Structure and Process: Examining the Interaction between Bureaucratic Organization and Analytical Requirements

Attempts by politicians to control bureaucratic decisions include both structural (how is the agency making the decision organized?) and procedural (what rules must they follow when making the decision?). But how do these two modes of influence interact? This article examines the interaction between bureaucratic structure and one procedural control, the requirement that agencies conduct an analysis of their decisions prior to their issuance. I look at this interaction in the context of two types of analysis, cost‐benefit analysis and environmental impact assessment. I interview 16 individuals in each field and draw from their experiences of conducting and reviewing more than a thousand analyses. The conduct of analysis is affected by where analysts are placed in agencies. In particular, independence of analysts has a trade‐off. The more independent analysts are, the more likely they can challenge preferred decisions in their agency. But independent analysts are brought into decisions later and their independence may limit their long‐term impacts on agency culture. Despite this trade‐off, analysts expressed a clear preference for independence. The interaction between different controls of bureaucratic behavior is a potentially fruitful line for further research.     

Assessing the High Representative’s Role in Egypt during the Arab Spring

The 2009 Lisbon Treaty institutionalised an intergovernmental constitution for managing policies traditionally a matter of national sovereignty, such as foreign and defence policies. However, important innovations were introduced in the foreign policymaking structure to limit its intergovernmental logic, in particular, with regard to the role of the High Representative (HR). It was generally assumed that those innovations would have made development of a coherent EU foreign policy possible. Yet, in one of the most significant tests for the EU’s foreign and defence policies in the post-Lisbon era, namely the Egyptian crisis (2011-14), those reforms did not work as expected. Notwithstanding the innovations, the HR’s role was diminished by the European Council’s strict control over foreign policy toward Egypt. The lack of clear policy guidelines towards the issue of democratisation in the Arab world in the 2003 European Security Strategy, although partially mitigated by the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Barcelona Process/Union for the Mediterranean, made it even more difficult for the HR to bring a European perspective into the largely intergovernmental setting.     

An Analysis of the Great Power Strategy of India' s Modi Government

Over the past two years,India's Modi government has demonstrated the following features:focusing on the goals of becoming a great power and shaping India's South Asian dominance,expanding the scope of diplomatic strategy,emphasizing the role of soft power and focusing on self-development as well as external environment.Modi's great power strategy is deeply influenced by the Indian realistic international political outlook and,to a certain extent,reflects the governing philosophy of the Bharatiya Janata Party.The great power strategy is Modi's governing foundation and governing style,embedding Modi distinctive personal style.Under the influence of the great power strategy,China and India have increased their economic cooperation scope,widening the forms of public diplomacy,with an obvious geopolitical collision;India is taking more measures to check China.     

Obama's Legacy The Foreign Policy of the Late-Term Obama Administration

The year 2014 was a tipping point for the Barack Obama Administration-that was the year when it strove to forge a legacy of the Obama era but came up against challenges arising from major changes that were taking place internationally and domestically.The Administration was then focused on maintaining a fragile balance between creating this legacy and responding to these challenges.Obama stuck to his fundamental principles when dealing with overseas affairs,but he also came up with new responses.The dynamic balance struck between these two formed the basis of the global strategy of the late-term Obama Administration.The Administration's focus at this time highlights the dilemma it faced in forging a legacy.Further,the foreign policy of Obama and Trump are actually not so different;they both supported some degree of isolationism with a focus on domestic issues.     

Liberia Incorporated: military contracting,cohesion and inclusion in Charles Taylor’s Liberia

In the existing literature, compensation is often understood to be an inferior source of cohesion in military organisations. Through an investigation of the militias who fought for Charles Taylor’s government of Liberia, this paper makes three claims. Firstly, the organisation of these forces was looser than is often claimed in previous literature, which assumes tight and often coercive military patrimonialism. Consequently, the militias did not enjoy the interpersonal bonds of solidarity that have dominated recent cohesion literature. Secondly, since Taylor chose to suppress attempts to build cohesion around ethnicity, it played a subordinate role in unifying the militias. Thirdly, Taylor instead relied on military contracting and compensation, which allowed for the broad mobilisation of forces. The combination of militias’ hopes of inclusion into the state patrimony and insufficient resources to realise this left the cohesion of the militias fragile. Ultimately, this paper questions both whether Taylor had any choice but to resort to compensation in a context with a weak state and fragmented social organisation, and also whether the strategy is as inefficient as often thought.     

