Rhetoric and Praxis: Nigeria’s Africa Diplomacy and the Shaping of the African Union

Although Nigeria has always promoted multilateral diplomacy in the African context, the civilian administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo made it a cardinal objective of its Africa policy. Through his foreign policy speeches, President Obasanjo emphasised the readiness of his administration to play a leading role in African continental organisation – the African Union (AU). Using data collected through the secondary and interview methods, and thematic analysis, this study analyses Obasanjo’s diplomatic outing in the AU. While there were some encumbrances (such as the failure on occasion to make wider consultations within the AU framework and the absence of a well coordinated inter-ministerial approach to project Nigeria’s leadership in the AU), the paper contends that the administration’s diplomacy in the AU was successful. This showed in the role the administration played in shaping the structures that currently define the existence of the organisation. The transmutation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) to AU, the recalibration of its peace and security architecture, and the funding of the organisation benefited immensely from Nigeria’s diplomacy under President Obasanjo.     

Evolving 'Discoarse' into Discourse: Ubuntu as a Normative Basis

Democratic discourses are increasingly devolving into mudslinging matches where communicators attack their opponents—sometimes in crude and hostile ways. Underlying this type of discourse is the normative assumption that human affairs are inherently conflicting and best governed through struggles and contests. When considering why some discourses warrant re-examination and how this can be achieved, the role of culture and ethics becomes apparent. While our prevalent culture of adversarialism unearths many important facets of discussion, its discourses can also obscure valuable insights and foster division where collaboration is possible and quite possibly desirable. As such, contrasting normative approaches are worth considering. The African philosophy of ubuntu offers such an alternative as it espouses a harmonious and cohesive way of relating to fellow human beings that contrasts and complements individualist facets. It provides the space to evolve discourses in ways that support cooperative societal structures and practices.     

‘They treat us like criminals’: urban public spaces and ethnic discrimination in Italy

Mantovan’s article analyses the processes that lead to discrimination against migrants in the public spaces of Italy’s towns. Her analysis is based on a three-year research project conducted in northeastern Italy using mixed methods—ethnographic observation, semi-structured interviews, a press review, an analysis of relevant documentation and data collection—and remaining constantly in touch with research conducted in various Italian cities. Starting from an idea of a city whose evolution is the product of alliances, conflicts, active networks of individuals and their respective competing interests, Mantovan sheds light on how discrimination against immigrants in Italy’s urban public spaces is the result of a process of social construction implemented by a number of social actors (journalists, citizens’ committees, politicians and police forces) who represent the visible presence of migrants in these public spaces as deviant and unlawful, especially if they are undocumented immigrants and/or of low socio-economic status. She also argues for the importance of taking into consideration the contribution of economic and political dynamics, both global and national, to the generation of these phenomena by interacting with those at the local level.     

Public health as an agent of internal colonialism in interwar Czechoslovakia: shaping the discourse about the nation’s children

Shmidt’s text discusses the specifics of internal colonialism in the discourses and practices of the dominant group (Czechs) concerning Slovaks and Rusyns, ethnic groups from the peripheral, eastern areas of interwar Czechoslovakia. By targeting the reproductive patterns of these groups, seen as undesirable by the authorities, internal colonialism shaped the discourse about children by consistently opposing the normalized childhood inside the nation to the supposedly abnormal child development outside the civilizing process. Shmidt focuses on three interwar projects aimed at introducing new public health practices as an ‘infrastructure of dependence’ with regard to the peripheral groups. Being directly supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, these projects contributed to building the new Czechoslovak nation and securing its international legitimacy.     

Mapping EU agencies as political entrepreneurs

The European Union relies on decentralised agencies to implement important transnational regulations, such as certifying the safety of medicines. However, the authority of these agencies does not have ‘hard’ legal status and crucially depends on disseminating ideas and information effectively: what can be termed ‘political entrepreneurship’. This article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the political entrepreneurship of EU agencies by constructing a conceptual typology of entrepreneurial strategies. Drawing conceptually on transnational public administration, a new database is constructed of the ‘entrepreneurship’ of 33 EU agencies in 2014 based on their media communication activities, face‐to‐face networking in workshops and collaborations, and knowledge dissemination and ‘learning’ exercises. This is mapped against the political salience of agencies in the European Parliament and media. The mapping exercise shows four types of entrepreneurial strategies covering the population of EU agencies: technical functional, insulating, network‐seeking and politicised. The typology is validated through semi‐structured interviews in 11 EU agencies, showing the core characteristics of each type of strategy. The article concludes by arguing that this typology provides an important addition to existing categories of EU agencies based on autonomy and accountability, and advocates a future research strategy examining the interaction between agencies’ entrepreneurial strategies and the expectations and reactions of stakeholder audiences.     

