Reform Trajectories Research Articles

Instrument constituencies and the brokering of OECD-knowledge in Nordic school reforms - a three country comparison

ABSTRACT Major international surveys and reports have considerably altered the expectations and outlooks of national policymakers in education over the last three decades. Through a comparative content analysis of bibliographies in policy documents, this article explores the intermediary bodies that facilitate salient interconnections between international organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and national policymakers and experts who prepare comprehensive school reforms in three Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. This article builds on a large Nordic research project that studied the transfer and translation of international policies in a Nordic reform context. It extends the study by examining the role of publishers as intermediary policy brokers that legitimize the usage of OECD knowledge as significant members of instrument constituencies. This study enhances our understanding of the variations in citation patterns across policy documents from three Nordic countries. It also investigates the extent to which differences in instrumental constituencies arise from institutional arrangements and the ideational foundations underpinning reform trajectories. Additionally, it examines the topics addressed by these reforms and the governments’ affiliations with new policy brokers supported by both public and private publishers.

Crisis-proof households? How social policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic imagined work and care in Germany

Abstract Social policies convey normative assumptions about how households should make ends meet and organise care, but how do these ideals withstand crises such as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic? Previous research shows continuity of welfare state models in the crisis, but mostly looked at single policy fields and produced mixed findings regarding the role of pre-crisis reform trajectories. This paper contributes a detailed analysis of assumptions about the ‘standard productive household’ in terms of three dimensions: labour market participation, coverage of economic needs and coverage of care needs. Drawing on original policy documents enacted in 2020 in Germany – which had dismantled many of its institutional strongholds for the male-breadwinner model before the crisis – we provide two novel insights. First, social policy responses to the pandemic were relatively coherent regarding assumptions about labour market participation, but expectations towards households’ abilities to make ends meet and parents’ care involvement were less coherent. In addition to relaxing conditions on stable employment and income, policy responses normalised patchwork incomes and relied on parents to compress paid and unpaid work. Second, we propose that crises may slow down reform processes that are already underway by reverting to ideas that were dominant in the past.

Reforming School Choice Systems to Reduce Segregation in Schools: A Comparative Political Economy Study of Education Reform in Belgium, Chile, and the Netherlands

ABSTRACT This study offers a comparative examination of desegregation policy reforms in Belgium, Chile, and the Netherlands, addressing equity reforms to universal school choice systems. Through an analysis of the reform trajectories, we explore the evolution of policies, the causal mechanisms of change, efforts to institutionalize policies, and the sources of resistance to reform. We then undertake a cross-national comparison to discern trends and confirm or disconfirm theorized causes. Policy strategies from each context included nondiscrimination policies, fiscal incentives, and eventually reform of admissions procedures. Causal mechanisms facilitating equity reforms included shifts in political context, grassroots mobilization, generated focusing events through scholarly work and reports of civil society and transnational actors, and effective framing. Oppositional forces from non-state school networks and middle-class/white parents emerged in each context, affecting reform design and the path to institutionalization, but were unable to block reforms. The resulting reforms in each context were the products of compromise that retreated from deeper structural changes, likely mitigating the effects of reforms on school-based segregation.

Building Resilience, Agility, and Trust: The Neo-Weberian State as a Referential Model for Brazilian Public Administration

The paper explores the challenges and potential solutions for enhancing Brazilian public administration through the lens of the Neo-Weberian State (NWS) model. It discusses the historical context of Brazil’s public administration, highlighting the coexistence of different administrative mechanisms and the need for a stable, resilient, and agile bureaucracy to address contemporary societal challenges effectively. The article advocates for a paradigmatic shift toward a more coordinated, inclusive, and socially driven public sector, emphasizing the importance of hierarchical mechanisms and public service ethos in safeguarding democracy and resisting illiberal political agendas. By analyzing the trajectory of public administration reforms in Brazil and comparing them to global challenges, the essay underscores the NWS’s potential to bring legitimacy and effectiveness to state actions, ultimately aiming to restore trust in public administration and strengthen democratic governance in Brazil.

