Showing papers in "Governance in 1997"

Understanding Ripple Effects: The Cross–National Adoption of Policy Instruments for Bureaucratic Accountability

Abstract: This article examines different explanations for the cross–national diffusion of three recent innovations in bureaucratic accountability—the institution of the ombudsman, freedom of information legislation and data protection (information privacy) law. The first two explanations are based on the assumption that these innovations are by–products of modernization, either the growth of the state or democratization. The third assumes that policy is shaped through processes of international communication. A combination of methodologies is employed to conclude that while the growth of government and liberal democratic values are necessary conditions for the adoption of all three policy instruments, they are not sufficient conditions. The pattern of adoption observed is best explained by examining how evidence about these respective policies flows from adopting states to non–adopters. In the case of the ombudsman, this process can be characterized as one of lesson–drawing; for freedom of information, evidence is used for legitimation purposes; for data protection, the diffusion is attributable to harmonization through international organizations. Policy transfer is hence a multi–faceted concept that embraces a number of distinct processes of transnational learning and communication.

Central Audit Institutions and Performance Auditing: A Comparative Analysis of Organizational Strategies in the OECD

Abstract: The New Public Management supplies a rationale for broadening the mandate of external audit institutions to encompass performance auditing. This article examines conceptual, empirical, and managerial issues raised by external performance auditing. Conceptually, performance auditing is a misnomer for a class of mainly evaluative review activities. Empirically, OECD countries vary in terms of the specific types of performance audits conducted by their principal external audit bodies. Explaining such variation offers some insight into the contemporary politics of public management policy. Managerially, audit bodies whose mandate includes performance auditing confront two major strategic issues: whether to conduct such evaluative reviews in an auditing style and whether to gear their work to achieving performance improvement in auditee organizations.

British Employment Policy in the 1980s: Learning from the American Experience

Abstract: During the 1980s the Thatcher Government implemented numerous changes to the British employment system. Most of these changes had the effect of linking the receipt of welfare benefits to an individual's willingness to participate actively within a government sponsored employment or training scheme. These changes culminated in the Social Security Act (1989) which linked the receipt of welfare payments to an individual's active job search and willingness to accept any officially offered job after a maximum grace period of 13 weeks. While these changes are important in their own right, more interestingly, most trace their origins back to the American welfare-to-work system initiated by the Reagan administration during the early 1980s. This article will demonstrate why the Thatcher government turned to the United States in the development of their employment policy. Once an explanation for this has been provided the article will highlight the key policies transferred by the Thatcher Government in the development of the British welfare-to-work system. This entire analysis will be placed within a policy transfer framework in order to illustrate its usefulness in the analysis of policy development.

The Dynamics of Inertia: Institutional Persistence and Change in Telecommunications and Health Care

Abstract: Important strands of the new institutionalism assume that the efficiency of institutions declines over time. Institutions, according to this view, are more stable than their environment, which supposedly results in an ever increasing misfit. This misfit, it is hypothesized, can only be corrected by the creative destruction of the institutions. The article takes issue with this view. Using case studies from the international telecommunications regime and the German health care system, it argues that institutional persistence does not necessarily prevent institutional adaptation. While it is an obstacle to creative destruction, it is compatible with other forms of institutional transformation, which have not received much attention from institutionalist scholars. Inert structures can be patched up with new structures or transposed to new functions. The article analyzes patching up and transposition as distinct modes of institutional change, and assesses their adaptive potential.

Does European Community Regional Policy Empower the Regions

Abstract: A central goal of the 1980s reforms of the European Community's regional development policy was to contribute to an increase in the discretionary authority of sub–national decision–makers in the Community's member states. This article assesses the degree to which this goal was attained through comparative studies of selected French and Italian regions. It concludes that only in those regions in which timely policy entrepreneurship on the part of regional–level elected leaders coincided with the pre–existence of a territorial policy Community for economic development did the transfer of resources from the Community contribute to regional empowerment.

Policy Networks And Agricultural Policy Reforms: Explaining Deregulation In Sweden And Re‐Regulation In The European Community

Abstract: Policy network analysis has been criticized for being unable to explain outcomes and change in outcomes. This article develops a theoretical network model which attempts to explain reform outcomes. It suggests that the success of reformers depends mainly on the policy network type existing in the sector in which they attempt to bring about change. If the network has a high degree of cohesion, then those network members who are subject to reform have power to defend the principles of the established policy. Consequently, only moderate policy reform occurs. On the other hand, if the network's degree of cohesion is low, then those who are subject to reform do not have the power to oppose reformers successfully. Therefore, reformers have opportunities to bring about fundamental policy reform. Differences in the cohesion of agricultural policy networks help to explain why the 1990 Swedish agricultural policy reform was more radical than the European Community's in 1992.

