Leadership in ASEAN: The Role of Indonesia Reconsidered

This paper examines the complexity and multidimensional features of leadership and provides understanding of leadership in ASEAN integration. It highlights the significant roles of leadership in the integrating Southeast Asia and contradicts its common belief of invisible leadership. It highlights the role and the importance of Indonesia in the development of ASEAN as a main factor that can determine ASEAN's survival and success. Moreover, it insists that ASEAN is literally subject to structural powers, derived from material and resource capacity, in which leadership is highly attached to a leader's charisma. Finally, the paper proposes that the benevolent roles of Indonesia with strong emphasis on soft power are a key element of success.     

Abe's Fall: Leadership and Expectations in Japanese Politics

On becoming prime minister in 2006, Abe Shinzō was feted as the ‘prince’ of Japanese politics. A year later, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party had suffered a major electoral defeat and Abe's time as his country's leader was over. As a study of political leadership, this article seeks to explain the leadership outcomes of Abe's brief prime ministership, in particular the dramatic fall in public support Abe suffered during his tenure. It is argued that, despite the difficult circumstances Abe faced, the nature of his political demise cannot be fully accounted for by structural factors alone. It is also necessary to understand the role played by Abe himself and, in particular, his flawed leadership strategy. In the end, Abe's political demise followed a basic logic: high expectations followed by disillusionment characterised by sudden plunges in approval—a tragedy of hubris leading to nemesis.     

关于处理好高校民主党派基层组织与中共党委关系的思考

共产党领导、多党派合作、共产党执政、多党派参政的多党合作的政治格局,是我国政党制度的显著特征,也是我国政党关系的基本内涵。这一新型政党关系模式深深植根于中国社会各个组织当中,高校民主党派成员要充分认识这一政党关系,处理好与中共各级组织的关系,为建设和谐校园发挥参政党的作用。然而,目前高校多党合作制度的实践在制度完善和理念创新上存在薄弱环节。本文从政治、价值观、制度等层面分析了高校政党关系,并提出了一些相关参考意见。     

An Exploratory Study into the Understandings and Awareness of Leadership Ethos and Its Inherent Critical Success Factors by Public Sector Officials in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Ministry of the National Economy (ECONAT)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the understandings of public sector leaders about Leadership Ethos (LE) and its inherent Critical Success Factors(CSFs) looking at their application in the public policy implementation process. The study applied an adapted theoretical paradigm on leadership that borrows from the Western and African contexts. In the light of the aim and objective of the study, both the interview schedule and survey questionnaires were used to gather information with regard to LE and its inherent CSFs. In this view, a semi-structured interview schedule was used to guide both interviews with senior public officials - one in the DTI and one in the ECONAT. A survey questionnaire was administered to public officials at middle and lower management levels working and reporting directly to the interviewed senior public officials. The purpose of the questionnaire was to reduce personal biases inherent in the responses of the senior officials, which appear to be a challenge emerging from self-perception assessments. Research findings suggest that leaders at the DTI and the ECONAT do not sufficiently demonstrate an awareness of LE and its inherent CSFs in the practice of leadership. LE enables leaders garner followers’ trust and obtain their consent; encourage followers’ commitment to organisational goals; and introduce and encourage participatory decision making processes as key factors to successful public policy implementation.     

领导行为与政府绩效的关联路径:基于下属信任中介作用的实证研究

领导行为确实会以下属信任为中介对政府绩效产生影响。其中,变革型领导行为通过下属信任对政府绩效所产生的影响大于交易型领导行为通过下属信任对政府绩效所产生的影响。并且,不同的领导行为对政府绩效所产生的间接效应的方向与该行为对政府绩效所产生的直接效应的方向一致。而性别、职级、学历等个体特征差异对研究结果没有显著影响。关注下属的媒介属性是深入全面了解领导行为对政府绩效的影响过程及作用机理的有效切入点。可以从公务员个体、组织文化、相关制度等方面入手发挥下属信任的积极作用。     

大数据时代背景下的政府治理创新探析

大数据是信息革命的新成果。作为一种新的生产要素,大数据催生了新模式、新产品、新业态、新经济,促进了社会生产力的提高,继而改变了人们的生活方式,影响了社会的运行方式,从而产生一种新的文化,促使社会组织模式及权力关系发生重大变化,进而改变社会的组织与管理方式,引发政府治理的变革和创新。在互联网和智能化的时代背景下,大数据远远超越了技术层次,被赋予了丰富的社会属性,对领导方式、决策模式、政府治理创新等形成了新的冲击与挑战。某种意义上,大数据意味着一种新的生产方式和生活方式,意味着一种新的文化和思维方式,也意味着一种新的治理模式。     

Party Competition and Reforms of Unemployment Benefits in Germany: How a Small Change in Electoral Demand Can Make a Big Difference

This article shows how party competition has influenced reforms of unemployment benefits in Germany. The existing literature on German labour market policy emphasises institutional factors and predicts policy stability. Consequently, the recent fundamental reforms (‘Hartz reforms’) pose a challenge to previous research. By looking at the spatial configuration of the party system and at policy demand, this article argues that the incremental retrenchments of the 1980s and 1990s were conditioned by centripetal competition and a high degree of welfare consensus, whereas the more radical Hartz reforms were made possible by a limited shift in public opinion in favour of restructuring and the lack of a left-wing counterweight in the party system. Thus, the structure of the party system exacerbated the effect of a demand shift that was only moderate. The analysis is not meant to discard other explanatory factors, rather it intends to demonstrate the relevance of party competition to the study of labour market reforms in Germany and, more generally, to comparative welfare state research.     

Combating Depopulation in the Northern Periphery: Local Leadership Strategies in two Norwegian Municipalities

This article concerns how the municipal organisation and its leaders respond to challenges posed by the post-industrial era, in the form of shrinking employment opportunities and population decline. By developing distinct policies of supporting cultural and new economic initiatives, they depart from traditional steering modes and engage in ‘networked governance’ to safeguard community viability. This extends the scope of what we normally expect of local government, as it implies practices and de facto decision making outside the public realm. With these strategies, municipal leaders show that they are eager to do something for the people in the municipality. Their relative success in the use of governance methods might be regarded as new ways of legitimising the politicians' and the municipalities' role. In this respect, creating policies that relate to the formation of community identity may be an important asset.     

The Quest for Leadership Legitimacy among Singapore Malays

Abstract

Much has been written about the problems and concerns affecting the Malay ethnic minority in Singapore. These include issues such as their socio-economic situation, relatively low educational performance, and increasing incidences of social ailments like high rates of drug addiction, divorce and youth delinquency. In the context of Singapore's multiracial and multi-religious fabric, little has been articulated about what is here argued to be a core issue of the ‘Malay plight’, namely, the legitimacy of the Malay political leadership. Apparently both the ruling-party-affiliated Malay politicians and their Malay opposition counterpart have been at odds with their perceptions and predispositions towards this particular issue. It is here that a bold, albeit controversial, alternative model called the ‘collective leadership’, was publicly goaded by the Association of Malay/Muslim Professionals in both their 1990 and 2000 National Conventions, which requires due consideration. Perhaps at a time of a changing Singapore society, this alternative or its variant could go some way towards mitigating, if not resolving, the long-standing Malay plight, and thus, benefit not only the Malay minority itself, but Singapore as a whole.