Utility maximizing bureaucrats: The bureaucrat's point of view

In this paper we develop a model to examine the extent to which bureaucrats are maximizing their own utility. In the spirit of Williamson (1964) and Simon (1957), we assume that bureaucrats are utility maximizers but not necessarily cost minimizers and we investigate how well the bureaucrat is doing in relation to his own goals. First, we hypothesize a utility function for the bureaucrat — we assume that the bureaucrat gains utility from producing municipal services as well as from hiring additional labor and capital. Then, using the concept of money metric utility, we determine the minimum expenditure necessary to achieve the same level of utility actually observed. Secondly, we determine the bureaucrat's distance from the utility maximizing choice of resources for a given level of expenditure. Finally, using a sample of public sector bureaucrats we attempt to explain the variation in wasted expenditure across municipalities and why bureaucrats might be underutilizers of each input relative to their own utility maximizing point.     

“MORE OF A STREET COP THAN A DETECTIVE”: AN ANALYSIS OF THE ROLES AND FUNCTIONS OF PARENTING COORDINATORS IN NORTH CAROLINA

This research project examined roles and functions of parenting coordinators (PCs) identified by AFCC's Guidelines for Parenting Coordination and other literature. The researcher used a semi‐structured interview schedule that included information about practices, procedures, and a series of five case‐based vignettes that contained commonly occurring ethical and legal dilemmas in PC practice. The results found that PCs generally saw their role as enforcers of existing orders and primarily used skills in conflict management, parent education, and information coordination with other professionals. PCs would use arbitration powers to make minor decisions or refer to court as a last resort.     

The citizen of empire

In this paper, the authors imagine a Citizen of Empire. This is a conceptualization of global citizenship as it might appear in Hardt and Negri's global social order of Empire. The article draws on Hardt and Negri's Empire as the model of global society to imagine what citizenship might look like on a global scale. Hardt and Negri's conceptualization of Empire offers a palette of new and emerging social relationships from which a vibrant conceptualization of citizen and citizenship can be imagined and new democratic politics practiced. First, the authors examine the concept of Empire to unearth foundational concepts upon which a notion of Citizen of Empire can be built. Second, the authors imagine a citizen who ‘calls Empire into being' rather than participating in the ready-made political, cultural, and economic institutions of the nation-state. Without institutional support, citizenship in Empire must be highly generative and creative, and it will operate on a virtual and poetic terrain by enacting mechanisms of deterritorialization, networking, and communication.     

The Historico-poetic Materialism of Benjamin and Celan

This article explores the relationship between the historical materialism of Walter Benjamin and the poetics of Paul Celan, and claims that within Celan’s poetics, we find a form for thinking Benjamin’s Marxism beyond Benjamin. The driving force of Benjamin’s critique of historicism is the desire to free Marx’s ideas (class struggle, classless society, progress) from the empty time of progress. By attending to the “breathturns” at the heart of Celan’s, The Meridian, this article uncovers a poetic historiography grounded in Benjamin’s now-time. It is with this conception of history that Marx’s ideas can be reimagined as a historico-poetic materialism and reinvigorated with revolutionary force.