Reform by Coincidence? Explaining the Policy Process of Structural Reform in Denmark

The article investigates the processes driving the ongoing Danish reform of the structure of the public sector with the purpose of understanding the factors rendering the reform possible at this particular juncture in time. For this reason, the article applies a theoretical framework consisting of John Kingdon's 'Multiple Streams' perspective combined with the Institutional Rational Choice approach developed by Fritz Scharpf, among others. As a heuristic tool for the analysis, the policy process is divided into the three phases of initiation, estimation and decision making. The analysis points to a rather complex process influenced by institutional and situational factors, including those of coincidence and external events. The process can be understood as a series of interrelated games in which bounded rational actors pursue their interests. In conclusion, the article finds that the speed and tight steering of the process left relatively little room for a broader public and political debate. The process leading to what has become the largest public sector reform in Denmark was in actuality determined by relatively few actors involved in decisive moments.     

Value Dynamics: Towards a Framework for Analyzing Public Value Changes

This paper presents a preliminary framework for analyzing how values in the public sector change over time. The specific dynamics are conceptualised as three types of change mechanisms: a teleological, a conflictual and a value-internal change mechanism. Choice of governance systems – hierarchy, clan, network or market - is an example of designing control systems to promote particular values. Another change mechanism is rooted in conflicts between values and the actors carrying these values leading to various organisational responses. Finally, influenced by basic properties of a value changes may follow several distinct patterns such as life cycles, pendulum dynamics, enlargement of scope, refinement and turbulence. The possible outcomes of value dynamic processes are basically changes in value configurations: crowding out, sedimentation, the core-periphery hypothesis, division of labour, and re-interpretation. The paper uses examples from a Danish context, but argues that the value dynamics identified have a more universal scope.     

Group Segregation and Urban Violence

How does segregation shape intergroup violence in contested urban spaces? Should nominal rivals be kept separate or instead more closely integrated? We develop an empirically grounded agent‐based model to understand the sources and patterns of violence in urban areas, employing Jerusalem as a demonstration case and seeding our model with microlevel, geocoded data on settlement patterns. An optimal set of parameters is selected to best fit the observed spatial distribution of violence in the city, with the calibrated model used to assess how different levels of segregation, reflecting various proposed “virtual futures” for Jerusalem, would shape violence. Our results suggest that besides spatial proximity, social distance is key to explaining conflict over urban areas: arrangements conducive to reducing the extent of intergroup interactions—including localized segregation, limits on mobility and migration, partition, and differentiation of political authority—can be expected to dampen violence, although their effect depends decisively on social distance.