Dezentraler und unitarischer Föderalismus. Die Schweiz und Deutschland im Vergleich

In this article it is endeavoured to analyse the different functioning of “decentralised” (Switzerland) and “unitary” (Germany) federalism. This is done by discussing the cultural and political autonomy of member states, the possibilities of member states to control and influence federal decision‐making, the ways to implement federal legislation, and the redistribution of resources. There are, despite of “equi‐functional” structures, considerable similarities in the functioning of both countries. The predominance of a completely different discourse of justification in both countries explains the institutional and procedural differences and thus the different reform projects.     

转型期腐败和反腐败的经济学分析

腐败问题是转型期国内面临的一个十分突出的社会和政治问题;新制度主义的理论与方法对从源头上预防和治理腐败提供了十分有效的思路;只有制度防范、体制创新、加大反腐败的成本,才能减少腐败的机会,从根本上消除其滋生漫延。     

Russia's “turn to the east”: a study in policy making

Russia's recent reorientation “to the East” has gained increased urgency given events in Ukraine. Here the policymaking process surrounding the “turn to the East” is examined. The focus is on the economic dimension – the economic development of the Russian Far East and engagement with the Asia-Pacific region – rather than geostrategic and security issues. Policymaking is evaluated in terms of general approach and process, with the implications of the evaluation for Russian policymaking more generally then being explored. “Turn to the East” policymaking exhibits a strong commitment to strategic planning that is characteristic of Putin, and which in this case struggles not only with process issues but also with contradictions within the strategy and the challenging realities of the region. Regarding process, a far more institutionalized policy process than the currently dominant personalist view would lead us to expect is found, with relevant bureaucratic and non-state actors well represented in an elaborate and relatively formal process. However a considerable weakening of sign-off procedures is noted, which has lead to policy inconsistency and indeed “policy irresponsibility” among participants. The author attributes the weakening of sign-off procedures to Putin's frustration with the gridlock tendencies of strict sign-off regimes, rather than a desire to create a personalist regime of hands-on management. This suggests that improvement of the Russian policy process requires structural and procedural change, rather than simply leadership change.     

试论土耳其伊斯兰复兴对女权运动的影响

伊斯兰复兴是当代土耳其社会的突出现象,伊斯兰主义者通过废除头巾禁令的过程,为妇女争取更多自由选择的权利;伊斯兰政党通过动员妇女参与政党政治和民主选举,为她们赢得更大的话语空间;伊斯兰非政府组织通过关注妇女面临的各种社会问题,拓展女权运动的范围。伊斯兰复兴作为现代化进程的伴生物,在一定程度上促进了女性权利意识的觉醒,因而在客观上促进了土耳其女权运动的发展。     

Mechanisms of environmental policy change in a federal system: The case of open federalism and the 2006–15 Harper government

Between 2006 and 2011, the Canadian Conservative government advocated the concept of ‘open federalism’ which sought to minimize the role of the federal government in areas falling under provincial jurisdiction. Environmental policy-making was particularly impacted with the passage of the highly contentious 2012 omnibus Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, commonly known as Bill C-38. This paper argues that environmental policy needs to ‘bring back federalism’ into their analysis. In order to do so, a mechanisms approach is employed and focuses on the role of both macro and meso level historical institutionalism mechanisms in explaining policy layering and policy dismantling during this period.     

Ideas and agency in immigration policy: A discursive institutionalist approach

Political science literature tends to depict the role of ideas in policy in two distinct ways: as strategic tools mobilised by agents to achieve pre‐given preferences; or as structures imposing constraints on what is considered legitimate or feasible. Discursive institutionalism seeks to combine these insights, suggesting that while actors are indeed constrained by deeply entrenched ideas, they nonetheless enjoy some autonomy in selecting and combining ideas. This article seeks to further develop this approach in two ways. First, it identifies three discursive strategies through which policy actors can selectively mobilise ideas: they may foreground one level over others; exploit ambivalence in public philosophies; or link programme ideas over time by invoking ‘policy legacies’. Second, the article elucidates the mechanisms through which such strategic selections can in turn modify existing public philosophies and programme ideas, thereby influencing policy change. These claims are examined by comparing discourse on immigration policy liberalisation in Germany and the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2008. Evidence is found of all three discursive strategies. Moreover, the article shows how, in the German case, these discursive representations led to longer‐term adjustments in underlying programme ideas and public philosophies on immigration.     

