Transforming Administrative Policy

Administrative policies and practices may evolve and change slowly and incrementally or they may be transformed intentionally. Intentional efforts to change administrative policy by transforming the structure, processes, or personnel of public sector organizations define an active administrative policy. Ideally, an active administrative policy takes as given that the organizational form to be used is open to choice, that administrative goals are clear, that a tight coupling exists between ends and means, that different organizational forms have different effects, and that there are criteria that may be used to assess those effects. This article focuses on the fulfilment of these preconditions in the three national contexts – Norway, Sweden and the United States of America – in order to determine the relevance of a transformative perspective for understanding the process of administrative change. We examine what impact constraints like polity features, historical-institutional traditions and external pressure, particularly through popular international administrative doctrines like New Public Management ideas and financial crises, have on the possibilities to enhance an active national administrative policy.     

The Norwegian Communist Party in the Immediate Postwar Period*

The main purpose of this article is to argue the importance of combining several approaches in studies of communist parties: socio-economic structures, competitive relations to other left wing parties, organizational implantation, and the role of political tradition. The present ecological analysis will particularly emphasize the organizational approach and the importance of political tradition. In keeping with Allardt's and Lipset's theories, socio-economic structure seemed to a great extent to be a necessary condition for communist strength in this period. Both significant employment in industry and/or forestry and a strong social democratic party turned out to be necessary conditions for communist strength, but only when we analysed the ‘historical’ and organizational dimensions in more detail were we able to determine more accurately the areas of strong electoral support of the Norwegian Communist Party.     

Living in the Past? Change and Continuity in the Norwegian Central Civil Service

In this article, the authors describe the changes that have taken place in the Norwegian civil service over the past 30 years, focusing on demographic changes in education and gender and on changes in civil servants' tasks, attitudes, and contact patterns. The changes are analyzed using tenure, structural, and demographic perspectives. The unique empirical database is provided by surveys conducted every 10 years of civil servants in the ministries since 1976. The main empirical findings are that there has been a combination of robustness and change. The findings show little support for the generational version of a tenure perspective, meaning that civil servants are not living in the past. The structural perspective, illustrated by the importance of formal position, best explains the variations in civil servants' contact patterns and attitudes, followed by the career version of a tenure perspective. Demography, as represented by different educational backgrounds and gender, also has an effect.     

Cause of death and drug use pattern in deceased drug addicts in Sweden, 2002-2003

Compared with their contemporaries, individuals abusing illicit drugs suffer a higher risk of premature death. In Sweden, a simple protocol for registration of fatalities among abusers of alcohol, pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs, or other substances, has been used by the forensic pathologists since 2001. This routine was introduced to allow for an evaluation of the cause and manner of death, and patterns of abuse among different groups of abusers. We explored the data on drug abusers (i.e. abusers of illicit drugs) subjected to a forensic autopsy 2002-2003. The Swedish forensic pathologists examined 10,273 dead victims during the study period and 7% (743/10,273) of the cases were classified as drug abusers. Toxicological analyses were carried out in 99% (736/743) and illicit drugs were detected in 70% (514/736) of these. On average, 3.8 substances (legal or illegal) were found per case. The most common substances were ethanol and morphine, detected in 43 and 35% of the cases, respectively. When exploring the importance of the different substances for the cause of death, we found that the detection of some substances, such as fentanyl and morphine, strongly indicated a poisoning, whereas certain other substances, such as benzodiazepines more often were incidental findings. In total, 50% (372/743) died of poisoning, whereas only 22% (161/743) died of natural causes. Death was considered to be directly or indirectly due to drug abuse in 47% (346/743), whereas evidence of drug abuse was an incidental finding in 21% (153/743) or based on case history alone in 33% (244/743). We believe that this strategy to prospectively categorize deaths among drug addicts constitutes a simple means of standardizing the surveillance of the death toll among drug addicts that could allow for comparisons over time and between countries.     

