Non-governmental Participation Research Articles

How Does the Government Facilitate the Co-Production of Digital Public Safety Services?—Based on Empirical Evidence from Shenzhen

The application of big data technology provides support for the co-production of public safety services. Existing research often focuses on how technology influences co-production, but lacks attention to the key actors that drive co-production and the mechanisms that facilitate it. This study examines the role of government in the digital co-production of public safety services, using the practice of Shenzhen as a case study. Shenzhen has built 125 information systems based on over 100 billion pieces of big data, forming a model of digital safety service co-production. The study reveals three types of digital co-production, characterized by “government-business joint planning, passive participation of businesses and the public, and active cooperation among government, businesses, and the public” in the “design-production-application” stages. The study shows that the government is not only a co-producer but also a proactive actor in activating the willingness of non-governmental entities to participate. Local governments mobilize non-governmental participation through three mechanisms: empowerment, profit enhancement, and value co-creation. The “power-interest-value” paradigm is applicable for analyzing the co-production of public services and helps to explain the transformation mechanisms of co-production behavior.

Procedural Guarantees of the Rights of Participants in Investigative Activities Carried out via a Video Conferencing System

The modern digital transformation of Russian society affects criminal proceedings, which results in the expansion of the scope of application of LegalTech tools in the course of criminal proceedings. The purpose of LegalTech in modern criminal proceedings is to optimize not only the professional activities of the governmental participants in the criminal procedure when they carry out procedural actions and make procedural decisions, but also the procedural mechanism for protecting rights, defending legitimate interests by non-governmental participants in the field of activity under consideration. The results of the analysis of domestic and foreign experience (the Republic of Belarus, Ukraine, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Republic of Finland, and the Swiss Confederation), alongside with the position of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, makes it possible to conclude that the investigator should use a video conference system during interrogation, confrontation, and identification.At the same time, the author presents some arguments confirming the need to implement additional legal, organizational, technological measures in pre-trial proceedings in order to overcome the risks of unjustified restriction of the rights and legitimate interests of participants in these investigative actions.We are talking about expanding the rights of participants in the analyzed investigative actions, clarifying the legal regulation of the procedure for video recording during the production of these actions, regulating the procedural status of the investigator-executor of the order on organizing the participation of a suspect, accused, victim, witness in investigative actions carried out using a video conferencing system, optimizing the technological support of criminal investigation business.The author proposes to expand the procedural guarantees of the rights of certain social groups who, due to their state of health, social immaturity, lack of technical equipment, are not able to perceive the LegalTech technological tools, when an investigator decides on the production of an investigative action using a video conferencing system.

The Growth of China’s Non-governmental Space Sector in the Context of Government Support for Public-Private Partnerships: An Assessment of Major Legal Challenges

The effectiveness of public-private partnerships (PPPs) has been emphasized in Chinese policy-making discourse in recent years, and policies have been introduced to promote the adoption of PPPs. A 2016 White Paper on China’s space activities advocated for policies that encourage ‘social forces’ (including non-governmental space entities) to participate in space development. The White Paper proposed amending the government procurement process of space products and services and facilitating cooperation with the private space sector. Furthermore, ‘satellite internet’ was introduced into the scope of space policy as a new type of infrastructure, providing opportunities to establish PPPs in space programs. Nonetheless, the military-dominated nature of space exploration has resulted in a complicated administration and strict supervision of non-governmental entities in order to develop space activities, including launching satellites. In addition, government-owned enterprises, commonly acknowledged as ‘public’ parties of PPPs, are counted among the ‘social forces’ authorized to act as ‘private’ parties in the Chinese PPP market. Therefore, favorable PPP policies are applied to public entities. This impedes the growth of underdeveloped non-governmental space entities, and as such, this is an issue that needs to be addressed. From a national space legislation perspective, clear and supportive rules for non-governmental space activities administration and permissions of operation should be established. Concerning PPP rules, based on fully considering existing laws, measures ought to be taken to improve the procurement measures of space products and services. Moreover, rules concerning the ‘value for money’ evaluation criteria and other details deserve to be created or improved upon to ensure non-governmental participants benefit in PPP programs conducted with public partners.

