Bureaucratic Rules Research Articles

Varieties of State-Building: Ecology, Clientelism, and Bureaucratic Rule in Chile

Current research suggests that all states share a perpetual appetite for extraction and standardization. However, this research overlooks the fact that subnational regions present different appeals and challenges to ruling coalitions. While states seek to extend bureaucratic rule over peripheries with valuable assets and favorable geography, they might instead seek to preserve local patrimonial bastions when those areas offer substantial electoral support. In turn, these strategies lead to broad subnational heterogeneity in the reach of the state. This paper focuses on regions’ ecological, military, and clientelistic features to explain local trajectories of bureaucratic rule and country-level state capacity. Empirically, I examine Chile, a successful case of capacity-building in Latin America. Prompted by a fiscal crisis in the mid-1850s, Chile’s central government launched state-building projects to offset its budgetary deficit. Using GIS and original data from censuses, budgets, and other primary sources, I show that Chile’s ruling coalition paradoxically modernized the country’s peripheries while deepening its own traditionalism. These results challenge prevailing narratives about the projection of political authority and Chile’s territorial uniformity.

Financial Constraints and Funding Solutions for Small Startups in Emerging Markets

This paper aims to analyse the challenges that small startups experience in emerging markets when accessing finance, the feasibility of non-traditional sources of funding, and the relevant policies that can help enhance funding. Intensified poverty and a lack of physical infrastructure that factors traditional banking solutions derive their effectiveness from means small startups in these areas have low access to credit, high interest rates, and underdeveloped venture capital markets. These constraints limit their advancement, expansion, and capacity to operate and maintain their businesses and thus are characterised by high failure rates. Others are; crowdfunding, microfinancing, and digital lending which can be considered as crucial methods used in bridging the gap in funding. Crowdfunding equalises capital access since Startups can issue funds directly from the public while microfinance offers small and flexible credit to nonmainstream business people. Digital lending comes with the assistance of technology which enables fast and convenient access to the loans and, therefore, supplements the funding challenge that startups with no credit pasts face. However, each of these solutions has restrictions in terms of fees, the maximum loan amount, and problems with regulation. This paper emphasises the need for appropriate policies to support the improvement of access to finance among startups. Other measures proposed are the development of credit guarantee schemes, reduction of bureaucratic rules and regulations, encouragement of FDI through tax incentives, and the use of technology in the provision of financial services. Besides, enlarging the financial literacy of intending and existing businessmen and enhancing the credit information infrastructure can very much enhance financing. From the study, it becomes clear that it will need to employ diversified strategies that put into practice various non-conventional funding paradigms alongside positive policies to facilitate a vibrant and progressive entrepreneurial culture within emerging markets.

How does the wealth level of nations affect their COVID-19 vaccination plans?

This study uses global data to examine how vaccination levels correlate with socioeconomic, institutional and political variables across 150 countries. Results demonstrate that as a country's economic development, measured by GDP per capita, increases, so does the percentage of vaccinated people, reaching a peak of 70%. Furthermore, countries with Monarchy and Parliamentary Monarchy exhibit higher vaccination levels among their populations compared to countries with mixed Executives. In this context, manifold countries are implementing restrictions and bureaucratic rules, such as green pass/vaccine reports, to boost vaccination levels by regulating various public and private life aspects that potentially impact individuals' well-being. The discussion elucidates the underlying causes of these sociopolitical phenomena within the context of social insecurity. All these results can provide valuable insights for policymakers, aiding them in crafting sustainable policy responses to address not only COVID-19 but other similar epidemics, all while not adversely affecting nations' economies and social structures.

