Negotiating the review process: a CIA guide to intelligence analysis, 1970

The literature on intelligence analysis contains many references to the ‘review process’, the mechanism by which analysts’ drafts are converted into corporate products. Analysts whose drafts consistently navigate the process quickly and smoothly are regarded as star performers. Divining the practical meaning of organizational definitions of ‘good’ analysis and the personal preferences of specific senior reviewers is not easy, however. Analysts occasionally commit their understanding of reviewers’ stylistic preferences to paper, effectively providing style guides to help others. This essay presents and explains the development and implications of one such guide, which was designed to help analysts in CIA’s Office of Strategic Research in the early 1970s.     

Policy Positions of Bureaucrats at the Front Lines: Are They Susceptible to Strategic Communication?

It is well established that bureaucrats’ implementation of policies is influenced by their own policy positions, that is, their attitudes toward the given policies. However, what affects the policy positions of bureaucrats? This article focuses on whether the policy positions of bureaucrats at the front lines of government are susceptible to frames and cues embedded in communication. Based on the notion that bureaucrats often adhere to certain professional norms when developing their attitudes toward policies, the authors hypothesize that communication frames and cues that align policies with such norms move bureaucrats’ policy positions in favor of the policy. Results of four studies in European and American settings among mid‐ and street‐level bureaucrats show support for the hypothesized effect. They also show that aligning policies with dimensions outside professional norms is ineffective, possibly even producing opposite effects.     

Public Services after Austerity: Zombies,Suez or Collaboration?

Public services—in the UK and elsewhere—are under considerable pressure, not just from austerity, but also from a variety of social, demographic and technological changes (in effect ‘austerity plus’). In this context, three broad options are open to policy‐makers: continue with tried‐and‐tested approaches while spending less money, which in the UK means a reliance on ‘New Public Management’ (NPM); withdraw completely from certain public services; or develop new approaches to public administration. We argue that all of these approaches have been attempted in recent years, but it is the final option that is most interesting and potentially the most beneficial. In this article, we examine experiments with these new approaches in responding to ‘austerity plus’. In particular, we examine various attempts at ‘collaboration’ in public services and discuss the risks associated with them. We conclude by setting out the extent to which policy‐makers have moved beyond NPM and suggesting some of the benefits that this could bring.     

The Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey and the Limitations of Vulnerability-based Politics

ABSTRACT

This article investigates opposition to the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, which surveyed Australians on their position on marriage equality from September to November 2017. Opposition to the hosting of a public vote on marriage equality was based in a perceived vulnerability of LGBTIQ Australians, with marriage equality advocates taking what Tietze (2016) described as a ‘dark view of the voting public’. While acknowledging the high levels of homophobic rhetoric that occurred during the postal survey, and the impacts that public votes can have on the mental health of LGBTIQ people, the article argues this ‘dark view’ was overstated. This article argues that opposition to the survey reinforced vulnerability within LGBTIQ Australians, promoting an increased reliance on the state for protection and recognition. Opposition ignored the democratic potential of the survey, particularly as an opportunity to further debate on LGBTIQ issues and to reduce broader societal homophobia. Despite the eventual yes vote therefore, approaches to the postal survey missed a political opportunity, likely leaving LGBTIQ Australians and the Australian queer movement in a weaker position than previously.     

Political Pressure,Conformity Pressure,and Performance Information as Drivers of Public Sector Innovation Adoption

Why public organizations adopt and abandon organizational innovations is a key question for any endeavor to explain large-scale developments in the public sector. Supplementing research within public administration on innovation with the related literature on policy diffusion, this article examines how external factors such as conformity pressure from institutionalized models, performance information from other organizations, and political pressure affect innovation adoption. By the use of two survey experiments in very different political contexts—Texas and Denmark—and a difference-in-differences analysis exploiting a reform of the political governance of public schools in Denmark, we find that public managers respond to political pressure. We find no indications that they emulate institutionalized models or learn from performance information from other organizations when they adopt organizational innovations. The results thereby point to political pressure as an important factor behind large-scale adoptions of organizational innovations in the public sector.     

Preventing Corruption Risk in Legislation: Evidence from Russia,Moldova, and Kazakhstan

ABSTRACT

Corruption risk assessment of draft laws and other normative acts is a relatively new instrument in the anti-corruption strategies implemented by developed nations, countries in transition, and the developing world. In connection with this, any practical experience accumulated in this area presents obvious interest. The analysis of such experience may allow to identify what works and what does not work in introducing the practices of anti-corruption screening of draft laws and other normative acts in various environments and settings, as well as contribute to dissemination of best practices in the countries of the region and elsewhere.

This article seeks to analyze and demonstrate the extent of practical implementation of corruption risk assessment of draft and enacted legislation in three post-communist countries, the problems encountered and solutions identified. Proceeding from this analysis, certain recommendations for practitioners in this field are formulated.     

Pushed by national politics or pulled by localism? Voting for independent local parties in the Netherlands

This study examines why citizens in the Netherlands vote for independent local parties. These are parties that run in municipal council elections, but do not run in elections at higher levels. This article examines a number of expectations: namely that voters vote for these parties out dissatisfaction with established parties, that they do so because they have a 'localist' political orientation or that they do so because their own national party is not running in the municipal elections. More support is found for the idea that voters vote for local parties because they are pushed away by national parties (either because they do not participate in some municipalities or because voters distrust them) than for the idea that voters vote for local parties for positive reasons, such as a localist political orientation. This article examines two surveys concerning voting behaviour in the 2014 Dutch municipal elections.     

Sovereignty,bare life and the Arab uprisings

Five years after people took to the streets in protest at political organisation across the Middle East, the consequences of these actions remain. As the protests gained traction, states began to fragment and regimes sought to retain power, whatever the cost. While a great deal of focus has been upon what happened, very little attention has been paid to the role of agency within the context of the fragmenting sovereignty and political change. This article contributes to these debates by applying the work of Giorgio Agamben to the post-Arab Uprisings Middle East, to understand the relationship between rulers and ruled along with the fragmentation of the sovereign state. The article argues for the need to bring agency back into conceptual debates about sovereignty within the Middle East. It concludes by presenting a framework that offers an approach building upon Agamben’s bare life.     

The Feminist Citizen-Subject: It’s not About Choice,It’s About Changing It All

This article ties together two different sources related to the Trial of Pussy Riot in Russia in 2012. On the one hand, I consider legal documents, such as court proceedings, police reports, and the sentence. On the other, I analyse a life-history interview with one of the accused, thus giving her a voice that is not mediated by juridical institutions within criminal law procedure. This allows an analysis of two different subject positions produced by these texts: a conformist citizen and a feminist activist-citizen. I pay more attention to the latter. I conclude that in order to retain an activist position, the feminist subject has no option but to resist.     

Queer Coalitions: An Examination of Political Resistance to the Russian Migration Law

Abstract

Migration policy in Russia is implemented by a variety of actors, such as state officials, market actors, and social activists. In the implementation of migration policy, they inevitably interact with one another. Having examined the categories used by the people involved in the implementation of migration policy, I explore the potential of coalition-building in this process. In order to scrutinise these fluid political forms, I make use of the concept of ‘queer coalitions’. This concept draws on literature in queer theory, which I argue is also productive for the analysis of current political actions in the migration domain.