State Bureaucracy Research Articles

PeopleTalk: Promoting Conversation about Democracy

Studies • volume 106 • number 423 329 PeopleTalk: Promoting Conversation about Democracy Edmond Grace SJ The elaborate bureaucracy of the modern state has become a barrier between elected leaders and ordinary citizens, yet within that barrier lie the means of restoring popular trust in public life.1 Democracy is in crisis and change is needed. Citizens Rising, a report to honour the centenary of 1916, calls for ‘an ongoing role for the people’ in addition to elections.2 The question is how to give this ongoing role concrete shape. This article is about PeopleTalk, an initiative which is attempting to develop such a structure. PeopleTalk is the outcome of a series of conversations which have included elected politicians, public servants at every level of management, and citizens from every part of the country. The Dialogue on Democracy Seminar (2003) The opening conversation in the story went under the name of the ‘Dialogue on Democracy Seminar’, which began in June 2003 and included five members of the Oireachtas, four senior public servants and nine leaders in the community and voluntary service. It took place in the Jesuit community house in Leeson Street and was chaired by Brendan Halligan, chairman of the Institute of International and European Affairs. The purpose was to critique a series of papers submitted by me and it led to the publication of a book, Democracy and Public Happiness, in 2007. As their deliberations came to an end, the seminar group requested the Oireachtas members to approach their respective leaders (Bertie Ahern, Michael McDowell, Enda Kenny, Pat Rabbite and Trevor Sargent) with a view to their signing a preface to the book. The jointly signed statement which resulted, and from which the quotation above comes, represented an endorsement of the seminar and its outcome at the highest level of national leadership. At this point the seminar had completed the task for which it had been set up. The members, however, had found that meeting in conversation with PeopleTalk: Promoting Conversation about Democracy 330 Studies • volume 106 • number 423 others of differing perspectives was worthwhile and an experience which might usefully be replicated. They were willing as a group to oversee a series of workshops around the country. I was instructed to recruit a team of facilitators and John Fitzgerald, a member of the seminar and then Dublin City Manager, put me in touch with some of his colleagues in local government. It turned out that ten local councils were willing to host a halfday workshop made up of twelve people – elected councillors, public servants and people from the community and voluntary sector. Each workshop would have a facilitator and a note-taker provided by the seminar. The question to be addressed was thought up by those of us who were to do the facilitation: ‘What makes people mad with public administration in this country today?’ The seminar group were happy with this proposed question and decided that it would serve well as a workshop topic. Groups of people in local council offices throughout the country were more than happy to spend an afternoon in what came to be known as ‘the mad workshops’. The process concluded with a plenary session funded by Dublin City Council in the Croke Park Conference Centre. People came from Cavan, Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Kerry, Limerick, Louth, Westmeath and Waterford to spend a day reflecting on their experience of ‘the mad workshops’ and wondering what should be done next. They came up with the following feedback: – The process was good. – More time was needed. – It should be kept at local level. – It should seek measurable outcomes. Somewhere around this time the facilitators had morphed into ‘the facilitation team’. They were pleased with the day and decided that the best way forward was to propose a local ‘jury’ network. Each jury would be made up of twelve people ‘of standing and credibility’, who knew what questions to ask and whom to approach for an answer. They would be appointed by the relevant County/City Development Boards with a view to generating local initiatives, comparing insights within regions and identifying country-wide patterns and needs. The objective was to bring about a change in attitudes ‘towards...

‘The dissolution of cities’: the Horseshoe settlement in Weimar Berlin

ABSTRACT:By considering the material processes by which the Horseshoe housing estate in Berlin came into being as aesthetic vision, constructed environment and inhabited living space, this article focuses on the complex manner by which the ideas of planners and architects ‘migrate’ into actual built forms. I evaluate the roles played by emergent technologies and new building methods as well as the managerial directives of state and civic bureaucracies, assessing how co-operative and competing aesthetic visions and the life practices of inhabitants are involved in the coproduction of Weimar public housing.

