Bureaucratic Power Research Articles

Neoliberalism and managerial governance in the Swedish pre-school sector

ABSTRACT Tax-funded private provision of welfare services in Sweden is among the most extensive in Europe. This paper focuses on a contradictory example of how discrepancies between neoliberal ideals and practice are embedded in the governance of Swedish preschool. Over time, national and local regulations in Sweden have become increasingly comprehensive and moved toward managerial systems. Using Alain Enthoven’s model of managed competition, and drawing on documents and interviews, this paper focuses on two right-wing, urban municipalities with a very high share of preschools operated by private actors, and their organization of local preschool quasi-markets in terms of so-called sponsors concerning five functions: establishing rules of equity, approving all participating private pre-schools, managing the enrollment process, creating price-elastic demand, and managing risk-selection. The findings show how instead of limiting bureaucratic power, municipal managers have been empowered to plan and optimize the organization of the preschool sector in ways discordant with neoliberal ideas.

Aligning local governance with SDGs: a study of local government systems in Pakistan

ABSTRACT This study examines the experiences of local government councilors between 2013–2020 in four provinces of Pakistan. The study addresses three key questions: Firstly, it investigates the differences and commonalities in the local government structures across provinces and explores the potential for synchronization to enhance the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the local level. Secondly, it examines the main challenges local councilors face in effectively delivering basic services, including water, sanitation, health, education, waste management, and transport, within both rural and urban contexts. Lastly, the study analyses the necessary changes or reforms at the provincial level within the existing local government system in rural and urban areas to ensure the delivery of basic services in alignment with SDGs. The findings reveal that a powerful bureaucracy and political influence at the intermediate to upper levels of the government hierarchy exert significant control over administrative, fiscal, and political.

Why “free maternal healthcare” is not entirely free in Ghana: a qualitative exploration of the role of street-level bureaucratic power

BackgroundGhana introduced a free maternal healthcare policy within its National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2008 to remove financial barriers to accessing maternal health services. Despite this policy, evidence suggests that women incur substantial out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for maternal health care. This study explores the underlying reasons for these persistent out-of-pocket payments within the context of Ghana’s free maternal healthcare policy.MethodsCross-sectional qualitative data were collected through interviews with a purposive sample of 14 mothers and 8 healthcare providers/administrators in two regions of Ghana between May and September 2022. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed and imported into the NVivo 14.0 software for analysis. An iteratively developed codebook guided the coding process. Our thematic data analysis followed the Attride-Sterling framework for network analysis, identifying basic, organising themes and global themes.ResultsWe found that health systems and demand-side factors are responsible for the persistence of OOP payments despite the existence of the free maternal healthcare policy in Ghana. Reasons for these payments arose from health systems factors, particularly, NHIS structural issues – delayed and insufficient reimbursements, inadequate NHIS benefit coverage, stockouts and supply chain challenges and demand-side factors – mothers’ lack of education about the NHIS benefit package, and passing of cost onto patients. Due to structural and system level challenges, healthcare providers, exercising their street-level bureaucratic power, have partly repackaged the policy, enabling the persistence of out-of-pocket payments for maternal healthcare.ConclusionsUrgent measures are required to address the structural and administrative issues confronting Ghana’s free maternal health policy; otherwise, Ghana may not achieve the sustainable development goals targets on maternal and child health.

The power of bureaucracies: Shaping migration policy paradigms in Colombia and Ecuador

The power of bureaucracies: Shaping migration policy paradigms in Colombia and Ecuador

