Japan's invasion of Manchuria in September of 1931 initiated a new phase of brutal occupation and warfare in Asia and the Pacific. It forwarded the project of remaking the Japanese state along ...technocratic and fascistic lines and creating a self-sufficient Asian bloc centered on Japan and its puppet state of Manchukuo. InPlanning for Empire, Janis Mimura traces the origins and evolution of this new order and the ideas and policies of its chief architects, the reform bureaucrats. The reform bureaucrats pursued a radical, authoritarian vision of modern Japan in which public and private spheres were fused, ownership and control of capital were separated, and society was ruled by technocrats.
Mimura shifts our attention away from reactionary young officers to state planners-reform bureaucrats, total war officers, new zaibatsu leaders, economists, political scientists, engineers, and labor party leaders. She shows how empire building and war mobilization raised the stature and influence of these middle-class professionals by calling forth new government planning agencies, research bureaus, and think tanks to draft Five Year industrial plans, rationalize industry, mobilize the masses, streamline the bureaucracy, and manage big business. Deftly examining the political battles and compromises of Japanese technocrats in their bid for political power and Asian hegemony,Planning for Empireoffers a new perspective on Japanese fascism by revealing its modern roots in the close interaction of technology and right-wing ideology.
From the author's preface: Sublime Porte--there must be few terms more redolent, even today, of the fascination that the Islamic Middle East has long exercised over Western imaginations. Yet there ...must also be few Western minds that now know what this term refers to, or why it has any claim to attention. One present-day Middle East expert admits to having long interpreted the expression as a reference to Istambul's splendid natural harbor. This individual is probably not unique and could perhaps claim to be relatively well informed. When the Sublime Porte still existed, Westerners who spent time in Istanbul knew the term as a designation for the Ottoman government, but few knew why the name was used, or what aspect of the Ottoman government it properly designated. What was the real Sublime Porte? Was it an organization? A building? No more, literally, than a door or gateway? What about it was important enough to cause the name to be remembered?
In one sense, the purpose of this book is to answer these questions. Of course, it will also do much more and will, in the process, move quickly onto a plane quite different from the exoticism just invoked. For to study the bureaucratic complex properly known as the Sublime Porte, and to analyze its evolution and that of the body of men who staffed it, is to explore a problem of tremendous significance for the development of the administrative institutions of the Ottoman Empire, the Islamic lands in general, and in some senses the entire non-Westerrn world.
Background There is increasing recognition that the development of evidence-informed health policy is not only a technical problem of knowledge exchange or translation, but also a political ...challenge. Yet, while political scientists have long considered the nature of political systems, the role of institutional structures, and the political contestation of policy issues as central to understanding policy decisions, these issues remain largely unexplored by scholars of evidence-informed policy making. Methods We conducted a systematic review of empirical studies that examined the influence of key features of political systems and institutional mechanisms on evidence use, and contextual factors that may contribute to the politicisation of health evidence. Eligible studies were identified through searches of seven health and social sciences databases, websites of relevant organisations, the British Library database, and manual searches of academic journals. Relevant findings were extracted using a uniform data extraction tool and synthesised by narrative review. Findings 56 studies were selected for inclusion. Relevant political and institutional aspects affecting the use of health evidence included the level of state centralisation and democratisation, the influence of external donors and organisations, the organisation and function of bureaucracies, and the framing of evidence in relation to social norms and values. However, our understanding of such influences remains piecemeal given the limited number of empirical analyses on this subject, the paucity of comparative works, and the limited consideration of political and institutional theory in these studies. Conclusions This review highlights the need for a more explicit engagement with the political and institutional factors affecting the use of health evidence in decision-making. A more nuanced understanding of evidence use in health policy making requires both additional empirical studies of evidence use, and an engagement with theories and approaches beyond the current remit of public health or knowledge utilisation studies.
Reputation and Public Administration Carpenter, Daniel P.; Krause, George A.
