Suchergebnisse

This paper explores how a political ironic attitude can strengthen experimental modes of governance. It was written for the master course 'Core themes in public administration' at the University of Utrecht. Political irony as coined by Jessop (2003) emphasizes administrators' capacity to adapt means and modes of governance through reflexivity, learning and intervening. As such, it holds specific potential for public administrators seeking to align policies within the broader interests of networks outside their administration. The paper explores the ironic attitude among participants in two projects located in the city of Amsterdam, both aimed to improve sustainable urban living. Findings suggest that it is especially through reflexivity, that participants come to adapt their mode of governance.

In this article, we examine how the social disturbance precipitated by 'fake news' can be viewed as a kind of infrastructural uncanny. We suggest that the threat of problematic and viral junk news can raise existential questions about the routine circulation, engagement and monetisation of content through the Web and social media. Prompted by the unsettling effects associated with the 'fake news' scandal, we propose methodological tactics for exploring (1) the link economy and the ranking of content, (2) the like economy and the metrification of engagement and (3) the tracker economy and the commodification of attention. Rather than focusing on the misleading content of junk news, such tactics surface the infrastructural conditions of their circulation, enabling public interventions and experiments to interrogate, challenge and change their role in reconfiguring relations between different aspects of social, cultural, economic and political life.

In September 2018, the respected Critical and Radical Social Work journal (Policy Press, University of Bristol) published a remarkably simplistic and arguably non-scholarly paper by a radical Left academic from Scotland on the controversy concerning left-wing anti-Semitism within the British Labour Party (Maitles 2018). The paper, whilst of minimal importance in itself, can be seen as symbolizing the extent to which sections of the academic Left, influenced by the poisonous Boycott, Divestment and Sections (BDS) movement, have abandoned even the pretence of applying core academic standards to debates around the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Instead, the presentation of historical facts and empirical evidence concerning Jewish history and experiences, and indeed the determination of political strategies towards anti-Jewish racism, seem to be subordinated to the higher priority of fighting what is labelled Zionism and so aiding the Palestinian nationalist agenda.

The care-less marketplace is a discrete site which reinforces structural inequality in the affective domain of life. Drawing on the work of pro-care feminist theory, this empirical paper explores marketplace exclusion from the perspective of economic disadvantage and its impact on relations of love, care and solidarity. Adopting a voice-centred-relational approach, this interpretative study examines the narrative accounts of a diverse group of women living in diverse poverty contexts. Articulating marketplace exclusion as a series of affective burdens, material struggles and disconnections embedded within the relational web of family, friends and community - these experiences mirror participants' imposed exclusion in the marketplace due to chronic economic hardship. Through the diffusion of an alternative theoretical lens, affective inequality surfaces the importance of care and how it is often most visible in the lives of vulnerable consumers when it is absent or broken.

Street-level bureaucrats (SLB) are, according to the literature, assigned a crucial role providing better policy implementation and generating trust between the system and the citizens. In this article, we argue that Lipsky's division between public managers and SLB needs an update. Today more public managers are expected to work closely and directly with affected stakeholders in order to solve cross-cutting 'wicked problems'. More interactive and participative collaborative policy processes increasingly require public managers to move from back-office work to front-office work, in effect converting public managers to SLB. The key question raised is thus: What kind of skills and capabilities of SLB are needed in more interactive forms of public policy making? And what are the consequences for how the universities educate these groups?' Drawing on a study of 32 urban professionals that work in the frontline in deprived neighbourhoods, we scrutinize what challenges and dilemmas the professionals face in their work with interactive processes. By differing between 'academic specialists' and 'academic generalists' we are capable to pinpoint more precisely which skills are needed for each of these groups in order to secure transparent processes that keep the rule of law and that support well-functioning local communities – or in more broad terms: skills needed to secure democracy and economic efficiency. ; Street-level bureaucrats (SLB) play a crucial role in ensuring better policy implementa- tion and generating trust between the system and citizens, according to the literature. In this article, we argue that Lipsky's distinction between public managers and SLB needs an update. Today, public managers are increasingly expected to work closely and directly with affected stakeholders in order to solve cross-cutting 'wicked problems'. Interactive and participative collaborative policy processes require public managers to move from back-office work to front-office work, in effect converting public managers into SLB. The key question raised is, thus: what kind of skills and capabilities do SLB need to engage in today's more interactive forms of public policy-making? And what are the implications for how universities educate these groups?' Drawing on a study of 32 urban professionals who work on the frontline in deprived neighbourhoods, we scrutinise the challenges and dilemmas that professionals face in their work with interactive processes. By distinguishing between 'academic specialists' and 'academic generalists', we are able to pinpoint and differentiate between skills needed for each of these groups in order to secure transparent processes that abide by the rule of law and support well-functioning local communities and, more broadly, the skills needed to secure democracy and econom- ic efficiency.

In this review I argue that Puech draws on two important currents in modern thought: the criticism of the ontological and social priority of conflict, and the rehabilitation of praxis vis-A -vis theoria. Still, his plea for a non-confrontational art of living leaves important questions unanswered. What is the problem exactly? What does exactly count as (non)confrontational? What is non-confrontation exactly meant to solve? What is the antiposition here? And: how does this new (or rather: old) art of living relate to the political and ethical varieties of Technology Assessment?.