Archive for December, 2009

New book by SOG members on reform in Asia-Pacific

Published December 29, 2009 New books by SOG members Leave a Comment

Governance book review editor Clay Wescott and SOG member Bidhya Bowornwathana are co-editors, with L.R. Jones, of a new book from Emerald Books: The Many Faces of Public Management Reform in the Asia-Pacific Region.  The collection of essays examines three categories of reforms within Asian public sectors: corruption and anti-corruption initiatives, public financial management reforms, and public management reforms within an emphasis on performance and results.

SOG is the Structure and Organization of Government Group of the International Political Science Association, which sponsors Governance.  Learn how to join SOG.  SOG members receive a subscription to the print version of Governance.

Reducing political control over administration: Agencification works

Published December 17, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Advocates of agencification — the practice of “hiving off” functions into formally separated organizations — claim that it is an effective way of reducing political interference in operational matters.  Some have doubted the claim.  In the current issue of Governance (22.4), Morten Egeberg and Jarle Trondal use data from two decades of surveys of Norwegian civil servants to show that the argument has merit.  Organizational setting “makes a clear difference,” they conclude.  “Officials within ministerial departments are significantly more sensitive to signals from executive politicians than their counterparts within national agencies.”  Read the article: Political leadership and bureaucratic autonomy: Effects of agencification.

Civil service reform in Kazakhstan: The front-runner stumbles

Published December 10, 2009 Current issue Leave a Comment
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Kazakhstan is hailed as a “front-runner in civil service reforms” in Central Asia, Saule Emrich-Bakenova says in the current issue of Governance (22.4).  Some call it a model for the developing world.  But Emrich-Bakenova argues that the main objective of new legislation — reducing political influence over the hiring and promotion of civil servants — has not really been achieved.   Although the Civil Service Law of 1999 was intended to create a depoliticized civil service, “the measures undertaken in fact established and formalized a broad range of discretionary opportunities for political influence.”  Emrich-Bakenova suggests that reformers should adjust their expectations about outcomes of reform in hostile political conditions. Read the article: Trajectory of civil service development in Kazakhstan: Nexus of politics and administration.

What happens to democratic representation in the era of “network governance”?

Published December 3, 2009 Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Carolyn HendriksWhat happens to conventional understandings about democratic representation when responsibility for policy formulation moves to new “governance networks”? Carolyn Hendriks explores this question in the current issue of Governance (22.4).  Examining participants in networks engaged in Dutch energy reform, Hendriks finds a “complex mix” of understandings about roles, which often “have little to do with conventional democratic understandings.”  Network participants, she says, “were mostly autonomous elites whose ‘democratic work’ is reduced to promoting symbolic messages when politically necessary.”  Read the article: The democratic soup: Mixed meanings of political representation in governance networks.

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