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.     

The Evolution Trajectories of Voucher Funds: Towards Western-type Institutional Investors? The Case of the Czech Republic and Bulgaria

The implementation of similar mass privatization programs in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria led to the emergence of hybrid voucher funds. The contradictions stemming from this hybrid nature gave rise to the evolution of the funds' nature and of their place in the national ownership structure. The dynamics of this evolution is apprehended through a comparative study of the portfolios of a sample of funds between 1998 and 2000. We show how the interaction between the strategies of economic actors have shaped two transformation paths of the initial funds: holding companies on one hand and more ordinary collective investment vehicles on the other, the Czech and Bulgarian evolutions being divergent. We also discuss to what a degree these mutations bring these funds closer to Western-type institutional investors, showing that there is some convergence, but also the emergence of original forms.     

Authoritarianism,socioethnic diversity and political participation across countries

It is argued in this article that threatening stimuli affect political participation levels among non‐authoritarians more than among authoritarians. Focusing on socioethnic diversity, which is known to be particularly threatening to authoritarians and to relate negatively to political participation in the general public, analyses of individual‐ and macro‐level data from 53 countries is presented which supports this thesis. Participation levels among authoritarians are largely static, regardless of a country's level of socioethnic heterogeneity, while non‐authoritarians participate considerably less in countries with relatively high levels of socioethnic heterogeneity. This suggests that authoritarians participate to a proportionately greater degree in the most diverse countries.