101,739 research outputs found

    Understanding Shifting Dynamics of Power in State Governments through Social Networks

    Get PDF
    We use social network analysis to better understand historic data on the administration of local governments. Despite advances in e-government applications, the public sector lags behind in analytics because information is locked in legacy data formats. Can e-government researchers bridge the gap between legacy data and analytics? We argue that computational analytic methods can explain patterns that have gone unquestioned in previous research on government. We consider how state government authority can be explained using a network perspective. We investigate methodological challenges in building a weighted network to confirm existing measures for calculating the power of the state governor. This project reports on the initial step in a broader study to cover all 50 states across multiple years and agencies. We explain where the power shifted across states and time. Computational analysis of existing government data matches findings from previous studies as well as adding additional explanatory power

    Power and multistakeholderism in internet global governance. Towards a synergetic theoretical framework

    Get PDF
    With the advancement of multistakeholder collaboration as a governance principle in theglobal Internet Governance, how to investigate the political process in a ‘shared power’environment emerges as a challenging methodological issue. In this paper, a synergetic theoretical approach is proposed to the study of Internet governance political process, which focuses on the concept of power, and crosses the boundaries of three academic fields, namely, Political Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, and Organization Studies. This approach aggregates, in a descending analytical manner, concepts intrinsically linked to the contemporary shifting governance paradigm (i.e. governmentality, global governance, global public-policy networks, shared power, multistakeholder collaboration). In addition, such an approach brings the collaborative process into focus (rather than the decisions it leads to) by accentuating the productive potential of a collaboration based on the ‘shared power’ formula. Each of those theoretical reflections on shifting power relations provides building elements for a synergetic theoretical framework that can be, and has been, applied to the investigation of the emergent Internet governance regime. As a result, stakeholder alliances can be mapped, instances of power dynamics can be discerned, and some longitudinal tangible and intangible outcomes of the multistakeholder collaboration can be envisioned

    Strategies for shifting technological systems : the case of the automobile system

    Get PDF
    Californian and Dutch efforts to produce electric vehicles are explored and compared. Three strategies are put forward that could turn electric vehicles from an elusive legend, a plaything, into a marketable product: technology forcing creating a market of early promises, experiments geared towards niche development and upscaling (strategic niche management), and the creation of new alliances (technological nexus) which bring technology, the market, regulation and many other factors together. These strategies deployed in the Californian and Dutch context are analysed in detail to explore their relative strengths and weaknesses and to argue in the end that a combined use of all three will increase the chances that the dominant technological system will change. The succesful workings of these strategies crucially depend on the coupling of the variation and selection processes, building blocks for any evolutionary theory of technical change. Evolutionary theory lacks understanding of these coupling processes. Building on recent insights from the sociology of technology, the authors propose a quasi-evolutionary model which underpins the analysis of suggested strategies

    Use of Civil Society Organisations to Raise the Voice of the Poor in Agricultural Policy

    Get PDF
    This working paper examines how civil society organisations (CSOs) -- particularly those representing poor and marginalised rural people -- can inform and influence the processes of agricultural policy formulation and implementation. We summarise the role of different interest groups in shaping 'pro-poor' agricultural development and explain how poor people can gain 'voice' to express their views and shape policy processes in a meaningful way

    Civil society and international governance: the role of non-state actors in the EU, Africa, Asia and Middle East

    Get PDF
    Structures and processes occurring within and between states are no longer the only – or even the most important - determinants of those political, economic and social developments and dynamics that shape the modern world. Many issues, including the environment, health, crime, drugs, migration and terrorism, can no longer be contained within national boundaries. As a result, it is not always possible to identify the loci for authority and legitimacy, and the role of governments has been called into question. \ud \ud Civil Society anf International Governance critically analyses the increasing impact of nongovernmental organisations and civil society on global and regional governance. Written from the standpoint of advocates of civil society and addressing the role of civil society in relation to the UN, the IMF, the G8 and the WTO, this volume assess the role of various non-state actors from three perspectives: theoretical aspects, civil society interaction with the European Union and civil society and regional governance outside Europe, specifically Africa, East Asia and the Middle East. It demonstrates that civil society’s role has been more complex than one defined in terms, essentially, of resistance and includes actual participation in governance as well as multi-facetted contributions to legitimising and democratising global and regional governance

    Heritage diplomacy and Australia's responses to a shifting landscape of international conservation

    Get PDF
    The economic and political shifts that together constitute contemporary globalisation are opening up new spaces for non-Western modes of heritage governance in the international arena. Perhaps most notable here is the so-called rise of Asia, wherein a growing number of countries are investing heavily in a range of institutions and initiatives designed to provide cultural sector aid across the region. These new forms of heritage diplomacy hold significant implications for the governance of heritage at the global level, such that they promise to unsettle those structures and norms which emerged from Europe and North America and stabilised internationally over the course of the twentieth century. The paper explores such changes and some of the ways the Australian heritage conservation sector might respond to this rapidly shifting landscape of heritage diplomacy.&nbsp

    Europeanisation at the Urban Level: Local Actors, Institutions and the Dynamics of Multi-Level Interaction

    Get PDF
    Involvement in EU-sponsored programmes has provided urban institutions and actors across Europe with unprecedented access to new sources of information, legitimacy, and not least, financial support. From established local authorities to fledgling neighbourhood partnerships, actors across the urban spectrum see increased European involvement as a central component of innovative governance. This paper seeks to evaluate whether European working has provoked shifts in the institutionalised norms, beliefs, and values held by participants in governance at the city level, focusing in particular on the experience of British cities. In order to do so, the paper elaborates a four-part framework for Europeanisation at the urban level, and subsequently applies this framework to the empirical cases of Birmingham and Glasgow. It then attempts to draw some preliminary conclusions about how involvement in EU Structural Fund programmes affects embedded norms and practices in cities across the continent

    Reconstructing nation, state and welfare: The transformation of welfare states

    No full text
    About the book: This edited volume provides new empirical evidence of far-reaching changes to welfare states globally, which have changed the boundaries of the 'public' and 'private' domain within the mixed economies of welfare. Various modes of policy intervention are investigated, providing a nuanced account of reforms in the past decade
    • …
    corecore