The Recruitment of Women Cabinet Ministers in the Canadian Provinces

Abstract: Although there have been several studies of women in legislatures in Canada, a cabinet position is a much stronger position from which to wield power in an executive-centered and party-disciplined parliamentary system. In the past decade, the increase of women's share of legislative seats, for majority parties as well as others, has led to more women being appointed to cabinet portfolios. This article utilizes data from the ten Canadian provinces over an 18-year period, from 1976 to 1994, to assess patterns of such appointments by province, party, percentage of women in the governing party, and percentage of women in the legislature. The proportion of women in the governing party far outweighs other variables in its impact on the percentage of women in the cabinet, in contrast to a previous study of West European cabinets which found that more women in the legislature was of greater importance. Although a high level of multicollinearity indicates caution in attempting to distinguish between the impact of these two variables, the differences in these studies may be due to Canadian provinces having single-party majority governments while West European cabinets are often coalitions.

Autonomous Policy Leadership: Steering a Policy Process in the Direction of a Policy Quest

Abstract: This article attempts to make a contribution to the literature which reflects a growing interest in the conditions underlying radical policy reform. It advances a concept of autonomous policy leaders who can be distinguished from vote-buying politicians by their passionate commitment to "make a difference" by advancing a particular policy quest, with particular reference being made to the way such leadership was exercised by Roger Douglas, New Zealand Minister of Finance from 1984 to 1989. Although such leaders resemble the "policy entrepreneurs" described in "garbage can" models, their goals are more ambitious and the window of opportunity they are waiting for (with its characteristic mix of crisis, mandate, honeymoon and weakened opposition) much greater. They are also dependent on, and emerge from with, an advocacy coalition network which provides them with the backing and resources to redirect public policy. This redirection may produce a backlash from groups concerned that these policy elites may steer the policy process too far in a particular direction.

Cutting Public Expenditures in Advanced Industrial Democracies: The Importance of Avoiding Blame

Abstract: This article examines three conditions for cutting public expenditures across a sample of 16 advanced industrial democracies: intent, ability, and need during the 1970s and 1980s. Unlike spending increases, cuts require purposeful action. A first condition, therefore, for cutting expenditures is that leaders intend to curb spending. Surprisingly, the results indicate that leftist parties are considerably more effective at cutting expenditures than parties of the right. Indeed, leaders appear to have most latitude when a feared course of action is considered least likely. A second condition is that of ability. Institutions constrain and facilitate leadership. The degree to which decision-making must be shared within the executive both helps and hinders budget-cutting across exogenous conditions. While oversized coalitions may impede losses, they may also facilitate them by sharing responsibility for unpopular measures and thus reducing electoral repercussions. Indeed, both party and institutional results point to the centrality of avoiding blame in the loss-inducing process. A third condition for cutting public expenditures involves need. While objective economic indicators are not irrelevant, the issue of need is largely politically defined.

Interpreting Administrative Change: Bureaucratic Self-Interest and Institutional Inheritance in Government

Abstract: Between 1946 and 1995, Danish central government had been subject to numerous reorganization initiatives. Based on the assumption of self-interest motivated and risk-averse bureaucrats, these initiatives are analyzed in a long-term historical perspective. It is argued that civil servants both feel a strong incentive to and have good chances of defending the existing organization. This creates a historical bias in favor of whatever organizations were created in the past. Still, the mutual dependence between political executives and their civil servants opens up for bargaining dynamics allowing for mostly incremental change. While ideology has been unimportant in the development of central government organization, broadly shared ideas about reform may account for some instances of radical reform, consistently opposed by Danish civil servants.

Back to the Future? Senior Federal Executives in the United States

Abstract: Based on findings from the 1970s, research literature on senior government executives emphasized a growing integration of politics and administration. This integration was reflected in what we called the “Image IV” bureaucrat wherein political role traits combined with those of traditional bureaucratic ones. Although this was by no means a dominant trend, we were led to speculate that traditional divisions between political and bureaucratic roles were eroding. Data gathered from the 1980s and 1990s, however, lead us to infer that divisions between political and bureaucratic roles have reasserted themselves and that integration between them is being diminished rather than strengthened. We conclude that this may be because in an era of governmental austerity the demand for executive policy entrepreneurs has slackened while the political needs have shifted to those of managerial control over an inertial or even contracting state.