POLITICAL INTERESTS AND POLITICAL DECISIONS: THE POSSIBILITIES OF FORMING A DEMOCRATIC AGENDA

The article is devoted to the study of political interest as a hidden determinant of the activity of associated and non-associated pressure groups (informal lobbying) within the bureaucratic power vertical. Applying modern interdisciplinary methodological tools, the author offers a rationale for the expediency of public articulation of political interests, elimination of hidden lobbying, as well as non-public agreements between the main political players, which slow down the modernization of the institutional environment of the democratic political system. The article reveals and describes the optimal efforts of the Ukrainian political class, which will be aimed at implementing the specified strategic changes. The author reveals an explanation of the functioning of the mechanisms by which interest groups operate and their influence on the formation of the agenda. The crucial importance of interest groups for understanding the dynamics of political decision-making is noted. It is emphasized that group actors are working to bring their issues to the top of the political agenda. The text examines the functionality of providing well-grounded and reasoned information by interested groups that reinforces the importance of their demands. The paper addresses demonstrations, petitions, and social media campaigns as common tactics used to mobilize public opinion and pressure political institutions into action. The article analyzes the pooling of resources and efforts by associated interest groups that purposefully increase the likelihood that their issues will be high on the political agenda. It is noted that publicizing demands and problems can lead to a change in the course and strategy of the current leadership or power team. It has been established that by consistently advocating their cause in public, group actors can ensure consideration of agenda items by politicians and attract media attention. Attention is paid to the cooperation of political forces and interested groups to obtain detailed information and recommendations during the development of draft laws or regulatory acts. Emphasis is placed on the priorities of elected officials who seek to conform to the “mainstream” of public opinion and public sentiment. In the final part of the article, the author emphasizes that the full representation of political interests and the interests of minority groups that are not in the mainstream of public attention. It was concluded that the institutional structure of European democracy is more open to the development of public interests. Therefore, for modern Ukraine, an important element is the formation of structures of political arbitration regarding the conflict of political interests or the provision of this functionality to already existing institutions

Peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and the ‘balance of bureaucratic power’ in Kofi Annan’s Secretariat: a micro-history of two United Nations departments

ABSTRACT This article reviews the interplay of bureaucratic, power-political, and conceptual challenges that affected the UN Secretariat during the tenure of Kofi Annan (1996–2006). Through fresh sources – including the diaries and private papers of the late Sir Marrack Goulding – it considers the case of the two largest and most influential administrative units in New York in charge of peace missions, the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). It argues that the reason for their notoriously conflictual relationship goes beyond bureaucratic rivalries and involves a host of systemic factors – including technocratic rationality, great powers influence over the Secretariat, UN financing, and the porous borders between peacekeeping and peacebuilding. These factors affected the ‘balance of bureaucratic power’ in New York, a balance which under Annan shifted from DPA and peacebuilding towards DPKO and peacekeeping, and which the reforms of Ban and Guterres have not fundamentally altered.

A multi-case study of the vertically integrated health-care at county-level in rural China: towards holistic and dynamic governance.

In contrast to the Grading Diagnosis and Treatment System (GDTS), Vertically Integrated Health-care at County-level (VIHC) is a strategic policy in rural China. This research intends to analyze the shift in governance paradigm with regard to the adjustment of the power structure and interest relationships among various participants, using the building of VIHC as a cut-in point. We carry out a multi-case study to investigate the paradigms of health governance when building VIHC in three different rural counties in China. There were exchanges between government and other participants, vertical and horizontal collaborations among government divisions, and prompt responses to public requirements. County C's local administration, in particular, placed a strong emphasis on bureaucratic power and collaboration between various departments both within and outside of administrative boundaries. In contrast, County B's local administration emphasized the independence of healthcare practitioners and worked to win their support. In contrast to the previous two governments, County A encouraged social actors to participate and saw a little improvement in performance. In examining the health reform in rural China, this study paints a picture of the development of the health governance paradigm. In rural China, a comprehensive and dynamic governance paradigm was created through the integration of the health decision-making process, which was driven by the public's health needs, the operation mechanism, which featured both competition and cooperation, and the action logic of sharing responsibility.

Crime and Policing in Africa: Tactical Politics, Authoritarianism, and the Rule of Law

In 2020, Nigerian youths took to the streets to demand the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the Nigerian Police with a long history of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, extortion, torture, and other atrocities. The Nigerian government created the division in 1992 following the killing of an army colonel, under the pretense of fighting a crime wave which was sweeping the country. In the “societies of enmity” (Achille Mbembe, “The Society of Enmity” [Radical Philosophy Vol. 200, No. 1], 23–25) we live in today, the growing militarization of law enforcement in the context of the “war on crime” has put even solid democracies in grave danger and continues to justify authoritarianism and military regimes worldwide. The expansion of state powers through the violent exploitation of its growing “margins,” (V. Das and D. Poole, eds., Anthropology at the Margins of the State [School of American Research Press, 2004]) tarnished with the signs of danger, illegality, and precariousness, has shown that bureaucratic power and state violence walk hand in hand in instituting highly unequal but economically viable social orders in postcolonial Africa and elsewhere. Those movements configure an emergent threat coming from a tactical level of political action and show that contemporary political power can indeed emerge from the tip of a machine gun, proving Walter Benjamin’s critique of Hannah Arendt’s famous image (“Critique of Violence” in Deconstruction, a Reader [Routledge, 2017], 62–70).

