATE‘CONSTITUTION’FOR THE EUROPEAN UNION?

This article explores the likely impact of the Treaty of Maastricht on the institutional balance of the European Community and the new European Union. It places particular emphasis on the impact of the Treaty on the role of the European Court of Justice, an institution which has been generally ignored by political scientists. However, it does not accept the received wisdom of legal scholars concerning the Court, which suggests that the Court, acting on its own has saved the Community from self-destruction. Instead, the analysis presented here places the Court in a political context. On the basis of this understanding, the potential of the Treaty of Maastricht to unravel some of the existing structure of the European Community is drawn out.     

Europe 2000: the future of the european union

The collapse of communism undoubtedly affects Europe. Rather than being allied by a negative force (the communist threat), European countries are now in the position to stress positive factors leading to coherence and alliance. The future of the European Union is the focal point of this special issue. Five dimensions are being analyzed and discussed: 1) regionalism and European integration, 2) monetary policy, 3) tax harmonization, 4) democratic legitimacy, and 5) social security.     

NEGLECTED FACES OF EUROPEANIZATION: THE DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT OF THE EU ON THE DISMANTLING AND EXPANSION OF DOMESTIC POLICIES

The objective of this article is to clarify the extent and the conditions under which the European Union (EU) induces changes in the policy arrangements of its member states. For an accurate measurement of our dependent variable, we distinguish between EU-induced policy expansion and EU-induced policy dismantling. We argue that the extent to which European requirements lead to an expansion or dismantling of national policy arrangements is crucially affected by the respective governance logic underlying the regulatory activities at the European level, that is: (1) compliance with EU rules; (2) competition between national administrative systems to achieve EU requirements; and (3) communication between regulatory agents across national levels arranged in an EU legal or institutional framework. To illustrate our theoretical argument, we develop hypotheses on the likelihood and direction of national policy change under these three modes of governance, in addition, providing empirical examples from different policy areas.     

Senior Public Managers’ Engagement: A Person–Situation-Interactionist Perspective

This article examines the engagement of senior public managers by developing a person–situation-interactionist perspective. It integrates the literature on social exchange theory and person–organization fit to explore the effects of decision autonomy and shared vision on the engagement of more than 2,000 senior public sector managers in the central government agencies of three continental European countries: France, Germany, and The Netherlands. Then, it examines whether the locus of control of those managers moderates the decision autonomy–engagement and shared vision–engagement relationships. The structural equation modeling results suggest that there are positive relationships between both decision autonomy and shared vision and employee engagement. Further analysis revealed that an internal locus of control strengthened the decision autonomy–engagement relationship, but that it weakened the shared vision–engagement relationship.     

‘She's Like a Daughter to Me’: Insights into Care,Work and Kinship from Rural Russia

This article draws on ethnographic research into a state-funded homecare service in rural Russia. The article discusses intersections between care, work and kinship in the relationships between homecare workers and their elderly wards and explores the ways in which references to kinship, as a means of authenticating paid care and explaining its emotional content, reinforce public and private oppositions while doing little to relieve the tensions and conflicts of care work. The discussion brings together detailed empirical insights into local ideologies and practices as a way of generating new theoretical perspectives, which will be of relevance beyond the particular context of study.     

Czech and Slovak Relations with China: Contenders for China's Favour

This study examines the prospects for new European Union (EU) member countries in pursuing their foreign policy objectives in relations with China. Both the Czech Republic and Slovakia cherished an idea of making China an alternative economic partner. However, after 1989, China perceived these states as minor, almost unimportant partners, regardless of their efforts. Their profile was raised by EU accession but there was little change in their strength in terms of bilateral relations with China. The article investigates the failures and partial successes of the Czech and Slovak relationships with China, comparing their different approaches to the balance between focusing on political and human rights issues and the pursuit of economic and business interests.     

DO MEMBER STATES MAKE EUROPEAN POLICIES WORK? ANALYSING THE EU TRANSPOSITION DEFICIT

This article seeks to systematically describe and explain variation in European Union policy implementation performance across member states and directives. The analyses rely on a new and original dataset comprising comparable information about transposition delay for practically all EU social directives in Germany, Greece, The Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. On the basis of nearly 300 observations, we could establish that only in 42.7 per cent of our cases did member states transpose in time; 17.5 per cent exceeded the deadline by more than two years. The analysis reveals modest variation between social policy areas, more profound cross‐country differences and strong cross‐area variations within some countries. The need for inter‐ministerial coordination and administrative inefficiency are strongly associated with transposition delay. Whether a directive is new or merely an amendment is unrelated to transposition delay. The same holds for the directive’s complexity and parliamentary involvement in the transposition process. The irrelevance of the latter factors may suggest that member states anticipate some potential challenges to transposition performance and act to mitigate them. Whether and why this is the case merits further research.     

Local Councillors: Between Local 'Government' and Local 'Governance'

With a two-dimensional concept of 'New Public Management' as its point of departure, the article points to the development of a specific Danish model of NPM at the local level of government. In the municipalities the market-oriented NPM dimension has been almost absent and the managerial dimension has been interpreted and translated into a 'governance'-oriented model that combines decentralized self- and user-governance from below with centralized goal-steering from above. This combined model institutes new governing roles including a new leadership role for elected councillors as central goal-steering decision and policy makers. Rather than strengthening the local councillors, the new leadership role has turned out to be problematic for the elected councillors. The problems inherent in the new institutional role as goal-steering decision makers are discussed and arguments are put forward in favour of a more 'governance' and less NPM and government-oriented role for elected councillors. What seems to be needed is another new role that stresses local councillors as co-governors and guardians of an inclusive and democratic form of local governance.     

