Kazakhstan: Modernising Government in the Context of Political Inertia

Kazakhstan declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and joined the Commonwealth of Independent States. Since then it has witnessed a remarkable economic transformation under the leadership of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Pursuing a policy of ‘economy first and then politics’, Kazakhstan is under growing pressure to engage in political reforms which include a modernisation agenda to improve public service provision. Recent constitutional reforms have received a lukewarm reaction from the international community which Kazakhstan is keen to become part of. At the same time a progressive agenda of public services reform is well under way rooted in new public management and a desire to become much more customer focussed in their orientation. This article examines the parallel themes of political reforms and public services modernisation in Kazakhstan

From the Margins to the Mainstream: Community Restorative Justice in Northern Ireland

Paramilitary organisations exerted a stranglehold on working class loyalist and republican communities in Northern Ireland during the conflict. In the absence of an effective and legitimate policing service, paramilitaries developed an alternative ‘justice’ system in which they ‘punished’ those accused of committing crimes against the community. They adopted a punitive system of control which included threats or warnings, public humiliation, curfew, exiling, beatings and shootings. This article traces the evolution of this system from illegal paramilitary ‘policing’ through to restorative justice schemes which, over time, have become a recognised part of the formal criminal justice system. Specifically it examines the role which a series of evaluations had on influencing this transformation. At the very least, policy evaluation informed the political debate and provided evidence to move restorative justice from illegal activities to an integral part of the criminal justice syste

‘See no evil, hear no evil’: Insidious Paramilitary Violence in Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland has been variously described as having an ‘imperfect peace’ in which ‘acceptable levels of violence’ persist. Despite the endorsement of the main political parties to the principles of ‘democracy and non-violence’ enshrined in the Belfast Agreement, an insidious and brutalising form of paramilitary violence continues within communities. The government has opted to ‘see no evil, hear no evil’ given what is at stake in the wider political process. According to this approach, one must accept certain violent excesses in the interest of moving forward politically. This, however, creates both conceptual and practical problems around the issue of violence in Northern Ireland. By conceding that paramilitaries ‘police’ the informal criminal justice system in their areas with political and, in most cases, legal impunity, the government, de facto, defines what is ‘an acceptable level of violence’. This paper considers the nature and extent of ongoing paramilitary violence, how it has become enmeshed in the negotiated settlement and the consequences of this politicisation of violence

Democratic Renewal in Fragmental Communities: The Northern Ireland Case

Northern Ireland is perhaps the locus extremis of fragmental communities in the United Kingdom. The ethno-national tensions and political violence that have ravaged the Province for over 30 years continue unabated at a number of interface areas where single identity Catholic and Protestant communities live cheek by jowl. Intimidation, threats, rioting and naked sectarianism in the form of pickets mounted to protest against Catholic primary school children walking through ‘a Protestant estate’ (the so called 'Holy Cross' dispute) testify to increasing territorialism and community segregation. All of this continues despite the historic constitutional settlement in the form of the Belfast Agreement in which signatories affirmed their ‘total and absolute commitment to exclusively democratic and peaceful means of resolving differences on political issues, and opposition to any use or threat of force by others for any political purpose’ (Belfast Agreement, 1998: 1). This demonstrates, however, that the long-term ‘cohesive, inclusive and just society’ promised in the constitutional agreement cannot be delivered solely through a consensus amongst the political elite at Stormont, but must be grounded in work undertaken within communities who must endorse and see the tangible benefits of the peace dividend. Residents of North Belfast, for example, would need much convincing that the Belfast Agreement has delivered peaceful community co-existence . This paper examines local governance and the role of the active community in the democratic renewal of Northern Ireland. It considers this in 3 phases. The first phase (1921–1972) might be described as a period of disrepute, during which local government was discredited as an elected forum and used to consolidate Unionist hegemony. The second phase could be styled the emasculation of local government and the emergence of a strong voluntary and community sector to fill the vacuum left by the democratic deficit of Direct Rule from Westminster (1972-1999). The final and current phase might be characterised as a period of democratic renewal (1999 onwards) or what Carmichael (1999) has described as ‘devolution-plus’. This period involves a twin track approach. One element includes a review of public administration arrangements in Northern Ireland incorporating local government, quangos and agencies (but importantly not the 11 government departments). The second element has three aims: firstly, to develop more formal arrangements with the voluntary and community sector in the decision making processes of government departments; secondly, the institutionalisation of social partnership through the Civic Forum, established under the Belfast Agreement; and finally, the emergence of local partnership arrangements in a number of important functional areas (health, community safety and ‘well-being’). The dilemma facing Members of the Legislative Assembly, who have been bereft of electoral power for nearly 30 years, is how to balance the need to involve an active community alongside rebuilding a local democratic base. This poses particular questions about the future role of local government in Northern Ireland under a reformed system of public administration. The fact that these three temporal phases correspond to key political milestones in the political chronology of Northern Ireland should not be surprising. The focus of this paper will necessarily be on the final phase although a short summary of the first two stages should provide a context for discussions which follo

