Interpreting Administrative Change: Bureaucratic Self‐Interest and Institutional Inheritance in Government

Between 1946 and 1995, Danish central government had been subject to numerous reorganization initiatives. Based on the assumption of self‐interest motivated and risk‐averse bureaucrats, these initiatives are analyzed in a long‐term historical perspective. It is argued that civil servants both feel a strong incentive to and have good chances of defending the existing organization. This creates a historical bias in favor of whatever organizations were created in the past. Still, the mutual dependence between political executives and their civil servants opens up for bargaining dynamics allowing for mostly incremental change. While ideology has been unimportant in the development of central government organization, broadly shared ideas about reform may account for some instances of radical reform, consistently opposed by Danish civil servants.     

Corporatism, Administrative Regimes and the Mis-management of Public Funds

Danish democracy has strong corporatist characteristics. The implication is that interest organizations are integrated in both policy-making and policy implementation. This article deals with policy implementation. A distinction between different administrative regimes is developed. The proposition advanced here is that variations with respect to the involvement of interest organizations in administrative execution of public policy have consequences for administrative behavior. A number of scandals revealed during recent years concerning the management of public funds provide the basis of the empirical analysis. The conclusion is that with increased involvement of interest organizations in the administrative implementation of policy, legal norms are superseded by political norms, while the traditional institutions of administrative accountability are weakened.     

The Lawyer's Pro Bono Publico Responsibility1

Lawyers have a pro bono publico obligation, arising both from the profession ‘s tradition of service before gain and from the lawyer's essential and monopolistic position in the justice system. The appropriate measure of this obligation is the reasonable capacity of the profession to provide public service, a standard that can be met only if all lawyers are involved in the effort. While volunteerism has some values that might be impaired by a mandatory system of pro bono service, only a mandatory system gives promise of involving all lawyers in the discharge of this fundamental professional obligation.     

Private Justice: California's General Reference Procedure

Under a California procedure, parties to litigation may agree to have their cases referred to retired judges for private trial. While the procedure affords substantial benefits in some kinds of cases, it does involve problems that will probably limit its more general use.     

A new role for ‘the public’? Exploring cyber security controversies in the case of WannaCry

ABSTRACT

As cyber-security incidents become increasingly prevalent, we are facing a major political and democratic challenge: who comprises “the public” in relation to such incidents? Based on a study of the controversies surrounding the WannaCry ransomware attack, this article unpacks issues facing the creation of publics in contemporary ICT-mediated security practices. It shows how cyber-security incidents, such as WannaCry, do not neatly align with traditional national security politics and democracy, and it demonstrates the need to attend to how security publics are created. This may paradoxically entail both political and democratic challenges and possibilities for security politics in the digital age.     

The Nordic governments' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic: A comparative study of variation in governance arrangements and regulatory instruments

Government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in the Nordic states—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—exhibit similarities and differences. This article investigates the extent to which crisis policymaking diverges from normal policymaking within the Nordic countries and whether variations between the countries are associated with the role of expertise and the level of politicization. Government responses are analyzed in terms of governance arrangements and regulatory instruments. Findings demonstrate some deviation from normal policymaking within and considerable variation between the Nordic countries, as Denmark, Finland, and to some extent Norway exhibit similar patterns with hierarchical command and control governance arrangements, while Iceland, in some instances, resembles the case of Sweden, which has made use of network-based governance. The article shows that the higher the influence of experts, the more likely it is that the governance arrangement will be network-based.     

The Limits and Possibilities of Volunteering: A Framework for Explaining the Scope of Volunteer Involvement in Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Despite popular rhetoric concerning the benefits of volunteerism for public and nonprofit organizations, the use and management of volunteers to assist in the delivery of services is uneven: some organizations rely heavily on volunteer labor for this purpose, while others circumscribe volunteer contributions or eschew volunteer involvement altogether. This article introduces eight dimensions of volunteer involvement—four involving organizational decisions and four regarding volunteers’ decisions—that make up the overall scope of volunteer involvement in an organization. Based on a review of the literature, the article presents a conceptual framework and several research propositions concerning how organizational characteristics, volunteer management, and environmental factors affect the overall scope of volunteer involvement in an organization.     

Bridging the Public Service Motivation and Calling Literatures

Public administration research suggests there may be disparity in the extent to which public servants experience their work as a calling. The purpose of this article is to better illustrate and integrate calling research, which grows out of the positive organizational scholarship movement, into how we understand public service motives. The calling scholarship offers a productive way to view differences in public servants' orientations toward their work. Integrating calling into the public administration scholarship—particularly the public service motivation scholarship—provides insights to researchers and managers about how to help employees discover a deeper sense of meaningfulness in their work. In presenting the arguments and corresponding conceptual framework, the authors seek to supplement rather than replace the public service motivation construct. The authors articulate a research agenda that they believe will strengthen and enrich research on public servants' experience with their work.