Tolerant,If Personal Goals Remain Unharmed: Explaining Supranational Bureaucrats' Attitudes to Organizational Change

Growth in membership and intensifying responsibilities require much greater adaptability in organizational structures and administrative arrangements at international than at national levels. The ongoing transformation toward multilevel governance seems to empower international organizations and thus shines a new spotlight on international civil servants. We know little, however, about what motivates this growing class of bureaucratic elite. Against this background, this article explores the question as to how officials of the European Commission relate to the recent management modernization within their institution (Kinnock reform). Competing explanatory approaches (opportunity, socialization, and governance views) are used to develop hypotheses about the relationship between Commission officials and their acceptance of or opposition to administrative reform. The main finding is that the individual attitudes of Commission officials toward administrative change can best be explained by the opportunity model, which emphasizes the rational calculation of individual costs and benefits.     

From Iron Bowl to Iron Stomach

A few decades ago, Iron Bowl referred to not having to go hungry in China if you were employed by the Agovernment. The government gave you a job that secured the filling of one's rice bowl. This concept and practice did create loyalty, as the times were hard. China has moved far past those times to become the     

Pathways from Traumatic Child Victimization to Delinquency: Implications for Juvenile and Permanency Court Proceedings and Decisions

Research studies and observations by mental health and judicial professionals suggest that childhood traumatic victimization may contribute to the development of juvenile delinquency. Based on this evidence, we describe a chronological pathway that runs from: (a) early childhood victimization, to (b) escalating dysregulation of emotion and social information processing (“survival coping,” which takes the form of depression, anxiety, social isolation, peer rejection, and conflicted relationships), to (c) severe and persistent problems with oppositional‐defiance and overt or covert aggression compounded by post‐traumatic reactivity and hypervigilance (“victim coping”). A case vignette is provided, and implications for judicial review and decisions are discussed.     

The Venture State

The Blair governments deployed several public service reform strategies. Although many have been effective, they have had limited traction at the 'hard end' of disadvantage: entrenched deprivation remains a stubborn feature of the social landscape. Reforms have had limited impact on this deprivation because they expect users to behave either as eager recipients or as informed consumers. But disadvantaged groups rarely emulate the active middle class; instead, they are distrustful of public institutions—even hostile. We need a different reform strategy that does not presuppose these behaviours and which generates new ideas. This 'venture state' approach would go beyond commissioning and invest in services that demonstrate the greatest social returns with disadvantaged groups. Like the eponymous capitalist, it would identify a portfolio of high-impact providers that can be scaled or sustained; and it would provide the resources required to do so. Rather than seeking to target its own services with ever greater precision, the venture state would focus on structuring innovation in those services most important for the hard end of disadvantage.