The UN Inadequacies

The author describes the results of the UN Independent Inquiryon the Genocide in Rwanda, which he headed. The internationalcommunity's reluctance to commit itself and its resources tothe UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR or UN Mission),coupled with the inadequacy of UNAMIR's initial mandate, areidentified as the crucial reasons for the Mission's failings.These weaknesses led to the failure of the UN forces on theground to respond effectively to the genocide and inhibitedtheir ability to protect civilians and UN staffers. The authordetails the failures both of the UN Mission in Rwanda and ofthe leadership in New York, with unflinching exactitude, drawingimportant lessons to help ensure that another such breakdownof the UN system during a time of crisis does not happen again.     

Higher Education as an Arena for Political Socialisation: Myth or Reality?

Political values and voting behaviour differ significantly between employees in the public and the private sectors, to the extent that some have called this one of the most important political cleavages in modern societies. But what causes these differences? The article outlines two hypotheses, one being the possibility that political values are shaped during higher education. To try and shed some light on this hypothesis, the political values of two groups of students at Agder University College in southern Norway were studied over a period of time. One group of students studied disciplines – nursing, social work, and teaching – that would almost without exception give them jobs in the public sector. The other group studied economics, a subject that for most of them would lead to a job in the private sector. Their political values were then measured at two points in time: when beginning study and after three years of studying. The main conclusion is that political values differ when the students begin to study, and that most political values change only marginally during the three‐year period. The few changes that occur during the period hint at a minor tendency for students to become more politically alike, indicating that higher education has a slight homogenising effect on political values. For one type of political values, however, rather dramatic changes take place. Both student groups acquire significantly more non‐authoritarian values during studies, indicating that higher education may be an important cause of such values.     

To have a voice in the matter: A comparative study of the Swedish and Danish European committees

This article deals with the issue of how the national parliaments might be strengthened in order to decrease the democratic deficit within the EU. It examines the parliamentary European committees in the Danish and Swedish Parliaments and concludes that their potential to influence and control their respective governments’ EU policies mainly depends on the Government's parliamentary base and opportunities for legislative influence open to parliamentary oppositions. Moreover, it examines various organisational aspects of the European committees, including distribution of tasks and internal co‐ordination within the Parliament, at what stage in the decision‐making process the European Committee and the Parliament are involved and information management. With some conspicuous exceptions, Denmark and Sweden have chosen the same organisational arrangements for dealing with EU affairs both in the Parliament as a whole and, specifically, in the European committees. The principal conclusion is that the European committees in Sweden and Denmark are effective means for giving the national parliaments a voice in EU matters, but the article also addresses some reforms to strengthen their positions.     

Regional Governance Networks: Filling In or Hollowing Out?

The debate on what effect networks have on the existing institutions of representative democracy is highly polarized. On one hand, networks are regarded as means to ‘fill in’ where traditional institutions fail, and on the other, networks are viewed as arrangements draining or ‘hollowing out’ traditional institutions of power and legitimacy. In this article, filling in and hollowing out are treated as two distinct dimensions, opening up for the possibility that networks may both fill in and hollow out member organizations. The argument is that networks, to be able to fill in, must be ‘strong’ (autonomy, resources), but the stronger they become, the higher the probability that they also hollow out their individual members. This thesis is empirically illuminated by studying political governance networks in Norway (i.e., voluntary cooperation between municipalities creating a regional council). Main findings conclude that these networks only to a very moderate degree fill in and hollow out, indicating that the networks play a largely symbolic role. However, there are variations between networks, and the data indicate that the degree of hollowing out depends on both the strength of the network (size and asymmetry) and its individual members (i.e., their population size).     

Public Sector Growth: Comparing Politicians’ and Administrators’ Spending Preferences

The notion that appointed bureaucrats act as budget maximizers still stands strong within theories attempting to explain the growth in the size of the public sector. This paper reports the results of a case study that included local authority politicians and bureaucrats in 30 Norwegian municipalities and where differences in spending preferences was empirically investigated. Counter to the original theory, bureaucrats seem to be less expansive than their political counterparts. The most expansive were found to be members of political left‐wing parties, the more peripheral politicians and administrators, women, those with lower education and those working in the public sector. Nevertheless, there is some support given to a modified hypothesis that administrators have stronger preferences for ‘slack’ (that is, organizational slack in terms of spending more money on internal administration) than politicians. The data also strongly support the notion that within a specialized sector, both politicians and administrators have similar preferences for higher spending to their specific sector.     

