Decision-making: the role of the deputy minister

Abstract. This paper examines the role of the deputy minister in public decision-making. It notes the theoretical distinction between policy-making, on the one hand, and policy-execution or administration on the other, with the qualification that in practice the two are inevitably intermingled. It advances the view that changes in policy should be based on experience, in which the external impressions of politicians are complemented by the sense of continuity and inside knowledge of officials. The analysis by the Fulton Commission on the Civil Service of the United Kingdom of the fourfold functions of the permanent secretary as (1) the minister's most immediate policy adviser; (2) the managing director of the day-to-day operations of the department; (3) the possessor of ultimate responsibility for questions of staff and organization; and (4) accounting officer with ultimate responsibility for all departmental expenditures is compared with the duties and responsibilities of the deputy minister in Canada. The contribution to public policy-making by the recent developments in rationalizing the cabinet committee system and in arranging, inter alia, for the attendance of senior advisers at committee meetings, is noted and the influence of economists and other outside professional advisers is considered. Finally, the question as to who in government makes decisions is answered by the conclusion that in government decisions are made by ministers, or by officials in the name and on the responsibility of ministers at many levels of the administrative machine. Sommaire. L'auteur de cette communication examine le rôle du sous-ministre dans le prise de décision publique. Il prend note de la distinction théorique entre d'une part la prise de décision et d'autre part, l'exécution des politiques ou leur administration, tout en faisant remarquer que dans la pratique ces deux functions se fusionnent inévitablement. Il prétend que les changements de politique devraient se faire sur la base de l'expérience, les impressions extemes des ministres étant complétées par le sens de la continuité et les connaissances internes des fonctionnaires. Il compare les devoirs et responsabilités des sousministres au Canada à l'analyse qu'a faite la Commission Fulton sur la function publique du Royaume-Uni et plus précisément sur le quadruple rôle du secretaire permanent en tant que (1) » conseiller le plus proche du ministre «, (2) directeur des opérations quotidiennes du ministère, (3) détenteur de la responsabilité en dernier ressort des questions de personnel et d'organisation et (4), dans le domaine financier, responsable en dernier ressort de toutes les dépenses du ministère. Il souligne les apports à la prise de décision publique des derniers développements visant à rationnaliser le système des comités du cabinet et à assurer, entre autres, l'assistance des conseillers aux réunions des comités et évalue également l'influence des économistes et des autres conseillers professionnels de rextérieur. Finalement il répond à la question de savoir qui prend les decisions au sein du gouvernement en concluant que les décisions sont prises par les ministres ou par les fonctionnaires au nom de ceux-ci et sous leur responsabilité, à différents niveaux du mécanisme administratif.     

Linking program implementation and effectiveness: Lessons from a pooled sample of welfare‐to‐work experiments

This paper addresses the question: How does implementation influence the effectiveness of mandatory welfare‐to‐work programs? Data from three large‐scale, multi‐site random assignment experiments were pooled; quantitative measures of program implementation were constructed; and multilevel statistical modeling was used to examine the relationship between program implementation and effects on short‐term client earnings. Individual‐level data were analyzed for 69,399 sample members and group‐level implementation data were analyzed for 59 local programs. Findings indicate that, other things being equal, earnings effects are increased by: an emphasis on quick client employment, an emphasis on personalized client attention, staff caseloads that do not get too large, and limited use of basic education. Findings also show that mandatory welfare‐to‐work programs can be effective for many types of people, and that focusing on clients who are especially job‐ready (or not) does not have a consistent influence on a program's effectiveness. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Authoritarian resilience and regime cohesion in Morocco after the Arab Spring

Abstract

This article argues that Morocco's competitive authoritarian regime is more resilient today in certain key respects than it was when the Arab Spring began. Drawing on Levitsky and Way's dimension of organisational power, the article contends the regime was sufficiently unnerved by the unrest to resort to the use of high intensity coercion as part of its response to the 20 February Movement. The article maintains that, in employing this force successfully, the regime has turned the protests into an important source of non-material cohesion for its security apparatus and thereby enhanced its ability to defend itself from similar challenges in the future.     

Lumpy preference structures

A widely held and durable normative position has been that policy analysts should attempt to estimate the evaluative reaction of those who will be most directly affected by a government sponsored or regulated technology. The premise of applied welfare economics is that citizens would divide, substitute and additively recombine their assessments of the project's impacts in the same manner. This paper outlines an alternative theory by arguing that citizen preferences will often be contingent upon, rather than divisible from, the substantive and procedural characteristics of the context in which a choice takes place. Moreover, one can predict that the manner in which these evaluations are substituted and recombined will vary with the internal structure of one's value and belief system. By representing that system in terms of a hierarchical model composed of four factors — common orientation, procedural judgment, desire for personal control and substantive evaluation — it is argued that the evaluations of a project will be combined by way of interactive, indirect and non-recursive relationships as well as the common additive expectations. Some of the implications of this alternative theory for policy analysis are explored.     

