Suchergebnisse

To explain the institutional developments of the EC/EU, the traditional theories of European integration used to build their arguments around two opposite and well-known models of public authority, the International Organisation one vs. the State one: But both of these yardsticks have proven to be of limited heuristic power, faced with the peculiarity of the EC/EU institutional configuration. The deadlock that classic theories run into, then, was just bypassed by the following studies, that left behind the "ontological question" to focus on middle-range fields or specific dynamics, driven by the idea that the system had a unique nature, but the way it worked could be known and named. Thus, the post-ontological studies often referred to the European institutional level as a "governance system", to indicate that the EC/EU is able to allocate values by shaping trans-boundary policy processes, but through an institutional interplay hardly referable to some conventional political model. Thus, this paper aims (1) to analyse the different contents attached to the "governance" label in European studies since the fixing Hix made when talking of a "new governance agenda" in 1998, (2) to recast the ontological question in the light of the "new governance", a theoretical framework linking Rosenau's concept of self-sustaining trans-boundary "Spheres of Authority" to policy cycles now decoupled from the nation-state jurisdictions, and (3) to define and apply this framework to the institutional development of the EC/EU, to identify the reasons beneath the common project actual stalemate.

The Pacific Islands are feeling the effects of globalisation. Free trade in sugar and garments is threatening two of Fiji's key industries. At the same time other opportunities are emerging. Labour migration is growing in importance, and Pacific governments are calling for more access to Australia's labour market. Fiji has joined Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Kiribati as a remittance economy, with thousands of its citizens working overseas. Meantime, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands grapple with an older kind of globalisation in which overseas companies exploit mineral and forest resources. The Pacific Islands confront unique problems of governance in this era of globalisation. The modern, democratic state often fits awkwardly with traditional ways of doing politics in that part of the world. Just as often, politicians in the Pacific exploit tradition or invent it to serve modern political purposes. The contributors to this volume examine Pacific globalisation and governance from a wide range of perspectives. They come from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Hawai'i, the Federated States of Micronesia, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand and Jamaica as well as Australia.

The literature shows that good corporate governance generally pays for firms, for markets, and for countries. It is associated with a lower cost of capital, higher returns on equity, greater efficiency, and more favorable treatment of all stakeholders, although the direction of causality is not always clear. The law and finance literature has documented the important role of institutions aimed at contractual and legal enforcement, including corporate governance, across countries. Using firm level data, researchers have documented relationships between countries corporate governance frameworks on the one hand and performance, valuation, the cost of capital, and access to external financing on the other. Given the benefits of good corporate governance, firms and countries should voluntarily reform more. Resistance by entrenched owners and managers at the firm level and political economy factors at the level of markets and countries partly explain why they do not.

In recent years western aid agencies have come to embrace the language and practices of "ownership". This signals a shift away from conditionality as the dominant mode of relationship between these agencies and recipient states. The principle concern of this paper is to locate this shift in the changing international political context. It argues that we should see "ownership" as intimately connected to an expanding global governance regime. Seen in this way the stress on "ownership" reflects a concern to configure and reconfigure patterns of governance. The emergence of a global governance regime has important implications for our understanding of development and for the future of political accountability in developing countries.

Politicians typically do not know what policies are best for achieving their broad objectives, so rely on bureaucrats for advice. Bureaucrats are better informed, so can manipulate outcomes by proposing policies that suit their interests. We capture this conflict of interests using a model of political decision-making that focuses on the interaction between politicians and the bureaucracies that advise them. In the basic model, a representative bureaucrat, knowing the characteristics of a given project, recommends to a representative politician whether to adopt it. If the politician chooses to adopt the project, its characteristics are revealed ex post. On the basis of the revealed outcome, the politician decides whether to discipline the bureaucrat. The bureaucrat anticipates imperfectly the chances of discipline when making an ex ante recommendation. When project characteristics are multi-dimensional, the politician can choose whether to seek advice from one bureaucrat or more than one. We compare outcomes in these centralized and decentralized regimes.

