(Un)principled principals, (un)principled agents: The differential effects of managerial civil service reforms on corruption in developing and OECD countries

Do management practices have similar anticorruption effects in OECD and developing countries? Despite prominent cautions against “New Zealand” reforms which enhance managerial discretion in developing countries, scholars have not assessed this question statistically. Our article addresses this gap through a conjoint experiment with 6,500 public servants in three developing countries and one OECD country. Our experiment assesses Weberian relative to managerial approaches to recruitment, job stability, and pay. We argue that in developing countries with institutionalized corruption and weak rule of law—yet not OECD countries without such features—“unprincipled” principals use managerial discretion over hiring, firing, and pay to favor “unprincipled” bureaucratic agents who engage in corruption. Our results support this argument: managerial practices are associated with greater bureaucratic corruption in our surveyed developing countries, yet have little effect in our OECD country. Alleged “best practices” in public management in OECD countries may thus be “worst practices” in developing countries.     

Aid and development by design: local solutions to local problems

This article makes a case for a reconceptualisation of aid and development programme design. Specifically, it questions the role of the international “development expert” in the design and implementation process. We argue that by employing “design thinking” as a guiding principle, the way in which aid programmes are envisaged and delivered can be radically overhauled, resulting in dramatically improved outcomes for the users of aid. We argue that practical improvements in delivery are achievable through locally rooted, “user-driven” development solutions that originate from the beneficiaries themselves. Design thinking as applied here goes significantly further than other programme design and implementation methodologies that champion locally owned, needs-driven assistance. Furthermore, we make a case for this approach addressing wider problems within the sector, namely the perception, in some quarters, that aid is intrinsically “neo-imperialist” in design and ideologically driven.     

Urbanizing the Iranian public: text,Tehran and 1922

By using the heuristic device of transpatialization and the methodology of urban cultural studies, this article argues that the 1922 serialized novel Tehrān-e Makhuf (Dreadful Tehran) by Seyyed Mortaza Moshfeq-e Kazemi (1902–1978), with its distinctly urban modes of imagination and production, at once reflected and propelled a process that can be termed the urbanization of the Iranian public. The article analyses the literary techniques with which Moshfeq contributed to this process; the circumstances and context in which the novel was produced; and the ideological change reflected in the author and his work. The article thus sheds light on a crucial stage in modern Iranian history by unravelling some of the socio-spatial intertwinements that made that history.     

Strengthening local political leadership through institutional design: how and why

ABSTRACT

Over recent decades, the institutions of political leadership have been criticised for being caught up in outdated designs that are not adapting to societal changes. In many western countries, this diagnosis has spurred design reforms aimed at strengthening political leadership at the local level. Based on a study of reforms in Norwegian and Danish municipalities, this article first develops a typology of reforms aimed at strengthening local political leadership. Leadership reforms are categorised into four types aimed at strengthening Executive, Collective, Collaborative, or Distributive political leadership. The typology is used to map the prevalence of the different types of reforms in the two countries. The results show that design reforms as such are more widespread in Danish than in Norwegian municipalities. In particular, reforms aimed at strengthening Distributive political leadership are used more extensively in Denmark than in Norway. The article discusses the contextual differences that may explain this variation.     

Der Aufstieg der Beratung zur transnationalen Regierungsform im Feld des Managements

In the twentieth century management consulting has become a transnational form of governing the firm. Seeking advice from consultancy is part of everyday corporate governance, having worked for a consultancy is a guarantee for sought after skills in once career and management concepts developed in consulting contexts are accepted as genuine management knowledge even in academic terms. This development is the outcome of a process of professionalizing management and management consulting, at the heart of which stands a discursive redefining of the firm and its governance. The discursive change of the field of management coincides with the transnationalization of the political field, a development that opens up a whole new bunch of possibilities for professional service firms such as management consultancies to engage in professionalization projects. As a result management consultancies have become decisive agents and a power of consecration in an increasingly autonomous field of management. The research is conducted by using an analytical framework that draws on Bourdieu’s heuristics on practice fields and his studies on the field of power as well as on Foucault’s concept of governmentality.