State Retrenchment and Administrative Reform in Ireland: Probing Comparative Policy Paradigms

Abstract

Policy choices in response to crisis may carry consequences both for distributive outcomes and for the future policy capacity of the state itself. This paper uses conceptual heuristics to interpret policy practice. It examines the underlying policy paradigms shaping Irish government decisions in the aftermath of the European financial and economic crisis. Drawing on comparative political economy literature, it distinguishes between two such paradigms – market-conforming and social equity – and applies them to three reform themes: reconfiguration of public budgets, the public service pay bargain, and the organizational profile of state competences. The findings entail lessons for understanding the malleability of policy choice, and how state policy choices in response to crisis are framed and implemented.     

Public administrators in interactive democracy: a multi-paradigmatic approach

ABSTRACT

Currently, interactive forms of democracy that bring local politicians into dialogue and collaboration with relevant and affected citizens are mushrooming. While some research has investigated how interactive democracy affects citizens and politicians, we know little about what interactive democracy means for public administrators. This article presents the results of a case study of role perceptions and coping strategies among public administrators assisting a new type of interactive political committee in two Nordic municipalities. Guided by a multi-paradigmatic conceptual framework featuring public administrators’ roles and coping strategies in interactive governance, the study shows that individual public administrators identify with different administrative roles, and that political and administrative leadership sentiments condition their choice of coping strategies. Moreover, the coping strategy that public administrators select to handle intra- and inter-paradigmatic role dilemmas can have dire consequences for the interplay between interactive democracy and local representative government.     

论音乐课程的开发范式与理解范式

当今教育领域,理解课程理论已经成熟,它给以开发范式为基础的学校音乐学科课程带来了新的教育评估视野。课程领域所出现的理论转型,使我们开始一种以理解课程范式为基础的音乐课程理念的思考。音乐课程开发范式中音乐的界定具备科学技术概念的含义,如乐理学习对音高、音质、音色、音的力度、音程等的物理属性的界定,它将这种音乐体系看作是“文化无涉”的具有普遍性的“科学体系”。而作为理解课程范式的起点和理论框架,将音乐作为文化的界定表明,音乐理解课程已经显示出音乐是作为一种文化表征,因此,音乐课程被理解为历史文本、政治文本、种族文本、性别文本、现象学文本等以及后结构主义、解构主义和后现代文本。     

THE MEANING OF DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

Prevailing paradigms of macro‐economic management and levels and distributions of poverty in some rich countries suggest that economic and strategic self‐interest rather than poverty reduction in poor countries are likely to be the primary objectives of much development assistance. The incommensurability of the paradigms of development discourse makes it unlikely that strongly held ideologically based positions on these matters will change quickly or easily. Moreover, non‐altruistic positions can be maintained more readily by virtue of the loose construction of international declarations such as the Paris Declaration. Based on different interpretations of the Paris Declaration, empirical evidence from Cambodia and Indonesia of donor opportunism that is designed to maximise aid control and aid distinctiveness for non‐altruistic purposes is presented. Recent sharp declines in donor legitimacy have made this more difficult to do, but even so, there have been no concomitant reductions in donor self‐assurance concerning their exclusive possession of the moral and technical high ground. Such behaviour is, however, increasingly resented particularly by government officials in lower middle‐income countries like Indonesia. Resulting relationships lack trust and are therefore unlikely to contribute optimally either to the realisation of non‐altruistic purposes or to poverty reduction. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.