Value-For-Money Audit for Accountability and Performance Management in Local Government in Ghana

Public sector organizations, including local government (LG) entities, continue to resort to value for money (VFM) audit to enhance performance and accountability. Based on the analysis of the consolidated reports on the annual performance-based Functional Organizational Assessment Tool (FOAT)—VFM audit—in Ghana to determine the efficacy of VFM on performance, this article argues that VFM audits constitute a significant public management tool that could enhance LG performance. However, the FOAT reports, like most VFM audits, only provide quantitative evidence, which fails to capture the qualitative or other relevant explanatory factors behind the recorded performance improvement.     

Primum Mobile: Women and Auto/mobility in the Era of the Great War

Abstract: This article explores the construction of Andrea Dworkin as a public persona, or a ‘feminist icon’, revered by some and demonized by others. It argues that in both her fiction and non-fiction, Dworkin engaged in a process of writing herself as an exceptional woman, a ‘feminist militant’ as she describes herself in the subheading of her 2002 memoir, Heartbreak. The article illustrates Dworkin's autobiographical logic of exceptionalism by comparing the story told in Heartbreak to the story of Dworkin's major novel, Mercy, which features a heroine, Andrea, who shares Dworkin's name and significant biographical details. While Dworkin has insisted that Mercy is not an autobiographical novel, the author undertakes a reading here of Mercy as the story of Dworkin if she had not become the feminist icon of her own and others' construction. In Mercy, Andrea unsuccessfully attempts to escape the silent, victimized status that Dworkin has insistently argued is imposed upon women. In her repeated victimization, Andrea functions for Dworkin as an ‘everywoman’ who both embodies Dworkin's world-view and highlights how Dworkin's own biography exists in tension with some of her central assumptions about women, gender and contemporary society.     

Explaining Quality Management in the Danish and Swedish Public Health Sectors: Unintended Learning and Deliberate Co-Optation

This article examines the development of diverse quality systems in the otherwise quite similar Danish and Swedish public health sectors. After decades of numerous piecemeal medical and managerial quality development programs in both countries, a nationwide mandatory accreditation system was introduced in the Danish health services in 2009. Nationwide quality indicator projects are also found in Sweden, but there has been political attempt to introduce a compulsory system. This article seeks to explain this difference. It argues, first, that resistance from the medical professions blocked the introduction of compulsory, nationwide quality systems in both countries for decades. Second, the implementation of the Danish accreditation system was triggered by a combination of unintended policy learning produced by local reforms in two counties and of the Ministry of Health’s carefully orchestrated policy process that served to co-opt critical voices in the medical profession.     

Logics of action and models of capitalism: Explaining bottom‐up non‐liberal change

Recent institutionalist scholarship has theorized the liberalization or “disorganization” of capitalism as the result of shifts in economic actors' “logic of action” towards opportunism. Little attention has been given to the reverse possibility that shifts in economic actors' “logic of action” away from opportunism might contribute to “embedding” or “organizing” capitalism. This paper builds on recent scholarship to theorize this scenario and then demonstrate its empirical validity with an historical institutionalist study of the emergence of such a “non‐liberal” institution in Switzerland in 1961. The theoretical framework links three “logics of action” – opportunism, enlightened self‐interest and strong solidarity – to Höpner's typology of capitalist institutions – organized, coordinated, and liberal. It theorizes the interactions between these logics and the social mechanism – goal signaling – that can explain a shift from one logic of action to another, potentially leading to change from one type of institution to another.