CLUMSY SOLUTIONS FOR A COMPLEX WORLD: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

Successful solutions to pressing social ills tend to consist of innovative combinations of a limited set of alternative ways of perceiving and resolving the issues. These contending policy perspectives justify, represent and stem from four different ways of organizing social relations: hierarchy, individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism. Each of these perspectives: (1) distils certain elements of experience and wisdom that are missed by the others; (2) provides a clear expression of the way in which a significant portion of the populace feels we should live with one another and with nature; and (3) needs all of the others in order to be sustainable. ‘Clumsy solutions’– policies that creatively combine all opposing perspectives on what the problems are and how they should be resolved – are therefore called for. We illustrate these claims for the issue of global warming.     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Japanese Crime From 1926 to 1987: The Pre-War,War, and Post-War Eras

This study examines Japanese crime trends and explores an area rarely investigated by researchers. By focusing on relationships between penal code offenses known to the police and population growth in Japan over the last six decades, it is possible to gain further insight into Nihon's (Japan's) low crime figures. In addition, the paper compares Japanese and American crime rates for selected offenses. The findings support previous research that identified low levels of crime in Japan. During the 62 year period included in this study, population and population density increased considerably in Japan, but crime rates, after fluctuations immediately before and after World War II, dropped significantly. On the average, total penal code offenses, homicide, and arson were greater during the pre-war years, and rape, robbery, and all felonies, as a composite, were higher in the post-war era.     

Measuring the Financial Position of Municipalities: Numbers Do Not Speak for Themselves

There are several challenges facing someone who wants to know if a city's revenue structure is fair and reasonable. There are few generally accepted standards to use as benchmarks of financial condition, and there is no generally accepted methodology to assess relative financial position. This article reviews literature on financial position and condition, and then develops a methodological approach that creates a cohort of similar cities for benchmarking financial position, and then forming a basis for assessing financial condition. Based on a study of the financial position of a medium-sized city, the article offers lessons for practitioners and scholars.     

Theorizing Implementation of Public Management Policy Reforms: A Case Study of Strategic Planning and Programming in the European Commission

As a measure to rectify the European Commission's "management deficit," the institution's authorities decided to introduce new forms of commission-wide strategic planning and programming in 2000. Drawing on semistructured interviews with Commission officials, this article tracks the key turning points, trajectories, and outcomes of events within the implementation stage of this part of the Commission managerial reform. As an instrumental case study, the article begins to theorize the process of implementing public management policy change. Major conceptual issues addressed include how reform decisions serve to activate the social mechanism of actor certification and how actor conduct amplifies such certification. Actor certification provides a link from reform choices to organizational change. In this respect and others, the research argument contrasts and integrates social theory mind-sets deriving from institutionalism and social interactionism (processualism) in line with research trends in historical sociology, organization science, and public management.