Birokrasi Pemerintahan Pendekatan Sistem Hukum Moral dan Manajemen dalam Upaya Pencegahan Korupsi di Indonesia

The bureaucracy has full authority in the management of government budgets and the delivery of public services. Bureaucratic power can lead to abuse of power and corruption in government activities. Lord Epton sad "power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely". The statement illustrates that government power has the opportunity to become corrupt. Corruption is the most serious problem not only in developing countries but also in developed countries. There are many strategies to fight it. Corruption has been successfully proven by experts and practitioners around the world. Today, there are three main approaches to fighting corruption. First, the legal approach that emphasizes the development of national laws through political decisions and emphasizes law enforcement that upholds the laws of the country. Second, the moral approach, which emphasizes efforts to persuade people not to do wrong and avoid abuse of power with self-awareness. Third, the management system approach emphasizes the development of a management system based on transparency and accountability. The third approach aims to eliminate opportunities for corruption by designing a management system that does not provide opportunities for government officials to commit corruption by providing space for the public to control all government activities through investigation and claim mechanisms. The first approach has weaknesses

Misrecognitions of Victimhood: Discretionary Power of Street-level Bureaucrats in Humanitarian Visas

Humanitarian visas provide one of few potential pathways to citizenship for foreign nationals victimized within the United States and are an important aspect of immigration law. Yet one form of humanitarian visas—T nonimmigrant status (T visa)—has received scant attention in the socio-legal studies literature. “T visas” were designed to aid survivors of human trafficking and, though the US government estimates that tens of thousands of individuals are trafficked in the United States every year, only 15 percent of the five thousand T visas available annually have been granted since the program’s inception in 2002. Why are T visas such an underutilized form of immigration relief? Drawing on twenty in-depth interviews with immigration lawyers, law enforcement personnel, and non-governmental organization service providers routinely involved in T visa applications, we find that the low rate of applications and approvals is driven by a combination of structural barriers and expansive discretion of key actors in the legal process to interpret and apply the law, which results in a narrow and often misinformed construction of victimhood. We add to the literature on the discretionary power of street-level bureaucrats to shape the law and determine how it is applied with considerable consequences for survivors of trafficking.

Understanding data professionals in the police: a qualitative study of system-level bureaucrats

ABSTRACT Through the introduction of algorithmic systems into police organizations, a new employee emerged: the data professional. Contrary to street-level officers, little is known of the discretionary power of these system-level bureaucrats. Our qualitative research into the Netherlands Police provides a first empirical and theoretical understanding. The study shows that data professionals exert discretion and are aware of public values, but their value-sensitivity often does not translate into responsible practices. Data professionals use a variety of arguments to dissociate themselves from, or downplay, their responsibilities. We conclude that this distancing hampers the connection between the discretion and responsibility of data professionals.

Sustainable Endogenous Development Path Based on Rural Local Elite Governance Model: A Case Study of Xiamen

Under the background of the decline of rural society, the brain drain and the lack of endogenous development power are one of the main reasons restricting the development of rural China. Although village committees and village Party committees, as grassroots governance instictutions, have played a great role in the process of rural revitalization, it is still difficult to achieve effective governance in rural areas with only top-down bureaucratic power. Therefore, activating the vitality of local elites and promoting the bottom-up development of rural areas is the internal driving force of rural revitalization. However, local elites have neither the institutional power of grassroots cadres nor the same prestige as clan elders. Therefore, for local elites to gain effective governance power, they must go through a process of empowerment, that is, gaining recognition from various forces within the village. Taking the Yuanqian Community of Xiamen city in Fujian Province as an example, this paper analyzes the formation process of local elite power. In this process, local elites gained the trinity of administrative, social and economic empowerment, and became the subject of governance power and the leader of rural revitalization. A new rural governance network with local elites as the core was constructed in the Yuanqian Community. Under the role of the new governance network, the material space and industrial space of the village have been transformed, thus promoting the revitalization of the countryside. At the same time, the village gradually expanded its influence and eventually became a model village in the field of rural revitalization. Due to its growing influence, the Yuanqian Community has achieved sustainable development. The case of Xiamen shows that local elites could gain effective governance power through an empowerment process. Then, by reconstructing the rural governance network, local elites could be the important social foundation of rural sustainable endogenous development.