Research within Evaluation: the case of Northern Ireland In K.Bush and C. Duggan (eds) Evaluation in the Extreme: Research Impact and Politics in Violently Divided Societies

This chapter looks at the evaluation of research within programme evaluation under four key headings: The evaluation of research on the theory of change which provides the rationale for the programme. An evaluation of the research conducted by the delivery agents to assess the formative impact of the programme aimed at checking programme delivery. The role played by the evaluator in assessing research within the context of programme evaluation. The influence of research as one component in a programme of activities, and the contribution it makes to the overall programme objectives

Good Governance Matters in Kazakhstan

Good Governance Matters is the strapline of Nazarbayev University’s Graduate School of Public Policy. But what does “good governance” mean for the citizens of Kazakhstan? If Kazakhstan is to join the top 30 developed countries in the world as set out in the President’s 2050 Strategy, then having high quality public services will be key to achieving this. There are important signs that good things are happening in Kazakhstan in this regard

Building Trust amidst Corruption in Bangladesh

The People’s Republic of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, became an independent state after the civil war of 1971 and joined the Commonwealth in 1972. It is a densely populated South Asian country with some 142 million people who commonly experience natural disasters in the form of floods and cyclones in the flat land and delta of rivers on the Bay of Bengal. Poverty is widespread with GDP per head estimated at just $444 in 2007, or almost half the population living on less than one dollar per day (Oxford Economics, 2008). Since independence, Bangladesh has experienced political turbulence and spent 15 years under military rule until democracy was restored in 1991. Continuing unrest and violence have been a major impediment to economic growth set alongside the increasing strength of Islamic fundamentalism. Politics have been dominated and polarised by the two largest political parties, long-time rivals the Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The October 2001 elections produced a BNP victory in the form of a 4-party alliance. The opposition party, Awami League, refused to accept the result and from 2001-2006 their attendance at parliament was sporadic, claiming discrimination by the BNP speaker. Violence and political strikes/hartals have accompanied the political turmoil. In August 2004, twenty people were killed and more than 100 injured in a grenade attack at an Awami League political rally. In January 2005 the former finance minister, Shah Kibria, was assassinated along with four colleagues and over 70 injured in an attack at an AL rally in Northern Bangladesh. Since summer 2006 opposition parties, directed by Awami League, claimed that the BNP-led government was seeking to manipulate the electoral infrastructure and announced in January 2007 a boycott of the general election. The parliamentary elections were cancelled. On 11th January 2007, the President declared a state of emergency and a reconstituted unelected military-backed caretaker government was put in place. Under the constitution, executive power rests with the caretaker government until a prime minister heading a new administration is sworn in following a parliamentary election. Foreign governments were keen to see emergency rule lifted and the restoration of full constitutional rights amidst reports of human rights abuses and mass arrests. Parliamentary elections were held on 29th December 2008 to a new civilian government after two years of emergency rule. One of the most fundmental obstacles to building trust in Bangladesh is the pervasiveness of corruption at many levels: parliament, elections, and the delivery of core public services. People feel powerless to address the excesses of corruption and have lost faith in the democratic system. The role of the caretaker government was to tackle polarization and patronage and, in so doing, to establish trust in the democratic process. This paper considers the ‘success’ of building and maintaining trust in Bangladesh’s parliamentary democrac

The reform of public administration in Northern Ireland: A squandered opportunity?

The Review of Public Administration in Northern Ireland was heralded at its launch in 2002 by the then First Minister as an opportunity to put in place ‘a modern, accountable, effective system of public administration that can deliver a high quality set of public services’. Some ten years on, it remains a work in progress. The process of reform became enmeshed in the on-off pattern of devolution, at which point direct rule ministers in the Northern Ireland Office assumed control and reached ‘final’ decisions in 2006 to radically restructure local government, education, health and other public bodies. With the restoration of devolution, local ministers felt no sense of ownership of the reforms and made significant changes. What started out as a rational exercise in administrative reform became mired in party politics and is unlikely to complete until 201

‘Joined-Up’ Government: An integrated response to communal violence in Northern Ireland?

The growing recognition that social problems are multi-faceted and need to be tackled in a way which cut-across traditional departmental boundaries has heralded the advent of joined-up government. Yet this new emphasis does not appear to have permeated the provision of public services in Northern Ireland in their response to the increasingly pervasive social problem of communal violence perpetrated by paramilitaries against those suspected of committing crime within their own communities. This paper examines the response of governmental and non-governmental agencies to this issue and questions whether victims of violence could benefit from an integrated approach. A deep suspicion and mistrust of the statutory authorities and the ‘undeserving’ character of victims currently militate against a joined-up approach