The mediating effect of good governance on the relationship between managerial roles and personal development： A structural equation modeling （SEM） approach

One of the challenges faced by public sector managers particularly is the problem of identifying and determining their roles, their personal development and how to effectively implement the concept of good governance in their organizations. Given a dynamic changing and continuing insight into public organizational effectiveness, public sector managers are rethinking how best they could accomplish their roles in order to attain their organization roles and objectives. This study examines the mediating roles of good governance in the relationship between managerial roles, development roles, strategic roles and personal development. In determining this relationship, a hypothetical model of the relationship among roles of public sector managers, good governance and personal development is developed. The results suggest that the managerial roles has more positive and significant influence on personal development than the development roles and strategic roles. Empirical study supports the institutional theory （Scott, 2001） in the hypothesized model. The empirical findings confirm that good governance has a significant and positive impact on the relationship between managerial roles and development roles to the personal development of public sector managers. This proves that the management system theory （Katz ＆ Kahn, 1966） is supported whereby public sector manager roles served as an input, while good governance as a process and personal development as an output. Based on empirical findings, it is suggested that personal development should be referred as an ideal social behavior of public sector managers. Overall, the study supports the hypotheses that good governance plays a mediating role in the relationship between public sector manager roles and personal development. This is consistent with governance theory （Lynn, 2001）. One particular contribution of this study is the development of structural equation model to determine the relationships between managerial roles, good governance and the personal dev     

Model for Management of Public Funds Transfers in SICONV

This article consolidates the efforts of the Information Systems Research Group for the construction of a reference model for the management of agreements celebrated based on the Brazilian federal government＇s voluntary funds transfers. It presents the Reference Model for covenants＇ processes, which is the product of the third phase of this research project. This model will be used as reference in the fourth phase of this project, when it will be applied to a sample of covenants. Experience gained in this step will allow the consolidation of the Reference Model. An important contribution of this work is to facilitate the understanding of proposals, so processes analyzed can be improved and redesigned. Processes information, from organization to details of each activity, can then be disseminated to all interested parties. Results here presented are not final. They will serve as input to the next stage of the project, which is the Assessment of the Reference Model by selected Stadual and municipal governments. Each entity will contribute with its own perspective to improving the idealized model.     

On The Receiving End: The Governance of the Police in Britain

Based on direct observation over a five‐year period, the article paints an intimate picture of how the police in Britain are governed. It analyses the complexity of the economic and political environment in which the police have to work: the insecure funding platform; the stream of initiatives, targets and official guidelines; the delicacy of handling community sensitivities; the inherent opaqueness of the national ‘tripartite’ system of governance; and the constant challenge of making balanced judgements under conflicting pressures. The central theme that runs through the article (which follows on logically from two previous articles published in Political Quarterly) is that of a ‘managerialist’ political class, with a distinctive ideology and mode of control, trying to get a policy grip on the real world of service delivery: in this instance, policing. Unlike the previous two articles, which had a top‐down focus, the emphasis here is primarily on how the thicket looks to those who have to navigate their way through it.     

Heaven's Talent Scout: Prime Ministerial Power,Ecclesiastical Patronage and the Governance of Britain

In the last decade the role of the Prime Minister in the process for making senior Church appointments has changed significantly. The man who replaces Dr Rowan Williams—and it will be a man—will be appointed through a procedure in which the Prime Minister is expected to enjoy no choice but to simply confirm the Church of England's preferred candidate. The aim of this article is to draw upon fresh empirical research in order to explore why and how the politics and governance of ecclesiastical patronage has been recalibrated in this way. More importantly this article seeks to embed the study of ecclesiastical patronage within a much broader appreciation of how other forms of ministerial patronage have also become tightly constrained. This, in itself, forges a connection between the role of politicians in senior Church appointments, on the one hand, and a much richer and broader seam of research and writing that poses distinct questions about the nature of modern governance, the benefits of depoliticisation, the accountability of appointment commissions, the capacity of politicians and the future of democracy.     

Nonpunctuated and Sweeping Policy Change: Bhutan Tobacco Policy Making from 1991 to 2009

This paper examines policy outputs associated with the 2004 Bhutan antitobacco law, including 2009 amendments, to determine if the law is congruent with punctuated equilibrium or social policy realism theories of policy change. There was no direct and sudden tobacco policy output change in Bhutan due to a shock to the policy system contrary to what punctuated equilibrium theory would predict. Rather, policy change was sweeping but nonpunctuated. This paper reconfirms prior findings of social policy realism theory that various and complex policy output patterns occur due to a mixture of contingent and complex factors. Under social policy realism, a complex interplay of factors drive policy with the state, corporate actors, and interest groups, and the market often playing a primary role. These complex policy outputs have a direct impact on society and the natural environment reflected in government policy output actions or inactions.     