Dispositivity principle in the criminal procedure of Azerbaijan Republic: concept and application in individual rights

Unlike other principles of criminal procedure (such as legality, presumption of innocence, etc.), the principle of dispositivity (the principle of autonomy of the will of a participant in the proceedings) does not have an independent legal formula, enshrined in a separate article in the current criminal procedure legislation of Azerbaijan. In this regard, questions about the existence, concept, content, individual elements, manifestations, and scope of the principle are becoming relevant and at the same time highly disputable. The author aims to determine the essence of dispositivity, to consider its individual manifestations, as well as to develop scientifically sound recommendations for optimizing the application in practice of the norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure in regulating issues related to the dispositive basis of the criminal process. The set goals predetermined solution for such basic issues as study of the philosophical and legal concept of dispositivity; determination of determinants-manifestations of dispositivity in criminal proceedings as a whole; recognition of dispositivity as one of the autonomous principles of the modern criminal process of Azerbaijan. The study was conducted by methods of dialectical cognition based on the principles of reflection, comprehensiveness, unity of induction and deduction, determinism, contradiction, and unity of analysis and synthesis. The author has studied and summarized a great deal of doctrinal material and jurisprudence, and some selected judicial acts have been used as real models for casuistry of the issues addressed in the article. As a result of the study, the author substantiates that, despite the absence of an independent article in the CPC on this principle, dispositivity is an autonomous principle of criminal procedure, not covered by other principles; on the contrary, it enters into various correlative relations with them. In other words, the Code of Criminal Procedure does not provide a binding feature of the principle of criminal procedure. As the main determinants of the principle under study, the author proposes to consider a system of procedural rights of non-governmental participants in the proceedings that have the effect of initiating some kind of proceedings, and the consent of a participant category, which is a mandatory condition in the procedural decision-making mechanism of entities with power.

Cultures of Responsibility : The Globalization of Corporate Social Responsibility

This paper explores the global CSR culture, including its global character, institutional rules and mechanisms, non-state participation, and voluntary nature. CSR is an inclusive term, meant to encompass multiple conceptions such as corporate citizenship and sustainability, and also cover an array of human rights, labor, environmental, and employee concerns. There are several observable cultures of responsibility but possibly the most prominent is the global nature of CSR ideas and practices. Current cultural conceptions of CSR thus acknowledge that business operations increasingly span national boundaries and that nation-bound policies may not be adequate to address social and environmental concerns as they emerge from business activities in cross-national context. A core cultural feature of CSR is the increasing rationalization of CSR issues, seen in the rise of CSR rules and mechanisms that explicitly delineate the principles by which businesses should conduct their CSR affairs. The culture of CSR has also largely incorporated a significant non-state component, both in the form of nongovernmental participation but also proactive involvement from businesses themselves. The cultural dimension of CSR is its voluntary nature, focusing on soft rather than hard forms of regulation. The global CSR culture is also marked by several distinctive contentions: private actor dominance, the problem of enforcement, CSR differences between small businesses and transnational corporations, and a governance divide between developed and developing countries. The consolidation of a global CSR culture, with its observable characteristics and areas of contention suggest several promising avenues of research for scholars interested in the cultural and institutional dimensions of corporate responsibility.

‘They should cook borsch, chop wood … ’: contemporary images of social work in the context of welfare policy reforms in Russia’s print media

ABSTRACT This article traces the main features of social work in contemporary Russian printed media in the context of social policy reforms and social work services transformation from 1994 to 2018. This article analyses the mass media portrayal of social work within a broader picture of the Russian social policy, taking into account the interplay of the macro-context of the welfare reforms, on the one hand, and the mezzo-context of the profession, on the other. The analysis of social work images reveals changing professional status and societal beliefs concerning this occupation against the background of welfare policy reforms. This analysis gives an important perspective on the transformation of social work in Russia and poses the broader questions of how social policy affects the professional status of social work and how the profession itself through the media images is becoming a political issue; a care-and-control tool. In addition, this study contributes to research on the rise of non-governmental participation in social work in the Russian regions, where there has been a long history of the state monopolising social service provision.