Navigating Crisis and Democracy: Analyzing Mexico through the Neo-Weberian State and the TODO framework

This study uses the Neo-Weberian State (NWS) and TODO frameworks to examine Mexico’s public sector reforms and current challenges. Analyzing the trajectory of public administration reforms reveals a historical context of mixed logics, weak institutions, and limited capacity, further aggravated by recent democratic backsliding, dismantling, and austerity cuts. Next, based on the TODO framework, emphasizing turbulent environments, oscillating knowledge quality, domino-falling types of interdependence, and opposing solutions, we analyze the case of the migration crisis at the US-Mexico border as a way to exemplify current challenges faced by the Mexican public sector. The analysis exposes shortcomings in crisis management, highlighting political neglect, strained US-Mexico relations, and prolonged uncertainty for asylum seekers. Overall, the study underscores Mexico’s need to enhance systemic resilience governance. Findings contribute to the study of discourse on governance models, emphasizing the importance of adaptive frameworks for crisis management and democratic governance in the Global South.

Canadian Public Sector Reform: Moving Towards a Neo-Weberian State?

Recent turbulence in governing environments has reinvigorated big questions in the field about the efficacy of various public governance approaches. This article examines the applicability of the Neo Weberian State (NWS) approach to the Canadian case. Our analysis reveals that Canada does not currently meet the NWS requirements. Canada’s decentralized federal system and Indigenous governance dynamics challenge the hierarchy essential to the NWS. As a modest reformer, Canada’s public management reform trajectory has not yielded many of the elements stipulated by the NWS. Canada remains characterized by partial and often asymmetrical incrementalism which we argue points to a hybrid, pragmatic, and negotiated (HPN) approach. Looking at Canada through the lens of NWS raises important questions and considerations for the future directions of Canadian public management, but also identifies further opporutnities to sharpen the NWS approach.

Path Reinforcer or Policy Accelerator? COVID-19 and Scandinavian Social Protection Reform Trajectories

A pandemic may change the use of social protection systems. In this article, we compare Scandinavian reform trajectories of unemployment benefits and sickness benefits following the COVID-19 pandemic. From an institutional theory perspective, we have analyzed official documents on regulations proposed in government bills, public inquiries, reports, and secondary literature published between March 2020 and December 2023, as well as interview data from key actors representing the state, the social partners, and related stakeholder organizations. The findings show that Denmark and Norway implemented mostly provisional reforms and thus ended in path reinforcement. In Sweden, on the contrary, numerous provisional reforms during the pandemic turned out to become permanent in the post-pandemic period. As the pandemic legitimized permanent changes that in some cases had been debated for a long time in Sweden, it thus came to act as a path-clearing policy accelerator.

Hydraulic bureaucracy and irrigation management transfer: analysing the efficacy of two models in South-India

ABSTRACT This study examines the efficacy of the World Bank model and the European Union Model of Irrigation Management Transfer in crafting sustainable water user associations in South India. Based on the narratives and field-based evidence retracing the implementation trajectory of institutional reforms and the subsequent forms of governance of irrigation systems in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, this article articulates how bureaucratic mediation either perpetuates the legacy of hydraulic bureaucracy or renders post bureaucracy on record in encumbering the efficacy and sustainability of participatory irrigation management.

Geopolitical Dynamics and the Adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards: Implications from the Conflict between Ukraine and Russia

This study explores the potential implications of geopolitical dynamics surrounding the conflict between Ukraine and Russia on the adoption and implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in affected countries. Analyzing the interplay between political tensions, economic sanctions, and domestic instability, the research sheds light on the challenges and opportunities for regulatory harmonization and financial transparency in regions affected by geopolitical conflicts. Key findings highlight the impact of regulatory uncertainty, economic sanctions, and security concerns on businesses' compliance with IFRS, as well as the influence of policy shifts and government agendas on the trajectory of regulatory reforms. The study underscores the importance of adaptive regulatory strategies and international cooperation in promoting financial stability, transparency, and resilience amid geopolitical uncertainty and conflict. By addressing these challenges, stakeholders can navigate the complexities of geopolitical dynamics to advance the adoption and implementation of IFRS, fostering global financial standards and stability in the face of geopolitical challenges.

Experimentalist governance under hierarchy through leading small groups: a solution to power fragmentation?

