Decision-making is at the heart of governing and governance, and is a more challenging task compared to just a few decades ago as a result of increasing social complexity and globalization. In this book, B. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre propose a new framework for the comparative analysis of governance, arguing that government remains a central actor in governance. By articulating the functionalist dimension of governance they show how goal setting, resource mobilization, decision-making, implementation and feedback can be performed by a combination of different types of actors. Even so, effective governance requires a leading role for government. The framework is also applied to a taxonomy of governance arrangements and national styles of governing. Comparative Governance advances our knowledge about governance failure and how forms of governance may change. It also significantly strengthens the theory of governance, showing how governance can be studied conceptually as well as empirically.

Political development and social change

Comparative Governance: Rediscovering the Functional Dimension of Governing

Political development in a country depends on political participation whereas political participation depends on institutionalization. Political development cannot take place in the absence of effective institutions that allow mass participation. The purpose of this paper is to distinguish political development from modernization and to identify political development with institutionalization of political organizations and procedures. Functional capabilities cannot be ensured without structures and institutions. Levels of political development in country can be measured by levels of system efficacy that is structural stratification and functional specialization. Demands, decisions and capabilities keep the political system dynamic which also shows that the development or decaying process is taking place. If the goal of development is to be achieved there should be higher levels of capabilities, efficacy and recruitment.

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Political Development and Political Decay

Do voters regard male and female candidates equally? Does apparent religiosity of candidates help or hurt their electoral chances? Where biases exist, what explains them? We present a novel explanation of political bias, drawing from role congruity theory. It posits that political contexts shape citizens' perceptions of qualities that make a “capable leader,” which subsequently drives their willingness to vote for candidates. Evidence from a survey experiment embedded in the 2012 Tunisian Post-Election Survey demonstrates that this theory explains biases based on gender and religiosity better than dominant modernization and social identity theories. Moreover, these mechanisms are also likely to drive political biases related to other features and in other countries. This has important implications for policymakers aiming to reduce political biases in Tunisia, the MENA, or globally. It should encourage them to pay careful attention to stereotyped traits of underrepresented groups and successful leaders, and to use institutional solutions (e.g., electoral quotas) to shape expectations about underrepresented groups and leadership.

Is It Gender, Religiosity or Both? A Role Congruity Theory of Candidate Electability in Transitional Tunisia

Through a case study of Iraq, this dissertation examines one manifestation of the increasingly prevalent phenomenon in struggling de jure states of the establishment of alternative forms of political sovereignty embodied by defacto states. Tracing Iraq's failed state-building
endeavor to the adoption of an ill-suited Weberian model of state-building that idealized order and centralization to the exclusion of Iraq's Kurdish minority, it argues that much of the contestation and instability witnessed by the Iraqi state since its birth into modern statehood has
stemmed from an effort to create a state inimical to the very real dispersal of social and political capital endemic to its society. The result has been continual coups, instability, and civil conflict
that ultimately defined Iraq’s modern history. Using this framework, the contention is defended that democracy cannot survive in Iraq without the preservation of its federal character, which alone guarantees the social, economic,
political, and coercive dispersal of power necessary to maintain a free expression of Iraq’s diverse interests. By restricting the responsibilities and obligations of the central state to more manageable tasks while dually creating a mechanism for a minority buy-in, federal institutions have pulled previously contentious social sources of power into legitimate state institutions and
laid the foundation for a genuine, inclusive state-building process that will eventually benefit all Iraqis. While recognizing that this model is still contested by some leaders in Baghdad, the dissertation traces the path of the two key outstanding issues left unresolved  – the exploitation of
Iraq’s vast natural resources and the territorial delineation of its disputed internal boundaries – to
argue for a resolution that will bolster Iraqi federalism without sacrificing the hope of greater unity.

Resolving the defacto statehood dilemma in Iraq : evolving sovereignty norms and post-modern federalism

ISSN: 0047-2336 (Print) 1752-7554 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjoc20 Civil society and other political possibilities in Southeast Asia Garry Rodan To cite this article: Garry Rodan (1997) Civil society and other political possibilities in Southeast Asia, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 27:2, 156-178, DOI: 10.1080/00472339780000111 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00472339780000111

background

/pdf/civil-society-and-other-political-possibilities-in-southeast-2pto1e0gmz.pdf

Political development and social change

Citations

Comparative Governance: Rediscovering the Functional Dimension of Governing

Political Development and Political Decay

Is It Gender, Religiosity or Both? A Role Congruity Theory of Candidate Electability in Transitional Tunisia

Resolving the defacto statehood dilemma in Iraq : evolving sovereignty norms and post-modern federalism

Civil society and other political possibilities in Southeast Asia

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