The performance framework: a systems approach to understanding performance management

The article presents a framework for better understanding the nature of performance in organisations involved in the provision of overseas development assistance (ODA). It uses a case study to illustrate the three main features of the framework which are: goals, performance assessment and performance management. It is asserted that a vibrant performance culture is one which links these features together to form an organisation capable of continual improvement through producing effective learning. Organisational culture determines the nature of linkages between the three sub‐systems. The article stresses how the notion of performance may extend beyond various forms of evaluation and scrutiny to being part of a sentient learning system rooted in an organisation's culture and structure. The article concludes with consideration of key issues associated with the generation of a reflexive learning organisation operating in the ODA sector. These are concerned with understanding the role and nature of systems, organisational vision, the embracing of diversity, training and accountability. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Challenges for donor agency country‐level performance assessment: a review

This review of country‐level performance assessment in donor agencies is primarily based upon the experiences documented by bilateral donors to developing countries. The review suggests that four emerging themes can be identified in the literature on country‐level performance review: ownership, decentralisation and leadership, accountability and learning and complexity. The review considers the implementation of ‘results‐based’ approaches used by a number of international agencies and examines their relationship with ‘evidence‐based’ approaches. A key challenge, in the development of performance assessment, is bringing in a stronger evidence‐based approach into the planning and evaluation of donor country‐level programmes. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Executive Authority, the Personal Vote, and Budget Discipline in Latin American and Caribbean Countries

Recent scholarship on budgeting in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries indicates that political institutions impact the level of budget discipline. Building upon this previous research, we argue that the principal problem that must be addressed in both the government and the legislature to insure strong fiscal discipline is the common pool resource (CPR) problem. At the cabinet level, the CPR problem arises because ministers consider the implications of decisions on their ministries only. The level of the CPR problem in the legislature depends upon the electoral system. Using a data set of LAC countries for the period 1988–97, we find that executive power in the budget process is most effective in reducing budget deficits when electoral incentives for the personal vote is high in the legislature, while strengthening the president (or prime minister) in countries where the personal vote is low in the legislature has no effect .     

China's consumer revolution: The 1990s and beyond

Since 1980 China's economic revolution has enabled more households to allocate labor to market‐related activities to earn more income. In 1992 an even greater surge in market economy growth took place when urban households began abandoning state‐related occupations and took their chances in the marketplace. The increase in consumer spending that followed reflects a new pattern of household spending for the first time in China since 1949: the share of spending for food relative to spending for other categories of goods and services is fast declining. This new trend, already strongly evident among high income‐earning households, is rapidly being replicated by other households as their incomes rise. During the 1990s new consumer patterns have emerged in the cities of the coastal provinces that strongly indicate that a consumer revolution is under way. This revolution has revived traditional gift‐giving between the Chinese people, thus facilitating the strengthening of their social, economic, and political ties and encouraging people to emphasize social and political stability.     

Hegemony and Autonomy

This article analyzes the concept of hegemony and examines its relationship to power and autonomy. Refuting the conventional belief that it is ideology that distinguishes hegemony, the article argues that it is autonomy that constitutes the distinguishing characteristic. Although hegemons tend to evolve into imperialists, hegemony involves leadership of an alliance, not domination by coercion. It is impossible to conceptualize hegemony without also including autonomy. In this conceptualization, the primary source of autonomy lies in a specific hegemonic system of domination that itself embodies the notion of autonomy for both the polity and its citizenry, a limiting construction that hinders the tendency toward imperialism. Such a system includes one type of autonomy that can be designated as autonomy within hegemony. In addition, the article discusses two other types of autonomy: counterhegemony and a largely power-based opposed hegemony. Thus, the article concludes, hegemony is a complex concept, with several types of manifestation, that can more usefully be understood in connection with autonomy and power than as a stand-alone concept.     

The History of Political Science

The history of political science serves as a context within which we make sense of the nature and role of our discipline. Narratives about the past development of British and American political science help to frame debates, choices, and identities within the contemporary discipline in Britain. What do recent studies on the history of political science tell us about the character of political science in Britain and America? What do they suggest about the relation of the British study of politics to British identities more generally? Our review of recent work concentrates on three issues: (1) how historical studies of political science relate to approaches and identities within the contemporary discipline; (2) how they relate to the past, i.e. whether their historical vision is marred by presentism; (3) whether they look beyond the boundaries of the discipline.