324,817 research outputs found

    A business model perspective for ICTs in public engagement

    Get PDF
    This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published article can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 ElsevierPublic institutions, in their efforts to promote meaningful citizen engagement, are increasingly looking at the democratic potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Previous studies suggest that such initiatives seem to be impeded by socio-technical integration barriers such as low sustainability, poor citizen acceptance, coordination difficulties, lack of understanding and failure to assess their impact. Motivated by these shortcomings, the paper develops and applies a business model perspective as an interceding framework for analysis and evaluation. The underlying principle behind this approach is that it is not technology per se which determines success, but rather the way in which the businessmodel of the technological artifact is configured and employed to achieve the strategic goals. The business model perspective is empirically demonstrated with the case of an online petitioning system implemented by a UK local authority. The case illustrates the importance of considering ICTs in public engagement from a holistic view to make them more manageable and assessable

    The relationship between government and civil society: a neo-Gramscian framework for analysis

    Get PDF
    This paper presents a neo-Gramscian framework for the analysis of the relationship between government and civil society. We argue that the influence of ‘post-traditional’ theories of modernisation on ‘networks’ and ‘network society’ is crucial in understanding the concept of ‘governance’. This influence has led to an exaggeration of the displacement of hierarchy by networks and of the novel nature of governance reforms. Additionally, it can be argued that the notion of ‘governance networks’ is part of a neoliberal hegemony and that the concept is thus more ideological than analytical. This critique on the neoliberal dimension of the governance concept was also forcefully argued by Jonathan S. Davies (2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2014b), who presented a Gramscian alternative for the analysis of government and governance. We will follow a less orthodox Gramscian path, but one that is nonetheless aimed at offering an alternative of the dominant network view on governance. We will present how the relationship between government and civil society can be seen as an interplay between coercion and hegemony. As part of the CSI Flanders research project we will then explore three dimensions of this relationship in closer detail: the ideological dimension, the institutional arrangements, and the street-level strategies. These three dimensions will be further operationalised in the following phases of the research project, especially in a large-scale survey of Flemish CSOs and representatives of governments, and selected in-depth studies of Flemish central and local governments

    Governance of the London 2012 Olympic Games legacy

    Get PDF
    © The Author(s) 2011. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.This study addresses the governance of the London 2012 Olympics legacy. It presents legacy not as a retrospective but a prospective concept concerned with shaping the future through interactions between the state, market and society. This entails designing systems of governance to guide and steer collective actions towards a consensus amongst various parties concerned. Four modes of governance and a range of policy instruments were examined in the delivery of sustainable London Olympics sport legacy including coercive, voluntarism, targeting and framework regulation. The British government actively created a new policy space and promoted institutional conduct consistent with its legacy visions. The current global legacy framework is lacking the governance dimension and its logic needs to be reconsidered. A meaningful sport legacy requires not top-down approaches but locally informed strategies supported by a developmental design of the Olympic Games informed by sustainable principles

    The domestic political impact of foreign aid: recalibrating the research agenda

    Get PDF
    The recent concentration of attention by some political scientists on evaluating the effectiveness of democracy assistance, drawing on the transient policy concerns of major donors, is a welcome innovation to a research agenda traditionally biased towards aid's significance for economic development. But its focus is restricted and unrepresentative. This article argues the case for a more comprehensive assessment of the domestic political consequences - both direct and indirect - of all forms of aid, in principle for aid recipients everywhere. This recommendation offers the advantage of serving the limited purposes of analysts of democratisation generally and democracy aid specifically, but more importantly reconnects their approach with the broader political analysis of aid by a wider social science community. It is important to 'think outside the box' of contemporary donor concerns, recalibrating the research agenda in ways that raise other political priorities. The article offers a framework for this purpose. Comprehending the political dynamics in aid-receiving countries should be the primary orienting principle, rather than viewing countries as objects of aid and proceeding to interpret their politics through the distorting lens of donor perspectives

    The state-private interface in public service provision

    Get PDF
    Political theory sets out a strong case for the state to play a major role in public service provision. Yet services are often provided by a range of state and non-state actors as well as by collaborative partnerships. This paper surveys the literature, seeking to map arrangements in developing countries and to understand the politics of different types of service provision

    Redefining and Improving School District Governance

    Get PDF
    Explores recent research literature and emerging practices concerning the roles and responsibilities of district school boards and the issues impeding or assisting their effectiveness

    Conflict, Resistance and Alliances in a Multi-Governance Setting: Reshaping Realities in the Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Reforms \ud

    Get PDF
    In this article, we will explore how local politics of policy, in the interaction with governance mechanisms, have produced specific polity outcomes in the irrigation sector of Andhra Pradesh. The water sector of Andhra Pradesh, which has been struggling within inefficiency, poor performance, deterioration, and lack of participation as elsewhere in India, has undergone substantial reforms aiming at Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM). Previous research has indicated how reform policy choices were contested and mediated by relevant actors and how this affected the outcome in key areas of irrigation management. This is referred to as the politics of policy. We will look at multi-level governance in a situation where different tiers represent different institutional basis, and argue that the politics of policy at multiple levels of governance can be perceived as a form of support and/or resilience by actors to new governance mechanisms/arrangement

    When Europe encounters urban governance: Policy Types, Actor Games and Mechanisms of cites Europeanization

    Get PDF
    This paper examines European Union (EU) causal mechanisms and policy instruments affecting the urban domain throughout the lenses of the Europeanization approach. Instead of looking at EU instruments that are formally/legally consecrated to cities, we use theoretical public policy analysis to explore the arenas and the causal mechanisms that structure the encounters between the EU and urban systems of governance. Policy instruments are related to policy arenas and in turn to different mechanisms of transmission thus originating a typology of European Policy Modes. The paper focuses on four different EU instruments in the in the macro-area of sustainable development and proposes potential game-theoretical models for each of them. In the conclusions we highlight the differences between this approach and the traditional analysis of EU urban policy, and suggest avenues for future empirical research based on typologies of policy instruments and modes of Europeanization
    • 

    corecore