The Anxieties of History and Memory

The Anxieties of History and Memory

Cadres and compatriots: An analysis of their good lives as presented by Top Billing

Top Billing is a South African lifestyle show, aired by the national broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation. The show promotes the “good life,” covering the lifestyles of wealthy South Africans. Segments on mansions and especially weddings are the most popular parts of Top Billing. Over the past six years, however, ANC politicians who occupy positions in government and their associates have featured on the show. By analysing inserts on weddings in which they feature, this article shows how these actors participate in what is collectively imagined and practiced as the “good life” in South Africa, shedding light on the current nature of the post-apartheid state and its actors and practices of power. The article argues that apart from working for a bureaucratic state that manages the precarious social conditions of South Africans, its actors seem to focus on imagining, fashioning and performing the good life. In particular, state actors’ good life is performed through tropes of “royalty” and “tradition,” “order” and the narrative of “humble beginnings,” blending its aesthetic motifs and practices in creative ways. From this, I deduce the power of the ANC-Zuma faction and its understandings of Zulu elite culture.

The ‘bureaucratized’ project system: An organizational study of Chinese central governmental earmarked projects

In recent years, a proliferation of central governmental projects has been taking place within the Chinese government bureaucracy. In order for us to understand this phenomenon, we need to examine both the bureaucracy and the project system. This article proposes three key features of the project system, which tends to be temporary, goal-oriented, and flexible, as well as innovative in institutional design. A comparison of these features with the basic elements of bureaucracy shows that underneath the superficial fusion of the two systems there is unavoidable tension. Given the fact that the Chinese bureaucracy lacks structural constraints and public participation in its decision-making process, projects seldom meet the target of an appropriate supply–demand equation. Tensions are particularly manifested in two areas: (1) projects are inter-departmental and temporary in nature while bureaucracy is always rigid and insular; and (2) projects are goal-oriented and flexible while bureaucracy is rule-oriented and hierarchical. In most cases, central governmental projects have to operate within the government bureaucracy, and thus we call the system a ‘bureaucratized project system.’ In our case study, we find that the bureaucracy resists the project integration reform because its power is being threatened even though it is apparently beneficial for project operations. We are not optimistic about the future of the project integration reform as the task has now been laid upon the already over-loaded and wrongly-motivated local governments while the state bureaucracy remains all powerful.

Disputas do Estado em Favelas: O Campo Burocrático e o Capital Espacial

Resumo Neste artigo nos propomos a analisar como se dão as disputas por capitais pelos agentes do campo burocrático do Estado em ação nas favelas, no contexto da pacificação. Para tal, pautamo-nos na perspectiva teórica de Pierre Bourdieu e realizamos uma pesquisa de campo de inspiração etnográfica em duas favelas cariocas, que contou com observação participante e 91 entrevistas semiestruturadas. Pode-se concluir que as espécies de capital mais valorizadas no campo burocrático do Estado em ação nas favelas são o capital econômico, uma espécie fundamental, e o capital espacial, uma espécie específica encontrada no campo em questão, que diz respeito à ocupação do território ou apresentação de resultados materiais. Portanto, os agentes que acumulam um maior volume destes capitais, como a Unidade de Polícia Pacificadora (UPP) e o Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC), parecem se aproximar mais das posições de dominantes do campo.

Has government been mediatized? A UK perspective

There has been little empirical research to date on the consequences of mass media change for the processes of government in the United Kingdom, despite a well-documented concern since the 1990s with ‘political spin’. Studies have focussed largely on the relative agenda setting power of political and media actors in relation to political campaigning rather than the actual everyday workings of public bureaucracies, although UK case studies suggest that the mass media have influenced policy development in certain key areas. The study of government’s relations with media from within is a small but growing sub-field where scholars have used a combination of methods to identify ways in which central bureaucracies and executive agencies adapt to the media. We present the results of a preliminary study involving in-depth interviews with serving civil servants, together with archival analysis, to suggest that media impacts are increasingly becoming institutionalized and normalized within state bureaucracies: a process we identify as mediatization. A specific finding is a shift in the relationship between government, media and citizens whereby social media is enabling governments to become news providers, bypassing the ‘prism of the media’ and going direct to citizens.

