Pathways to Institutional Legitimacy in Postconflict Societies: Perceptions of Process and Performance in Nepal

Rebuilding institutional legitimacy is considered essential for stability in postconflict societies, yet the factors that influence citizen perceptions of legitimacy in this context remain underresearched. In this article, we examine citizen evaluations of government legitimacy in terms of instrumental antecedents (service delivery, distributive justice) and procedural antecedents (procedural justice, voice), using data collected in the context of a nationwide study of postconflict governance in Nepal. We find that procedural justice is more strongly associated with citizen perceptions of institutional legitimacy than instrumental outcomes such as service delivery, distributive justice, and outcome favorability. Results indicate that the relationship between service delivery and legitimacy is not as simple as previously assumed. We conclude that procedural justice is crucial for building perceptions of government legitimacy in postconflict societies and discuss implications for policy and practice relating to postconflict governance and institutional trust building.     

World Bank Technical Assistance: The Relational Dynamics of Policy Movement

The World Bank has been widely critiqued as a global governance actor capable of coercing and persuading its developing member countries to accept its policy recommendations. This article contributes to academic discussion by drawing upon the policy transfer and policy mobilities literatures to analyse the World Bank's two main pillars of technical assistance (TA): TA components (advisory services contained within lending operations) and stand‐alone TA projects (loans and credits that solely finance TA). Beginning from the constructivist position that ‘development’ is a social construct, the article argues that relational dynamics between TA provider and recipient affect the perception of the legitimacy of policy norms transferred from the ‘international’ to the ‘domestic’. The value added of the article is thus that policy legitimacy is not simply conferred by whether advice is technically sound but moreover through the social and political interactions—the relationship—between TA provider and recipient. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Renegotiating the empire,forging the nation(-state): the Bohemian/Czechoslovakian case through the political–economic thought of Thomas G. Masaryk and Karel Kramář, c. 1890–1920s

This article explores the dilemma of the small Bohemian Lands/Czechoslovak nation(-state) in staying “in” or “out” of the larger Habsburg supranational entity in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century. It does so mainly through the language of political economy (on national wealth creation and redistribution) articulated in the opinions and political actions of Czechoslovakia’s two founding statesmen, the first president, Thomas G. Masaryk, and the first prime minister, Karel Krama?. The article argues that their choice of staying “in” the large imperial space was premised upon renegotiating a better political and political–economic deal for the Bohemian Lands, whereas the option of abandoning it and of forging the Czechoslovak nation-state was essentially based on political reasons. And while both advocated an interventionist role for the state in the economy during the imperial period, they considered such a prerogative even more essential for their new nation-state.     

Multicultural public administration: Effects of language diversity and dissimilarity on public employees' attachment to employment

A major part of research in public administration focuses on the impact of ethnic diversity on outcomes such as performance and turnover, and on the management of diversity with regard to different employee groups. Recent research, however, shows the relevance of relational demography in the context of employee inclusion in public organizations. So far, most studies have been based on ethnic differences in countries that can be described as mononational and monolinguistic. The current study advances this stream of research by investigating how diversity and dissimilarity measures affect public employees' attachment to employment in a multicultural public administration in Switzerland. Evidence from a hierarchical multilevel analysis revealed that language diversity and the support for diversity from supervisors affected individuals' attachment. However, our findings on individuals' language dissimilarity related to the inclusion of minorities did not support the assumed crowding‐out effect between diversity and dissimilarity. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.     

Mehrheitstyrannei durch Volksentscheide?

The article presents an examination of the question of whether minorities’ rights are somewhat protected or discriminated against by direct democratic decisions. It also delivers an investigation into the decisive factors which have a discriminatory or protective effect in the popular vote. Empirical analyses revealed that direct democracy cannot per se be considered a majority sword with a sharp blade or, conversely, a protective shield for minorities. Rather, the impact of direct democratic devices strongly depends on the degree of integration of the affected minority and the perception as a foreign group.     

CHILDREN,THE UNCRC,AND FAMILY LAW IN ENGLAND AND WALES

There is no doubt that, overall, there has been a great deal of activity in relation to children's rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) since it was ratified by the UK government in 1991. Of particular significance in the context of family law, however, are the provisions of Article 12, which have in many ways proved to be more problematic than other provisions, not least because, in the context of family law, children's participation rights are necessarily juxtaposed with the long‐standing and hitherto unchallenged rights of parents to make important decisions about family life. The reorganisation in 2001 of the family court welfare services in England and Wales with the creation of the Children and Family Courts Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), generated a new impetus for the consideration of children's participation rights and, at an organizational level, considerable progress has been made in embracing the provisions of the UNCRC. More problematic, however, is the acceptance of children's participation in making decisions about their futures by adults using and working in the family justice system. At the level of the courts, judicial attitudes are slow to change and in England, as court judgments often demonstrate, these are firmly rooted in a view of children as being incompetent in such issues; at the level of parents using the system, it is arguable that new discourses about the best interests of the child serve as a proxy for continuing discourses about parents’ rights that have become evident, most recently, in the context of an increasingly influential fathers’ rights lobby; and at the level of welfare practitioners, recent research also demonstrates that, although the rhetoric of children's rights is widely accepted, the willingness and ability to make these real in the context of family proceedings is, for a variety of reasons, less in evidence.     

Paradoxes of Voting Power in Dutch Politics

In this paper we first evaluate thirteen seat distributions inthe Second Chamber of the Dutch parliament by means of severalindices of voting power. Subsequently, we search for theoccurrence of the paradox of redistribution, the paradox ofnew members, and the paradox of large size for each powerindex. The indices used are the Shapley-Shubik index, thenormalized Banzhaf index, the Penrose-Banzhaf index, theHoller index, and the Deegan-Packel index.     

Gender and the law of provocation in the long twentieth century

ABSTRACT

Provocation was an important common law doctrine, separating murder from manslaughter: a matter of life and death. It was particularly significant in the context of ‘domestic violence’. This article examines the doctrine as a lens through which to view gender relations in the long twentieth century. The doctrine developed from its origins in the early modern period until mid-twentieth century. Throughout this lengthy period provocation was narrowly confined for both genders. However, case law developments in mid-twentieth century gave rise to a doctrine which was unforgiving for abused women. At about the same time, statutory and case law changes produced a much broader partial defence of provocation available to men who had killed their wives. It was not until the very end of the century, and the beginning of the twenty-first century, that a more gender-neutral concept of provocation began to emerge as a result of feminist campaigning.