Este artículo reseña: Diane K. Denis and John J. McConnell (Eds). Governance : an international perspective. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2005 ; Governance: An International Perspective is a two-volume collection of articles published in academic journals, and is part of a series called 'Corporate Governance in the New Economy', comprising seven other books about several aspects of governance: Auditing, Ownership, Life Cycle of Corporate Governance, Political and Legal Perspectives of Corporate Governance, Governance & Expropriation, Governance in the Public Sector, and Directors & Boards. As other collections of articles, the book is oriented mainly towards academics, although it could also be of interest to students of accounting, finance, business or economics, and also to practitioners

The survival of the commons is closely associated with the potential to find ways to strengthen contemporary management systems, making them more responsive to a number of complexities, like the dynamics of ecosystems and related, but often fragmented, institutions. A discussion on the desirability of finding ways to establish socalled cross-scale linkages, i.e. connections among different actors from different levels, i.e. connections among different actors from different levels of organisation and geographical settings, recently has been vitalised in the literature. The establishment of such linkages is believed to have many advantages for the sustainable management of the commons. In the same vein, concepts like adaptive management, comanagement and adaptive co-management have been discussed. In essence, these ways of organizing management to generate alternative governance systems are more closely related to network governance and social network theory, than to political administrative hierarchy. However, so far, attempts to incorporate social network analysis (SNA) in this literature have been rather few, and not particularly elaborate. In this paper, a framework for such an approach will be presented. The framework provides an analytical skeleton for the understanding of joint management and the establishment of cross-scale linkages. The relationships between structural network properties - like density, centrality and heterogeneity, and innovation in adaptive co-management systems - are highlighted as major features of high functioning management systems. The paper makes a theoretical and methodological contribution to the understanding of co-management, and thereby to the survival of the commons. ; Godkänd; 2006; 20070920 (ysko)

The connection between governance and radicalization is explored in this working paper. Radicalisation requires a number of political and socio-economic conditions. In order to be effective and not remain confined to sub-cultural margins, radicalisation also requires infrastructural capacities in the forms of finance, organisational networks, and guiding ideas, perceptions and political ideologies. Counter radicalisation policy must take account of longterm developments and prospects, and must be concretely related to matters in the field which is complex and continuously changing.

e-Governance has recently emerged as a new field of interest for both researchers and public policy makers. This has to do in the first instance with the rise of information and communication technologies and with the strategy for promotion of the information society. It also reflects growing interest in the capacity of various forms of governance to manage complex development issues and facilitate decision-making in the era of globalization. The potential of e-Governance extends from improvement of public services at the various levels of administration to empowerment of community engagement within decision-making processes. e-Governance is also of manifest relevance to questions such as the digital divide and democratic participation. Metropolitan areas in particular are considered to be at the centre of the developmental process. They thus become the appropriate spatial level for the implementation of development programmes aimed at enhancement of competitiveness and employment. New forms of multilevel metropolitan governance emerge, in response to the economic and institutional transformations occurring in them. e-Governance represents a new challenge for metropolitan governance and in particular for development programming. In the context of the EU structural regional policy, development programming in Greece identifies the development of metropolitan areas as one of its main policy objectives. e-Governance is in any case a basic component of the Information Society strategy. This paper examines the implementation of e-Governance in the Thessaloniki metropolitan area, in the specific context of development programming. From this starting point, lessons are drawn for the necessity of e-Governance as an element of metropolitan governance.