ABSTRACT Taking policy experimentation in several selected pilot sites as test beds prior to the implementation nationwide has emerged as a notable phenomenon amidst China’s reform trajectories. However, the country’s combined party-state authoritarian governance structure and relatively fragmented bureaucratic system have presented challenges to this experimentation process. This paper investigates the dynamic interplay between experimentalist governance and hierarchy in China by examining how hierarchical controls facilitate the implementation of experimentalist practice in the case of Wujin rural land reform. It reveals that the establishment of leading small groups (LSGs) at each administrative layer has aided in the materialization of local experimentation by enhancing the bargaining power of lower-level governmental entities and streamlining the vertical communication process across the lengthy administrative hierarchies. This mechanism also mitigates regulatory gaps among different branches of governmental departments responsible for land resources management. The political design of LSGs manifests the Chinese central government’s strategic commitment to promoting experimentalist governance while exerting careful control over the varied sub-national implementation practices, exemplifying the increasing feature of top-level design in China’s current policy experimentation and governance efforts.

Creation of state organizations: experiments with ideal-type reform models in a non-Western country

ABSTRACT By studying organizational creations, this article documents the reform trajectory of a non-Western country from 1947 to 2018, using a comparative analytical framework for the operationalization of reform trends on an original dataset – PSAD. Pakistan has paralleled Western world in following the ideal-type reforms without entirely shifting to the new models. Context matters, but the type of government – civilian or military – has not made vivid difference. No one reform type was pushed away; instead, country moved beyond hierarchies and markets creating blends, staging the co-existence of NPM with hierarchies and networks at its 40th.

Health systems in the COVID‐19 crises: Comparative patterns of NHS satisfaction and preferences for public health action in Scotland and England

AbstractIt is often claimed Scotland is more social democratic in outlook compared to England, if this is the case then we might expect to find differences in public attitudes towards health and social justice, reflecting the growing health policy divergence between the two nations. Comparative attitudes towards healthcare in Scotland and England are worthy of close scrutiny here, given the different reform trajectories, with the running of the Scottish NHS based on professionalism and the English NHS structure built on market‐based principles. The Scottish Government also implemented stricter lockdown restrictions compared to the UK Government in England. However, the extent to which the policy responses to the pandemic reflect different attitudes towards collective public health action in the two countries remains under‐researched. In this article, public attitudes towards health in Scotland are compared with those in England. The comparative analysis relies primarily on survey data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) module on health and healthcare. This survey was fielded in Scotland and England in the autumn of 2021, during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Overall, Scotland is more solidaristic or ‘social democratic’ than England on key issues relating to public health action and social justice. The findings reveal some commonalities between the nations, confidence in the NHS during the pandemic, and a willingness to improve the health service via higher taxes for example, but also important differences in attitudes and preferences for state action exist that help set the scene for greater policy divergence in the UK.

Educational reforms and their impact on student performance: A review in African Countries

This comprehensive review delves into the educational reforms implemented across various African countries and assesses their impact on student performance. With a focus on the evolving educational landscape in the continent, this study aims to analyze the multifaceted reforms undertaken by diverse nations and their implications for student learning outcomes. The African continent has witnessed a dynamic shift in educational policies and practices over the years, driven by a commitment to enhance the quality and relevance of education. The paper scrutinizes the diverse reforms, encompassing curriculum modifications, teacher training initiatives, and advancements in educational technology. By examining these reforms through a critical lens, the review aims to provide nuanced insights into their effectiveness and the underlying factors influencing their outcomes. The impact of educational reforms on student performance serves as a central theme, emphasizing the need to go beyond mere policy implementation and delve into the tangible effects on learners. The review considers various performance metrics, including standardized test scores, graduation rates, and qualitative assessments, to offer a comprehensive evaluation of the reforms' success. Furthermore, the paper explores the contextual factors shaping the implementation and outcomes of educational reforms in African countries. Socio-economic disparities, cultural influences, and infrastructural challenges play pivotal roles in shaping the trajectory of reforms. By acknowledging these complexities, the review contributes to a deeper understanding of the intersection between policy initiatives and the diverse contexts in which they are implemented. In conclusion, this review presents a comprehensive analysis of educational reforms in African countries and their direct impact on student performance. The nuanced examination of policies, practices, and contextual influences provides a valuable resource for educators, policymakers, and researchers seeking to navigate the intricate landscape of educational transformations in the African context. The findings presented in this review aim to inform future educational strategies, fostering a more equitable and effective learning environment for students across the continent.