The Investment Approach to Public Service Provision

The investment approach to public service provision is now receiving considerable attention worldwide. By promoting data‐intensive assessments of baseline conditions and how government action can improve on them, the approach holds the potential to transform policy development, service implementation, and program evaluation. Recently, variations on the investment approach have been applied in Australia to explore the effectiveness of specific programs in employment training, criminal justice, and infrastructure development. This article reviews the investment approach, presents a Public Investment Checklist to guide such work, and discusses three examples. It concludes by considering the implications of investment thinking for the work of policy designers and public managers.     

Of ‘Strong’ Leadership,Crisis Communication,and Pooper Scoopers: Change in the Queensland Public Service Under Newman

Governments have historically offered their workforce a public service bargain founded on stable pay and conditions and job security. However, while the Westminster system aims for public service employment to be protected from the whims of government, public servants are nonetheless affected by the political environment in which they operate and changes to this bargain can occur with a new government. This paper focuses on a Queensland public service change process that resulted in large‐scale forced redundancies, non‐renewal of temporary contracts, and legislative changes that nullified the provisions in job security, organisational change, and redundancy policies. Using communication as a lens through which to understand leadership, it examines how the government communicated with the public service about this organisational change, immediately before and after the 2012 election. In particular, through analysis of public and media commentary, speeches and Hansard records, it examines Premier Newman's change leadership and communication by contrasting pre‐election messages to the public service with post‐election messages about the public service and the justifications for change during this period of downsizing. This analysis is used to reflect on political leadership, communication, fair treatment, and trust in public service change.     

国际组织对公共养老保险改革的影响

本文采用文献法和历史分析法,研究了国际组织在不同阶段对各国公共养老保险改革施加影响的途径和方式,尤其是国际组织在我国养老保险"统账结合"制度的建立与发展过程中发挥的作用。在此基础上,提出了针对我国养老保险制度改革的政策建议。     

Administrative reform assistance and democracy promotion: exploring the democratic substance of the EU’s public administration reform principles for the neighbourhood countries

International donors, particularly the European Union (EU), vehemently endorse institution-building and public administration reform (PAR) in their work on democracy support. Still, the linkages between externally sponsored reform and advancement of democratic governance in beneficiary countries constitute a blind spot in our understanding of democratization. This article contributes to examining this relationship by exploring the democratic substance of the EU’s PAR portfolio for the neighbourhood countries. The aim of the article is to focus attention on the PA–democracy interface in the study of democracy promotion by elaborating a conceptual framework for exploring the nature of externally supported administrative reforms and the substantive content of democracy being advanced. By using the OECD/SIGMA’s (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development/Support for Improvement in Governance and Management) PAR framework for the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) countries as a case study, this article demonstrates how the EU’s approach to programming PAR accommodates elements from several formats of democratic governance while the conceptualization of the democratic effects of the PAR principles remains vague. The article concludes by highlighting the need for closer examination of the potentials and limits of external PAR strategies in democracy support, and for attuning the EU’s PAR design to its democratic implications.     

Conceptualising a Framework for Effective Performance Measurement in Cultural Precinct Development and Operation

The purpose of this paper is to firstly identify and synthesise critical measurement themes in extant academic literature concerning performance measurement in cultural precincts. Secondly, the paper posits for consideration a holistic and systematic framework (which embraces those themes) for developing appropriate performance measures for cultural precincts. The outcomes in this paper (a) confirm and clarify the complexity of performance measurement needed, (b) furnish a framework for practitioners embarking on the development of such measures, and (c) indicate the conceptual and pragmatic challenges faced in developing and enacting appropriate and meaningful measures for cultural precincts. Consequently, this paper serves as a conceptual positioning paper and a practical embarkation point for practitioners willing to engage with and pursue this phenomenon. Thereby, it endorses more dialogue on and further research and analysis of performance measurement in government operated cultural precincts.