Policy Transfer as a Form of Prospective Policy Evaluation: Challenges and Recommendations

This article focuses on policy transfer as a form of prospective policy analysis, which we define as policy makers' attempts to assess the effect of a policy or program before it is put in place. Despite a burgeoning literature on cross-national policy transfer, there has been little systematic comparison of cases to identify either common problems or potential strategies in the practice of policy transfer. This article sets forth a rational model of policy transfer and examines, in light of that model, case studies of cross-national policy transfer spanning different policy domains. Taking into account the constraints faced by policy makers, we relax standard rational decision-making criteria and make recommendations for improving the process of policy transfer as a form of prospective policy evaluation.     

Devolution and outsourcing of municipal services in Kampala city,Uganda: an early assessment

The late 1980s saw the beginning of wide‐ranging economic and political reforms in Africa, prompted by both external and internal pressures. Demands for political reform pushed for democratisation, including decentralisation of power and resources to lower levels of government. Alongside pressures for democratisation were those for economic liberalisation, including the rolling back of the state characterised by, among other things, reducing its role in service provision. This article looks at aspects of political and economic liberalisation in Uganda, involving devolution and outsourcing of service provision in Kampala city. It focuses on the city's experience with devolution and outsourcing of solid waste management. It shows that, pockets of resistance notwithstanding, the reforms enjoyed widespread popularity and led to many positive changes. In addition, it shows that they begot problems and encountered others that rendered the process of change more problematic than its advocates had anticipated. Its major conclusion is that while devolution and outsourcing are useful tools for improving service delivery, they cannot ensure long‐term success in the absence of financial, technical and managerial capacity on the part of contractors and contracting authorities. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

'Building a Better World'

Garran Oration Royal Institute of Public Administration Australia National Conference, 29 November -1 December 2003     

'Appropriate' Policy Knowledge, and Institutional and Governance Implications

The papers in this special section of AJPA are the product of a symposium held in Brisbane in February 2003, which was jointly sponsored by the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland and the Queensland Department of Premier and Cabinet. Three papers were delivered. David Adams, from the Victorian Public Service, delivered a paper entitled 'Usable knowledge and public policy'. Wayne Parsons, from the University of London, gave a paper 'Not just steering but weaving: Relevant knowledge and the craft of building policy capacity'. Randal Stewart, a policy consultant based in Sydney, gave a paper entitled 'Public sector reform knowledge production'. The purposes of this paper are to highlight salient points from the papers and to assess briefly the institutional and governance implications of taking at last some steps beyond the currently prevailing rationalist approaches to policy and governance.     

National identity and Taiwan's Mainland China policy

Taiwan is a mildly divided society—divided essentially along the lines of national identity. Indeed, there is no doubt that national identity is the dominant factor affecting Taiwan's mainland China policy. Other factors such as business interests and security concerns may enter the picture from time to time, but they often get bogged down in the national identity controversies. As a matter of fact, there is high correlation between people's attitudes toward business and security concerns and their positions on the national identity issue. The key to understanding Taiwan's mainland China policy is thus the distribution of voters on the national identity issue and how it is translated into the political fortunes of various political parties in the electoral game.     

North American first peoples: slipping up into market citizenship?

This article explores the nature of Aboriginal demands for a citizenship regime grounded in a substantive recognition of cultural difference and inherent rights in Mexico and Canada. It provides an overview of the different evolution of Aboriginal citizenship in each country but focuses on two recent development projects, the Puebla Panama Plan in Mexico and the Mackenzie Valley pipeline in Canada. These cases demonstrate the ways in which neo‐liberal globalism is reshaping the substantive recognition of Aboriginal cultural difference and inherent rights. While contemporary neo‐liberal rhetoric recognizes cultural difference, the models of development employed effectively separate territory from the ideas of self‐government, culture and identity. The article concludes that the neo‐liberal turn in the construction of Aboriginal citizenship undercuts potentially much richer conceptions of Indigenous citizenship offered by the First Peoples of North America.     

Decentralisation of service delivery as adopted by the Central District Council in Botswana

The Central District Council (CDC) in Botswana expanded service delivery to five sub‐districts in January 2000 using a model adapted from the South Somerset District Council, UK. As little data were available on the effectiveness of decentralised service delivery, officials and councillors throughout CDC were interviewed regarding their perception of the process. They not only provided recommendations for enhanced implementation but also identified some of the tensions resulting from it. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Palestinian state‐building: police and citizens as test of democracy

This article explores police‐society relations by assessing the impact of current state‐building efforts by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank. The article presents an outline of the emerging civilian policing model and its wider implications for citizens’ rights and the dominant political order. The specific focus of the paper rests on an examination of the potential tensions associated with the perceived need for strong coercive security structures (including the civil police) as part of state‐building efforts and the desire by the population for increased freedom and pluralism. This issue is further complicated by the ambiguous nature of the current experiment in limited autonomy underway in those areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip where Israeli redeployment has taken place.     

The Shi'a of Saudi Arabia: a minority in search of cultural authenticity

This article focuses on the transformation of Saudi Shi'a resistance from one which centred on military confrontation in the 1980s to one which invokes searching for cultural authenticity (al‐asala al‐shi'iyya) in the 1990s. Today the struggle of the Shi'a for equal status among the Sunni majority draws attention to the attempts of Shi'a intellectuals to write their own regional history. Shi'a intellectuals and opposition leaders deconstruct official representations of themselves and provide alternative historical narratives which anchor their community in Saudi history and society, thus dismissing suggestions that they are a non‐indigenous community. This article examines Shi'a historical narratives in an attempt to understand the transformation in their struggle against discrimination in Saudi Arabia.