SATIRIČNA PREDSTAVA KAPITALISTIČKIH VRIJEDNOSTI U DRAMI KERIL ČERČIL „OZBILJNA LOVA“

The anti-utopia presented in Caryl Churchill’s play Serious Money functions as a mirror-image of Great Britain from the 1980s when its Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher unleashed the forces of capitalist anarchy and relieved the citizens of any moral and social responsibility. İn this play, featuring the brokers from London stock exchange, Churchill dramatizes the hedonistic world of insanely rich and immoral people who in their pursuit of profit and ways to increase their corporate and financial empires follow the precepts of selfish opportunism and ignore all social scruples. Using theatrical devices to achieve an alienating effect and prevent the identification of viewers with the characters and the presented material, such as the use of songs and especially the text written in verse, Churchill puts emphasis on the critical observation and consideration of this play, whose political efficiency is sometimes questioned. However, this satirical portrayal of commercial totalitarianism should not be taken as politically restricted because Churchill’s political attack functions, not through the politics of utopia, but effective criticism which aims at the very center of the system. Through material criticism of this anti-utopian world in which neoliberal ethical laws are exposed as pitiful values worthy of hooligans, yobs, and parasites, Churchill actually breaks down the trajectory of capitalist reform and calls into question the entire system of capitalist economy.

A Hospital Journal. Reforming Psychiatry in Colonial Algeria during Wartime (1953–1959)

Between 1953 and 1959, the Blida-Joinville Psychiatric Hospital (HPB) published a weekly magazine with the sober title Notre Journal. It was written jointly by the colonial hospital’s patients, nursing staff and doctors, and was seen as the “social cement” of a vast medical reform undertaken on the initiative of Dr Frantz Fanon. The journal was a supporter and a privileged witness of the reform, and was one of the places where socialtherapy was developed in word and deed, and where its achievements, representations and contradictions could be seen most clearly. By analysing the 165 issues that appeared in the course of the weekly’s six years of existence, this article points out the interest this source has for the history of psychiatry and its reform in colonial Algeria. A study of the copies of the journal makes it possible to separate the history of Algerian collective psychotherapy from that of its pioneer. Without downplaying Dr Fanon’s influence on the trajectory of a medical reform of which he was the architect, the aim of this article is to give the project back its historical and collective depth. By revealing the ways the junior doctors, nursing staff and patients appropriated and implemented the principles defended by the Martinican psychiatrist on a daily basis, it reminds us that socialtherapy was not simply part of the actions and itinerary of one man alone: just as the signs of collective psychotherapy preceded Frantz Fanon’s arrival in Algeria, the reform survived his departure, in spite of the problems that followed it.The article makes the in-house weekly its topic of interest and principal source, and in so doing assesses the role played by Notre Journal in the transformation of psychiatric practices at the HPB. By turns a vehicle for dissemination, a therapeutic resource, a tool for professionalisation and a political forum, the magazine was unquestionably one of the principal representatives of the paradigm supported by Dr Fanon. While it contributed to a change in the level of the reformist dynamic and was a collective voice for patients’ claims and recriminations, it also revealed a variable geometry of reform: depending on their beliefs, resources or personal status, psychiatrist, junior doctors, nurses and patients took hold of the project begun by Dr Fanon in different ways.Finally, while it makes the portrait of Algerian socialtherapy more complex, this article invites us not to overestimate the specificity of the reform engaged at the HPB. In terms of the rhetoric used in the pages of the in-house weekly, and of the protocol and treatment techniques applied, the approach that was begun in Algeria was inspired by previous experiences in Metropolitan France. What was unique about the overseas experience was for the most part of the interest shown in the local culture and beliefs, which gave rise to a cross-community paradigm that acted as a radical, alternative societal project. In the context of colonial Algeria during wartime, the journal had great difficulty maintaining its status as a safeguard in the face of intensifying political and military tensions, which in all likelihood had an impact on its disappearance.

The rise and fall of an NPM-style reform in China: a longitudinal case study of sanitation service delivery in Guangzhou

ABSTRACT This article explores how three types of logic of action – consequences, appropriateness, and power dynamics – configurate to shape the trajectory of an illustrative NPM-style reform in China, reflecting how the NPM paradigm has evolved through layering, displacement, and hybridization. Using a longitudinal case study in Guangzhou, we trace sanitation service delivery modalities from in-house delivery to contracting-out, to standardized contracting-out, to contracting-in, and finally, to public-private partnerships with state-owned enterprise. Our findings underscore the salience of the logic of power dynamics in an authoritarian context, suggesting NPM as a transitionary paradigm bridging traditional public administration and hybrid paradigms in China.