Space Privatization in China's National Strategy of Military-Civilian Integration: An Appraisal of Critical Legal Challenges

Encouraging private entities to participate in space activities is commonly recognized as a critical goal, and in China, it is now also considered a necessary step to implement its “military-civilian integration” (MCI) strategy, currently promoted at the national level. The legal challenges of this strategy should be assessed. From an international perspective, the absence of a legal framework of space arms control means that the recent developments toward militarization of space cannot be addressed and the danger of a possible arms race in space can currently not be prevented. If such danger materializes, it could also impede the smooth growth of civil space programs in which the nongovernmental sector should play a crucial role. From a Chinese domestic perspective, several regulations related to carrying out the MCI strategy in the area of space have been created in the form of “Opinions” or “Notices.” However, they contain few measures favorable to space privatization. In addition, several rules are restrictive regarding nongovernmental participants in space activities. Therefore, China must further improve its draft proposal of the “Treaty on the Prevention of Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects” to garner more supporters and to modify national space regulations to implement international obligations. In addition, supportive measures for private participants are recommended to be included in China's future national space law.

Implementation of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in Development of Hospital Service from the Viewpoint of Public and Non-Public Managers in Shiraz

Introduction: Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have been constructively considered in recent years to reform health sectors in many countries. The aim of this study was to investigate the viewpoints of Shiraz hospital managers on the implementation of public-private partnership model in providing hospital services. Methods: This descriptive study was conducted in Shiraz in 2016. Hospitals affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, private hospitals, charities and investors in the health sector were considered as the research population, that 56 people were selected as research sample. A researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect data. Data were analyzed applying descriptive and analytical tests such as t-test in SPSS21. Results: Of the 56 samples surveyed, 36 (64%) were from the public sector and 20 (36%) were from the non-public sector. Among the 6 areas considered for PPP implementation, capacity building areas (2.53± 0.53) and socio-cultural (2.58± 0.40) have the highest score and policy area than other areas (2.18 ± 0.48) had the lowest score. Conclusion: From the viewpoint of the participants in the public and non-public sectors, none of the six effective factors in implementing the PPP model in the development of hospital services in Shiraz is not favorable. Authorities and policymakers should increase the level of readiness of hospitals to implement this template by providing an appropriate platform for nongovernmental participation.

Stakeholder Analysis for On-Scene Coordinators and Area Committees: A simplified multi-step technique to understand grassroots participation

ABSTRACTState and federal On-Scene Coordinators (OSCs) and Area Committees acknowledge the benefits of engaging stakeholders to help support environmental protection goals and objectives. Whereas existing stakeholder management tools provide guidance to enable well-organized volunteerism during operational phases of oil spill response, incident lessons learned suggest there is less guidance on the broader stakeholder engagement process that occurs during planning and preparedness phases. The tendency to re-live conditions resulting in lessons re-learned indicate that tools designed to resolve those lessons are either ill-equipped to address the problem, not feasible to employ, are glossed over as someone else’s responsibility, are not incorporated into regional or area contingency plans, and/or are not integrated into incident command system design and functionality during drills and exercises.This paper provides OSCs and Area Committees a simplified multi-step technique to analyze and evaluate a range of stakeholders prior to conducting actual stakeholder engagement and well before stakeholders are engaged during a response. Although stakeholder engagement during response is critical and can benefit mutual goals, initiating these efforts during response is not optimal, especially when incident realities shift emphasis from grassroots capacity building to risk communications. Stakeholder engagement should begin well prior to a response with deliberate analysis of stakeholders as part of the planning and preparedness process.The multi-step technique may improve the efficacy of Area Contingency Plans, the primary conduit implementing National Contingency Plan aims of nongovernmental participation, by enhancing the design and functionality of stakeholder engagement. The outcomes achieved may help to deliver fundamental tenants of public policy and service— where problems are framed so that available solutions are fiscally, technically, and politically feasible, advance the common good, and include a broad array of stakeholders through proactive public participation.

The role of law in adaptive governance.