Earthly intermundia: office space in the works of Charles Dickens

ABSTRACT Charles Dickens’s literary preoccupation with bureaucracy reflects its ascendant, but often contradictory, position in Victorian society. Exclusive, disordered, and in parts archaic – but at the same time increasingly pervasive, and visibly cohering into a recognisably modern form – bureaucratic organisation became a major (albeit neither infallible, nor uncontested) phenomenon in fiction during this period as much as in real life. In this article I explore such portrayals by focusing on Dickens’s aesthetic of the ostensible centre of bureaucratic power, the office itself, as a space. By rooting his ironical and often paradoxical uses of this setting within the broader crises of social knowledge and materiality that underlay nineteenth-century bureaucratisation, I argue that the Dickensian office, between The Pickwick Papers, Dombey and Son, and Bleak House, performs a range of functions directly linked to its multifaceted condition of interstiality. These interstices are literal, in the office’s capacity as a physical intermediary, but also social, conceptual, and in terms of literary form.

Māṇḍavlī: negotiating with digital governance in Mumbai

ABSTRACT Mumbai’s municipal bureaucracy introduced an online complaints platform in 2016, promising increased transparency and improved public service. This article argues that this “smart” urban technology, which records grievances against land encroachments and violations of building codes, strengthens existing class and caste inequalities in who can access and manipulate state land administration. Through an ethnographic exploration of Mumbai’s bureaucracy, it makes visible a complex system of negotiation—locally known as “māṇḍavlī”—that structures a range of tacit practices of exchange and mediation between politicians, bureaucrats, and brokers. Although these arrangements remain intact, the online complaints platform has reduced the discretionary power of low-level bureaucrats by centralising and rendering opaque the functioning of ethically ambiguous local brokers. By re-focusing attention on the everyday operation of smart urban technologies within the municipal body in the megacity of Mumbai, this article furthers the agenda of alternative smart urbanisms from the Global South.

Navigating the Hidden Politics of Water Resource Bureaucracies in Indonesia: Mapping Issue-Elements and Alliances

Water resource politics are often overlooked for jurisdictional perspectives, or difficult to comprehend for the politics unfolding behind the scenes. Using Indonesia as a case study, we synthesized all water-related bureaucracies to generate a list of “Water resource Issue-Elements,” which served as a framework for translating actor-centered power dynamics. The data is based on policies reviewed from 2014 to 2017, coinciding with the beginning of a new presidential administration with heightened interests in water resource management. The study found that while the central coordinating and planning bureaucracies wield the strongest network power, two sectoral bureaucracies hold tremendous influence in guiding water resource management, which unfold under conditions of highly fragmented politics. On the one hand, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry influences water resources through its land management mandate and seeks to enlarge its bureaucratic power beyond state forest boundaries through the concept of watersheds. On the other hand, The Ministry of Public Works and Housing maintains its traditional mandate for managing river basins, wielding large budgets and networks to control information and determine project-related disbursements. As these two bureaucracies shape alliances administering water resources, their delegating responsibilities also refract to regional bureaucracies, shaping a new set of subnational contestations.

Emergency Responses Under COVID-19: Development Assistance, ‘Structural Violence’, and ‘Interpretive Labour’ in Samoa

