Horizontalité et gouvernance décentralisée: les conditions de collaboration dans le contexte de l'action communautaire

Sommaire: Cet article s'interroge sur les formes de gouvernance qui caractérisent le secteur communautaire en s'appuyant sur l'étude de deux cas de partenariats locaux initiés par l'organisme Québec en forme (QEF) dans les régions de l'Outaouais et de la Mauricie. La participation croissante des organismes communautaires à la prestation des services publics met en relief l'importance de la collaboration et du partenariat interorganisationnels dans le cadre d'une gouvernance plus horizontale. L'article présente certaines difficultés posées par la construction d'une telle gouvernance dans le secteur communautaire. Le poids des structures de pouvoir traditionnelles, de même que les innovations proposées dans la littérature sur la gouvernance et l'horizontalité (élargissement des partenariats, développement de nouveaux objectifs partagés, etc.), ont beaucoup de difficultéà prendre assise dans la pratique communautaire. Abstract: This article examines the forms of governance that characterize the community sector, referring to two case studies of local partnerships initiated by the group “Québec en forme” (QEF) in the Outaouais and Mauricie regions. The increasing participation of community organizations in the delivery of public services highlights the importance of cross‐jurisdictional cooperation and partnerships within the framework of a more horizontal governance. The article presents some of the challenges surrounding governance construction in the community sector. The weight of traditional power structures, as well as the innovations proposed in the literature on governance and the implementation of a horizontal approach (securing broader partnerships, developing new shared objectives, etc.), are not easily adopted in community practice.     

What Do We Mean by ‘Rethinking Regulation’?

This article identifies and discusses several different conceptions of regulatory reform. It subsequently looks at available evidence on trends in regulatory burdens and on the results of regulatory reform activity undertaken over the past 30 years. Thirdly, it identifies and briefly discusses the range of tools that are typically employed in implementing regulatory reform policies. It then examines some of the regulatory problems that implementation of the reform agenda has itself brought forth. It concludes with some comments which seek to assess the report of the Better Regulation Taskforce in the context of the broad overview of regulatory reform set out in the preceding sections of the article.     

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT VALUES AND PERSON‐ORGANIZATION FIT: A SOCIO‐PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH AND EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION AMONG PUBLIC SECTOR PERSONNEL

This paper takes a socio‐psychological approach to NPM and its value‐based theory in public administration. We develop a model for the study of NPM values based on the idea of Person‐Organization Fit (POF) and examine it empirically. Findings, based on a survey of 205 Israeli local governance personnel, revealed that the POF of several core NPM values (that is, responsiveness, transparency, innovativeness, and achievement orientations) was positively related with job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and service climate, as reported by these public personnel. The findings suggest that, beyond modern strategies and effective policies for the public sector, lies an essential quest for NPM value‐fit with public personnel. Consequently, the study advocates a better theoretical and practical understanding of the socio‐psychological interfaces, such as POF, in public administration. Implications and directions for future studies are discussed, both in the context of public administration research and in the generic field of organizational behaviour theory and practice. The detailed results of the factor analyses are available directly from the authors.     

Enacting the “Incomprehensible China”: Modern European Jurisprudence and the Japanese Reconstruction of Qing Political Law

The great ambition of Japanese colonialism, from the time of its debut at the end of the nineteenth century, was the reformulation of Chinese law and politics. One of the most extraordinary examples of this ambition is The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire [Shinkoku Gyōseihō], a monumental enterprise undertaken by the Japanese colonial government in Taiwan intended not only to facilitate Japanese colonial administration of Taiwan but also to reorder the entire politico‐juridical order of China along the lines of modern rational law. This article examines the legal analysis embraced in The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire and recounts its attempt to reconstruct the Qing's “political law” (seihō) by a strange, ambiguous, and hybrid resort to “authenticity.” The strangeness of this Japanese colonial production comes from Japan's dual position as both colonizer of Taiwan and simultaneously itself colonized by “modern European jurisprudence”(kinsei hōri). In uncovering the effects of modern European jurisprudence on the Japanese enterprise, we will discover Japan's pursuit of its own cultural subjectivity embedded in The Administrative Law of the Qing Empire, epitomizing the campaign of national identities observable in the process of East Asian legal modernization.