The term "governance" encompasses both governmental and nongovernmental participation in collective choice and action. Law dictates the structure, boundaries, rules, and processes within which governmental action takes place, and in doing so becomes one of the focal points for analysis of barriers to adaptation as the effects of climate change are felt. Adaptive governance must therefore contemplate a level of flexibility and evolution in governmental action beyond that currently found in the heavily administrative governments of many democracies. Nevertheless, over time, law itself has proven highly adaptive in western systems of government, evolving to address and even facilitate the emergence of new social norms (such as the rights of women and minorities) or to provide remedies for emerging problems (such as pollution). Thus, there is no question that law can adapt, evolve, and be reformed to make room for adaptive governance. In doing this, not only may barriers be removed, but law may be adjusted to facilitate adaptive governance and to aid in institutionalizing new and emerging approaches to governance. The key is to do so in a way that also enhances legitimacy, accountability, and justice, or else such reforms will never be adopted by democratic societies, or if adopted, will destabilize those societies. By identifying those aspects of the frameworks for adaptive governance reviewed in the introduction to this special feature relevant to the legal system, we present guidelines for evaluating the role of law in environmental governance to identify the ways in which law can be used, adapted, and reformed to facilitate adaptive governance and to do so in a way that enhances the legitimacy of governmental action.

Институциональные уровни анализа и эволюция отношений России и Евросоюза: некоторые вопросы теории и практики

The level of analysis concept is an excellent tool for studying the evolution of international relations. This article focuses on the institutional approach of three levels of interaction: the intergovernmental level (IGL) describes traditional contacts among heads of states or governments as well as among ministers; the transgovernmental level (TGL) consists of relations among civil servants of middle and low rank; and the transnational level (TNL) includes the dialogue of non-governmental participants such as business, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and epistemic communities. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye identified TGL and TNL, but the studies of these levels has intensified as a result of burgeoning links among civil servants, business, NGOs and experts from different countries. Transgovernmental and transnational interactions stabilize relations among various actors.This article clarifies the stabilizing potential of TGL and TNL interactions. First, the degree of autonomy of civil servants from the political level of government has to be taken into account. Second, the state regulates the level of independence of both business and NGOs. TGL and TNL interactions can stabilize relations only if civil servants are independent from the political level in what concerns technical issues and where both business and civil society are strong. Third, real economic interdependence matters because it forms an agenda of cooperation in a particular field. The intensification of trade and investment flows does not automatically lead to real interdependence. In this case, contacts at the transgovernmental and transnational levels acquire a formal character and no cooperation emerges, which does not allow for stabilized relations in crisis situations at the IGL.The empirical section of the article demonstrates how widening and deepening relations between the European Union and Russia, especially since 2000, led to thickening transgovernmental and transnational interactions but these levels failed to stabilize relations between Moscow and Brussels following the 2014 Ukrainian crisis. On the contrary, the EU’s reaction (sanctions) led to the destruction of economic links at both levels, whereas Russia deconstructed transnational non-profit relations. Tensions at the IGL also negatively affected the epistemic community (a part of the TNL), leading to its politicization. Changes and fine-tunings in the concept of institutional levels of analysis, suggested in the article, help to explain recent developments in EU-Russian relations. The article also recommends purposefully restoring relations at the transgovernmental and transnational levels to facilitate overcoming of the crisis in EU-Russian relations.

Types and Institutional Design Principles of Collaborative Governance in a Strong-Government Society: The Case Study of Desertification Control in Northern China

ABSTRACTAlthough various actors participate in modern environmental and social governance, the types and mechanisms of the participation and collaboration of these actors have received little scholarly attention, especially in a society influenced by strict government policies. Based on a case study of 12 field sites and a systematic review of an additional 16 sites reported in the literature on desertification control in northern China, this study identified four types of collaboration and determined Type I (Strong Government with Strong Nongovernmental Participants) to be the best for desertification control performance, Type IV (Weak Government with Weak Nongovernmental Participants) to be the worst, and Type II (Strong Government with Weak Nongovernmental Participants) and Type III (Weak Government with Strong Nongovernmental Participants) to be tied for second place. This study also proposed eight principles for effective collaboration that addressed (1) the effective participation of multiple actors with enough support resources; (2) open and democratic forums for multiple-actor collaboration; (3) targeted, organized, systematic, and persistent collaborative activities; (4) effective mechanisms for discussion, communication, and shared learning; (5) effective trust-building mechanisms; (6) effective mechanisms of realization and increase of potential gains and fair distribution of benefits; (7) effective conflict resolution mechanisms; and (8) experiment-extension governance methods.

Environmentally Sustainable Development and Peace: What Role for International Law?

