Interorganizational Mobility within the U.S. Federal Government: Examining the Effect of Individual and Organizational Factors

Interorganizational mobility can make a positive contribution both organizationally and government‐wide. Using data from the U.S. Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, this article seeks to provide a better empirical understanding of the determinants of interorganizational mobility within the U.S. federal government. A specific analytical framework is used, as the intention to take another job within the federal government is nested in the intention to leave the current organization. The results highlight that gender, minority status, length of service, and promotion are determinants of interorganizational mobility within the U.S. federal government.     

The Electoral Connection: How the Pivotal Judge Affects Oppositional Success at European Constitutional Courts

Constitutional courts are often considered to be ‘veto players’ or ‘third chambers of parliament’. However, no attention has been paid to the composition of European constitutional courts and how they make decisions. Do European judges exhibit political preferences as their US counterparts do? If so, it is important to know who selects the judges as the selection determines the outcome. This article analyses the composition of the German Bundesverfassungsgericht and the French Conseil constitutionnel. It tests the correlation between the party affiliation of the pivotal judge and oppositional success empirically for all abstract reviews filed between 1974 and 2002. In both countries the likelihood of an oppositional victory or defeat varies with the ideological position of the pivotal judge. This leads to the conclusion that European judges decide on the basis of their political preferences like their US counterparts.     

THE DESIGN AND USE OF PERFORMANCE INFORMATION IN INDONESIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENTS UNDER DIVERGING STAKEHOLDER PRESSURES

Public sector managers in less developed countries are confronted with opposing forces. A lack of sufficient resources along with a tradition of corruption are obstacles for developing and using performance measurement systems. However, recent public sector reforms in less developed countries, including decentralisation and anti‐corruption programmes, stimulate the development and use of such systems. On the basis of a framework, which distinguishes different types of stakeholders, each with particular performance interests, we analyse how public sector managers are coping with the two opposing forces, given the relative power positions and the interests of their stakeholders. On the basis of four cases studies of local government agencies in Bali (Indonesia), we found that with respect to the annual performance reports, managers in these agencies focus more on fulfilling the formal requirements regarding the format of these reports and on their timely submission than on their contents, which are all symptoms of a symbolic rather than functional use of performance information. However, the reports include information on inputs that is linked to similar information in short‐term reports, which the managers use in a functional manner. These managers show a kind of juggling behaviour, in the sense that they partially try to serve conflicting performance interests. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bypassing Germany's Reformstau: The Remarkable Rise of Renewable Energy

For the past 20 years, Germany has witnessed a remarkable expansion in renewable energy production due to the introduction and further development of a feed-in-tariff model (FITM). This comprehensive and rapid policy change is surprising given the many veto points in Germany's political system and the fact that a powerful alliance objected to an expansion of renewable energy (RE). To explain this puzzle, this study relies on insights from historical institutionalism and policy analysis. I argue that historical contingency and critical juncture opened a window of opportunity for the pro-RE alliance in the late 1980s. Policy entrepreneurs subsequently used the opportunity to advance the FITM. Once introduced, this institution developed a self-reinforcing economic dynamic. Policy entrepreneurs in the parliament and the Ministry for the Environment translated economic gains into political leverage, which was crucial to defend the FITM from counterattacks in the following years.     

The Ideologies of Informality: informal urbanisation in the architectural and planning discourses

This paper discusses how urban informality in the developing world has been understood in the West, and how it has been incorporated in the discourse of urban architects and planners in the developed world. It proposes a genealogy of this understanding through the identification of discourses with major ideological currents. It explains the evolution of the relationship between the understanding of urban informality and anarchism; the empowerment of the urban poor and finally the role of this understanding as a neoliberal discourse against state intervention. It finds that, although the incorporation of urban informality in urban architectural discourses is presented as a relative novelty, it is in reality at least 60 years old, dating from John Turner’s writings about the barriadas of Lima. From a progressive and empowering understanding of how the grassroots are able to take their lives into their own hands, it has become a tool for neoliberal discourses defending the dismissal of the state as a valid articulator of urban development.     

New Public Management in Dutch Local Government

This article investigates the adoption of New Public Management (NPM) in Dutch local government. According to Hood's concept of NPM, it will show the extent to which Dutch municipalities have adopted businesslike instruments and styles. Following Pollitt's framework on studying public management changes, a distinction will be made between changes in ideology, instruments, practices and impacts. The article concludes that, unlike ideological and instrumental innovations, the evidence for NPM-like practices and impacts is limited. To put it crudely, a lot of apparent changes in Dutch local government seem to be only skin-deep.     

The International Dimensions of Ethnic Conflict

Abstract

In recent years, the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) has been politically marginalized. The current Gulf crisis may serve to reinvigorate the ANO as a significant actor in the Middle East. As an organization with its raison d'être rooted in violence, there is a paucity of literature concerning the ANO. It is, therefore, a useful exercise to collect and collate available information to construct a study of this organization.     

Communication for development: alive and kicking!

ABSTRACT

Communication has been a key element in the West's project of developing the Third World. In the one-and-a-half decades after Lerner's influential 1958 study of communication and development in the Middle East, communication researchers assumed that the introduction of media and certain types of educational, political, and economic information into a social system could transform individuals and societies from traditional to modern. Conceived as having fairly direct and powerful effects on Third World audiences, the media were seen as magic multipliers, able to accelerate and magnify the benefits of development.