Policy Advice from Outsiders: The Challenges of Policy Co-construction

The nature of policy work in nongovernment organizations (NGOs) is important consideration when understanding policy co-construction. Based on the results from a Canadian web-based survey of policy workers across five fields across three provinces, a multi-regression structural equation model suggests how NGO policy work can contribute to a greater collaboration on key policy issues and greater policy interaction between societal organizations and government agencies. The frequency of formal and informal invitations by governments played an important role in terms of the overall levels of interaction and stakeholder input. Networking activity was found to be important when addressing consultative-related issues, but only with NGO networks or their clients. Involvement in the early stages of policy development by the NGO policy workers did not lead to greater engagement with government officials, which may be a potential problem when their advice is sought after.     

Disputing the geopolitics of the states system and global capitalism

Alex Callinicos's intervention in the debate on the geopolitics of the states system and capitalist modernity provides a crucial wake-up call to International Relations theory and practice. Yet, within the contending positions he outlines disputing the political economy of geopolitical conflict, inter-state rivalry and capitalist imperialism, the insights of Antonio Gramsci are notably absent. This article contributes to the debate by elaborating how the theory of passive revolution reveals the political rule of capital, thereby internally relating the states system to capitalist modernity within a focus on uneven development. This concern is evident in Gramsci's analysis of the labour process of Anglo-Saxon capitalism and the geopolitics of the states system contained within his survey of 'Americanism and Fordism'. Theorization on the passive revolution of capital might then provide a fruitful basis from which an empirical research agenda on social development could be advanced with reference to post-colonial state formation processes.

The Italian bourgeoisie succeeded in organizing its state not so much through its own intrinsic strength, as through being favoured in its victory over the feudal and semi-feudal classes by a whole series of circumstances of an international character (Napoleon III's policy in 1852-60; the Austro-Prussian War of 1866; France's defeat at Sedan and the development of the German Empire after this event). – Antonio Gramsci, `Origins of the Mussolini Cabinet', Letter to the Fourth World Congress of the IIIrd International (20 November 1922).     

Localizing Peacebuilding: The Arizona Market and the Evolution of U.S. Military Peacebuilding Priorities in Bosnia

ABSTRACT

This article examines peacebuilding localization, in particular how encounters with local contexts and actors shape external peacebuilders' priorities and practices. My vehicle for exploring this dynamic is the rapid emergence of a massive black market in northeast Bosnia, the ‘Arizona’ market, which developed on territory controlled by U.S. peacekeeping forces. I argue that the military's relationship with the market contributed to a shift from an initially minimalist, peacekeeping-centric, conception of the peacebuilding process toward the embrace of broader post-war political and economic initiatives, and identify three factors that influenced its unfolding in the case of Arizona: adaptation, embeddedness and place.     

Revenue Source and Electoral Accountability: Experimental Evidence from Local US Policymakers

Political Behavior - Existing research suggests that tax-reliant governments are more accountable to citizens. This pattern is consistent with micro-level evidence that citizens who are taxed are...     

In-your-face Watergate: neutralizing government lawbreaking and the war against white-collar crime

Crime, Law and Social Change - Ample official evidence exists that the Trump administration was the most corrupt in modern American history. Donald Trump’s overall pattern of behavior not...