New Labour,racism and ‘new’ football in England

ABSTRACT

Bradbury and Williams begin by examining aspects of the genealogy of incidents of fan racism at the Spain v. England international football match in Madrid on 17 November 2004, and the public outcry in Britain that followed. They raise questions about the possible ‘strategic mobilization’ by Spanish fans of apparently racist epithets as a response to the use, by the English football authorities before the match, of prominent anti-racism symbolism. The main body of the article then considers the British public response to Madrid within the context of the Blairite New Labour policy on football racism in England from the late 1990s. It argues that Labour's Football Task Force from 1997 constituted an entirely new direction for sport and government policy in Britain. However, by drawing on the comments of some of the key figures involved, Bradbury and Williams further contend that, both structurally and ideologically, the Task Force was preset to limit its own investigations on the nature and effects of racism, specifically in the English game. Although the Task Force's report, Eliminating Racism in Football, has had some positive effects—for example, on Football Association policy or in stimulating local anti-racist initiatives—its narrow focus and its relatively underdeveloped understanding of the racism problem in professional sport led its members to de-emphasize the significance of forms of institutionalized racism within English football. Research and commentaries on racism in the English game since that report was published in 1998 suggest that problems of racialized exclusion in football remain. Bradbury and Williams conclude that the public outrage in Britain about the incidents in Madrid reflect an over-concentration on silencing public expressions of racism—combating overt, collective fan outbreaks—at the expense of addressing the racialized structures of power that continue to shape access, opportunities and acceptance of ethnic minorities within professional football in England.     

Governance through civil society? An Anglo-Italian comparison of democratic renewal and local regeneration

Abstract

The UK has become a prime case for the implementation of the ‘new governance’ of partnership between central government and civil society. This perspective has become central to New Labour policies for both local socio-economic regeneration and democratic renewal in the United Kingdom. However, limitations in its redistribution of power, its transparency in the policy-making process, including the representativeness of civil society participants, and, in the effectiveness of its outcomes have all been alleged by academic critics. These issues are explored by contrasting a robust, British case of local, participatory governance in Bristol with a quite different, and more conventional approach to democratic renewal in the Italian city of Naples. Despite similar problems of socio-economic dereliction and similar schemes of regeneration in the two cases, the Italian approach emphasized the exclusive role of a renewed constitutional democracy, while in Bristol central government agencies promoted an accentuation of local trends to participation by local civil society organizations. Applying an analytical framework composed of national policies and regulations, institutional rules and norms, and the collective ‘identity’ factors identified by social capital theory, governance changes are here treated as ‘exogenous shocks’ and/or as opportunities for choice. However, over and above differences in these institutional frameworks the key factors are shown to be the longer-standing political cultures influencing local actors and their own repertoires of action; with repertoires influenced by objective validations of previous policy choices, or economic or electoral successes. The study finds that the achievements of the ‘inclusive’, participative governance approach do not significantly exceed those of an exclusivist, ‘neo-constitutionalism’, as practised by a more autonomous local government in Naples. Thus, on this evidence, enhanced civil society engagement still requires greater freedom from central government direction.     

From International Relations to Global Governance Theory: Conceptualizing NGOs after the Rio Breakthrough of 1992

Abstract

This essay systematizes the ontology of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the processes of their inclusion in world politics. It tracks conceptualizations of NGOs, their integration into IR theory, and the resultant move toward global governance (GG) theory. First, I provide an interdisciplinary ontological evolution of NGOs in international relations (IR): as international interest groups, then transnational social movement organizations, then transnational advocacy networks, and most recently as global civil society. All stress different features of NGO activism, but none have successfully replaced the term ‘NGO.’ Second, this new ontology requires a new process for participation in world politics—GG. GG theory expands on IR theory to include NGOs in multi-actor, issue-driven relationships.     

Security Sector Reform from a Policy Transfer Perspective: A Comparative Study of International Interventions in the Palestinian Territories,Liberia and Timor-Leste

Security sector reform (SSR), targeting security forces and their management and oversight institutions, has become a major feature of international peace- and statebuilding activities. The article draws on policy transfer research to assess substantive and procedural changes in how international actors intervene in the security governance of fragile or post-conflict states. By comparing transfer processes in Liberia, Timor-Leste and the Palestinian Territories, the article shows that despite variations across political, economic and strategic factors in each domestic context, external SSR interventions showed distinct similarities. SSR interventions expanded their substantive scope over time; less directly coercive mechanisms of persuasion and socialization increasingly replaced the direct imposition of external models of security governance; and the influence of domestic elite actors on transfer processes increased over the duration of interventions.     

Customer-Oriented E-Government

Abstract

E-govemment's next phase-a seamless, customer-oriented Web presence-faces more formidable barriers to development than did earlier advances. Progress toward customer-focused e-government requires fundamental organizational changes to existing bureaucracies, so that the government's Web presence can be comprehensive, efficient, and easy for citizens to use. To compel individual “stovepipe” agencies to develop a combined Web presence, chief information officers must be able to focus political and bureaucratic resources on making government websites truly customer-centric. The rewards for success in this next stage of e-government are significantnot only will it benefit citizens directly, but integrated e-government can also make offline government more efficient and effective.