Employee Retention Improvement of Pulp and Paper Companies in Indonesia

Indonesia is the largest pulp and paper producer in Southeast Asia. One of the problems faced by the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia is high employee turnover. This study aims to analyze the factors that influence employee turnover and propose strategies to reduce turnover or increase employee retention in the pulp and paper industry. The endogenous variable in this study is turnover intention. Meanwhile, exogenous variables are work environment, compensation and benefits, training and development, performance appraisal, employee recognition, and job satisfaction. Research data was obtained through a survey of pulp and paper employees in Indonesia. The data was then analyzed using the partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM). The study results show that performance appraisal, training and development, work environment, and employee recognition affect employee turnover negatively and significantly. The strategies proposed to reduce turnover in the pulp and paper industry in Indonesia include the company providing free training according to the competencies needed, making bureaucratic rules simple and transparent, arranging gifts and awards programs for employee achievements, and creating measurable and transparent promotion programs.

On Kosík's Criticism of Pseudosubject

The purpose of this article is to shed light on the criticism that Czech Marxist philosopher Karel Kosík contributed to pseudosubject in his important work entitled The Crisis of Modernity. Pseudosubject in Kosík’s terminology, refers to the mystified pseudosubject hidden behind the two systems of free competition and bureaucratic rule. This pseudosubject not only governs the two systems but also develops into a kind of limitless subjectivism. The pseudosubject based on the principles of manipulability and calculability reduces man to pure tools for the operation of the system. Kosík holds that humanistic socialism can make people a real subject because it is the establishment of a revolutionary alliance of workers and intellectuals in practice and theoretically destroy the mystique and derivation of pseudosubjects in light of dialectics of concrete.

How to combine rules and commitment in fostering research integrity?

ABSTRACT Research integrity (RI) is crucial for trustworthy research. Rules are important in setting RI standards and improving research practice, but they can lead to increased bureaucracy; without commensurate commitment amongst researchers toward RI, they are unlikely to improve research practices. In this paper, we explore how to combine rules and commitment in fostering RI. Research institutions can govern RI using markets (using incentives), bureaucracies (using rules), and network processes (through commitment and agreements). Based on Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action, we argue that network processes, as part of the lifeworld, can legitimize systems – that is, market or bureaucratic governance modes. This can regulate and support RI practices in an efficient way. Systems can also become dominant and repress consensus processes. Fostering RI requires a balance between network, market and bureaucratic governance modes. We analyze the institutional response to a serious RI case to illustrate how network processes can be combined with bureaucratic rules. Specifically, we analyze how the Science Committee established at Tilburg University in 2012 has navigated different governance modes, resulting in a normatively grounded and efficient approach to fostering RI. Based on this case, we formulate recommendations to research institutions on how to combine rules and commitment.

The Process of Legal Institutionalization: How Privacy Jurisprudence Turned towards the US Constitution and the American State

During the twentieth century, privacy evolved from an ambiguous legal idea into a defined state-centric right, while privacy claims against non-state entities became more marginalized. Whereas prior studies treat this as the direct outcome of cultural shifts or landmark interventions by legal elites, I document legal institutionalization as a three-stage process of domain formation and meaning making. Using a combination of citation network analysis and qualitative research, I show that the concept of privacy first entered the legal field when journalists raised concerns about the unauthorized use and commodification of personal data; that US jurisprudence produced two competing schools of legal thought as judges and legal scholars struggled to give substance to an abstract concept and structure to an evolving domain of judicial practice; and that privacy was consecrated as a constitutional right when state courts and the US Supreme Court selectively mobilized the language of privacy to confront the expanding reach of the American state. These findings demonstrate the processual nature of legal institutionalization, draw attention to intra-legal contestation and the implicit pluralism of American jurisprudence, and highlight an emerging distinction between the legal regimes governing bureaucratic rule and market exchanges in the early twentieth century.

