For the first two thirds of the twentieth century, British government was among the most stable in the advanced industrial world. In the last three decades, the governing arrangements have been in ...turmoil and the country has been a pioneer in economic reform, and in public sector change. In this book, Michael Moran examines and explains the contrast between these two epochs. What turned Britain into a laboratory of political innovation? Britain became a formal democracy at the start of the twentieth century but the practice of government remained oligarchic. From the 1970s this oligarchy collapsed under the pressure of economic crisis. The British regulatory state is being constructed in its place. Moran challenges the prevailing view that this new state is liberal or decentralizing. Instead he argues that it is a new, threatening kind of interventionist state which is colonizing, dominating, and centralizing hitherto independent domains of civil society. The book is essential reading for all those interested in British political development and in the nature and impact of regulation. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/politicalscience//toc.html
In a dark departure from our standard picture of whistleblowers, C. Fred Alford offers a chilling account of the world of people who have come forward to protest organizational malfeasance in ...government agencies and in the private sector. The conventional story-high-minded individual fights soulless organization, is persecuted, yet triumphs in the end-is seductive and pervasive. In speaking with whistleblowers and their families, lawyers, and therapists, Alford discovers that the reality of whistleblowing is grim. Few whistleblowers succeed in effecting change; even fewer are regarded as heroes or martyrs.
Alford mixes narrative analysis with political insight to offer a frank picture of whistleblowing and a controversial view of organizations. According to Alford, the organization as an institution is dedicated to the destruction of the moral individualist. Frequently, he claims, the organization succeeds, which means that the whistleblowers are broken, unable to reconcile their actions and beliefs with the responses they receive from others. In addition to being mistreated by organizations, whistleblowers often do not receive support from their families and communities. In order to make sense of their stories, Alford claims, some whistleblowers must set aside the things they have always believed: that loyalty is larger than the herd instinct, that someone in charge will do the right thing, that the family is a haven from a heartless world. Alford argues that few whistleblowers recover from their experience, and that, even then, they live in a world very different from the one they knew before their confrontation with the organization.
In 1992, at the end of a twelve-year civil war, El Salvador was poised for a transition to democracy. Yet, after longstanding dominance by a small oligarchy that continually used violence to repress ...popular resistance, El Salvador's democracy has proven to be a fragile one, as social ills (poverty chief among them) have given rise to neighborhoods where gang activity now thrives.Mano Duraexamines the ways in which the ruling ARENA party used gang violence to solidify political power in the hands of the elite-culminating in draconian "iron fist" antigang policies that undermine human rights while ultimately doing little to address the roots of gang membership.
Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork and policy analysis,Mano Duraexamines the activities of three nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that have advocated for more nuanced policies to eradicate gangs and the societal issues that are both a cause and an effect of gang proliferation. While other studies of street gangs have focused on relatively distant countries such as Colombia, Argentina, and Jamaica, Sonja Wolf's research takes us to a country closer to the United States, where forced deportation has brought with it US gang culture. Charting the limited success of NGOs in influencing El Salvador's security policies, the book brings to light key contextual aspects-including myopic media coverage and the ironic populist support for ARENA, despite the party's protection of the elite at the expense of the greater society.
InThe New Masters of Capital, Timothy J. Sinclair examines a key aspect of the global economy-the rating agencies. In the global economy, trust is formalized in the daily operations of such firms as ...Moody's and Standard & Poor's, which continuously monitor the financial health of bond-issuers ranging from private corporations to local and national governments. Their judgments affect unimaginably large sums, approximately $30 trillion in outstanding debt issues, according to a recent Moody's estimate. The difference between an AA and a BB rating may cost millions of dollars in interest payments or determine if a corporation or government can even issue bonds.
Without bond rating agencies, there would be no standard means to compare risks in the global economy, and international investment would be problematic. Most observers assume that the agencies are neutral and scientific, and that they interpret their role in narrowly economic terms. But these agencies, by their nature, wield extraordinary power and exert massive influence over public policy. Sinclair offers a highly accessible account of these institutions, their origins, and the rating processes they use to judge creditworthiness. Illustrated with a wide range of cases, this book offers a fresh assessment of the role of an often-overlooked institution in the dynamics of modern global capitalism.