A safe, clean, and productive environment is conducive to peace and human security while environmental stress is both a cause and an effect of political tension and military conflict. The protection and preservation of the natural environment, integrity of ecological systems, and the survival of species are positive conditions for peace. Yet, the connections between environmental issues and conflict are many and complex. Environmental factors themselves are rarely, if ever, the sole cause of violence. But Natural resources and other environmental factors are linked to violent conflict in a variety of ways often obscured by more visible issues, such as ethnic tension and power politics. Conflicts can arise from the marginalization of sectors of the population and from ensuing violence. This occurs when political processes are unable to handle the effects of environmental stress resulting, for example, from floods, erosion, and desertification. Nations have often fought to assert or resist control over raw materials, energy supplies, land, river basins, sea passages, and other key environmental resources. Such conflicts are likely to increase as these resources become scarcer, the human population becomes larger, and competition for resources increases. This chapter seeks to explore ways in which cooperation for sustainable Development can contribute to the maintenance of peace in the sense of diminishing potential for conflict. Environmental sustainability and healthy ecosystems should be considered a condition for building peace and environmental protection and cooperation a factor in peacemaking. As a peacemaking tool, the environment offers some useful — perhaps even unique — qualities that lend themselves to building peace and transforming conflict: environmental challenges ignore political boundaries, require a long-term perspective, encourage local and non-governmental participation, and extend community building beyond polarizing economic linkages. Where cooperation does take root, it may help to enhance trust, establish cooperative habits, create shared regional identities around shared resources, and establish mutually recognized rights and expectations. In this context, the present and potential role of public international law will be assessed. In particular, the international climate regime as an international agreement that purports sustainable resource use, conservation of ecosystems, sustainable management of commodities and cooperation in the management of a shared resource will be analysed for its potential to ‘contribute to peace’.

Modernisation, authoritarianism, and the environment: the politics of China’s South–North Water Transfer Project

China presents a paradox for scholars of environmental politics. Environmental politics and policymaking in China now includes elements critical to environmental protection in the West, including non-governmental participation and stringent environmental legislation. Yet the country’s authoritarian system constrains popular participation, and environmental outcomes are generally poor. China’s South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP) embodies this puzzle: despite the pluralisation and development of environmental politics and policymaking, the SNWTP is a technocratic mega-project that imposes high social, economic, and environmental costs. What explains this puzzle, and what are the implications for understanding environmental politics in other authoritarian developing countries? I evaluate two current theories – Ecological Modernisation and Authoritarian Environmentalism – against the SNWTP case, and argue that it illustrates the ability of governments to co-opt environmental politics to pursue other strategic objectives, in turn necessitating greater attention to the mix of persuasive and coercive strategies in environmental politics.

Business insiders and environmental outsiders? Advocacy strategies in international climate change negotiations

While non-governmental organisations (NGOs) do not formally have a voice in intergovernmental negotiations, such as the climate change negotiations, they resort to a range of activities to make their voice heard, including direct contacts with government negotiators, side events, media contacts or demonstrations. These diverse activities are typically classified as belonging to either an inside strategy or an outside strategy, depending on whether they aim at influencing politics directly or whether they seek to exert influence from the outside, via the media and the general public. What explains variation in the use of these two advocacy strategies? The strategies of interest groups in domestic politics have been studied extensively; the activities of groups in multilateral negotiations have so far mainly been looked at in qualitative case studies. This article therefore applies insights and methods from the study of domestic interest groups to groups active in the global climate change negotiations. Three reasons for specialisation in an inside or an outside strategy are put forward. First, the goals of non-governmental participation – namely, to provide accountability and to improve the negotiation process – are potentially conflicting. Second, groups differ in the degree of access to policymakers; if they lack access, they are unable to engage in inside advocacy. Third, groups do not only seek to influence policy, for which inside advocacy is presumably more suitable; they are also interested in their survival as organisations, for which outside advocacy seems more appropriate. These explanations lead to expectations that different types of groups employ different advocacy strategies. In particular, environmental organisations are thought to engage in more outside advocacy, compared with business groups that should rely to a greater extent on inside advocacy. Yet, if we find advocacy differences across group types, we cannot be sure whether these are due to differences in access, or because different groups accord differing priorities to influencing policy and organisational survival. By further analysing the effect of group characteristics, specifically expertise and membership type, this article seeks to disentangle the motivations for opting for a given advocacy strategy. Empirically, the article uses novel data from a survey conducted among organisations active in international climate politics. Over 200 fully completed questionnaires were returned and provided information on the frequency with which organisations engage in a range of inside and outside advocacy activities. A statistical analysis of the data provides evidence for differences across group types. Business groups use more inside advocacy; environmental organisations tend towards an outside strategy. Over and above group type, however, the data also indicate that experience increases the use of inside advocacy: across all group types, the longer a group has been involved in climate change negotiations, the more it uses inside advocacy. In contrast, membership type has, according to the analysis, no effect on advocacy behaviour.The article contributes to the literature on interest group strategies by looking at strategies at the international level. By comparing the advocacy behaviour of different groups active in the climate change negotiations, it also helps understand the role and influence of these different groups in the negotiations. If we assume that advocacy activities differ in their effectiveness, it is important to take into account variation in the use of advocacy strategies. As the value of non-state participation in intergovernmental negotiations stems from the diversity of views and ideas that different stakeholders can bring to the process, we need to ask whether all views and ideas have the same chance of being heard. The findings here are hence relevant for debates on the legitimacy of the negotiations, as well as, more generally, on the role of civil society in environmental governance.

