The GOVERNANCE blog

In the current issue of Governance, Ariel Ahram of the University of Oklahoma reviews Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt by Lisa Blaydes.  “It is difficult to pick up a book about Mubarak’s Egypt without wondering if history has surpassed it,” Ahram says.  “That is not the case with this book. . . . Overall it makes a number of valuable contributions.”  Open access to the review.

And Amita Singh of Jawaharlal Nehru University reviews two books: The Black Box of Governmental Learning by Raul Blindenbacher and Bidjan Nashat and Restoring Values: Keys to Integrity, Ethical Behaviour and Good Governance, edited by E. Sreedharan and Bharat Wakhlu.  The first provides an important message about the importance of investment in learning tools for administrators, Singh says, while the second provides insight into India’s “crumbling body politic.”  Open access to the review.

In psychiatry, a double bind is a dilemma that produces acute distress.  In the current issue of Governance, John Zysman and Dan Breznitz argue that this is the situation of policymakers following the financial crisis: “They are called on at once to make the markets work more effectively, to unleash creative capitalism, and also to protect society against the consequences and disruptions of the market.”  In the aftermath of the crisis, politics will become more volatile as policymakers seek new ways of managing this predicament.  Open access to the article.  Photo: John Zysman at Governance roundtable on financial crisis.

In the current issue of Governance, Matt Andrews of Harvard Kennedy School considers how the financial crisis will shape the trajectory of public sector reform in developing countries.  Before the crisis, many developing countries emulated reforms of richer states.  But this pattern may likely be shaken by the crisis, Andrews suggests.  The legitimacy of developed country policies is questioned, while new players such as China offer alternative models.  Endogenous factors within developing countries will play a larger role in determining reform paths.  Open access to the article.  Photo: Matt Andrews at a Governance roundtable on the financial crisis, with Geoffrey Tootell, senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Jon Blondal speaks at Suffolk University roundtable on impact of financial crisis

The next issue of Governance (25.1, January 2012) will feature a series of articles that examine the effect of the financial crisis on public governance.  The papers were prepared for roundtables held at Suffolk University Law School and the School of Public Policy, University College London.  Contributors include:

Paul Posner (George Mason University) and Jón Blöndal (OECD), “Democracies and Deficits: Prospects for Fiscal Responsibility in Democratic Nations”
Colin Provost (University College London) and John Gieve, Ideas and Coordination in Policy Making: The Financial Crisis of 2007-09″
Martin Lodge (LSE) and Christopher Hood (Oxford), “Into an Age of Multiple Austerities? Public Management and Public Service Bargains across OECD countries.”
Matt Andrews (Harvard Kennedy School), “Developing Countries Will Follow Post-Crisis OECD Reforms, But Not Passively This Time”
Michael Moran (Manchester), “Stories and Interests in Finance: Agendas of Governance Before and After Financial Crisis”
John Zysman (Berkeley) and Dan Breznitz (Georgia Tech), “Double Bind: Governing the Economy in an ICT Era”

The IPSA research committee on the Structure and Organization of Government, which sponsors Governance, will organize up to six panels at the next IPSA conference in Madrid on July 8-12, 2012.  The call for papers can be downloaded here.  The deadline for submitting proposed is October 17, 2011.

For those attending the ECPR meetings in Reykjavik, we are pleased to invite Governance authors, reviewers and other friends to a reception hosted jointly by the journals Governance and Public Administration.  It will be held on Friday, August 26, from 7-8pm in the HT-200-Háskólatorg 2nd floor.  Please save the date now and plan to join us for this celebration.  The reception is sponsored by Wiley/Blackwell Publishing.

The next conference of the IPSA Structure and Organization of Government Research Committee (SOG) will be hosted by the Centre for Public Policy at University of Melbourne on January 27-29, 2012.  SOG is the sponsoring organization of Governance.  A Call for Papers is now available.  The theme for the conference is “Public Policy and Public Management: Exploring the Changing Linkages.”  The deadline for paper proposals is August 31.  For more information, contact Damon Alexander at University of Melbourne.

CALL FOR PAPERS – SOG WORKSHOP
The Future of the Regulatory State: Adaptation, Transformation, Or Demise?
Oslo, 15/6 September 2011

One of the most widely made claims over the past three decades has been that we are living in the age of the regulatory state. However, events such as the financial crisis have pointed to potential weaknesses in the ‘orthodoxies’ that underpinned the ideas of the regulatory state. This workshop therefore intends to discuss the future of the regulatory state. We are interested in papers that explore themes, such as

-          the limits of regulatory regimes
-          the limits of market-based problem-solving
-          the limits of national regulatory capacity

More details about the workshop can be found here: http://www.executivepolitics.org/Executive_Politics/workshop.html Please submit paper proposals (max 250 words) by 20 May to Nick.Sitter and Martin Lodge.

SOG is the Structure and Organization of Government research committee of the International Political Science Association. It is the sponsoring organization of Governance.

Governance is a co-sponsor of the First Global Conference on Transparency Research to be held at Rutgers University on May 19-20, 2011.  This is the first large meeting of its kind to bring together leading scholars from throughout the world to collectively advance our understanding of the impact and implications of transparency policies that involve governments.  Three organizations — Canada’s International Development Research Centre, the World Bank Institute, and the Open Society Institute — will providing support for travel for some participants from developing countries.   Read the call for papers and details about travel support.

SOG will hold its next conference in Berlin this week, on November 4-5, 2010.   SOG is the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on Structure and Organization of Government (RC 27) and the sponsor of Governance.  The conference’s hosts are the Hertie School of Governance and the Center for Social Investment, Heidelberg.  The theme for the conference is Crisis as Opportunity: States, Markets and Communities in Turbulent Times.  More conference details here.