Das Forschungsvorhaben befasst sich mit der Frage, ob es möglich ist, über die sozioemotionale Bindung an einen Raum (place) und damit verbundene Prozesse des Place-making neue Formen regionaler Selbststeuerung (Regional Governance) auszulösen, die das Management natürlicher Ressourcen unterstützen. Vor allem die amerikanische Literatur zu Naturschutz und Forstmanagement bestärkt Vermutungen über solche Zusammenhänge. Jedoch könnten dabei sozio-kulturelle Besonderheiten eine Rolle spielen (starke zivilgesellschaftliche Kultur), die auf deutsche Verhältnisse schwierig zu übertragen sind. Untersucht wurden Biosphärenreservate (BR), weil vermutet werden kann, dass hier die Bedingungen für die Entstehung solcher Beziehungen durch den integrierten Ansatz der Biosphärenreservate besonders günstig sind. Sollten diese Beziehungen hier nicht zu finden sein, wird es schwer sein, sie in Deutschland generell als relevant zu betrachten. Zu den untersuchten Biosphärenreservaten gehören die Rhön (bayerischer und hessischer Teil), Süd-Ost-Rügen sowie der Schaalsee. Ergänzt wurde die Untersuchung durch zwei Beispiele aus Großbritannien (Braunton Burrows (England) und Dyfi (Wales)) – der Vergleich sollte vor allem Hinweise für den Einfluss unterschiedlicher politisch-administrativer Rahmenbedingungen geben. Leitende Untersuchungsfragen waren, welche externen Einflussfaktoren die Entstehung von Governance-Arrangements begünstigen, wie die Governance-Arrangements funktionieren und welche Rolle dabei place und Place-making spielen. Methodisch basiert die Untersuchung neben der Auswertung der Literatur auf Dokumentenanalysen, Expertenbefragungen (110 Interviews), einem Workshop zur Kontrolle unserer schlussfolgernden Wertungen (mit 25 Experten), sowie einer Tagung (zusammen mit dem Leibniz-Institut für Regionalentwicklung und Strukturforschung (IRS), Erkner). Die empirische Untersuchung fand in Deutschland in der Zeit vom Oktober 2004 bis Mai 2005, in Großbritannien in der Zeit vom April 2005 bis Oktober 2005 statt. Hinsichtlich der Frage nach Empfehlungen zur Gestaltung von Regional Governance lässt sich keine einfache "Gebrauchsanweisung" geben. Es lassen sich aber Erfolgspotenziale identifizieren, bei deren optimaler Ausgestaltung ein hoher Erfolg wahrscheinlich ist. Zudem ist zu beachten, dass bei der Gestaltung von Governance-Arrangements zum einen strategische Entscheidungen relevant sind, die als aktive Weichenstellungen gelten können ('decision points'). Zum anderen sind bestimmte Kipp- und Wendepunkte in den Prozessen (beispielsweise zum Vertrauensaufbau oder der Akzeptanz des Biosphärenreservates) zu beachten ('tipping points'), die mit darüber entscheiden, ob sich solche Prozesse in positiver (oder negativer) Weise stabilisieren. ; This report is about local/ regional governance and placemaking in bioshere reserves in Germany and Great Britain. Main research questions are related to external factors for the genesis of governance-arrangemens, the functionality of governance arrangements and how this is connected to place.

Doctoral Thesis Rotterdam School of Management ; This dissertation deals with the interface between governance and strategic management in nonprofit organizations (NPOs). The discussion and analysis focus on the influence of the governance process on strategic decision-making, in particular the interaction between the board members and the top management team (so-called interface governance). The aim of this research project has been to analyze the effects of this interface governance on organizations' governance structure and the impact on organizational performance. The theoretical framework used in this dissertation is rooted in both the NPO governance and the strategic management literature. On the one hand, using NPO management and economic theories, a state of the art overview of governance in NPOs is presented. The typical characteristics of NPO organizations are discussed, as well as the consequences of such organizational peculiarities for both theory and practice. On the other hand, on the basis of strategic management literature – mostly coming from New Institutional Economics, stakeholder theory and resource-based view – a particular perspective on interface governance is presented. At the centre of attention are the factors, which in the context of interface governance can have an impact on the governance process and structure. On the basis of this theoretical framework, hypotheses have been formulated and tested, in a quantitative study using a sample of Austrian hospitals and old people's homes. An overall discussion of the research results and recommendations for a more efficient and effective interface governance in non-profit organizations can be found at the end of the dissertation.

