Implementation of CRM systems in Portuguese Municipalities

Customer relationship management is a business strategy which dynamically integrates a set of services with the purpose of creating value for the organisation and for their customers. In Portugal, the 2009/2010 edition of ‘Simplex for Municipalities’, the action plan carried by the Portuguese government through the Secretary's Office of State for Administrative Modernisation, makes a commitment to promote a set of initiatives in order to help citizens using the public services. This process intends to reduce costs of context which burden the economic activities, making way for the modernisation of administration. Customer relationship management assumes a central role in this context. This paper presents the main results of a survey that was carried out with Portuguese municipalities, aiming a general characterisation of the adoption of customer relationship management systems, covering several aspects, from the motivations for CRM adoption to the obtained results. The improvement of the relationship with citizens and a higher information quality are some of the most important results obtained by municipalities.     

Threat-Based Competition Policy

This note suggests a link between the theory of contestable markets and competition policy. We propose that in the absence of potential hit and run entrants into an industry the behaviour of a firm may be constrained by the fear of intervention by the competition authorities. Hence, in periods in which hit and run entry is believed to be a non-credible threat, the competition authorities can affect a firm's behaviour by the threat of intervention, as well as by intervention itself. Requirements for the successful use of threat-based competition policy are identified, and its potential benefits are outlined.     

Trade policy and the politics of access to drugs

This article explores the relationship between trade policy and access to drugs, using the ARV drugs as an example. It begins by noting the moral problem of inequality in access to drugs. It goes on to explore the political problem in terms of the discrepancy between what is legal/permissible under WTO rules, and what is permissible/desirable under the terms of US trade policy. Finally, it explores the problem of credibility for global health governance and the global market system in terms of access to drugs.     

Understanding the Complexities of Private Standards in Global Agri-Food Chains as They Impact Developing Countries

Abstract

The increasing prevalence of private standards governing food safety, food quality and environmental and social impacts of agri-food systems has raised concerns about the effects on developing countries, as well as the governance of agri-food value chains more broadly. It is argued that current debates have been ‘clouded’ by a failure to recognise the diversity of private standards in terms of their institutional form, who develops and adopts these standards and why. In particular, there is a need to appreciate the close inter-relationships between public regulations and private standards and the continuing ways in which private standards evolve.     

University Matters: Early Institutional Development of Public Administration Education in Québec

What role do universities play in the early institutional development of public administration education? While related literature aptly describes the role of external influences and demands, universities' influence remains largely unexplored. Using the theory of fields, this article analyzes the role universities of the province of Québec, Canada, had in the early institutional development of public administration education during the 1960s and 1970s. The article shows universities had an impact through academic structures, their positions in different fields of activities, and the profiles of their faculty members. The conclusions of the article are a first step toward an understanding of what universities can do, rather than what they should do, when it comes to educating public servants.     

International Intervention and the People's Will: The Demoralization of Democracy in Cambodia

This article examines the deterioration in relations between two Cambodian opposition parties and the “international community” from whom they sought support during the 1998 Cambodian elections. It is suggested that the manipulation, by influential political actors, of internationally promoted political concepts such as “democracy,” “sovereignty,” and “the people's will” is problematic for mutual understanding between international and local political actors. In Cambodia in 1998, liberal views of the “people's will” as an amoral and neutral construct facilitating the delegation of authority were awkwardly but influentially conflated, by the election campaigning of the two parties, with a view of the “people's will” as a moral imperative to liberate the nation from alleged “traitors.” This caused widespread adherence, among the parties' followers, to views of the 1998 elections that were non-liberal and antidemocratic in a number of respects. When sharp differences in understandings of the political situation emerged between local and international actors, following the electoral defeat of those opposition party leaders, the fragile nature of a purported “partnership” between a self-appointed “international community” and the Cambodian people was exposed.     

Framing Post-conflict Societies: international pathologisation of Cambodia and the post-Yugoslav states

This article examines the pathologisation of post-conflict societies through a comparison of the framing of the Cambodian and post-Yugoslav states. The notion of failed states fixes culpability for war on the societies in question, rendering the domestic populations dysfunctional while casting international rescue interventions as functional. The article suggests that the discourse of pathologisation can be understood primarily not as a means of explaining state crisis so much as legitimising an indefinite international presence and deferring self-government.     

A follow-up study of sex offenders treated by Thames Valley Sex Offender Groupwork Programme, 1995–1999

The following paper is a reconviction study of 183 sex offenders treated by the Thames Valley Project between 1995 and 1999. Some demographic details are provided about the sample. Subjects were monitored for a mean of 3.9 years. A total of 10 subjects (5.4% of total) were reconvicted for a further sexual offence. A further 19 men (10.3%) either had allegations made against them or committed a behaviour that may have involved or been the preparation for further sexual offending, defined here as “recidivism”. Details about post-treatment behaviour were drawn from three sources: two national police databases which indicated any formal sexual reconviction and the files kept on each sex offender registered with Thames Valley Project (TVSOGP), a multi-funded community-based sex offender treatment programme. The pre-treatment re-conviction risk status of each man was calculated using part one of the Risk Matrix 2000 algorithm (static factors). Risk levels were compared for those where reconviction, re-offending or recidivism was identified and those where it was not and a correlation was found in the predicted direction although this was not statistically significant. The advantages and limitations of this kind of follow-up study are discussed, together with some recommendations for future research.