Explaining the use of planning consultants in Ontario cities

Consulting firms providing policy advice to governments is a widespread phenomenon. This article asks why municipalities employ urban planning consultant firms to advise on public sector projects. Municipal employees from 19 mid‐sized Ontario cities responded to online survey questionnaires asking for their opinions on why urban planning consultant firms are hired by their cities. In testing four hypotheses, this study found functionalism (the need for expertise because of a lack of in‐house talent or time) to be the strongest explanation for this phenomenon. In addition to a lack of staff time and resources, the ideational hypothesis — perceived specialized knowledge and expertise of consultants — was also found to be relevant.     

Canada's IMF executive director

Abstract: This article provides empirical evidence of the autonomy and agenda-setting capabilities of Canada's International Monetary Fund executive director in Washington, D.C., for further theoretical debate. Little is known about this position in the public service. This article seeks to assess the degree of autonomy of Canadian directors from Ottawa, the nature of the IMF's agenda items proposed by Canada's executive directors, and, most importantly, whether these agenda items originate from the Department of Finance and the Bank of Canada or from the directors' office in Washington directly. The author also seeks to better understand the hiring and recruitment of Canada's IMF executive directors.     

Building foundations for the comparative study of state and non-state terrorism

In this article, we argue that a comparative study of state and non-state terrorism that uses the minimal foundationalist definition of terrorism as its central analytical framework offers a unique and instructive approach for answering the question: “what is terrorism?” To date, most recent comparative case study analyses of terrorism focus on ideologies, political/governance models, structural/contextual enablers, practices, organisational structures, and/or the basis of issues such as trust, belonging, and membership. We uniquely contribute to the growing literature on comparative terrorism studies by comparing and contrasting state and non-state terrorism on the basis of strategic communication vis-à-vis the preparation, execution, and outcomes of political violence (the “terrorism attack cycle”), the instrumentalisation of victims, and fear management. We argue that state and non-state terrorism are co-constituting and co-enabling phenomena, possibly best conceptualised as two bounded and coiled strands of the political violence DNA.     

Between caution and controversy: lessons from the Gulf Arab states as (re-)emerging donors

The history of Gulf donorship, its trajectory and underlying motivations, continues to be an understudied aspect of foreign aid. While the Gulf Arab states are not new donors, their manner of regional coordination, branding, and aid management are distinct. Often helping fellow countries of the South, particularly Arab and Muslim countries, these countries have moved towards stronger private sector involvement and into social spending programmes. Owing to their oil wealth, Gulf Arab states' are increasingly generous and yet they are also cautious after 9/11 about how and by whom their aid is channelled. Nevertheless, with oscillations in oil prices, continued controversy over rising Islamism post-Arab-Spring, the future of Gulf aid remains a valuable subject of study.     

Organizational change in Canadian public institutions: The implementations of GBA+ in DND/CAF

In 2016, the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) committed to the adoption of a Gender‐Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) toolkit across the forces. This article finds that the organizational culture of DND/CAF has helped them to adapt to this new policy approach, but that learning and transformation are not occurring. Based on DND/CAF documents, published internal DND/CAF studies, participant observation, interviews, surveys, and focus groups with DND/CAF staff, this article suggests that internal efforts to adjust to GBA+ continue to be challenging because of organizational culture.     

Recruiting and diversifying IMF technocrats

This article examines the International Monetary Fund's recruitment policies and reveals internal debates on diversifying the organisation. It has often been argued that the IMF economist staff are technocrats proposing common policy solutions to economic adjustment because of their shared knowledge and training. These ‘econocrats’ are argued to be monolithic in their thinking and background and a part of the ‘Washington Consensus’ on economic policy reform. Consequently, the Fund has often been viewed as an insular and inbred organisation that lacks diversity. But how has the IMF approached diversity? Are the IMF ‘econocrats’ really similar? These questions are answered by examining 15 years of IMF documents on staff recruitment newly released upon request from the IMF archives. In addition, numerous personal interviews with IMF staff members and executive directors give insight into this powerful institution's organisational dynamics.     

Reinvigorating the Bretton Woods Institutions： Traditional and Rising Powers＇ Debate on the Issues and Stakes

Introduction：
Throughout modem history, the Intemational Monetary Fund （IMF） and the World Bank, commonly referred to as the Bretton Woods Institutions （BWI）, have waned in and out of importance to the global economic system. Created in 1944, both organizations were to have specialized roles in intemational economic govemance. The IMF would address exchange rate cooperation, liberalization of international payments and balance of payments adjustments; the World Bank would address capital investment, development, and long-term project lending. While both organizations would face repeated crises of purpose and legitimacy throughout their modem history, the recent sidelining of the BWIs in the aftermath of the Asian crisis would raise the awareness of world leaders of the need to address relevance of their mandates in their evolving global setting. At the tum of the century, the BWIs were declared irrelevant.     

IMF staff: Missing link in fund reform proposals

Current IMF reform proposals are preoccupied with changing governance structures by reallocating Executive Board chairs and quota shares and with expanding and altering the Fund’s surveillance role, but not enough attention has been paid to whether organizational change at the staff level is also needed. IMF staff have intellectual dominance and discretion in the design of loan conditionality, writing of surveillance reports, and provision of technical and policy advice. There are also clear internal and external criticisms of how the Fund’s organizational culture—that is perceived to be hierarchical, technical/economistic, bureaucratic, and homogeneous/conforming—negatively affects the Fund’s policy output and relationship with borrowing members. This article suggests altering ’how things are done’ at the IMF by making changes to recruitment and organizational structure.

Established and emergent political subjectivities in circular human geographies: transnational Arab activists

In this paper, we argue that Arab transnational citizenship mobilization can be configured through ‘geographies of circularity’ (e.g. bridging multiple locales, encircling the state, transversally stirring political subjectivities, and in the full-circle return of identity). Circularity helps ground and highlight the character and significance of transnational political and social activism, and the transfer of communications, skills, behaviors, organizational forms, tools, and projects (political technologies’) for citizenship. Based on the networks initiated by the Arab revolts, we argue that Arab émigrés, workers, and students – framed here as Arab transnationals – traverse and embody these geographies of circularity and leverage connectivity to mobilize citizenship claims and remit/ bridge/diffuse/export/import important progressive ideas and values locally in the western world and into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.     

The influence of emotional intelligence on leadership styles: A profile of executives in ASEZA organization

This article reports new insight into the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) dimensions and leadership style at the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA). Multiple regression results have revealed a negative significant association between EI and leadership style in three major dimensions of EI, namely, self‐awareness, motivation, and empathy. Stepwise regression analysis revealed a significant positive association of self‐regulation and social skills dimensions on ASEZA's leadership style. Results further indicated that there are no significant differences between the dimensions of EI and demographic factors as well as between leadership and undertaken demographic factors. However, no research has focused on the relationship between EI and leadership style in ASEZA‐Jordan context. The current research identified this gap in the literature by connecting leadership through EI. Implications are that leaders lacking all or some EI dimensions are less likely to have a healthy relationship with their subordinates and are likely to be classified as being ineffective leaders. Organizations could benefit from being able to differentiate ineffective leaders from leaders who suffer from some or all EI dimensions. Therefore, the lack of some major EI dimensions in an organization like ASEZA negatively influences its competitive advantage as well as its performance.