Basic education clusters in Cambodia: looking at the future while learning from the past

School clusters have been adopted as an education policy by most Asian countries since the 1960s. In Cambodia, primary schools have been organised in clusters since 1993. Clusters were considered a mechanism for quality improvements of education and a way to facilitate sharing and interaction between schools. Primary school clusters have been partially successful. Today there is a growing interest among Cambodian policymakers for integrating primary schools (Grades 1–6) and lower secondary schools (Grades 7–9). This article provides a policy suggestion by arguing for extending the cluster mechanism to these integrated basic education schools with all grades from 1 to 9.     

Negotiating one position: Switzerland at the Global Forum on Migration and Development

The paper explores intra-governmental processes in migration policy-making, using the example of Switzerland and examining its preparations for chairing the Global Forum on Migration and Development 2011. Switzerland's “one joint position”, presented at the forum, required intensive negotiations and cooperation between different Swiss federal offices. The paper highlights how and why Switzerland achieved this joint position. It analyses the intra-governmental tensions between national securitisation and global migration and development debates and how they were overcome. This experience of a “whole-of-government approach” offers an insight into politics underlying migration and development debates within donor countries, and its implications for global migration debates.     

Keeping face in the public sphere: recognition,discretion and Uzbekistan's relations with the United States and Germany, 1991–2006

The manner in which President Karimov's roles were recognized in the global arena affected how Uzbekistan's international relations developed – a perspective that highlights both the form and the content of bilateral relationships. While mutual interests are crucial to beginning a relationship, it is also important to understand how those relations were recognized in public and dealt with in private. If partners managed to recognize Karimov's agenda publicly, or at least act with discretion, this tended to create an atmosphere favouring cooperation. As such, recognition and discretion reveal much about Karimov's concerns with international equality and self-reliance, pointing to the reasons why Uzbekistan's relations fluctuated more with some actors than others. The United States and Germany are ideal examples of that ambivalent situation: Washington often cooperated with Uzbekistan on security matters, but then saw its military personnel excluded from Qarshi-Qanabad after the 2005 Andijan crisis; whereas Berlin witnessed little change in its relationship with Uzbekistan and continued to lease a base in Termez after 2005. This difference in outcomes can be explained in part by a dynamic of recognition and discretion.     

Overcoming poverty and inequality: Rwanda's progress towards the MDGs

Despite the 1994 genocide there has been annual growth in Rwanda every year since 2000. Poverty has decreased; while the MDG target of 23.8% is unlikely to be met by 2015, the future looks hopeful. The goal of reducing hunger is measured by underweight children – already down to target – and extreme poverty – likely to hit the target. Key to success is reducing dependency on the land, but a majority of the population still depend on their farm or plot. However, hitting targets for reducing poverty is not the same thing as abolishing it, and achieving targets does not necessarily solve problems.     

Conjuring up the next attack: the future-orientedness of terror and the counterterrorist imagination

Although terrorism is widely understood to be the politically motivated creation of fear by means of violence in a target group, the nature of that fear is seldom explained or even considered. The present article attempts to close that gap by proposing a definition of terror as the apprehension of (more) violence to come. Because every terrorist act is perceived to be part of a potential series, terror is oriented towards the future and involves the imaginary anticipation of prospective events. On the basis of this definition, I will examine the problematical role of counterterrorist discourse. As the statements of public officials and security experts in the run-up to, and during, the “War on Terror” demonstrate, the peculiar dynamic of terror is, seemingly paradoxically, reinforced by counterterrorist rhetoric. With its insistence on the escalatory nature of terrorist violence and its repeated prediction of even worse attacks, counterterrorism contributes to the evocation of terror in the sense proposed here.     

Comparing Electronic News Media Reports of Potential Bioterrorism-Related Incidents Involving Unknown White Powder to Reports Received by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Bureau of Investigation: U.S.A., 2009–2011

There have been periodic electronic news media reports of potential bioterrorism-related incidents involving unknown substances (often referred to as “white powder”) since the 2001 intentional dissemination of Bacillus anthracis through the U.S. Postal System. This study reviewed the number of unknown “white powder” incidents reported online by the electronic news media and compared them with unknown “white powder” incidents reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during a 2-year period from June 1, 2009 and May 31, 2011. Results identified 297 electronic news media reports, 538 CDC reports, and 384 FBI reports of unknown “white powder.” This study showed different unknown “white powder” incidents captured by each of the three sources. However, the authors could not determine the public health implications of this discordance.     

The Engage programme and the Government Communication Network in the UK, 2006–2010

The Engage programme was launched in April 2006 by the Government Communication Network (GCN) in the UK. As a civil service body supporting those in government working as press officers and in marketing roles, the GCN under the New Labour government in the period 2006–2010 was involved with the extension of the logic of marketisation to government communication. This article charts this process by examining key government policy documents from this period. The rationale for Engage rested on the assumption that government in the UK needed to adapt its communication approach to reach what were perceived as individualised consumers in society. The extension of the logic of marketisation to government communication that happened under Engage is shown to be consistent with the New Public Management approach to public services under New Labour. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

行政执法诱发公共事件的特点及法律对策

我国行政执法不当诱发了诸多公共事件,事件起因的多样性、事件主体的多元性、事件意图的目的性、事件发生的必然性使行政执法转化为公共事件独具个性。行政职权交叉,执法行为利益化;执法主体、执法行为、执法程序缺乏规范性;行政执法人员素质不高;责任追究和监督机制等方面存在的缺陷极易引发公共事件。防范行政执法转化为公共事件,需要在合理配置行政事权和职责的基础上,规范执法行为、程序及执法人员准入制度,提高行政执法人员素质,建立健全行政执法监督、问责、奖励机制。     

服务型政府建设的民主行政维度

服务型政府和民主行政之间有着内在逻辑的一致性。服务型政府建设重要的不在于预设的规范和特定的模式,而在于以公民和社会为本位,体现公共行政的民主价值。在本质上,为人民服务是我国服务型政府的民主行政实质。在实践中,服务型政府建设的民主行政维度主要体现在以追求公共利益为核心理念,实行服务行政、阳光行政、领导行政、法治行政、回应行政。     

Corruption and marketization: Formal and informal rules in Chinese public procurement

The relationship between market liberalization and corruption has attracted scholarly attention in recent years. Conventional wisdom holds that increased economic marketization reduces corruption. China, however, provides evidence to the contrary; corruption has grown as its market‐oriented reforms progress. This paradoxical co‐development of the market and corruption begs the intriguing questions of how corruption has survived marketization and what explains the failure of government regulation. Extending the conceptual framework of institutional theory about formal and informal rules, and using public procurement in China as an example, this article shows that formal tendering rules and regulations may be modified, circumvented, or replaced by informal ones which facilitate corruption. The article identifies four corruption schemes through which procurement actors may distort competition processes and mechanisms under the guise of formal rules. Consequently, public procurement in China displays the structural outlook of market competition, but not its essential substance.