THE CULTURE TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE KAMA REGION (1990S): REGIONAL ARCHIVES REVIEW

Cultural dynamics during periods of large-scale socio-political reforms differ in that during this period many traditional bureaucratic rules of documentation and archiving are poorly observed. Institutions are changed and eliminated, new problems arise that require prompt solutions, and informal communications are actively used. As a result, many important processes of the reform period in archival funds are presented fragmentarily, with gaps. The article provides an overview of regional archival funds related to the transformation of the cultural sphere in the Perm region in the late 1980s - early 1990s. An overview of a number of funds of the Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History, the State Archive of the Perm Region, and the Archive of city Perm, reflecting various aspects of sociocultural transformations, is given. It is concluded that the documents of organizations and departments form a representative basis for institutional changes analysis, recording new current topics and plots in the field of cultural policy. The second part of the article shows the information capabilities of “letters to power” deposited in regional archives.

The organizational reasons for wrongdoing. The case of Italy’s Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM)

Many scholars have highlighted the individual, organizational and inter-organizational causes of organizational wrongdoing; others have focused on its (negative) consequences or have analyzed how it can persist and spread between organizations. An underlining assumption shared by many of those studies is that organizational wrongdoing is a deviant, society-damaging phenomenon originating from individual and organizational actors’ pursuit of undue advantages. We argue that, at least in some cases, actors may also have “organizational reasons” for wrongdoing, besides self-interest. This article aims at analyzing the organizational reasons for wrongdoing in the CSM affair, a scandal that shed light on the deviant practices for career paths within the Italian judiciary system. By relying on documents and several semi-structured interviews to judges, public prosecutors, and experts in the field, we reconstructed actual practices for career advancement (extra-legal governance) and compared them with formal policies (legal governance). Our analysis shows that deviant practices were not merely occasional episodes of favoritism, but were part of an extra-legal governance system that involved virtually all of Italy’s judges. We also found that the CSM decoupled formal policies from actual practices to manage two organizational trade-offs – bureaucratic rules vs. efficiency, and independence vs. accountability. Therefore, besides individual gain, actors had two major “organizational reasons” for wrongdoing: first, they needed to cope with a lack of organizational capabilities and resources; second, they needed to address calls for greater accountability. In the light of our findings, we conclude with some considerations about organizational learning and the relation between law, organizations, and wrongdoing.

Bureaucracy Meets Digital Reality: The unfolding of urban platforms in European municipal governments

The rise of digital technologies provides an opportunity to study smart cities as new organizational forms. We ask whether and how digital platforms and ecosystems affect the bureaucratic governance of municipal governments. To this end, we offer a multiple case analysis based on rich empirical, longitudinal data of seven European smart cities. We find that the contradicting logic of platform governance creates organizational tensions within the bureaucratic municipal government and at the interface between the municipal government and its external partners. We distil a process that describes how these tensions are resolved through a temporary shift to a non-bureaucratic work mode, and the subsequent formalization and institutionalization of those practices as new bureaucratic rules. We make three contributions. First, we contribute to the smart-city literature by outlining an overarching process of how data-driven technologies affect bureaucratic municipal governments. Second, we contribute to the ongoing conversation about the changing nature of Weberian bureaucracy showing how bureaucracy preserves its core while simultaneously adapting to and shaping its environment. Third, we highlight the role of lower-echelon bureaucrats as change agents who devise rules at the intersection of technological and societal development.

Providing culturally competent and universal health care in the Peruvian Amazon: The role of medical authority

Peru's Ministry of Health promotes the provision of culturally competent and universal health care. To do so they have implemented policies aimed at addressing indigenous peoples' social, geographic, and financial barriers to health care as well as cultural gaps between them and (bio)medical providers. While scholars argued that these policies have fallen short, their explanations have ignored the role that medical providers' professional authority plays in implementing these policies. This study examined how medical providers aim to provide culturally competent care and facilitate patients' use of medical services while protecting their professional authority. This includes preserving control over their space of work and their capacity to legitimately diagnose, treat, and prognosticate medical problems. Ethnographic observations and 50 interviews conducted between May 2017 and February 2018 show that to facilitate the provision of culturally competent and universal health care, medical providers engaged in non-clinical tasks, trespassed bureaucratic rules, tolerated and integrated the use of traditional medicine, and expanded the time and place of their practice. To advance these strategies, medical providers sacrificed aspects of their social authority (e.g., their autonomy over their work) and their cultural authority (e.g., their ability to define treatment). However, providers also asserted aspects of their professional authority such as the ability to give patients instructions and advice and control over the use of traditional medicine. The latter had the potential of deterring some women from having institutional births, thus reproducing some of the constraints that indigenous people face in accessing health care.

