Expert knowledge use and deliberation in local policy making

This article analyzes the extent to which public administrators make use of expert knowledge (i.e., research or evaluation reports) when they prepare policy advice, and the extent to which politicians deliberate on the information provided to them by the administrators. The study is based on original, quantitative data from local politics in Sweden. We find that expert-informed policy advice from the administrators and critical reflection by the politicians are more pronounced when there is a lot of public attention. Furthermore, administrators use expert information more when they operate in a context in which there are large political disagreements. However, politicians deliberate less on the administrators’ policy advices in such environments. Thus, conflict seems to generate a pressure on the administrators to search for expert knowledge. But at the same time, within a context of political disputes, politicians make less effort to understand and critically reflect over the information provided to them by the administration, and are less inclined to change their opinions even if good arguments are presented to them. Thus, the empirical analysis indicates that what role expertise gets in policy making is very much a consequence of the local political environment.     

Civil Society Making Political Claims: Outcries,Interest Advocacy,and Deliberative Claims

Increased citizen participation is proposed to remedy democratic deficits. However, it is unclear whether such participation improves reason‐based discussions or whether it serves mainly as a safety valve for discontented citizens. To what extent does citizen‐initiated participation involve reason‐based arguments? This study examines citizens’ reason giving based on unique data on citizens’ contacts with local authorities in Sweden. It provides support for proponents of deliberative participation, as an unexpected amount of contacts provided reasons for clearly stated positions and invitations to a constructive dialogue with authorities. There is variation across issues. More conflictual issues involve fewer intentions to participate in a reasoned exchange of arguments. The study shows that citizens deliver more reason‐based input to democratic decision making when they prepare their position in groups than when they participate as individuals. Findings are preliminary but clearly illustrate the fruitfulness of widening the research agenda on civic engagement in politics and public administration.     

Aus den Vereinen/Ankündigungen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Adjustment, Stabilisation and the Analysis of the Employment Structure in Turkey: An Input- Output Approach

The aim of the paper is to examine the effects on employment of the large-scale structural adjustment programme undertaken by Turkey from the early 1980s onwards. In this respect, we particularly analyse how appropriate the choices of factor intensity after structural adjustment programme have been in the domestic production in comparison with the availability of domestic factor endowment. Our findings show that foreign trade in intermediate goods creates extra use of domestic labour, which can be considered as the labour cost of importing intermediate goods. This is the case in the majority of industries in the pre- and post-liberalisation period in Turkey. However, the capacity of using extra labour as a result of importing intermediate goods appeared to have decreased in the post-liberalisation period.     

Secularism Is a Women's Affair

The drama between the secularist legacy of Ataturk and the popular surge of Islamist‐rooted politics continues in Turkey, centered on the debate over the headscarf. Is it a sign of religious reaction, or a sign of non‐Western modernization that will ensure higher education for Muslim women? We represent here all sides of the debate. Elsewhere in the Muslim world are the reformers and critics listening to each other, or impeding progress with a blame game? Europe's most controversial figures in this debate—Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Tariq Ramadan—engage here.     

Walther Kastner-Preis – Einladung zur Teilnahme

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

War,transparency and control: the military architecture of operational warfare

In contemporary research, transparency is commonly understood to indicate and guarantee openness, in ways that make it synonymous with positive characteristics of governing. However, the allegedly benevolent link between transparency and governing has also been questioned, giving rise to arguments that transparency enables violent social control. Drawing upon this latter view, the article stages an encounter between critical debates on transparency and critical accounts of war to examine the way that they come together in the operationalization of warfare. Engaging particularly with Jean Baudrillard’s writing on transparency, the article inquires into the way control is socially manufactured and administered through military doctrines. It concludes that the operationalization of warfare is not, as many tend to argue, first and foremost about a response to practical problems when conducting wars. Rather, it consists of the potential to unveil global space and global time as an attempt to maintain and control future political becoming.