Public administration review,
January/February 2012, Volume:
72, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This article examines the application of organizational reputation to public administration. Organizational reputation is defined as a set of beliefs about an organizations capacities, intentions, ...history, and mission that are embedded in a network of multiple audiences. The authors assert that the way in which organizational reputations are formed and subsequently cultivated is fundamental to understanding the role of public administration in a democracy. A review of the basic assumptions and empirical work on organizational reputation in the public sector identifies a series of stylized facts that extends our understanding of the functioning of public agencies. InparticuUr, the authors examine the relationship between organizational reputation and bureaucratic autonomy.
In Latin America as elsewhere, politicians routinely face a painful
dilemma: whether to use state resources for national purposes,
especially those that foster economic development, or to channel
...resources to people and projects that will help insure political
survival and reelection. While politicians may believe that a
competent state bureaucracy is intrinsic to the national good,
political realities invariably tempt leaders to reward powerful
clients and constituents, undermining long-term competence.
Politician's Dilemma explores the ways in which political
actors deal with these contradictory pressures and asks the
question: when will leaders support reforms that increase state
capacity and that establish a more meritocratic and technically
competent bureaucracy? Barbara Geddes brings rational choice theory
to her study of Brazil between 1930 and 1964 and shows how state
agencies are made more effective when they are protected from
partisan pressures and operate through merit-based recruitment and
promotion strategies. Looking at administrative reform movements in
other Latin American democracies, she traces the incentives offered
politicians to either help or hinder the process. In its balanced
insight, wealth of detail, and analytical rigor, Politician's
Dilemma provides a powerful key to understanding the conflicts
inherent in Latin American politics, and to unlocking possibilities
for real political change.
Editors' Introduction Isett, Kimberley R; Head, Brian W; Van Landingham, Gary
Public administration review,
01/2017, Volume:
77, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In this issue’s Evidence in Public Administration feature, we explore perspectives on the use of evidence in addressing complex issues of water policy in times of climate uncertainties.
Most research on administrative burdens focuses on measuring their impact on citizens’ access to services and benefits. This article fills a theoretical gap and provides a framework for understanding ...the organizational origins of administrative burden. Based on an extensive literature review, the explanations are organized according to their level of intentionality (deliberate hidden politics or unintended consequences) and their level of formality (designed into formal procedures or caused by informal organizational practices). The analysis suggests that administrative burdens are often firmly rooted in a political economy of deeply engrained structures and behavioral patterns in public administration.
The study aims to identify the causes and effects of the bureaucratization of the Romanian education system, in relation to the Weberian theory of bureaucracy. The principles of bureaucracy, ...enunciated by Max Weber, are discussed and the way they are taken into account and perceived in the case of education in Romania is followed. The study also aims to compare Romania with other countries (Finland, Spain and the United Kingdom) in terms of the perception of bureaucracy. The main results of the other research show that the countries mentioned follow a pragmatic approach, while the Romanian education system prefers a bureaucratic approach. This difference results from the standards that are lacking in Romanian education, both at management level and in terms of educational activities themselves. In pre-university education in Romania, for example, there is a culture of control, without a clear picture of what a high-performing school means, school inspections become only a bureaucratic action, without really measuring the quality of teachers and education. In higher education, bureaucracy is confirmed by the permanent appointment of rectors or by other legislative decisions that burden universities with tasks that should be carried out by other institutions. The new education laws in Romania increase the bureaucracy already existing in the education system, and all this is the result of misunderstanding and misapplication of the principles of bureaucracy.
Bureaucratic compliance is often crucial for political survival, yet eliciting that compliance in weakly institutionalized environments requires that political principals convince agents that their ...hold on power is secure. We provide a formal model to show that electoral manipulation can help to solve this agency problem. By influencing beliefs about a ruler's hold on power, manipulation can encourage a bureaucrat to work on behalf of the ruler when he would not otherwise do so. This result holds under various common technologies of electoral manipulation. Manipulation is more likely when the bureaucrat is dependent on the ruler for his career and when the probability is high that even generally unsupportive citizens would reward bureaucratic effort. The relationship between the ruler's expected popularity and the likelihood of manipulation, in turn, depends on the technology of manipulation.
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