A Healthy City for All? Social Services’ Roles in Collaborative Urban Development

There is broad consensus among policymakers about the urgency of developing healthy, inclusive, and socially sustainable cities. In the Swedish context, social services are considered to have knowledge that needs to be integrated into the broader urban development processes in order to accomplish such ends. This article aims to better understand the ways in which social service officials collaborate in urban development processes for developing the social dimensions of healthy cities. We draw from neo-institutional theories, which set out actors (e.g., social service officials) as acting according to <em>a logic of appropriateness</em>, which<em> </em>means that actors do what they see as appropriate for themselves in a specific type of situation. Based on semi-structured interviews with social services officials in 10 Swedish municipalities on their experiences of collaboration in the development of housing and living environments for people with psychiatric disabilities, we identified that they act based on (a) a pragmatic rule of conduct through the role of the problem solver, (b) a bureaucratic rule of conduct through the role of the knowledge provider, and (c) activist rule of conduct through the role of the advocator. In these roles, they have little authority in the development processes, and are unable to set the agenda for the social dimensions of healthy cities but act as the moral consciousness by looking out for everyone’s right to equal living conditions in urban development.

Exploring a Craft Learning Model for Reviewing Patrol Officer Decision-Making in Encounters with the Public

Since the 1960s, police departments have turned to rules and procedures to help control how patrol officers, as legal decision-makers, exercise their discretionary authority. The logic of the administrative rulemaking model depends on the development and enforcement of bureaucratic rules and regulations. The public outcry over high-profile incidents of police abuses of authority has renewed interest in this approach. This article conceptualizes a complementarycraft learning modelto supplement rulemaking. This model harnesses patrol officers’ knowledge and skills, learned through experience, to the development of criteria for assessing and guiding how they use their discretion in less dramatic encounters with the public. Using in-depth interviews with thirty-eight patrol officers reacting to a video clip of a fairly routine and low-key neighbor dispute, we derive seven evaluative standards (accountability, lawfulness, problem diagnosis, repair of harm, economy, fairness, and safety and order). We then explore how these standards could be used by first-line supervisors to structure reviews of patrol officer decision-making through a process of reflection-in-action. Our purpose is to imagine a reform strategy that tries to account for the complex technical and normative dimensions of everyday police work to facilitate more deliberate, transparent, and principled decisions.

An unstable equilibrium: Civil-military relations within the French Ministry of Defence

French civil-military relations under the 5th Republic are marked by the imposing figure of thePresident, because of their role in nuclear deterrence. In that context, the role of the ministry of defence in general, and of its leader (the minister) in particular, is ambiguous: the minister is technically not the highest authority in charge of defence issues (since both the Prime Minister and the President are constitutionally tasked with important responsibilities in the defence realm), but they nevertheless need to find a role between the presidential guidelines and the military demands. In this article, we show that civil-military relations within the French ministry of Defence are therefore characterized by an “unstable equilibrium”: the history of the French MoD is rife with regular swings between the primacy of the military or the primacy of civilians. Overall, the French MoD has adopted a model civil-military relations which is structurally unstable, due to the shifting legitimacy of the military elite within the French bureaucracy and the importance of the personality of the political and military actors involved: without fundamentally altering bureaucratic rules and organization, the power balance between civilian and military actors can quickly evolve. To a degree, this shows the plasticity of French civil-military relations and its ability to adapt to the actors involved, especially the President.

