Anarchy as a Model for Network Governance

This article centers on two interconnected ideas that have garnered increasing attention in public administration: (1) a shift away from centralized institutional authority structures and (2) the concomitant rise of networks in the public sector. While network theories have been viewed as ushering in a new paradigm for understanding governance, they remain rooted in the language and framework of hierarchical bureaucratic systems. The author suggests that embracing an approach not grounded in a centralized institutional perspective may clarify network theories in public administration. Specifically, the author argues that anarchism has much to add to our understanding of networks and illustrates how an anarchist perspective may advance our understanding of networks in three areas—network formation, network stability, and accountability in networks—in which the hierarchical perspective has generated persistent questions.     

L’Ail for What Ails You

<正>Is at down in a small,crowded hutong restaurant and waited for the harried waitress to finally navigate through the bustle of requests and take my food order.From my obvious appearance as a foreigner,she must have guessed in advance that my spoken Chinese would be barely intelligible.As I waited,I mooted whether or not to blow my runny nose on a few sheets taken     

Comparing U.S. and European police subcultures: A field study

This article is a satire of sociology and field anthropology research on comparative police behavior; it uses humorous anecdotes to make a serious point. The author argues that until police supervision is undertaken by civilian review boards, police behavior will never conform to community morality despite attempts at police reform. To support this argument, the author compares U.S., German, Italian, Russian, and French police subcultures in an attempt to calculate (a) the correlation between police behavior and its conformity to community morality, and (b) whether a high correlation results from a high degree of civilian oversight. The author concludes that, because no country has appreciable civilian oversight, and because the police of no country conform to community morality, there is therefore a perfect correlation between lack of civilian oversight and lack of police conformity to community morality.     

Budgetary Control in a Decentralized System: Meeting the Criteria for Fiscal Stability in the European Union

This article provides a set of measures that are recommended to the leadership of the European Union to enhance budgetary balance and control within a highly decentralized system, one that requires the coordination of budgetary policy in more than a dozen nations. These measures are intended to be relevant to European budgetary coordination efforts but also appear to apply to U.S. federal initiatives to reduce the annual budget deficit and total debt. The individual measures recommended include holding increases in expenditures at or below the rate of GDP growth, establishing envelopes for major accounts, placing all entitlement on a pay-as-you-go basis, means testing of entitlements and elimination of automatic entitlement indexing, considering the option of marginal reductions in some entitlement programs, and voting on budgets as single, omnibus packages. The proposal to establish executive line-item budget authority also is evaluated-and rejected.     

Democratic Legitimacy and the International Criminal Court: A Liberal Defence

In response to the criticism that the International CriminalCourt is undemocratic, this article outlines a liberal conceptionof institutional legitimacy and defends its appropriatenessas a moral foundation for the International Criminal Court.In contrast to a communitarian concept of democracy (which seesdemocracy as an expression of the general will), liberals seepolitical legitimacy as stemming from a respect for fundamentalhuman rights. Thus, as long as the International Criminal Courtrespects the right of the accused to a fair trial, then it isa legitimate institution.