Suchergebnisse

Both the UK and German governments have sought to expand child-care provision. There is some evidence of convergence between the two countries in respect of changes in governance as well, but we suggest that the differences remain more striking. The paper draws on national-level data and local case-studies in both countries. We comment on the nature of the expansion of child care and, briefly, on the degree of commitment to it, before exploring the operation of the mixed economy of child care in each country and the relationship between local and central government. We seek the explanation for the differences we observe in the articulation between these two key modes of governance.

The rapid development of the Peoples' Republic of China has put increasing strains on an overwhelmed administrative and bureaucratic structure that was already hobbled by persistent inefficiency and corruption. In addition to anti-corruption and professionalization campaigns, the government has devised a system of e-governance with the goal of adding stability and order to a chaotic governing process. This includes re-establishing the control of the governing authorities, including improving the quality of surveillance and data gathering and hence policy-making; the elimination of corruption; and ultimately, the re-legitimation of the Communist Party of China. This paper discusses the critical administrative and political problems facing the government, demonstrates ways in which e-government has been designed to meet these, and discusses the problems presented by a reliance on e-government in a developing country.

The land issue lies at the heart of New Caledonia history and politics, in the form of a long-term legal dualism of land tenure and citizenship, initiated with the settler colonisation, the creation of reserves and the invention of tribes in the late 19th century. This dualism is nowadays expressed in the guise of an asymmetric triad distinguishing customary land from public and private properties. The movement for independence in the 1970s has put land claims on the central stage. After 1984-1989 violent events, political tensions have been decreasing thanks to Matignon (1989) and Nouméa (1998) agreements. Land reform has been carried out by ADRAF, a state agency that has been playing a key role in adjusting land distribution between European and Melanesian communities and producing customary land. Parallel to this, a customary senate and cultural area councils have been built up following Nouméa agreement, completing the neocustomary apparatus originating in the colonisation. The politics of custom is thus constitutive of Caledonian land governance, through discursive practices mobilising and manipulating the past and institutionalising processes sometimes playing against the customary logic of negotiability (for instance by promoting devices such as the contested "customary cadastre"). In this contribution, I will review the current political debates and public choices revolving around land governance and customary principles and outline related research orientations highlighting converging elements between political and social sciences agendas.