Agency,contract and governance: shifting shapes of accountability in the health care arena

Current ideas about the role of the state include an enthusiasm for mechanisms of "indirect" or "third-party" governance. The health care arena, in which models of indirect governance have a long history, is an important test bed for these ideas. Classically, the arena was marked by trust-based, principal-agent relationships established to overcome information gaps. Over time (and to different degrees across nations), emphasis shifted to contractual relationships assuming relatively well-informed actors and then to performance monitoring and information sharing within complex and loosely coupled networks. In this latest stage, there is a risk that some important features of democratic leadership, and of decision making in the health care arena, will be eclipsed. Accountability mechanisms must clearly locate responsibility for actions and must allow for the exercise of professional judgment.     

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.     

What Role for Human Rights in Business?

The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) were endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2011, following the six‐year mandate of the Special Representative to the Secretary General (SRSG) on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises. The SRSG developed a framework comprised of three pillars: (1) States have a duty to protect against human rights abuses committed by third parties, including business enterprises; (2) business enterprises have a responsibility to respect human rights; and (3) victims of business‐related human rights abuses need access to effective remedies. In particular, guiding principle (GP) 11 provides that business enterprises should respect human rights, that is, they should avoid infringing on the human rights of others and address adverse human rights impacts with which they are involved. This article considers the implications of the Guiding Principles' framework for business; the continuing role of conventional accountability mechanisms in providing access to remedy for victims under the third pillar of the framework; and developments in ‘hard law', with a particular focus on the approach by the UK, since the introduction of the UNGPs, before turning, briefly, to the future for business and human rights.     

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.