Conceptions of liberty during the Dutch revolt 1555–1590

Traditionally considered as selfish usurpers of the nation's will on the eve of the Revolution, members of the Ancien Régime parlements resorted to a falsely pre-revolutionary language has long convinced historians in their interpretations. Beyond the semantics associated with the remonstrance – a genre that is suggested here –, this paper wishes to re-insert the parliamentary dialectics against these arbitrary orders of the years 1787–88 into a broader socio-cultural field. Our aim is to show that what was at stake when dealing with the ‘sealed’ letters hinged around power and contestation within the public opinion expressed through various speeches in the Paris and provincial parliaments. The unanimous questioning of these lettres de cachet obviously concealed numerous differences and often illustrated confusion between the pre-revolutionary intentions, as expressed in leaflets, and the parliamentary speeches strongly intent on defending identity privileges. The parlements were, however, the driving force of the campaign against lettres de cachet and thus introduced the French people to what we can call rather a grammar of resistance. If they were the object of general denunciation right from the calling of the Etats généraux in July 1788 as if they had betrayed the Nation, this was because the French people were at the same time experiencing events that suddenly altered their identity along with their contesting of absolutism.     

“My forest, my kingdom”—Self-referentiality as a strategy in the case of small forest owners coping with government regulations

Social research that informs the implementation of natural resource policies is frequently driven by the logic of the policy system itself. A prevailing concern with achieving policy outcomes can lead, however, to lack of attention to equally important aspects, for example the challenges the policy instruments present to those they are targeting and the consequences this might have for government–citizen relationships. To help guide research into these issues we have developed a situational–interactional approach to interpretive policy analysis that seeks to examine the processes involved when people collectively make sense of government instruments. The theoretical basis is provided to a large extent by Luhmann’s theory of self-referential social systems. In addition, we operationalise the concepts of interactional framing and resemiotisation to capture the active work of the citizens in sense-making processes. We then apply our situational–interactional analysis to small-scale forest ownership in Flanders. Analysis of data from focus groups with forest owners reveals how interactions build on each other in the co-development of particular strategies to cope with government intervention. Finally, we discuss two future directions for research. First, the forest owners find themselves in an inescapable relationship with the government, and feel their autonomy is threatened. Government intervention, therefore, will almost necessarily lead to resistance. Second, forest groups enhance compatibility between the government system and the forest owners, but rather than narrowing the gap between the two worlds they tend to emphasise it.     

Political institutions and debt crises

This paper shows that political institutions matter in explaining defaults on external and domestic debt obligations. We explore a large number of political and macroeconomic variables using a non-parametric technique to predict safety from default. The advantage of this technique is that it is able to identify patterns in the data that are not captured in standard probit analysis. We find that political factors matter, and do so in different ways for democratic and non-democratic regimes, and for domestic and external debt. In democracies, a parliamentary system or sufficient checks and balances almost guarantee the absence of default on external debt when economic fundamentals or liquidity are sufficiently strong. In dictatorships, high stability and tenure play a similar role for default on domestic debt.     

Does Urban Public Housing Diminish the Social Capital and Labor Force Activity of Its Tenants?

This paper investigates the effect of urban public housing on the social capital and labor force activity of its tenants using cross‐sectional survey data from the Multi‐City Study of Urban Inequality (MSCUI). A structural equation model of the hypothesized direct and indirect effects of public housing and neighborhood disadvantage on social capital and labor force activity is specified and fitted to these data. The modeling results suggest that urban public housing is strongly associated with neighborhood disadvantage but has little or no direct effect on either social capital or labor force activity. And while public housing may have indirect effects on social capital and labor force activity through neighborhood poverty, these indirect effects appear to be small. These findings have implications for the current emphasis in urban public housing policy on moving residents into the private housing market and reducing poverty concentration. © 2001 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Institutions or Contingencies? A Cross‐Country Analysis of Management Tool Use by Public Sector Executives

Management tools are often argued to ameliorate public service performance. Indeed, evidence has emerged to support positive outcomes related to the use of management tools in a variety of public sector settings. Despite these positive outcomes, there is wide variation in the extent to which public organizations use management tools. Drawing on normative isomorphism and contingency theory, this article investigates the determinants of both organization‐oriented and client‐oriented management tool use by top public sector executives. The hypotheses are tested using data from a large‐N survey of 4,533 central government executives in 18 European countries. Country and sector fixed‐effects ordinary least squares regression models indicate that contingency theory matters more than normative isomorphism. Public executives working in organizations that are bigger and have goal clarity and executive status are more likely to use management tools. The only normative pressure that has a positive impact on management tool use is whether public sector executives have a top hierarchical position.     

Does multiple office-holding generate an electoral bonus? Evidence from Belgian national and local elections

Traditionally, scholars have assumed that multiple office-holding (i.e. the combination of a local and national directly elected political mandate) leads to an enhanced electoral performance. Although the prospect of electoral benefits for such a mandate combination seems plausible, it remains unclear whether accumulating a national and local mandate does indeed provide an additional boost compared to holding either one prior to the election. Previous studies have only offered limited support for this assumption. For instance, they have focused exclusively on French national elections. This article, however, scrutinises whether dual mandate-holding pays off individually, for the candidate, as well as collectively, for the list as a whole in both Belgian national and local elections. The results here strongly suggest that cumul des mandats does not yield an additional electoral reward compared to single office-holders, contradicting both theoretical presumptions and normative beliefs.     

Confucius Meets Weber or “Managerialism Takes All”? Comparing Civil Servant Values in China and the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

This article assesses the validity of normative claims on how civil servant values in East Asian and Western European administrations differ. By triangulating quantitative and qualitative survey data from a sample of Chinese (n = 508) and Dutch (n = 238) civil servants, we aim to answer two main research questions: “How and why do ideal-type and real-life rankings of civil servant values differ between Chinese and Dutch civil servants?” and “Do differences reflect administrative traditions of both countries?” Our findings demonstrate that similarities exceed differences between value rankings. Surprisingly, ideal-type value rankings are more similar than real-life rankings, with only a few idiosyncratic differences reflecting administrative traditions. Chinese civil servants perceive institutional and systemic factors as reasons for incongruence between ideal-type and real-life rankings, whereas Dutch civil servants emphasize meso-level factors such as organizational public management reforms. We theorize on our results and we provide suggestions for future research.