The Unintended Consequences of Structural Change: When Formal and Informal Institutions Collide in Efforts to Address Wicked Problems

Significant restructuring of bureaucracies has occurred to facilitate joined-up working. This article draws on new institutionalism to explore the rationale behind the use of structural change for the promotion of joined-up working. It argues that a strong institutionalized myth has emerged which has created isomorphic pressures in the public sector to instigate structural changes in the name of vertical integration. These combine with informal institutions in ways that can be both productive and unproductive, highlighting the need to find a balance between formal institutional change and informal institutionalized practices, which often go unacknowledged as a powerful influence on policy.     

Staging race: Florence Mills,celebrity, identity and performance in 1920s Britain

This article focuses on the time the African American performer Florence Mills spent in Britain in the 1920s. Mills was one of the most popular performers of the period, taking a lead in African American vaudeville productions, she was admired by working class and ‘elite’ black and white audiences. Our paper examines four examples of Mills’ British fan mail alongside newspaper reports of her performances in London. These reveal complex themes of identity, of Britishness, sexuality, gender and class within the context of changing international understandings of race relations in the Inter-war period. We utilise these letters alongside newspaper reports to consider how Mills’ presence in Britain as a performer and anti-racist activist influenced debates and personal reflections on racial identity, sexual desire and belonging to Britain.     

Issue competition in Western Europe: an introduction

Abstract

The special issue introduced in this article presents the results of the Issue Competition Comparative Project (ICCP). The project uses issue yield theory to provide a general, comprehensive perspective on issue competition (party competition through issue strategy) that goes beyond the extant focus on specific parties or specific issues. Relying on voter surveys and Twitter data collected in the context of recent elections in six West European countries, we address several key research questions concerning issue competition: (a) whether the strategies of different parties are loyal to classic 20th-century ideological alignments or rather actively challenging them; (b) whether different parties opt for conflict-mobilization or problem-solving issue strategic approaches; (c) whether party adherence to the issue opportunities identified by issue yield theory are rewarded by better electoral performance.     

‘If This Was a Normal Situation’: Challenges and Potentials for Deliberative Democratic Peacebuilding in Kosovo's Emerging Governance Networks

The link between public administration and conflict resolution is traditionally understood through the ‘democratic peace’ thesis, which holds that war is less likely in democracies than in non‐democracies. Limited success with post‐conflict democratisation missions has opened space for renewed research on three strands of ‘deeper democracy’: decentralisation, participation and deliberation. This article reports on the study of deliberative democratic practices in emerging governance networks in Prishtina. Through an investigation of three contentious issues in Prishtina's public spaces, research combines documentary sources with field interviews with governance actors to identify factors that enable and constrain the scope for deliberative decision‐making in governance networks. Case studies point to six main influences: ‘securitisation’, trust building, ‘mandate parallelism’, structural patterns of inclusion and exclusion, network structures and the properties of governed public spaces. In addition, two frames are found to be particularly resistant to deliberative engagement: Kosovo's status and ethnic identities. We formulate a tentative conclusion to be further investigated: in contexts where distrust is high, deliberative governance requires a rigid adherence to an overarching reference framework that can create discursive space within which relative deliberation can take place. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing the credibility of how climate adaptation aid projects are categorised

This article presents the findings of a re-evaluation of all 5,200 aid projects that OECD donors reported for 2012 as “climate change adaptation”-related, based on the “Rio marker” classification system. The findings confirm those from the academic and grey literature that the absence of independent quality control makes the adaptation Rio marker data almost entirely unreliable. This lack of credibility impedes meaningful assessments of progress toward the mainstreaming of adaptation in development cooperation activities. It also erodes trust in international climate negotiations, given that these data are frequently used in the financial reporting of developed countries to the UNFCCC.     

Advocacy 20 years on from Hampel: is it time we revisited the postgraduate teaching of advocacy?

This paper seeks to discuss the teaching of advocacy as a discipline with specific reference to the way in which advocacy is taught on the Bar Professional Training Course in England and Wales. The Advocacy Training Council favours the Hampel Method of teaching advocacy first developed more than 20 years ago in Australia. The paper seeks to review the use of the Hampel Method by offering a critique of behaviourist learning theory from a constructivist standpoint and putting forward alternative teaching techniques which are in harmony with the principles of constructivism, experiential learning and productive failure. We conclude that the teaching of advocacy can be improved and that greater scholarship is needed in this important area to ensure students are taught using the best techniques.     

Evaluation of a simplified method of the conduction system analysis in 110 forensic cases

A simplified method of the His bundle analysis is evaluated by the study of 110 forensic cases. The atrioventricular node or its part were observed in 96 cases (87.3%), penetrating bundle in 92 cases (83.6%), branching and left bundles branch in 109 cases (99.1%) and right bundle branch in 73 cases (66.4%). The changes such as fibrosis and fatty infiltration show statistically significant differences (P<0.01) between progressive age groups confirming their degenerative and age-related nature. The study included as well nine cases of sudden unexpected death and two cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), for which the autopsy with histological examination and toxicological analysis resulted negative. For nine of these cases, pathological lesions were found which can even explain the fatal issue. Moreover, in the cases with known cause of death, potentially lethal changes were noticed. This simple, low cost technique could be proposed to forensic pathologists as easy to fit into the routine processing of autopsy material, allowing the detection of major abnormalities with minimal effort. The authors also consider the difficulties related to the interpretation of the pathological findings in the conduction system.     

The internal–external security nexus and EU police/rule of law missions in the Western Balkans

Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) police/rule of law missions in the Western Balkans are increasingly guided by externally imposed normative agendas that respond primarily to EU internal security needs rather than functional imperatives or local realities. In line with these needs, EU police reform efforts tend to prioritise effectiveness and crime fighting over longer- term democratic policing and good governance reforms. In practice this means that police reform initiatives are technocratically oriented, yet value ridden fitting EU security concerns and needs. As a result, the police reform process can be—and often is—disconnected from the political and socio-economic reforms necessary for long-term stability and sustainable peace. Police assistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been shaped by a determined albeit questionable focus on organised crime and corruption. The focus of EU police reform in Macedonia on primarily crime-fighting aspects of policing has compromised thefunctioning of the Macedonian police. Similarly, the politics of (non-)recognition of Kosovo's self-proclaimed independence and the intrusiveness of EULEX Kosovo's executive mandate contravene meeting local challenges.