TRACING THE NATIONAL MANDATE: ADMINISTRATIVE EUROPEANIZATION MADE IN DENMARK

The article analyses the Europeanization of the Danish national administration. The article offers a revision of the standard image of Danish adaptation to EU membership as being highly centralized and formalized. Rather, the Danish experience involves substantial polity change in terms of new institutions and procedures as well as a change in the overall approach to the EU. Whereas the initial response to membership favoured a strategy for polity adaptation based on centralization – vertical coordination and international bargaining framed by a discourse on sovereignty over a strategy emphasizing the importance of decentralization, horizontal coordination and transnational negotiation – the latter has gradually become much more influential. The analysis suggests two general conclusions relevant to the debate on Europeanization and administrative change. First, it is argued that Europeanization can in fact lead to substantial polity change, which makes the tendency to focus on policy change in Europeanization studies somewhat one‐sided and premature. Secondly, it is argued that the particular mechanisms involved in polity change have not yet received due attention within the Europeanization debate.     

Transnationalization,Social Integration,and Capitalist Diversity in the East and the South

This article analyzes the deep and shallow modes of international integration, semicore, semiperipheral, and peripheral profiles of global insertion, and the presence and absence of transformative state capacity and social cohesion, as interacting dimensions of capitalist diversity in post-socialist Eastern Europe and Latin America. On these grounds, it is argued that Cardoso and Faletto’s dependent development paradigm maintains validity. When adapted to the new conditions, their approach is able to capture the overlapping and divergent aspects of capitalist development in both regions. Recent patterns of development demonstrate that although dependency, stemming from the unequal distribution of resources, roles, and opportunities, continues to be an important aspect of the international division of labor, it ceases to contradict even complex forms of industrialization. Similarly, notwithstanding the asymmetrical power relationships characterizing them, the new transnational integration regimes allow and sometimes help formation of new nation states with improved regulatory capacities. Finally, dependency does not necessarily undermine domestic social inclusion. Rather, it is up to the democratic competition to strike a balance between the requirements of promising international and socially acceptable domestic integration.     

SUPRANATIONAL GOVERNANCE OR NATIONAL BUSINESS‐AS‐USUAL? THE NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION OF EU STRUCTURAL FUNDS IN THE NETHERLANDS AND DENMARK

The partnership principle in EU cohesion policy was introduced in order to involve subnational authorities and interest organizations in policy formulation and implementation. In this article we examine how the member states have reacted to this call for a new way of making public policy. We argue that the multi‐level governance literature and the critics of the multi‐level governance framework have not examined implementation structures properly, but have focused on regional influence. We conduct a comparative analysis of the Dutch and Danish implementations of the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund. Our findings show that when examining implementation structures it becomes clear that member states are in full control of the re‐allocation of EU funds. They show that Denmark and The Netherlands have been able to absorb EU cohesion policy within already existing national implementation structures of labour market policies and regional development. One central theoretical implication of our study is that the focus of studies of any fundamental re‐allocation of power resources in cohesion studies should comprise the entire network of implementation rather than the strategies of its individual component actors.     

NEW MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN ITALY AND THE NETHERLANDS: THE CASE OF ACTIVATION POLICIES

This article discusses the growing importance of operational reforms in the context of welfare state transformation processes, and the role that principles of new governance play in shaping these reforms. It focuses specifically on one social policy area considered crucial in reforming welfare states: the provision of activation services that aim at increasing the employability and labour‐market participation of people dependent on benefits or social assistance. The article argues that besides the reforms of the programmatic aspects of social policies and social services (formal policy reforms), reforms of the way in which policies and services are organized, administered and delivered (operational policy reforms) have received increasing attention as a ’second strand’ of welfare state reforms. It illustrates this by analysing and comparing reforms of the provision of activation services in two European countries: Italy and The Netherlands. The article not only reveals the growing emphasis in both countries on operational policy reforms which are to an important degree inspired by principles of new governance, but also shows significant similarities and differences in their concrete manifestations, which could be interpreted as pointing out processes of ‘path‐dependent convergence’.     

IRELAND, NORTHERN IRELAND AND 1992: THE BARRIERS TO TECHNOCRATIC ANTI-PARTITIONISM

This article examines the likely effects of 1992 on the relationship between the Republic and Northern Ireland. In particular, it seeks to assess the strategy of undermining partition through economic integration. After looking at the positions of the advocates of such a strategy and of its opponents, the difficulties in the way of the successful pursuit of such a policy are examined. These are: the extent to which the Single European Act will be made fully operative; the economic limits on cross-border cooperation; the administrative and governmental difficulties of pursuing cross-border cooperation; and the degree to which the political and cultural foundations of partition are independent of the economy. The article concludes with the argument that these barriers are such that a reliance on the pressures generated by the Single European Act and on a purely technocratic strategy of cross-border cooperation will not be sufficient to alter the constitutional relationship between the Republic and Northern Ireland.