Politics and the Universities in Postrevolutionary Iran

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, universities are meant to not only produce and distribute knowledge, but also to act as agents of political socialization. Since the establishment of the Islamic regime in 1979, the state has recklessly tried to control and Islamize universities in order to “purify” them from nonconformist students and scholars and train a new generation of devout Muslims for the state bureaucracy. Although these efforts have ultimately failed to create an Islamic university, they have led to massive brain drain and reduced the quality of Iranian higher education.

Politics and the Universities in Postrevolutionary Iran

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, universities are meant to not only produce and distribute knowledge, but also to act as agents of political socialization. Since the establishment of the Islamic regime in 1979, the state has recklessly tried to control and Islamize universities in order to “purify” them from nonconformist students and scholars and train a new generation of devout Muslims for the state bureaucracy. Although these efforts have ultimately failed to create an Islamic university, they have led to massive brain drain and reduced the quality of Iranian higher education.

Analisis Beban Kerja dan Kebutuhan Pegawai di Pusat Perpustakaan dan Penyebaran Teknologi Pertanian (PUSTAKA)

Library and Deployment Center for Agricultural Technology (PUSTAKA) is implementing good governance and reform of the bureaucracy but the distribution of employees not comply with existing workload. The solution of these problem is make an improvement in management of personnel, carrying out more targeted, have a clear and continous pattern. The objectives of the research are to analyze the effective working time used by the employees on staff level of PUSTAKA, and to analyze the ideal number of the employees needed on staff level of PUSTAKA using the regulation of Minister Empowerment State Aparatus and Bureaucracy Reform number 75 year 2004. The method used in calculating workload using full time equivalent and calculating needs of employee using regulation of Minister Empowerment State Aparatus and Bureaucracy Reform number 75 year 2004. The results shows that the effective working time of employees is 90.652,5 minutes or 237 effective working days during the year and the number of employees needed of each sub-section/sub-field in general not in accordance with the needs of the ideal employee.

Introduction: Non-state Actors in Mediterranean Politics

Introduction: Non-state Actors in Mediterranean Politics

Adolphe Quetelet, Social Physics and the Average Men of Science, 1796–1874 by Kevin Donnelly

The inventor of the concept of “the average man” is a subject of more than average historical interest. Adolphe Quetelet (1796–1874)—one acceptable answer to the pub-quiz question to “name six famous Belgians”—is among the more fascinating figures of nineteenth-century science. The last attempts at a focused biography of him, however, are more than a century old. The Belgian savant is known among modern historians of science through the notion of “l’homme moyen” and of the related program of “social physics” (la physique sociale). Yet Quetelet’s project to build a lawful, quantified social science on the model of the natural sciences has often been subsumed into the ambitions of such Enlightenment and early nineteenth-century predecessors as Nicolas de Condorcet and Pierre-Simon Laplace, and his successors, notably Emile Durkheim, were rude about what they took as his deterministic conception of moral behavior. That is to say, Quetelet has not been considered a towering genius. “The average man” apart, he has no original methods or concepts to his credit. Although Donnelly accepts that judgment, he offers an interpretation of Quetelet’s work that wholly justifies serious and systematic historical treatment.Quetelet has occasionally been called “the father of statistics” and one of the founders of quantified social science, but Donnelly is closer to the mark in suggesting an apparently deflationary view of him as “the father of modern counting” (113). The ambition to build a social physics was not novel; Quetelet’s innovation was the establishment of concrete data practices. Quetelet reckoned that the age of individual genius in science had passed; what was needed instead were coordinated global networks of competent observers and data collectors—average men of science, so to speak.Given his projects in astronomy, meteorology, and criminology, Quetelet might be called a polymath, but Donnelly intimates that what drove him more than any specific intellectual or practical goal was the collection of numerical data that could secure state patronage and insinuate itself into the practices of government. The practices of data collection and counting were paramount for Quetelet, and selling the outcomes to bureaucratic patrons would permit even more counting and tabulating, which would, in turn, require more administrators (this sequence should sound familiar enough to any present-day academic).Quetelet was an enthusiastic and skilled scientific entrepreneur, institution builder, networker, and intermediary between the scientific community and state bureaucrats. The idea of rational government policy based on masses of expertly processed data about the population was one way of enfolding in the state a version of what later came to be called Big Science. Donnelly locates Quetelet’s scientific salesmanship in the politically volatile setting of the short-lived United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1830) and the emergence of an independent Belgium following the 1830 revolution. State-building and science-building went together.In Quetelet’s view, the statistical procedures that produced the idea of the “average man” would attract state support, since the state had an interest in keeping track of the population and the distribution of physical and moral traits. Donnelly briefly treats the differences between mapping the temporal and spatial distribution of deaths, births, and of human physical characteristics and doing the same for such mental and moral traits as courage or musical talent. He is at his best in documenting the intellectual hand waving with which Quetelet responded to critics who argued that some features of human behavior could not be quantified in the same way as could the facts of mortality, height, and weight. Quetelet’s tendency was to respond that doubters would not have to wait long to learn otherwise.Wisely, Donnelly’s purpose is neither to praise Quetelet nor to bury his reputation but to situate his work in the history of nineteenth-century scientific institution-building and its relations to the practices of government. The biography is a timely achievement.