Governing the post-disaster recovery network in Nepal: Organizational challenges of public managers

Governing the network of public, private, and non-governmental organizations is increasingly becoming the standard practice to ensure effective post-disaster recovery and reconstruction processes and outcomes. While prior studies have discussed different challenges in network settings, few studies have examined the challenges faced by public managers who steer post-disaster recovery networks. Drawing on network governance and organizational theory and using 81 semi-structured interviews, we revealed three major challenges of the Nepal Reconstruction Authority's (NRA) public officers in managing the recovery network involving diverse stakeholders. First, national governments frequently divided and merged the fragmented and centralized organizational structure of NRA which added barriers to NRA officers' network management practices. Second, national governments directly controlled the NRA's access to disaster finances and human resources and influenced the personnel management of the NRA through the recruitment and dismissal of CEOs, executives, and employees. Third, stringent bureaucratic rules and practices impacted the organizational flexibility of NRA. Based on the findings that show the influence of national governments and bureaucracies on the organizational dimensions and public offices of the NRA, we argue the centralization of post-disaster governance in national governments and bureaucracies–rather than in the NRA.

Do national policies for complaint handling in English hospitals support quality improvement? Lessons from a case study.

A range of public inquiries in the English National Health Service have indicated repeating failings in complaint handling, and patients are often left dissatisfied. The complex, bureaucratic nature of complaints systems is often cited as an obstacle to meaningful investigation and learning, but a detailed examination of how such bureaucratic rules, regulations, and infrastructure shape complaint handling, and where change is most needed, remains relatively unexplored. We sought to examine how national policies structure local practices of complaint handling, how they are understood by those responsible for enacting them, and if there are any discrepancies between policies-as-intended and their reality in local practice. Case study involving staff interviews and documentary analysis. A large acute and multi-site NHS Trust in England. Clinical, managerial, complaints, and patient advocacy staff involved in complaint handling at the participating NHS Trust (n=20). Not applicable. Findings illustrate four areas of practice where national policies and regulations can have adverse consequences within local practices, and partly function to undermine an improvement-focused approach to complaints. These include muddled routes for raising formal complaints, investigative procedures structured to scrutinize the 'validity' of complaints, futile data collection systems, and adverse incentives and workarounds resulting from bureaucratic performance targets. This study demonstrates how national policies and regulations for complaint handling can impede, rather than promote, quality improvement in local settings. Accordingly, we propose a number of necessary reforms, including patient involvement in complaints investigations, the establishment of independent investigation bodies, and more meaningful data analysis strategies to uncover and address systemic causes behind recurring complaints.

Finding a Suitable Object for Intervention: On Community-Based Violence Prevention in Sweden

In Sweden, local municipalities, working in collaboration with the police, are assigned an important role in community-based crime prevention and the promotion of safer neighbourhoods/cities. The strategies adopted are supposed to be informed by the policies of national advisory bodies, which emphasize surveying the current situation, problem analyses, systematic planning of interventions and evaluation of efforts. This paper reports on a three-year research project that studied local crime prevention/safer community practices in four so-called ‘particularly vulnerable areas’ (PVAs) using meeting observations and stakeholder interviews. The analysis shows that when constructing intervention strategies, the actors involved had to navigate between different organizational logics and found it difficult to demarcate a suitable object for joint efforts. When they were able to find an object to be targeted, such as youth at risk of drug abuse or low-level criminality, they could rely on a collective mindset, but they struggled in situations where a joint effort was not possible, such as when dealing with the risk of aggravated violence or when the operations got close to more organized crime—both elements that form part of the definition of PVAs. This failure may partly be explained by competing logics dominated by idiosyncratic action in line with bureaucratic rules and routines. This finding raises questions about a putative but non-articulated limit to crime prevention and whether a predetermined approach aligns with the prescribed sequence of survey, analysis, intervention planning and evaluation when faced with more brutish violence.