Stability of drugs in stored postmortem femoral blood and vitreous humor

The stability of 46 drugs in postmortem femoral blood stored for one year at -20 degrees C was investigated. The drugs included benzodiazepines, antidepressants, analgetics and hypnotics. For seven drugs we found a significant change in the concentration between the first and second analysis. Five substances; ethanol, desmethylmianserin, 7-amino-nitrazepam, THC and zopiclone showed a decrease in the concentration whereas the concentrations of two substances; ketobemidone and thioridazine increased. However, the changes observed were not of such an order that it would affect the interpretation in normal forensic casework. We also investigated the possible influence of potassium fluoride on the concentrations of the 46 drugs in vitreous humor after storage for one year. For two substances, ethanol and zopiclone, there were significantly lower concentrations in the samples without potassium fluoride. Furthermore, we also studied the correlation between the concentrations in femoral blood and vitreous humor. For 23 substances there was a significant difference between the concentrations in the vitreous humor and femoral blood. Significant correlations between the concentrations in these two specimens were found for 23 substances, indicating that vitreous humor can be an alternative specimen when blood samples are not available, provided that such correlation exists for the particular substance. Statistical analysis also revealed a correlation between the degree of protein binding of the different drugs and percentage of vitreous/femoral blood concentrations.     

Fatal intoxications in a Swedish forensic autopsy material during 1992-2002

Compilations of substances detected in fatal intoxications are important in order to observe changes in intoxication patterns, to monitor effects of preventive work and to discover new trends in drug usage. The aim of the present study was to describe the current pattern of substances detected in fatal intoxications in Sweden. Fatal intoxications investigated at the Department of Forensic Chemistry, Link?ping, Sweden, during 1992-2002, were analysed. All suicides, uncertain cases and accidents where the cause of death were fatal intoxications (ICD-9: E950, E980 and E859) were included and substances detected in more than 50 fatal intoxications (in femoral blood) were listed. For each substance, a cut off value was set, above which concentrations were considered toxic. Fatal intoxications were detected by forensic-chemical analyses in 12% (6998/60,314) of the forensic autopsies during the study period. Among the suicides, an average of 3.8 substances were detected per case, the corresponding figure for uncertain cases and accidents were 3.5 and 4.1 substances, respectively. Ethanol was by far the most frequently detected substance, detected in 43% (3039) of the fatal intoxications, of which 32% (960) had toxic concentrations, followed by propoxyphene, detected in 27% (1863) of the fatal intoxications of which 74% (1370) had toxic concentrations. The number of cases where ethanol and propoxyphene were detected decreased during the study period. Moreover, other CNS-active drugs such as antidepressants, analgesics and anxiolytics were also frequently detected. The drugs with high proportions of cases with toxic concentrations detected were propoxyphene, amitriptyline, zolpidem, carisoprodol, alprazolam, thioridazine, methadone and ketobemidone. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) and tricyclic antidepressants (TCA) were detected in 12% (833) and 10% (665), respectively. A significantly (P <0.001) higher proportion of cases where TCA were detected had toxic concentrations when compared with cases where SSRI were detected (64% versus 31%).     

Codeine and morphine blood concentrations increase during blood loss

During extensive blood loss, a plasma volume refill will take place by transfer of extravascular fluid into the circulation. Drugs present in this fluid may follow and cause a rise or a drop in blood drug concentration, depending on their levels and accessibility in the restoration fluid. This study explored the possible changes of codeine, and its metabolite morphine, in whole blood during a standardized exsanguination in the rat. Three doses containing 5 mg codeine were given orally. In eight rats, blood loss was accomplished by slowly withdrawing 0.8 mL blood at 10 min intervals during 70 min. In control rats, blood was withdrawn only at 0 and 70 min. At 70 min, the final/initial codeine and morphine concentration ratios were 0.70 +/- 0.38 and 0.88 +/- 0.47, respectively, in controls, but increased to 1.28 +/- 0.44 (p = 0.014) and 1.41 +/- 0.34 (p = 0.021), respectively, in exsanguinated rats. It is concluded that blood loss can affect blood drug concentrations.