Wychodząc poza paradygmat totalitarystyczny - przez pryzmat którego najczęściej jest przedstawiony okres komunizmu - autorka stawia sobie za cel „rozbrojenie jednolitej wizji stalinowskich reform i ...?zniewolonego uniwersytetu?" (s. 297). Dla syntetycznego ujęcia wyników badań autorki warto zacytować fragment zakończenia: O ile można uznać, że pierwsza hipoteza pracy została zweryfikowana pozytywnie i w okresie powojennym mamy do czynienia z projektem modernizacyjnym, zakładaj ącym zwiększenie dostępu do uczelni wyższych osobom z klas pracujących, to druga hipoteza o roli uniwersytetów podczas realizacji tego projektu została zweryfikowana negatywnie - uniwersytety jako instytucje, a w szczególności Uniwersytet Łódzki, nie stały się najważniejszymi miejscami zmiany społecznej. Jeśli taki pogląd autorki jest spójny z jej patrzeniem na PRL jako na projekt modernizacyjny, to z drugiej strony wydaje się - szczególnie biorąc pod uwagę mizerne rezultaty reform (o czym dalej) - że może ona przeszacowywać znaczenie zmian dyskursywnych, co z kolei postrzegać można jako rezultat uniwersalizacji inteligenckich sporów symbolicznych, pozostających (w dużym stopniu) w oderwaniu od „realnego" życia warstw mających być adresatami zmiany. Roberta Zajonca, UW, e-mail: andrzej.turkowski@student.uw.edu.pl
With an increased awareness of the detrimental effects of corruption on development, strategies to fight it are now a top priority in policy circles. Yet, in countries ridden with systemic ...corruption, few successes have resulted from the investment. On the basis of an interview study conducted in Kenya and Uganda—two arguably typically thoroughly corrupt countries—we argue that part of an explanation to why anticorruption reforms in countries plagued by widespread corruption fail is that they are based on a theoretical mischaracterization of the problem of systemic corruption. More specifically, the analysis reveals that while contemporary anticorruption reforms are based on a conceptualization of corruption as a principal–agent problem, in thoroughly corrupt settings, corruption rather resembles a collective action problem. This, in turn, leads to a breakdown of any anticorruption reform that builds on the principal–agent framework, taking the existence of noncorruptible so‐called principals for granted.
An intense appetite for reforming and transforming child welfare services in the United States is yielding many new initiatives. Vulnerable children and families who become involved with child ...welfare clearly deserve higher quality and more effective services. New policies, programs, and practices should be built on sound evidence. Reforms based on misunderstandings about what the current data show may ultimately harm families. This review highlights 10 commonly held misconceptions which we assert are inconsistent with the best available contemporary evidence. Implications for better alignment of evidence and reform are discussed.
As “New Public Management” enters middle age, scholarly attention has moved to some degree from descriptive mapping and a priori critiques to the analysis of surprises and paradoxes associated with ...recent and contemporary public service reforms. Some standard analytic lenses for examining such paradoxes, explored here, are the Mertonian tradition of analyzing unintended effects of social interventions, cultural theories of surprise, and the analysis of discontinuities and unexpected couplings in the operation of complex systems, though the New Public Management literature to date has employed the first lens more intensively than the other two. We conclude by exploring features of New Public Management reforms that may have contributed to paradoxical effects and argue that the analysis of such paradoxes can help advance administrative science and the understanding of public sector reform.
We advance a dynamic institution-based view of the firm that extends the theory's current focus on scope of pro-market reforms (degree of market liberalization in a given year) to consider how speed ...of reforms (rate of market liberalization achieved over time) affects the performance of firms from transitioning economies. Utilizing a sample of public firms from Chinese provinces with varying reform speeds, we find that while scope of reforms positively impacts firm performance, speed of reforms detracts from firm performance. We further find that while family firms have an advantage in gradually reforming provinces, non-family firms have an advantage in rapidly reforming provinces. Thus, we extend the institution-based view across time (speed of reforms) and firms (family vs. non-family firms).
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government aspires to build a world class health system to improve the quality of healthcare and the health outcomes for its population. To achieve this it has ...implemented extensive health system reforms in the past 10 years. The nature, extent and success of these reforms has not recently been comprehensively reviewed. In this paper we review the progress and outcomes of health systems reform in the UAE.
We searched relevant databases and other sources to identify published and unpublished studies and other data available between 01 January 2002 and 31 March 2016. Eligible studies were appraised and data were descriptively and narratively synthesized.
Seventeen studies were included covering the following themes: the UAE health system, population health, the burden of disease, healthcare financing, healthcare workforce and the impact of reforms. Few, if any, studies prospectively set out to define and measure outcomes. A central part of the reforms has been the introduction of mandatory private health insurance, the development of the private sector and the separation of planning and regulatory responsibilities from provider functions. The review confirmed the commitment of the UAE to build a world class health system but amongst researchers and commentators opinion is divided on whether the reforms have been successful although patient satisfaction with services appears high and there are some positive indications including increasing coverage of hospital accreditation. The UAE has a rapidly growing population with a unique age and sex distribution, there have been notable successes in improving child and maternal mortality and extending life expectancy but there are high levels of chronic diseases. The relevance of the reforms for public health and their impact on the determinants of chronic diseases have been questioned.
From the existing research literature it is not possible to conclude whether UAE health system reforms are working. We recommend that research should continue in this area but that research questions should be more clearly defined, focusing whenever possible on outcomes rather than processes.
This article examines current reform experiences in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, focusing on the assumed Nordic administrative model. The research questions is: How do Nordic public ...sector executives perceive reform processes, trends, contents and management instruments? To answer these questions we apply a theory of gradual institutional change. The database is a survey of top civil servants in ministries and central agencies in 19 European countries conducted in 2012-2015 within the COCOPS project funded by the EC 7
th
Framework Program. We show that the Nordic countries are pragmatic and motivated reformers. There is a high level of reform activity and public involvement. The reforms aim to improve services more than cut costs. The Nordic model emerges as one that is agile and adaptive. New reform elements have been incorporated into the existing welfare state model, which accounts for differences between the five countries.
This paper investigates the relationship between market structure and performance in China’s banking system from 1985 to 2002, a period when this sector was subject to gradual but notable reform. ...Using panel data estimation techniques, both the market-power and efficient-structure hypotheses are tested. In addition, the model is extended to consider issues such as the impact of bank size/ownership and whether the big four banks enjoy a “quiet life”. On average, X-efficiency declined significantly and most banks were operating below scale efficient levels. Estimation of the structure–performance models lends some support to the relative market-power hypothesis in the early period. The reforms had little impact on the structure of China’s banking sector, though the “joint stock” banks became relatively more X-efficient. There was no evidence to support the quiet-life hypothesis, probably because strict interest rate controls prevented the state banks from earning monopoly profits. Thus the ongoing liberalisation of interest rates should be accompanied by reduced concentration. Overall, to improve competitive structure, new policies should be directed at encouraging market entry and increasing the market share of the most efficient banks.
State governments have experimented with a variety of election laws to make voting more convenient and increase turnout. The impacts of these reforms vary in surprising ways, providing insight into ...the mechanisms by which states can encourage or reduce turnout. Our theory focuses on mobilization and distinguishes between the direct and indirect effects of election laws. We conduct both aggregate and individual-level statistical analyses of voter turnout in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. The results show that Election Day registration has a consistently positive effect on turnout, whereas the most popular reform—early voting—is actually associated with lower turnout when it is implemented by itself. We propose that early voting has created negative unanticipated consequences by reducing the civic significance of elections for individuals and altering the incentives for political campaigns to invest in mobilization.
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