Thailand's COVID‐19: How public financial management facilitated effective and accountable health sector responses

AbstractEffective Public Financial Management (PFM) systems are crucial during COVID‐19 pandemic to ensure timely mobilisation of sufficient resources and distribution to frontline service providers. All aspects of PFM, from budget acquisition to execution and expenditure reporting and auditing are important aspects in pursuing effective pandemic responses with transparency and accountability. This commentary analyzes how PFM in Thailand adapted to support purchasing of COVID‐19 health services, including laboratories and treatment, vaccines and vaccination servicing, and no‐fault compensation from adverse effects following immunisation. It also discusses the limitations which delay implementation. Financing COVID‐19 services was decided by the Cabinet under a State of Emergency Decree, resulting in expedited budget approval process. Though delays in budget execution were caused by bureaucratic budget spending rules, regulations and approvals, PFM adaptation allowed for services to be provided through the use of hospital revenue with rapid budget execution rules and regulations while maintaining accountability, reporting and auditing. Lastly, while reporting is mandatory with internal audit by related government agencies, and external audit by Office of the Auditor General in place, as of September 2021, report of the COVID‐19 expenditure in 2020 has yet to be made publicly available for transparency and check and balance by the public. It is unclear the degree to which audit systems are fully enforced. Overall, Thailand's PFM systems have provided rapid fund mobilisation sourcing from central budget and loans and clarity in authorisation of spending; the use of hospital revenue provides more flexibility and rapid budget execution.

Ambivalence toward bureaucracy: responses from Korean school principals

PurposeGiven the context of accountability-driven policy environments, research has shown that school leaders perceive bureaucratic rules and protocols in negative ways, but they also utilize organizational structures and routines to lead changes. To better understand both enabling and hindering mechanisms of bureaucracy in schools, this study explores how Korean school principals understand and perceive bureaucratic structures using a lens of ambivalence. The authors draw on Weber's theory of bureaucracy, with a particular focus on the paradoxical aspect of bureaucracy that might be experienced by individuals within the system.Design/methodology/approachThis study analyzed qualitative data collected from 26 in-depth interviews with 10 Korean school principals between 2013 and 2015. The authors used the multiple cycles of coding to explore patterns and themes that emerged from the participants' responses.FindingsThe analysis of this study showed that the participants' ambivalent responses toward bureaucracy were particularly salient in three areas where formal organizational structures were changing through policy initiatives: teacher evaluation, electronic approval system and school-based management promoting decentralized decision making. The study participants reflected on how such changes can enable and/or hinder schools to achieve organizational goals and collective values, from the viewpoints of multiple aspects, which led to their ambivalent responses to bureacratic structures in school settings.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the understanding of school organizations by revisiting Weber's theory of bureaucracy in school settings. Using the lens of ambivalence enabled us to reconcile school principals' contradictory perceptions toward bureaucracy, which complicates analyses of tensions and paradoxical responses found in leadership practices within school systems.

Non-compliant Managers, Judging Citizens: An Experiment of Motives, Identities, and Public Reaction to Bureaucratic Rule Breaking

Despite the serious demands for public organizations to maintain political accountability and bureaucratic responsiveness, rule breaking persists among employees across all levels. Unlike our deeper understanding of corruption of elected officials, myriad questions remain regarding the nature of the public response to policy violations of government bureaucrats working in politically neutral administrative positions. This study uses a survey experiment to investigate factors influencing the intensity of citizens’ recommended punishments for rule-breaking local government managers, specifically testing the effects of managers’ demographic attributes of age, race, and gender as well as their motivations for the violations. Findings strongly suggest that motive matters to citizens in this context, with prosocial rule-breaking managers incurring significantly less harsh penalties than destructive rule-breakers for all age-race-gender profiles. However, an absence of demographic information nullifies penalty differences between prosocial and destructive rule-breaking managers. Among the demographic attributes, only the managers’ race predicted the severity of punishments favored by citizens. No interaction effects between manager attributes were present. Results suggest public communications emphasizing person and purpose are particularly important for local government managers in this context.