This paper is a snapshot of the potential of Chinese environmental NGOs1 to effectively address environmental problems and needs, alone and in partnership with others. As environmental NGOs have only be on stage for the last ten years or so and as they undergo dynamic changes, a thoroughly conducted scientific analysis about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks is not possible yet. However, as the author has more than six years working experience with different Chinese environmental NGOs across the country, some empiric findings can be given, and some trends and tendencies be predicted. The paper starts with a look at the history of NGOs in China with a specific focus on environmental NGOs, followed by problems and chances caused by the present legal status of the groups. It then describes the main working areas of Chinese environmental NGOs, illustrating them by giving some representative examples. After a brief analysis, the paper proposes current trends and tendencies about the development of China's environmental NGOs. The main trend is that Chinese NGOs, independently on their origin (grass root, semistate organizations or Government-organized non-profit environmental organizations) will gain more respect and influence in both environmental awareness raising and as competent partners in policy formulation and law enforcement, if the State institutions concerned will involve them in planning and developing processes in an early stage and assist them in their capacity building.

ESPON project 2.3.2Governance of Territorial and Urban Policies from EU to Local Level holds an important position in the definition and elaboration of a common ground for investigating the institutional, instrumental ans procedural aspects of territorial and urban policies in Europe. The project focuses on the question how effective different systems are, e.g. considering a policy mix of spatial planning (in different forms implemented by Member States), local government powers and taxation policy in defining common spatial development strategies and objectives such as a polycentric urban system, balancing urban-rural needs, reviving derelict urban areas, urban regeneration, sustainable management of the natural and cultural assets. In that perspective, an analysis based on a comparative review of the instruments used, and stakeholders involved in various policy areas and processes, is being undertaken to draw some valuable conclusions of practical relevance on governance. The report sums up the main overall findings of the ESPON 2.3.2 project and presents in more detail the contributions delivered by IRPUD. The structure of this report is as follows. Part 1 summarizes the project in terms of research aims, hypotheses and key findings. The following parts present research work done by IRPUD. It starts with a German National Overview on the application of governance practices (part 2) and two case studies for urban and territorial governance (part 3). The second half of the report presents on a quantitative analysis of several indicators. Part 4 on data and indicators discusses data quality and develops the quantitative approach for measuring governance. In part 5 the report draws a synthesis of governance trends identified in the national case studies.

How might we think about democratic governance? This paper distinguishes between system governance and radical democracy. Systems governance borrows the language of radical democracy while missing its spirit. It advocates increased participation through networks because new institutionalists suggest networks are an efficient means of service delivery. It advocates increased consultation to build consensus because communitarians suggest consensus is needed for effective political institutions. System governance is, then, a top-down discourse based on the alleged expertise of social scientists. Radical democrats concentrate instead upon the self-government of citizens. Instead of the incorporation of established groups in networks, they promote a pluralism within which aspects of governance are handed over to associations in civil society. And instead of consultation prior to decision-making, they promote a dialogue in which citizens play an active role in making and implementing public policy.

The Latin American and Caribbean Center of Florida International University, the U.S. Southern Command, and the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College held the ninth in a series of major annual conferences dealing with security and defense matters in the Western Hemisphere on February 1-3, 2006, in Miami, Florida. The conference, entitled "The Challenge of Governance and Security," brought together over 150 conferees who participated in a robust program of panels, question and answer sessions, and workshops. They exchanged perspectives and evaluated the contemporary hemispheric security situation. The dialogued amicably, with less tendency than in the past to either blame the United States for everything, or look to Washington to solve all of Latin America's problems. At the same time, civilian and military participants engaged in little "fingerpointing" and participants made no effort to keep police forces out of the dialogue. None viewed of the military as a menace, but rather as an important asset that had to be utilized effectively along with other instruments of national and international power to generate security, stability, development, democracy, and effective sovereignty. In this context, the conference dialogue centered on a broad and virtually all-inclusive internal threat environment, and the need for "good governance" to deal with a situation in which "everything is a part of everything else."