Bureaucracy is a much-maligned feature of contemporary government. And yet the aftermath of September 11 has opened the door to a reassessment of the role of a skilled civil service in the survival ...and viability of democratic society. Here, Ezra Suleiman offers a timely and powerful corrective to the widespread view that bureaucracy is the source of democracy's ills. This is a book as much about good governance as it is about bureaucratic organizations. Suleiman asks: Is democratic governance hindered without an effective instrument in the hands of the legitimately elected political leadership? Is a professional bureaucracy required for developing but not for maintaining a democratic state? Why has a reform movement arisen in recent years championing the gradual dismantling of bureaucracy, and what are the consequences?
Suleiman undertakes a comparative analysis of the drive toward a civil service grounded in the New Public Management. He argues that "government reinvention" has limited bureaucracy's capacity to adequately serve the public good. All bureaucracies have been under political pressure in recent years to reduce not only their size but also their effectiveness, and all have experienced growing deprofessionalism and politicization. He compares the impact of this evolution in both democratic societies and societies struggling to consolidate democratic institutions.Dismantling Democratic Statescautions that our failure to acknowledge the role of an effective bureaucracy in building and preserving democratic political systems threatens the survival of democracy itself.
The emergence of transnational social movements as major actors in international politics - as witnessed in Seattle in 1999 and elsewhere - has sent shockwaves through the international system. Many ...questions have arisen about the legitimacy, coherence and efficiency of the international order in the light of the challenges posed by social movements. This book offers a fundamental critique of twentieth-century international law from the perspective of Third World social movements. It examines in detail the growth of two key components of modern international law - international institutions and human rights - in the context of changing historical patterns of Third World resistance. Using a historical and interdisciplinary approach, Rajagopal presents compelling evidence challenging debates on the evolution of norms and institutions, the meaning and nature of the Third World as well as the political economy of its involvement in the international system.
Life in crisis Redfield, Peter
2013., 20130126, 2013, 2013-02-25
eBook
Life in Crisis tells the story of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders or MSF) and its effort to "save lives" on a global scale. Begun in 1971 as a French alternative to the Red Cross, ...the MSF has grown into an international institution with a reputation for outspoken protest as well as technical efficiency. It has also expanded beyond emergency response, providing for a wider range of endeavors, including AIDS care. Yet its seemingly simple ethical goal proves deeply complex in practice. MSF continually faces the problem of defining its own limits. Its minimalist form of care recalls the promise of state welfare, but without political resolution or a sense of well-being beyond health and survival. Lacking utopian certainty, the group struggles when the moral clarity of crisis fades. Nevertheless, it continues to take action and innovate. Its organizational history illustrates both the logic and the tensions of casting humanitarian medicine into a leading role in international affairs.
Building on the concept of depoliticization, this book provides a first systematic analysis of International Organizations (IO) apolitical claims. It shows that depoliticization sustains IO everyday ...activities while allowing them to remain engaged in politics, even when they pretend not to. Delving into the inner dynamics of global governance, this book develops an analytical framework on why IOs "hate" politics by bringing together practices and logics of depoliticization in a wide variety of historical, geographic and organizational contexts. With multiple case studies in the fields of labor rights and economic regulation, environmental protection, development and humanitarian aid, peacekeeping, among others this book shows that depoliticization is enacted in a series of overlapping, sometimes mundane, practices resulting from the complex interaction between professional habits, organizational cultures and individual tactics. By approaching the consequences of these practices in terms of logics, the book addresses the instrumental dimension of depoliticization without assuming that IO actors necessarily intend to depoliticize their action or global problems. For IO scholars and students, this book sheds new light on IO politics by clarifying one often taken-for-granted dimension of their everyday activities, precisely that of depoliticization. It will also be of interest to other researchers working in the fields of political science, international relations, international political sociology, international political economy, international public administration, history, law, sociology, anthropology and geography as well as IO practitioners.
In a book full of directly applicable lessons for policymakers, Haley J. Swedlund explores why foreign aid is delivered in different ways at different times, and why various approaches prove to be ...politically unsustainable. She finds that no aid-delivery mechanism has yet resolved commitment problems in the donor-recipient relationship; bargaining compromises break down and have to be renegotiated; frustration grows; new ways of delivering aid gain traction over existing practices; and the dance resumes.
Swedlund draws on hundreds of interviews with key decision makers representing both donor agencies and recipient governments, policy and archival documents in Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, and an original survey of top-level donor officials working across twenty countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This wealth of data informs Swedlund's analysis of fads and fashions in the delivery of foreign aid and the interaction between effectiveness and aid delivery. The central message ofThe Development Danceis that if we want to know whether an aid delivery mechanism is likely to be sustained over the long term, we need to look at whether it induces credible commitments from both donor agencies and recipient governments over the long term.
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