Class and Gender Relations in the Welfare State: The Contradictory Dictates of the Norm of Female Autonomy

One debate among feminist scholars of the welfare state is whether it supports women’s subordination or emancipation. Since the 1980s, the French state apparatus has been experiencing a conflict of values, between feminism and familialism. The research presented here probed how these distinct institutional-level conceptions of gender might be manifest at the interactional level. Analysis is based on ethnographic research in four social service offices in France. The article explores the childrearing and behavioral norms that female social workers promote for mothers in regular contact with social services. It first shows how central the norm of female autonomy is in these social workers’ thinking, which in turn reveals their gendered expectations of the women they see, beyond their role of mother. It then demonstrates that this conception of female autonomy is closely tied to a class position, as it is a model from the middle classes. The article lastly examines how this unequal situation in terms of social class, but not of gender domination, influences professional practices relative to the working classes. Combining gender and class dimensions in analyzing interactions with the welfare state bureaucracy helps to identify the contradictions in the job of social worker, caught between the goal of emancipation and the mandate of social control.

Citizens as peers complementing government functions: The case of new governance modes in public housing in Warsaw, Poland

This ethnographic and inductive study of tenants’ involvement and its results in the governance of public housing in Warsaw will contribute to imagining a model of governance that could be based on radical democratic citizenship norms. The case study will explore the peer production of the control of law enforcement through a governance system where citizens generate governance functions. The sample of variegated interactions between citizens and the local administration will illustrate that confrontational tactics have some impact on street-level bureaucrats in the domains of producing expertise, improving performance, and ensuring responsiveness and compliance. It will also be demonstrated that these new modes of operating retain an arbitrary governance system in which the personality of activists, their personal relations with state bureaucrats, and collective clientelism play a role.

Brasileiros no Mundo: a global approach to governing populations abroad?

Only in the mid-1990s did Brazil join the world-wide trend of states having diaspora engagement policies, and implemented specific programmes to address the needs and claims of its citizens abroad. In contrast to other Latin American countries, it did so following a low-visibility, technical approach led by consular offices, including very cautious attempts to organize emigrants and regulate their gradual access to migration policy-making. It also tied these outreach efforts to the building up of a global role in international affairs. This article analyses the politics and impact of these processes on foreign policy management, with special emphasis on the implications of these changes in terms of adapting policy instruments to a new notion of citizenship beyond borders and innovative techniques to manage populations abroad. It also investigates these issues in one major destination for Brazilians abroad: London, where Brazilians have lately become the largest Latin American community, but have faced serious obstacles to improving their resources for organization and mobilization. The findings suggest some discrepancies and tensions among officials' views and between policy design and actual results, thus illustrating a gap between foreign policy goals and implementation capacity at both the global and local levels. Thus, regarding the practice of foreign policy-making, the article provides novel information about recent institutional changes in state bureaucracies and the uncertainties and uneven impact of policy implementation. It also casts some doubts on Brazil's overall capacity to carry out a global strategy in this realm.