5.12 Wenchuan Earthquake Recovery Government Policies and Non-Governmental Organizations' Participation

This article studies government policies for the 5.12 Wenchuan earthquake recovery and NGOs' participation in recovery. It is shown that the recovery was characteristic of strong central government control and weak participation by NGOs. This is probably due to China's centralized political system, the central government's control of the majority of national revenue and limited political space for the growth of NGOs in China. We recommend that China's disaster recovery should emphasize the partnership between governments and NGOs. We also suggest China's governments to promote the development of NGOs and social workers to advocate the importance of social recovery after disasters. An earlier version of this article was presented at 2009 International Conference on Disaster Management and Social Work: Policy, Practice and Research, Taipei, Taiwan, December 1415, 2009.

The domestic side of the clean development mechanism: the case of China

The clean development mechanism (CDM) has been widely considered a win–win scenario from which both developed and developing countries could benefit. However, in spite of its growing popularity and the increasing number of issued certified emission reductions, CDM has not been effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping developing countries to achieve sustainable development. By considering the case of China, it appears that, although there are fundamental weaknesses in the institutional design of CDM, it is the host country's domestic conditions that have the biggest impact on CDM's effectiveness. The Chinese government has implemented its own rules and regulations, and addressed the problems in CDM processes in ways that maximise its national interest, whilst preventing non-governmental actors from participating in the policy process. The combination of governmental intervention and weak non-governmental participation has shaped the outcomes of CDM projects in China. The balance between these two domestic factors may be critical in influencing the effectiveness of CDM governance.

Procedural Control of the Bureaucracy, Peer Review, and Epistemic Drift

Regulatory peer review—in which independent scientists comment on the technical underpinnings of proposed regulations—is a recently pursued form of political control of the bureaucracy. This article situates regulatory peer review in the context of both the history of technical advice to government and the principal-agent perspective often used to explain the presence of administrative procedures. Much of the academic discussion of attempts to influence bureaucratic decision making has utilized principal-agent theory. We introduce two novel concepts to accommodate regulatory peer review into the principal-agent framework. The first is “technocracy” where the preferences of technical experts displace public preferences. The second is “epistemic drift,” a change in embodied knowledge that contributes to departures from the policy intentions of an enacting coalition of policy makers. In addition to introducing these concepts, we argue that regulatory peer review is more complex than other administrative procedures and that its efficacy critically depends on the details of its implementation. We hypothesize that regulatory peer review will cause nongovernmental participants in regulatory conflicts to devote more effort to creating research and other epistemic resources. But we also hypothesize that, just as courts have become more politicized with their role in regulatory policy, peer review and regulatory science will become increasingly politicized as well.