Federalism, Republicanism, and the Northwest Ordinance

The Northwest Ordinance, enacted by the Congress of the Confederationon 13 July 1787, addressed in its own way the two crises facingthe Framers in Philadelphia: the crisis of the Union and thecrisis of republican government. It gave government to the NorthwestTerritory, which had been created for the sake of the Unionand with an eye to the security of republicanism. That territorywas destined to be a matrix of new states, equal members ofthe Union and republican in form. The working out of those principles,commanded by the Declaration and foreshadowing the Constitution,is traced from Jefferson's plan of 1784 to the Ordinance of1787. The uncultivated and intractable character of the frontiersman,making his attachment to the Union and his capacity for self-governmentdubious, presented a special problem. It is seen how the NorthwestOrdinance, establishing government, procuring certain socialand economic conditions, and inducing proper habits and opinions,sought to make the expansion of the Union an extension of republicanism.     

Politische Regime,politische Stabilität und Wirtschaftswachstum

Dieser Aufsatz untersucht den Einfluss politisch‐institutioneller Faktoren auf das langfristige Wirtschaftswachstum zwischen 1960 und 1992, wobei der Fokus auf den Effekt politischer Stabilität und politischer Regime auf die ökonomische Entwicklung gelegt wird. Hinsichtlich der Bedeutung der politischen Stabilität für die ökonomische Entwicklung wird gezeigt, dass schwere inner‐ und zwischenstaatliche Konflikte die ökonomische Entwicklung hemmen, während schwelende und sporadische Konflikte keinen Bremseffekt auf das Wirtschaftswachstum ausüben. Bezüglich des Einflusses politischer Regime auf das Wirtschaftswachstum wird die Hypothese vertreten, dass ein simpler Demokratie‐Diktatur‐Vergleich zu kurz greift. Die empirischen Befunde sprechen vielmehr dafür, dass sowohl Autokratien als auch Demokratien mit langfristigem Wirtschaftswachstum kompatibel sind, sofern wirtschaftliche Eigentums‐ und Verfügungsrechte garantiert werden und diese rechtsstaatlich abgesichert sind. Hält man den Entwicklungsstand dieser Institutionen konstant, zeigt sich ein nichtlinearer Zusammenhang zwischen dem Demokratisierungsniveau und dem langfristigen Wirtschaftswachstum.     

Reviews

Curtis Keeble, Britain and the Soviet Union, 1917–89. London: Macmillan, 1990, xiv+387 pp., £40.00.

Baruch Hazan, Gorbachev's Gamble: The 19th All‐Union Party Conference. Boulder, San Francisco, and London: Westview Press, 1990, 485 pp., $42.50.

Martin Crouch, Revolution and Evolution: Gorbachev and Soviet Politics. New York, London: Philip Allan, 1989, x+245 pp., £24.50 h/b, £8.95 p/b.

Adam Westoby, The Evolution of Communism. Oxford: Polity Press, 1989, vii+333 pp., £29.50 h/b, £9.95 p/b.

Mikael Sandberg, Learning from Capitalists. A Study of Soviet Assimilation of Western Technology. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1989, xi+264 pp., SEK 148.00 p/b.

Stephen Fortescue, Science Policy in the Soviet Union. London: Routledge, 1990, ix+230 pp., £35.00.

Zhores Medvedev, The Legacy of Chernobyl. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990, 344 pp., £19.95.

Jonathon R. Adelman & Christiann Lea Gibson, eds., Contemporary Soviet Military Affairs: The Legacy of World War II. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989, viii+193 pp., $39.95.

Ellen Brun & Jacques Hersch, Soviet‐Third World Relations in a Capitalist World: The Political Economy of Broken Promises. London & Basingstoke, Macmillan Press (in association with the Danish International Development Agency, Danida), 1990, x+335 pp., £35.00.

Douglas A. Macgregor, The Soviet‐East German Military Alliance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, xii+178 pp., £25.00 ($34.50).

Stanislaw Gomulka, Yong‐Chool Ha, Cae‐One Kim, eds., Economic Reforms in the Socialist World. Basingstoke & London: Macmillan, 1989, x+244 pp., £35.00.

Jacques Sapir, Les fluctuations économiques en URSS 1941–1985. Paris: Editions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1989, 239 pp., 200 Francs.

Eugene Shirley, Jr. & Michael Rowe, eds., Candle in the Wind: Religion in the Soviet Union. Lanham, MD: Ethics and Public Policy Center Publishers, 1989, xxvii+356 pp., $39.50 h/b., $21.95 p/b.

Nikki R. Keddie & Mark J. Gasiorowski eds., Neither East Nor West: Iran, the USSR, and the USA. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990, ix+295 pp., £30.00, h b., £9.95 p b.

R. Craig Nation, War on War: Lenin, the Zimmerwald Left and the Origins of Communist Internationalism. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1990, xiv+313 pp., £42.25.