Leaving the Australian Labor Force: An Extended Encounter with the State

Abstract: This article seeks to demonstrate the way in which labor market choices are shaped by institutional arrangements devised by the state. Since these arrangements differ markedly from country to country, much that is distinctive about national labor market outcomes is a function of diverse encounters with the state. This argument is illustrated by an account that explains why Australia, a country which apparently devotes little in the way of public resources to the old, manifests an exceptionally high level of early retirement. This account shows that, in contrast to the standard European welfare state strategy of public pensions, the Australian state has over many decades tackled the need for provision for the old by encouraging retirement strategies that are not subsidized directly from the public purse. These strategies include the encouragement of widely dispersed home ownership and occupational pensions. Read broadly, the article suggests that the extremity of contrasts frequently made between the advanced welfare states of Western Europe and the miserable social policy outcomes in the democracies of the New World have been far too extreme. The article experiments with novel presentational techniques designed to focus attention on individual choices and on policy outcomes for the individual rather than policy outputs by governments.

Mandating Social Change: The Business Struggle Over National Health Reform

Abstract: This article explores the conditions under which business managers endorse human resource investment policy drawing from the recent national health reform episode. In order to generate corporate support, a business community must develop corporate policy capacity, or the ability to grasp complicated social issues and to act in support of this social agenda. Corporate support is also influenced by the business–related strategies of government leaders who can encourage businesses to organize around legislative issues. The bid for national health reform met neither condition. Corporate policy capacity was inadequate to sustaining business support for health reform at the point of translating general corporate anxiety into specific legislation. Because U.S. business groups are weak, fragmented, and compete for members, they tend to cater to strong, vocal minorities and are often unable to act on majority positions. In health reform although a majority of business groups’ members wanted reform, minority objections prevailed. In addition, where the Clinton administration’s business mobilization efforts were complicated by its campaign for mass support, the Republicans organized a formidable corporate lobby against the bill.

The Dynamics of Abstract and Manifest Institutional Change: MITI and the Japanese “Economic Miracle” Reconsidered

Abstract: Modern institutional theory specifies two different aspects of institutions. The first aspect—and by far the predominant perspective—sees institutions as recurrent patterns of behavior, values, norms and practices which guide social and political behavior. The second aspect refers to the manifest institutional systems of the state. These two sides of institutions are supposed to be mutually reinforcing. Thus, institutions are “embedded” in overarching systems of values at the same time as they “constrain” behavior. This article takes exactly the opposite approach and seeks to separate the two different meanings of institutions in order to explain changes in the effective capabilities of manifest institutions. Using the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) as an empirical case, the argument advanced in the article is that variations in the institutional leverage and capacity of MITI can to a significant extent be explained by changes in the relationship between “abstract” and “manifest” institutions, i.e. the extent to which the institutional arrangement of the state reflects predominant systems of values, norms and beliefs in society. In addition to the vast literature on institutional theory, the article draws on a series of interviews with MITI senior officials between 1988 and 1996 as well as on the literature on Japanese political economy.

Centralization, Access, and Influence: The Reagan Administration and the Semiconductor Industry's Trade Complaints

Abstract: This article explores how the relative centralization of decisionmaking authority can affect a societal group's ability to achieve its interests. It examines the US semiconductor industry's efforts to persuade the Reagan administration to press Japan on its import barriers and its firms' trade practices. I find that the industry's eventual success was facilitated by an institutional change that centralized the structure of decisionmaking authority. Centralization proved more favorable to the industry's influence in this case because it reduced the number of competing state interests involved in policymaking and concentrated authority in state units that shared the industry's preferences. To account for the change in this structure I focus on the interplay between government officials and policy windows. The analysis suggests that centralization may under some conditions be more conducive than decentralized structures to societal influence, and that modest institutional changes can have significant policy implications.

The Complexities of Political Agenda Determination: The Case of the British Coal Industry

Abstract: The coal industry has provided for huge controversy since the 1970s. Much of it has focused on contraction and attempts to stop that. This article examines the efforts of two pressure groups—the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the Coalfield Communities Campaign (CCC)—seeking to manipulate the political agenda in their own favor. It examines why the two groups, though both trying to affect issues on the political agenda to meet aspirations in coalfields, met a different response. It also examines why and how the CCC was able to achieve more success at political agenda manipulation at the European, rather than the national, level.