Exploring agency as a basis for ethical theory in American public administration

This articale argues that agency, the normative theory associated with the “acting for” relationship in society, has had a profound, but often unrecognized affect on ethics in public administration. Accordingly, it seeks to provide a brief review of agency theory as it applies to contemporary American public adminis- tration. The review provides an overview of agency theory, gives an example of how deeply it influences American public administration, shows how it facilitates ethical action in administration and reviews some of the major obstacles to employing agency theory in the modern American administrative state.     

A theory of risk colonization: The spiralling regulatory logics of societal and institutional risk

Abstract

Explanations of the growing importance of risk to regulation identify three processes; the need to respond to newly created and discovered risks; the growth of regulatory frameworks; and the use of the risk instrument as an organizing idea for decision-making in modernity. Synthesizing these explanations, we propose a theory of risk colonization. We introduce a distinction between societal and institutional risks, the former referring to threats to members of society and their environment, and the latter referring to threats to regulatory organizations and/or the legitimacy of rules and methods of regulation. We argue that pressures towards greater coherence, transparency, and accountability of the regulation of societal risks can create institutional risks by exposing the inevitable limitations of regulation. In the first stage of risk colonization, framing the objects of regulation as ‘risks’ serves as a useful instrument for reflexively managing the associated institutional threats. This can be followed, in a second stage, by a dynamic tension between the management of societal and institutional risks that results in spiralling feedback loops. The very process of regulating societal risks gives rise to institutional risks, the management of which sensitizes regulators to take account of societal risks in different ways. We discuss links between this theory and the concept of governmentality and conclude with some speculations about the possible positive and negative consequences of risk colonization.     

Lobbying in the 21st century

This paper suggests that the nature of activism is changing to take account of the shifts in political and economic conditions. It further goes on to consider that as a result of these emerging trends we have witnessed a generational shift in how governments, businesses, interest groups and citizens will interact. It is possible to place the issues and questions that this new environment raises under a number of broad headings—Democracy and Dissent, Government and Parliament, Media, and Lobbying –each of which the paper deals with in turn. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications.     

Was the Antitrust Action that Broke Up the Movie Studios Good for the Movies? Evidence from the Stock Market

The Paramount antitrust litigation was a series of eight actionsbrought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) beginning in 1938and ending in 1949 against the major motion picture studios.In the early cases the DOJ succeeded in changing industry contracts,but it took a decade of litigation to accomplish what the DOJwanted, which was to break up the studios and force them tosell their theater chains. We use stock market evidence to evaluatethe impact of events in the Paramount litigation on firm value.By the stock market's assessment, the Supreme Court decisionwas the major event. But the impact of this and other decisionson integrated and nonintegrated defendants, and on a nondefendant,does not support the view that the courts dismantled a successfulmonopoly; indeed, the contrary may be true.     

Book reviews

Ennio Di Nolfo (ed.), Power in Europe?II. Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy and the Origins of the EEC, 1952-1957. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1992), DM238.

Simon J. Nuttall, European Political Cooperation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 343pp. £30, ISBN 0 19 827318 5.

Michael Smith and Stephen Woolcock, The United States and the European Community in a Transformed World (London: Pinter publishers for Royal Institute for International Affairs, 1993), 120 pp., £22.50 hb, £9.95 pb. ISBN 086187 0972/086187 0980.

Richard H. Ullman, Securing Europe (London: Adamantine Press, 1991), 175pp., £12.95. ISBN 0 7449 0036 0.

Cornelia Navari (ed.), The Condition of States: A Study in International Political Theory (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991), 238pp.

Francine Friedman, (comp. and ed.) Yugoslavia: A Comprehensive English-Language Bibliography (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 1993), xv + 547 pp., indices, US$ 120.

Richard Dean Burns (ed.), Encyclopedia of Arms Control and Disarmament (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993), three vols., 1692 pp. inch index, US$280, ISBN 0 684 19281 0.     

WTO Government Procurement Rules and the Local Dynamics of Procurement Policies: A Malaysian Case Study

This article examines efforts to create binding internationalrules regulating public procurement and considers, in particular,the failure to reach a WTO agreement on transparency in governmentprocurement. The particular focus of the discussion is the approachtaken by Malaysia to these international procurement rules andto the negotiation of an agreement on transparency. Rules governingpublic procurement directly implicate fundamental arrangementsof authority amongst and between different parts of government,its citizens and non-citizens. At the same time, the rules touchupon areas that are particularly sensitive for some developingcountries. Many governments use preferences in public procurementto accomplish important redistributive and developmental goals.Malaysia has long used significant preferences in public procurementto further sensitive developmental policies targeted at improvingthe economic strength of native Malays. Malaysia also has politicaland legal arrangements substantially at odds with fundamentalelements of proposed global public procurement rules. Malaysiahas, therefore, been forceful in resisting being bound by internationalpublic procurement rules, and has played an important role indefeating the proposed agreement on transparency. We suggestthat our case study has implications beyond procurement. Thedevelopment of international public procurement rules appearsto be guided by many of the same values that guide the broadereffort to create a global administrative law. This case study,therefore, has implications for the broader exploration of theseefforts to develop a global administrative law, in particularthe relationship between such efforts and the interests of developingcountries.