Restoration of the Great Lakes: Promises, Practices, Performances by Mark Sproule-Jones

144 Michigan Historical Review Mark Sproule-Jones. Restoration of the Great Lakes: Promises, Practices, Performances. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002. Pp. 149. Illustrations. Index. Cloth, $75.00; paper, $24.95. The word "performances" in the tide of this study of efforts to rehabilitate polluted areas of the Great Lakes is an apt choice. Despite the rhetorical commitment to Great Lakes restoration made by government officials both in the United States and Canada, Sproule Jones convincingly argues that progress has been checkered at best. He suggests that the two governments have made the appropriate gestures but have been and continue to be unable or unwilling to accept the broad-based public guidance that the cleanup programs in question were designed to encourage. Sproule-Jones examines a program launched in 1985 to restore the ecological health of forty-three so-called Areas of Concern (AOC) scattered across the Great Lakes basin. Sitting at the heart of the Great Lakes, Michigan contains or shares with Wisconsin and Ontario fourteen of these AOCs. The contaminated bays, harbors, and river mouths comprising this group are by no means the only pollution problems in the lakes, but they were recognized as a top priority by the International Joint Commission (IJC), a binational institution created under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. Under the 1972 and 1978 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements and a 1987 protocol, the IJC monitors the progress of the U.S. and Canadian governments inmeeting water-quality objectives. This 1985 program called for developing remedial action plans (RAP) for the areas of concern. The RAP initiative was intended to implement the concept of ecosystem management, which takes into account the interrelationships of all natural resources such aswater with living things, including human beings. However, the initiative has collided with government compartmentalization and other long-established priorities. As Sproule Jones observes, "Agency agendas are set, at best, with other concerns competing prominently with those focused upon remediating impaired beneficial uses in different locations" (p. 114). The author notes that the best RAPs, such as those for Hamilton Harbor, Ontario (in which the author participated), and the Cuyahoga River inOhio resulted from goodwill and voluntary cooperation among both governmental and nongovernmental participants. But elsewhere the program has been hampered by the unwillingness of governments to "fundamentally alter the powers and immunities of the stakeholders" (p. 112). Most of theAOCs continue to suffer from serious contamination Book Reviews 145 and are years if not decades away from the restoration of what the IJC's water-quality board calls beneficial uses. This slender, thoughtful volume is particularly valuable in light of a new Great Lakes Basin Collaborative strategy released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in December 2005 that calls for $20 billion in public spending to restore and protect the Great Lakes. Spreading a layer of cash over existing, and sometimes dysfunctional, governmental efforts to restore the lakes will not deliver the anticipated results, however, as Restoration of theGreat Lakes illustrates. Even so, the author remains hopeful, arguing that "the potential remains great" (p. 115) for Great Lakes rehabilitation if governments can learn the value of working in close partnership with ecosystem users and citizens at large and cede or share some of their management authority. Dave Dempsey Saint Paul, Minnesota Derek Vaillant. Sounds of Reform: Progressivism andMusic in Chicago, 1873 1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Pp. 291. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Cloth, $59.95; paper, $19.95. Derek Vaillant presents a detailed, nuanced examination of music as the handmaiden of progressive reform and charts the motivations, triumphs, failings, and ideological limits of using music for civic uplift. In the years covered by this book, Chicago provided music progressives with a seemingly vast opportunity to impose Americanization and democratization on newly arrived working-class European immigrants. Competing plans for reform, however, and the claims of Chicago's many different ethnic groups meant that most proposals for musical uplift were contested. Additionally, the necessity of rebuilding following the disastrous Chicago fire engaged the musical reformers in designing and locating new parks and spaces for musical performances. Not only were musical progressives divided about which musical forms best suited their purposes...

Procedural Control of the Bureaucracy, Peer Review, and Epistemic Drift

Regulatory peer review - in which independent scientists comment on the technical underpinnings of proposed regulations - is a recently pursued form of political control of the bureaucracy. This paper situates regulatory peer review in the context of both the history of technical advice to government and the principal-agent perspective often used to explain the presence of administrative procedures. We introduce two novel concepts to accommodate regulatory peer review: Technocracy, a consequence of information asymmetries, is a form of bureaucratic drift in which the preferences of technical experts displace public preferences. Epistemic drift, an explanatory category akin to bureaucratic or coalitional drift, is a change in embodied knowledge that contributes to departures from the policy intentions of an enacting coalition. In addition to introducing these concepts, we argue that regulatory peer review is more complex than other administrative procedures, and that its efficacy critically depends on the details of its implementation. We hypothesize that regulatory peer review will cause non-governmental participants in regulatory conflicts to devote more effort to creating research and other epistemic resources. But we also hypothesize that, just as courts have become more politicized with their role in regulatory policy, peer review and regulatory science will become increasingly politicized as well.