Politics,exit strategy and political settlement in Sierra Leone: a critical analysis of a laboratory experiment (1991–2015)

Abstract

A glance at key indicators—in terms of growth forecast and stable elections—will project Sierra Leone as a political settlement model for a post-conflict state. Sierra Leone has been an important laboratory for UN and international donors’ interventions and thinking. However, efforts by the international donor community to decentralise power to the margins, both geographically and demographically, have failed. Instead, this focus on the institutions of governance has allowed the same elite to maintain power. Sierra Leone today shares similar socio-economic and political conditions with the Sierra Leone before the outbreak of the civil war. A detailed analysis of the country’s socio-economic trends, its political institutions and the logic and dynamics of violence show a disturbing picture. While the international community considered that an exit strategy was feasible, the political settlement remains an experiment in that it is detached from everyday life and livelihood concerns of Sierra Leoneans and reveals the structural violence behind this process.     

Peripheral modernity and anti-colonial nationalism in Java: economies of race and gender in the constitution of the Indonesian national teleology

This analysis investigates the limits of colonial modernity in the 20th century Dutch East Indies at a time that coincided with the building of the Indonesian national project. I am interested in the constitution of the national teleology as an inexorable socio-political project, deploying specific racial and gendered economies. As a locus of investigation I choose the literary narratives of two celebrated Indonesian intellectuals (and participants in the anti-colonial struggle), Pramoedya’s Buru Quartet and Mangunwijaya’s Durga/Umayi. Were the impulses of anti-colonial resistance intrinsically national in their orientation? Through what erasures and re-appropriations has the nationalism/modernity paradigm become the medium of decolonisation?     

The allied occupation of İstanbul and the construction of Turkish national identity in the early twentieth century

This article tells the story of the construction of Turkish national identity in the early republican era by addressing two canonical novels about occupied ?stanbul: Sodom ve Gomore (“Sodom and Gomorrah”) by Yakup Kadri Karaosmano?lu and Biz ?nsanlar (“We People”) by Peyami Safa. Following the establishment of the Turkish Republic, Turkish nationalist intellectuals attempted to offer certain formulations and implemented various mechanisms to create a national self. The study aims to focus on the ways in which Karaosmano?lu and Safa create the new Turkish national identity and deals with the questions of how occupied ?stanbul was perceived by these intellectuals and how the memory of the Allied occupation of ?stanbul, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, and the National Liberation Struggle shaped Turkish elites’ self-identification as well as their formulation of the national identity.     

Integrating Rijeka into socialist Yugoslavia: the politics of national identity and the new city’s image (1947–1955)

This article investigates the politics of national identity implemented in Rijeka after World War II, when the city was integrated into socialist Yugoslavia. These national and political transitions posed various challenges to the consolidation of the Yugoslav Communists’ power. The nationalities policy embedded in the slogan “Brotherhood and Unity” was the official answer to the national question, promoting collaboration among the Croatian majority, the Italian minority, and other national communities in the city. This article focuses on the definition of postwar Rijeka’s image, investigating the relationship between Yugoslav socialism and national identities in everyday political practice. The negotiation of the representation of national identities in a socialist society led to ambivalences, contradictions, and contentions expressed in and through Rijeka’s public spaces, highlighting the different orientations of cultural and political actors. The process of building socialist Yugoslavia in this specific borderland context reveals the balance and tension between the multinational framework and the integrative tendencies pertaining to the legitimization and consolidation of the socialist system.     

论香港机场营运模式转变与工会维权的策略

赤角新机场正式启用后,采用了新的营运模式,导致传统的英资财团营利大幅度下滑,工人的福利待遇不断削减,就业机会不稳定,劳资关系不断恶化,对工会的维权产生了很大的冲击。为了履行维护职工合法权益的基本职能,工会摒弃启德机场年代形成的传统运行机制,转变观念,服务改革,在积极分子队伍建设、工作方针、工作模式等方面作重大调整。