Does politics crowd out professional competence? The organisation of ministerial advice in Denmark and Sweden

The use of politically appointed ministerial advisors has increased noticeably in many Western countries, but we know little about how this development has affected the civil servants recruited on merit. The article asks whether political appointees accentuate or blur the line between politics and administration. Do political appointees take over political-tactical advice and leave policy advice to the permanent civil service, or do they cause permanent civil servants to be even more influenced by political considerations? And do political appointees make it easier or more difficult for the permanent civil service to be politically responsive? A Most Similar Systems Design comparison of Denmark and Sweden allows an assessment of the effects of political appointees. It is found that a large number of political appointees decreases functional politicisation of the permanent civil service; that functional politicisation tends to crowd out tasks related to more classic policy advice; and that functional politicisation increases political responsiveness.     

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now? Voluntary Retirement from Danish Local Government

Why do politicians choose to retire voluntarily from a position they have been working hard to get? It is argued in this article that the institutional setting of the elected assemblies influences the direct, as well as the alternative costs and benefits of having a political career and hence the patterns of voluntary retirement. Drawing on previous research from the United States Congress, this is explored in a new empirical setting: local government in Denmark. The results show that positions at the labour market matter as private‐sector employees are more likely to retire than public‐sector employees. Furthermore, internal institutional factors matter. Holding an institutional position such as chairing a committee makes retirement less likely. Furthermore, seniority makes the councillors more likely to retire when age is controlled for – a result not found in national studies. However, councillors who reach a high‐ranking position at an early stage are not more likely to quit with seniority than those who do not reach such a position. A high personal share of votes decreases voluntary retirement. In contrast to previous findings, the ideological distance from the ruling party does not play a role. This may be due to norms of consensus in the local councils.     

Spending and cutting are two different worlds: experimental evidence from Danish local councils

This article investigates politicians’ preferences for cutting and spending. The research questions are where do politicians prefer to cut, where do they prefer to spend and how is this influenced by political ideology? These questions are investigated in a large-scale survey experiment fielded to Danish local councillors, who are randomly assigned to a decision-making situation, where the block grant provided to their municipality is either increased or reduced. The results show that the politicians’ preferences for cutting and spending are asymmetric, in the sense that the policy areas, which are assigned the least cuts when the grant is reduced, are rarely the ones which are assigned extra money when the grant is increased. Areas with well-organised interests and a target group which is perceived as deserving are granted more money, whereas policy areas where the target group is perceived as less deserving receive the highest cuts. Ideology matters as left-wing councillors prefer more vague categories when cutting and prioritise childcare and unemployment policies when increasing spending. In contrast, right-wing councillors prefer to cut administration and increase spending on roads.     

Distribution of Enantiomers of Methadone and Its Main Metabolite EDDP in Human Tissues and Blood of Postmortem Cases

Knowledge concerning the distribution of methadone in postmortem human tissue and the effect of postmortem redistribution on methadone is today limited making the choice of a suitable substitute for femoral blood difficult when this is not available. Cardiac blood, femoral blood, muscle, and brain tissue concentrations of the enantiomers of methadone and its metabolite 2‐ethyl‐1,5‐dimethyl‐3,3‐diphenylpyrrolinium were recorded for 155 postmortem cases. Brain and muscle tissue concentrations exceeded the femoral blood concentrations with a median fold of 2.3 and 1.6, respectively, but both had a better correlation than cardiac blood to femoral blood concentrations. The Kruskal–Wallis test showed a significant dependency on time and body mass index for some of the matrix ratios over femoral blood. We conclude brain or muscle tissue may constitute a better alternative for measurement of methadone than cardiac blood for situations in which femoral blood is not available, despite concentrations in both matrices being systematically higher.     

Women's Citizenship and the First World War: general remarks and a case study of women's enfranchisement in Austria and Germany

Historians' views about the impact of World War I on women's citizenship have diverged. Some scholars have emphasized that the war changed cultural understandings of suffrage due to women's patriotism and dedication to the war effort. Others have underlined that the politics of electoral reform determined whether or not women attained voting rights. Based on the cases of Austria and Germany where women were enfranchised in the context of revolutionary unrest triggered by the war, this article argues that the political process was in fact crucial. However, the claim of women's suffrage during the war is to be contextualized within a general understanding of republican citizenship and the concept of the ‘citizen soldier’. This discourse was essential to keeping the issue alive during the war. Nonetheless, further studies are still required to assess the war's impact on women and citizenship in the subjective sense of participation.     

Europeanising Export Controls: The Impact of the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports in Belgium,Germany and Italy

Abstract

This article explores the impact of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports on national legal frameworks, using the case studies of Belgium, Germany and Italy. It considers the differential impact of Europeanisation on high- and low-regulating countries and how non-legally binding decisions agreed in the framework of the CFSP nevertheless exert pressure on member states. It argues that the Europeanisation impact of the Code has not been insignificant, but that it has not had a uniformly strengthening impact. Rather, the Europeanisation of the Code of Conduct has promoted convergence, weakening strong national frameworks and strengthening weak ones.     

Public Service Efficacy

This article develops a measure of user capacity called Public Service Efficacy (PSE), which is applied to four sectors: hospitals, elementary schools, day care, and higher education. Tests of validity and reliability indicate good properties and consistent patterns across three of four sectors. The measure differentiates between users of the same services, and it increases with level of education. This indicates that PSE can enable us to identify individual users with low capacity and sectors with low average user capacity and thus improve our ability to address equity concerns and harvest potential benefits from user involvement in public service provision.     

Does Ownership Matter for Employee Motivation When Occupation Is Controlled for?

The public service motivation literature argues that public employees are more motivated than private employees to deliver public service for the benefit of society. But the reason for this may be that the classical welfare services are predominant in the public sector. This article therefore investigates if ownership matters to employee motivation when occupation is controlled for. The findings show that the employees in both sectors have pro-social motivation, but that public sector employees are more motivated to work for the public interest, whereas private sector employees are more motivated to help individual users of services. The survey data are based on 3,304 Danish employees working in private as well as public organizations.     

The impacts of foreignness and cultural distance on commercialization of patents

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Foreign-born academic scientists have been consistently shown to be more productive than the native-born in the United States with regard to research and...