Meditation matters: The politics and networks of yoga and spiritual reform between Indonesia, India and the West, 1900s–1970s

ABSTRACTStarting from sites of yogic and Buddhist learning connecting Indonesia and India this article explores the politics, practices, transformation, dissemination and uses of knowledge on yoga and meditation in late colonial and postcolonial Indonesia, and their relation to moral geographies of Greater India. It follows, across (violent) regime changes, the trajectories of learning of a number of self-made experts and entrepreneurs in this field who were also involved in the postcolonial Buddhist reform movement in Indonesia: the Chinese Indonesians Souw Tjiang Poh (b.1929), better known, also as yoga guru, under his Buddhist name Yogamurti; and his meditation teacher, Tee Boan An (1923–2002), who, as Ashin Jinarakkhita, is more famous as motor behind the Buddhist reform movement in Indonesia from the 1950s onwards. Yogamurti's and Tee Boan An's histories of ‘yogic’ transformation reach back to ‘alternative’ spiritual reform trajectories of the Theosophical Society of late colonial times, and continue, across decolonization and the violent regime change of 1965, to those of the hippie trail of the 1970s. These spiritual and ‘Indic’ religious revivalist entrepreneurs provide alternative perspectives to the grand narratives of political history, yoga, ‘Indian religion’ or ‘Greater India’. Across regime changes, their paths crossed and they exchanged knowledge, thereby changing and reshaping social hierarchies as they moved within an ‘alternative present’ in which spirituality seemed a way to move forward to ‘alternative futures’.

Performance funding of universities and its impacts on accountability: the case of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

ABSTRACT Our goal was to analyse the effects of performance funding in the specific conditions of Czech and Slovak institutions of higher education, based on the assumption that the key motive for introducing performance funding is to increase accountability. The article confirms that NPM tools still co-exist with other reform trajectories and framings and provides a detailed explanation of how performance funding schemes work in financing higher education-based science in selected transition countries. Finally, we observe that the effects of performance funding on accountability differ depending on the funding parameters and context. We also identified forms of adaptation not previously reported in the literature.

The Bohemian Confession of 1575: Towards an Archaeology of the Czech Reformation

ABSTRACT In 1575, the evangelical estates of the Czech lands presented their king, Maxilimian II, with an irenic confession of faith. This document was the product of cooperation among the Czech Utraquists, Lutherans, and the Unity of Brethren, and its composition entailed theological and ecclesiological negotiations among all three parties. This article excavates the sources for the confession of 1575 in order to examine the long history of religious negotiation and pragmatic toleration that characterized the Bohemian reformation. In doing so, it seeks to illuminate an alternative trajectory of reform in east-central Europe that cuts against the grain of the confessionalization paradigm that has featured centrally in reformation scholarship for the past four decades. This alternative conception of reform accepted religious co-existence and prized the extended search for theological common ground, rather than exclusivist truth claims, and created a framework for toleration.

İZOMORFİK DEĞİŞİME HAPSOLMAK MI? KAMERUN'UN TARİHSEL EŞİKLERİNE OLAN PATİKA BAĞIMLILIĞI

Abstract
 This paper makes the case for the causal relation between national historical thresholds, isomorphic change, path dependency and the policy transfer of governance systems in a developing country emerging from a long ‘western domination.’ The study used the isomorphic change to trace back the trajectory of administrative reform in a developing country like Cameroon. The theory of path dependency has provided the needed tools to decipher the hidden dynamics of administrative models loosely adopted through the lenses of the multi-level account of policy transfer. Finally, the systematic analysis of the German protectorate from 1884 to 1916, the France and British mandate and trusteeship from 1916 to 1945 and from 1945 to 1956/57 respectively, laid out the policy transfer’s dynamics and the lock-in frame binding the Cameroonian administrative reform into an atypical furrow of largely ritualistic/ceremonial changes. The said changes are hiding long-lasting conformity to mores of neo-patrimonialism, strategic conformity to international standards and the increasing returns’ outcomes ascribing the country into a path dependent ‘trap’ since. By looking for causal assessment of historical sequences on today’s administrative outcomes in Cameroon, associated with a systematic and contextualised comparison of similar and contrasting cases, this research is conducted from the standpoint of comparative historical analysis. The core finding is that after several decades, Cameroon has adopted trajectories that remain fundamentally disconnected from domestic cultural and anthropological realities, producing hybrid, decoupled systems of governance. The study concludes that the historical cornerstones of Cameroon have promoted and served as fertile ground for the isomorphic reproduction and policy transfer of administrative models from former resident foreign countries (Germany, Great Britain and France).