WHAT IS A “GOOD” SOCIAL NETWORK FOR POLICY IMPLEMENTATION? THE FLOW OF KNOW‐HOW FOR ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE

This study concerns how intraorganizational networks affect the implementation of policies and practices in organizations. In particular, we attend to the role of the informal subgroup or clique in cultivating and distributing locally adapted and integrated knowledge, or know‐how. We develop two hypotheses based on the importance of intraorganizational coordination for an organization's capacity for change. The first emphasizes the importance of distributing know‐how evenly to potential recipient subgroups. The second emphasizes the importance of restricting know‐how to flow from high know‐how subgroups. We test our hypotheses with longitudinal network data in 21 schools, finding stronger support for the second hypothesis than the first. Our findings can help managers cultivate know‐how flows to contribute to organizational change.     

Bricks in the wall: the politics of housing in Europe

Abstract

Housing has important economic, political, and social ramifications for Western Europe and beyond. Despite its importance in shaping economic and political outcomes, however, housing remains in the peripheral vision of major comparative political economy debates. This introduction to the special issue accomplishes four objectives. First it demonstrates how housing defies current political economy typologies by failing to conform to their theoretical and empirical predictions. Second it summarises the current state of housing research within political science, which still remains in its infancy. Third it highlights how the contributions in this special issue expand our understanding of how housing causes and is shaped by political and economic outcomes in Europe. Finally, this introduction concludes by outlining how the special issue contributions demonstrate housing’s importance for the welfare state, political preferences and electoral shifts, regulatory and redistributive policies, and financialisation and household indebtedness in Europe.     

From Aftermath to Peace: Reflections on a Photography of Peace

International Relations (IR) literature on the visual construction of the international does not systematically engage with the visualisation of peace. In this article, I make photographic discourses available to IR scholars interested in the visual construction of the international and invite IR scholars to substantialise these discourses based on their specialist knowledge on war, violence, conflict and peace. I engage with aftermath photography by challenging its almost exclusive focus on war and the legacy of violence. Furthermore, I engage with Fred Ritchin's notion of peace photography and Cynthia Weber's attempts at visualising peace. Problematising claims to universality, generalisability and causality, I emphasise that the relation between images and peace is episodic, not causal; that visions of peace, reflecting specific cultural configurations, cannot claim universal validity; and that peace photography has to move beyond aftermath photography's focus on the legacies of the past. Finally, I briefly look at the work of Joel Meyerowitz and Rineke Dijkstra, the one displaying aftermath as a beginning sustaining power, the other photographically accompanying a person's adaptation to a new, more peaceful environment.     

A test of the escape from the persistence of backwardness

A model was constructed and estimated for the Japanese economy from 1872 to 1937. Although the model is limited in scope due to limited data availability, it is capable of testing the escape from the trap hypothesis of which Japan is a popular candidate. An examination of the basic difference equation in all periods indicated that Japan did escape the trap during the period 1873–74. Care should be taken in evaluating the evidence. Clearly, the trap is not verified within the range of the data. Consequently, what appears to be evidence of an escape from the trap is suspicious. An economy could tend to move away from an unstable equilibrium level of per capita income without moving toward a low level stable equilibrium level of per capita income when the rate of change in per capita income is negative. But the evidence does support a turning point in Japan's efforts to develop. After 1873–74 Japan was able to achieve a sustained rise in per capita income. The results of this study identify an escape from a persistence of backwardness in terms of per capita income regardless of whether or not that escape was one from a low level equilibrium trap.     

The New Public Management, Homeland Security, and the Politics of Civil Service Reform

This article examines the George W. Bush administration's efforts to apply New Public Management reforms to the Department of Homeland Security. The primary focus is the administration's attempt to implement the law. The managerial strategy that Department of Homeland Security and Office of Personnel Management executives used to carry out the law in the massive new department receives attention, with a special focus on the approach used in dealing with the federal courts. The article suggests five general lessons concerning civil service deregulation at the federal level. The case reaffirms the notion that successful administrative reform requires a keen appreciation for the politics that shape it.