Centre–periphery relations in Afghanistan: Badakhshan between patrimonialism and institution-building

The article offers a review of centre–periphery relations and local politics in the Afghan province of Badakhshan from the 1980s to the post-2001 era. It maps the local powerbrokers and charts the transformations that occurred during this period, with particular reference to the impact of the central government's policies on local political alignments and relations of power. The key argument is that President Karzai's and the cabinet's behaviour towards Badakhshani politics was aimed at re-establishing a patrimonial system, rather than at institution-building as claimed. Unable or unwilling to successfully deal with established local players, Kabul resorted to sponsoring new players in local politics and facilitating their rise in order to weaken more independent powerbrokers. However, a local perception of weakness in Kabul, not least due to uncertainty over the durability of the Karzai administration, led local players, old and new, to behave with very short-term horizons, as ‘roving bandits’ rather than as ‘stationary’ ones.     

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The article examines the political origins and impact of recent managerial reform (the shift from the professional bureaucracy model of public administration to the new public management [NPM]) in UK local government. Two key drivers of managerial reform are identified: central–local relations and labour management. The former are historically complex due, partly, to the Victorian expediential justification of local government, and the tenuous constitutional status of local government in the British polity. These factors necessitate and permit central control with models of public administration a key mechanism for achieving this. In addition, as 70% of overall sector costs are made up of centrally funded labour costs, the centre's attempts to control labour management (pay and performance) is a second key driver of managerial reform. And models of public administration, again, are a major mechanism for achieving central control. The analysis is rooted in a brief historical examination of developments from the 1880s, and a longitudinal case study examining more recent developments to illustrate the general case made. Empirical findings show councillor, union and worker resistance to managerial reform. They also show job loss, work intensification, job insecurity and demoralisation of staff. Another key finding is that NPM is not new, but a regression to the Victorian era.     

Book reviews

“Poor Carolina”: Politics and Society in Colonial North Carolina, 1729–1776. By A. Roger Ekirch. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981. 305 pp. $23.50.

Violent Death in the City: Suicide, Accident and Murder in Nineteenth‐Century Philadelphia. By Roger Lane. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1979. ix, 193 pp. $22.00.     

Re/visioning the women's movement in Israel

Current literature on the women's movement argues that in recent decades, a schism based on the politics of identity has divided women and led to the weakening of the movement. This process, intersecting with the escalation of neoliberal trends and the ‘NGOization’ of civil society, has resulted in the depoliticization of the women's movement and the waning of its influence as a political force. The present paper seeks to examine whether this argument is consistent with the situation in the Israeli women's movement of the early twenty-first century. Based on the history of the women's movement in Israel, the paper posits a twofold argument: (a) the women's movement in Israel has not disappeared but has been restructured as a result of its NGOization; (b) despite criticism of the movement in the literature and on the part of activists as the result of its NGOization, the movement's political messages have remained intact and even expanded to embrace questions of social justice, including novel thinking on matters of peace and security.     

The Nature of Contracting Hazards in Public–Private Partnerships—Evidence from Ireland

The use of public–private partnerships (PPP) for the procurement of infrastructure and related services can be a complex and challenging process. This article adopts a transaction cost regulation perspective to examine two PPP cases from Ireland that encountered significant obstacles to successful procurement. It finds that both procurements met hazards including uncertainty about the viability of the bids and opportunistic behavior by preferred bidders that held quasi-monopoly positions. The public nature of both cases provided a fertile ground for opportunistic behavior by political opponents and other “interested” parties. The analysis shows how the governance of PPPs is shaped by the attributes of the transactions and the interaction of economic and political hazards that create transaction costs.     

Effects of Public Service Motivation on Turnover and Job Satisfaction in the U.S. Teacher Labor Market

A substantial body of research has addressed the importance of the match between the person and the organization, or jobs for individuals and organizational outcomes across diverse fields. Despite growing attention to the role of the person–environment (P–E) fit, there are few studies incorporating the characteristics of jobs in the relationship between public service motivation (PSM) and job satisfaction. Drawing on the growing literature concerning PSM and teacher recruitment and retention, this study investigates whether altruistic work values, such as a strong altruistic desire and a preference for correcting social inequity, affect job satisfaction and teacher turnover.     

Explaining United States–China relations: neoclassical realism and the nexus of threat–interest perceptions

How to understand and explain the evolutions as well as predict the future directions of bilateral relations between the United States and China has become an imperative task for both policy makers and academic scholars. Borrowing insights from neoclassical realism, this paper suggests a three-stage, perceptual model of ‘threat–interest’ to explore the dynamics of Sino–US relations from 1949 to 2015. It argues that the nature of US–China relations, either cooperation or competition, is mainly shaped by the perceptions of leaders regarding security threats and economic interests between the two nations. How to manage their perceptions regarding each other and how to find a balance between cooperation and competition are the key issues for leaders in both the United States and China to manage bilateral relations in the future. The next decade or two may be the best or the worst times for US–China relations.     

Course corrections and failed rationales: how comparative advantage and debt are used to legitimise austerity in Africa and Latin America

This article examines the role of ideological mechanisms in support of long-term economic liberalisation. Specifically we examine the ideological roles of comparative advantage and debt reduction as precursors to austerity policy imposition. Austerity policies, as episodic mechanisms designed to deepen neoliberalisation, are examined in the comparative historical context of Africa and Latin America.     

A question of trust: military defection during regime crises in Benin and Togo

This article examines the role of trust between military officers and opposition forces in fostering mass defections of military personnel during pro-democracy uprisings. The current literature on military defection emphasizes the role of either opposition characteristics, or government control policies. Combining the two, however, takes better account of defection as an interaction between officers and the opposition. Through an analysis of civil–military relations during mass uprisings in Benin (1989–1990) and Togo (1990–1993), this article finds that loyalist stacking creates a core of military personnel with a strong stake in regime preservation, while counterbalancing leaves open the possibility for a military-opposition alliance. Alliance also depends on civic resistance campaign characteristics (the unity of the movement, its nonviolent character, the presence of opposition leaders with social ties to military personnel) and promises to military personnel that acknowledge the latter groups’ interests. These findings provide a new theoretical framework for understanding military actions during regime crises.     

Q&A in legislative oversight: A framework for analysis

Parliamentary questions are an essential tool of legislative oversight. However, the extent to which they are effective in controlling the executive remains underspecified both theoretically and methodologically. This article advances a systematic framework for evaluating the effectiveness of parliamentary questions drawing on principal–agent theory, the public administration literature on accountability and communication research. The framework is called the ‘Q&A approach to legislative oversight’ based on the premise that the study of parliamentary questions (Q) needs to be linked to their respective answers (A) and examined together (Q&A) at the micro-level as an exchange of claims between legislative and executive actors. Methodologically, the Q&A approach to legislative oversight offers a step-by-step guide for qualitative content analysis of Q&A that can be applied to different legislative oversight contexts at different levels of governance. It is argued that the effectiveness of Q&A depends on the strength of the questions asked and the responsiveness of answers provided, which are correspondingly operationalised. To illustrate the merits of the approach, the article includes a systematic case study on the relationship between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank in banking supervision (2013–2018), showing the connection between specific institutional settings and the effectiveness of parliamentary questions.