The Role of the Public Manager: Loyalty,Autonomy or Advocacy?

It is argued that the role of the public bureaucracy must be analysed along at least two dimensions. One dimension concerns the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats, i.e. the possible conflict between political loyalty and autonomy. The other dimension concerns the relationship between citizens and bureaucracy, i.e. the possible conflict between openness towards citizens and bureaucratic closedness. With the aid of data from a survey of 407 agency heads in Norwegian municipalities, it was possible to group different bureaucrats along the two dimensions. Four categories emerged from the analysis; a political bureaucrat, an autonomous bureaucrat, the "classic" administrator and the "linking pin". An attempt to predict group membership was made using variables on the societal, organizational as well as individual levels. This attempt was only partially successful, indicating that there is a need for other independent variables to explain group membership.     

Service quality and the optimum number of members in intermunicipal cooperation: The case of emergency primary care services in Norway

Intermunicipal cooperation (IMC) is often used as a mean to reap scale benefits. Most studies on the effects of IMC focus on cost savings, while service quality is overlooked. In this study, the focus is set on input quality in a service characterized by high asset specificity and need for redundancy: emergency primary care. We analyze how mode of governance affect performance by (1) measuring whether IMC versus single-municipal production affects input quality and (2) identifying optimum scale of operation; effect of the number of participants in the cooperation on input quality. The findings indicate that cooperation weakens the input quality of medical workforce, but that this negative effect is balanced out as the number of participants increases, indicating that cooperation needs to reach a certain size to achieve optimum scale of operation. Concerning equipment, both cooperation in general and an increasing number of participants decrease the input quality.     

Book reviews

Consuming Public Services, Nicholas Deakin and Anthony Wright (eds), 1990, pp. ix + 222, Routledge, £30.00.

Managing under Pressure: Industrial Relations in Local Government, Martin Laffin, 1989, pp. 207, Macmillan, £30.00 hardback, £8.95 paperback.

Targeting Urban Employment Initiatives, Ivan Turok and Urlan Wannop, Department of the Environment (Inner Cities Directorate), HMSO, 1990, £8.50.

Tourism and the Inner City: An Evaluation of the Impact of Grant Assisted Tourism Projects, Polytechnic of Central London, Leisureworks and DRV Research, Department of the Environment (Inner Cities Directorate), HMSO, 1990, £15.50.

Five Year Review of the Bolton, Middlesbrough and Nottingham Programme Authorities, PEIDA Ltd, Department of the Environment (Inner Cities Directorate), HMSO, 1990, £16.50.

Getting People into Jobs: Good Practice in Urban Regeneration, Keith Hayton, Department of the Environment, (Inner Cities Directorate) HMSO, 1990, £13.00.

US Experience in Evaluating Urban Regeneration: Reviews of Urban Research, Tim Barnekov, Douglas Hart and Wilhelm Benfer, Department of the Environment (Inner Cities Directorate), HMSO, 1990, £7.70.

American Development Control: Parallels and Paradoxes from an English Perspective, Richard Wakeford, HMSO, 1990, pp. 277, £25.00.

Urban Government in the 1990s: Lessons from the USA, Robin Hambleton, School for Advanced Urban Studies, University of Bristol, 1990, pp. 129, £7.45.

Shropshire County Council: A Centenary History, D. C. Cox, Shropshire County Council, 1989, pp. 104, £5.95.

A History of Devon County Council 1889–1989, Jeffrey Stanyer, Devon Books, 1989, pp. 105, £3.95.

Government and County. A History of Northamptonshire County Council 1889–1989, Jonathan Bradley, University of Bristol Press, pp. 280.

Political Parties and Coalitions in European Local Government, Colin Mellors and Bert Pijnenburg (eds), Croom Helm, 1989, pp. 311, £35.00.

London 2001, Peter Hall, Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 226, £17.95

Abolition: The Reform of Metropolitan Government in England 1983–86: A Review and Bibliography, Ken Young and Lesley Grayson, 1988, Technical Communications, pp. 186.