Between mediatisation and politicisation: The changing role and position of Whitehall press officers in the age of political spin

Despite widespread critiques of ‘political spin’, the way governments engage with the mass media has attracted relatively little empirical attention. There is a small but growing body of research into bureaucracies’ responses to mediatisation from within which have identified tensions between bureaucratic and party political values, but this has not included the United Kingdom. There are concerns that the traditional dividing line between government information and political propaganda has come under increasing pressure as a higher premium is placed on persuasion by both journalists and politicians battling for public attention in an increasingly competitive market. Within Whitehall, the arrival of Labour in 1997 after 18 years in opposition was a watershed for UK government communications, allowing the government to reconfigure its official information service in line with the party political imperative to deploy strategic communications as a defence against increasingly invasive media scrutiny. Public relations, in government as elsewhere, has grown in scale, scope and status, becoming institutionalised and normalised within state bureaucracies, but how has this affected the role, status and influence of the civil servants who conduct media management? Within the system of executive self-regulation of government publicity that is characteristic of Whitehall, government press officers must negotiate a difficult path between the need to inform citizens about the government’s programme, and demands by ministers to deploy privileged information to secure and maintain personal and party advantage in the struggle for power. Taking 1997 as a turning point, and through the voices of the actors who negotiate government news – mainly press officers, but also journalists and special advisers – this article examines the changing role and position of Whitehall press officers in what has become known as the age of political spin, finding that profound and lasting change in the rules of engagement has taken place and is continuing.

Censorship and Ethnographic Film: Confronting State Bureaucracies, Cultural Regulation, and Institutionalized Homophobia in India

Based on my encounters with the Indian censor board while trying to get my films approved for broadcast on Indian television, I explore how bureaucratic institutions such as the Indian Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) operate as instruments of the nation‐state to control speech, regulate culture, and stifle dissent in the interest of advancing the Indian government's nationalist, paternalist, heteronormative agendas and policies. I also look briefly at how nongovernmental actors like special interest religious and political groups attempt to regulate even the transnational domains of media circulation online, which offer some possibilities for transcending the regulatory mechanisms of the nation‐state. Citing my experiences to show how ethnographic films and scholarship are continuously shaped by the various mediascapes within which they circulate, this article opens up a conversation about what it means to submit our scholarship for sanctioning by the nation‐state in which we carry out our research.

Caring claims and the relational self across time: grandmothers overcoming reproductive crises in rural China

Revisiting the notion of relational personhood from a Chinese perspective, this article explores the premises of exchange underlying discourses of care, reproduction, and kinship in anthropology. Grandmothers contribute much of the care needed for reproduction of the next generation of children in the Chinese countryside. Their motivation to contribute care to secure offspring stems from the frustration of their past familial desires, and their hopes for transcendence through reproduction in the future. Grandmothers secure claims to offspring through their care between the interstices of the state bureaucracy and patrilineal norms. This care is not simply nurturing but can also become coercive and competitive. As Chinese grandmothers overcome past reproductive hardships by claiming future offspring through care, their selfhood not only becomes distributed through exchange with others, but also is dispersed across time in relation to past experiences and future aspirations of the self.

The lncreasing Dominance of the State Bureaucracy in Developing Countries

The lncreasing Dominance of the State Bureaucracy in Developing Countries

Accountable Institutions, Trustworthy Cultures

Across the last 50 years there have been huge efforts to construct more just and accountable institutions at every level from international organisations to state bureaucracies, from transnational corporations and NGOs with global reach to small businesses and local charities. This has been done both by extending law and other forms of regulation at every level from the international to the local, and by increasing second-order requirements that hold individuals and institutions to account for living up to the relevant laws and regulations. Yet increases in legislation, regulation and systems of accountability are not enough. They need the support of trustworthy and effective cultures and subcultures that enable those who inhabit them to explore, share and consider ethical as well as institutional standards to the tasks of understanding what is at stake and working out what to do.