Data gathered in Samoa before and after the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic on 11 March 2020 compare and contrast the nature and extent of ‘structural violence’ perpetrated by ‘egoistic’ bilateral development assistance. Despite much higher risks and costs to aid recipients than under normal circumstances, during the pandemic, donor control in ‘increasingly detailed and encompassing ways’ and donor use of ‘technical discourse’ to conceal ‘hidden purposes of bureaucratic power or dominance’ both increased significantly. Pandemic-induced opportunistic abandonments by donor governments of neoliberal policy principles did not ameliorate such structural violence. Individual differences among donor officials affected how control was exercised and whether host-government ‘ownership’ and ‘leadership’ of development assistance was flouted peremptorily, or denied more subtly and politely (with ‘warm regards’); and they influenced the volume and complexity of ‘interpretive labour’ required of resistance. But donor domination and control were undiminished by any of this. ‘Bullshit’ jobs and the blind allegiance of their (donor) incumbents were crucial to the realisation of such ends. The findings reconfirm the embeddedness of the neoliberal order and shed light on the character of its deep-seated bureaucratic resistance to change. JEL: F35, F54, F55, O19, O20, O22, P48

The Connection between Buddhist Temples, the Landscape, and Monarchical Power: A Comparison between Tuoba Hong (471–499) from the Northern Wei Dynasty and Li Shimin (626–649) from the Tang Dynasty

Since the Western Jin period, Buddhism has confronted bureaucratic power within the architectural landscape. In this study, historical records and archaeological reports of two Buddhist temples—the Siyuan Temple 思遠佛寺 built during the reign of Tuoba Hong 拓跋宏 and Emperor Xiaowen 孝文帝 of the Northern Wei dynasty, and the Zhaoren Temple 昭仁寺, built during the reign of Li Shimin 李世民 and Emperor Taizong 唐太宗 of the Tang dynasty—were examined. A comparison was made of the two temples’ geographic locations in relation to cities while considering period-specific phenomena. This study also considers mountains, water, and topographical features. The geographic information reflects differences in the ideas of the ruling class and monarchs of the two historical periods. The findings are that both Buddhist temples were close to the capital and both emperors demonstrated the supremacy of their power by building them. Therefore, the religious landscape owes its formation, development, and underlying significance to emperors and social groups.

Unknown Polish Constitution Draft of 1919. Contribution to the history of European political thought in the first half of the 20th century

Source research conducted by the authors in the area of the history of the Polish system led to the discovery of the anonymous constitution draft of 1919 in the Archives of New Records in Warsaw. The article presents the analysis of the main assumptions of this draft. This discovery made it possible to formulate a thesis that in the systemic debate in 1917–1921 there were more original concepts and private drafts of the constitution deviating from the accepted schemes than indicated by current state of research. The analysed draft is original and, unfortunately, a forgotten system concept. It is also a testimony to the richness of Polish legal and political thought in the first half of the 20th century. Among the analysed elements there are, inter alia, the omission of the principle of the sovereignty of the people, or the tripartite division of power in favour of the specific form of clerical rule – the power of bureaucracy with a wide range of collegial institutions, as well as drawing on foreign models – references to the British model of parliamentary secretaries, or the system of administration in the German Reich.

Holism in Development

This study sought to understand the purposes and effects of development projects carried out in marginalized places. To get a foundation on how these projects work, I researched the Thaba-Tseka project, which was active in the late 1970s through the early 1980s. The central ethnography I used for this research was The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho by James Ferguson (1990). Additionally, I investigated how traditional ecological knowledge and a holistic approach can realign development values to be less ethnocentric. This study shows that while development projects tend to be bad for the groups that they intend to assist, there is potential for improvement through a reversal of approach. There is potential for development projects to bring about positive change in the world through the incorporation of holistic perspectives and traditional ecological knowledge.

From ‘yol’ to diasporic Alevism: migration and religious change among Alevis in Britain

ABSTRACT This article explores how a religion ‘on the move’ responds to the challenges of diasporic conditions and provides an understanding of how migrant religions articulate and orient their ritual universe and social and organizational structures. Drawing on research using ethnographic fieldwork on the British Alevi community in London, the article examines how Alevism is lived, ritualized and practised in migration settings to explore the formation and experience of diasporic religion. The religious structures established through historical processes have encountered many challenges and have updated and re-oriented in new settings. Such structural changes, although first provoked by rural–urban migration, shifted and ripened in the diaspora. This migration-driven institutional development has emphasized an institutional and spatial shift since Alevism is now centred on cemevis (cem houses), a characteristic that substantially distinguishes post-migration Alevism from its old pre-migration form. The institutional and spatial transition has replaced spiritual charisma with bureaucratic power legitimized through cemevis. The article demonstrates that the migration and diaspora experience has profoundly transformed ritualized Alevi culture.