Discretionary power, lies, and broken trust: Justification and discomfort

1996 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-352 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Potter
Keyword(s):  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2329
Author(s):  
Sabrina Dressel ◽  
Annelie Sjölander-Lindqvist ◽  
Maria Johansson ◽  
Göran Ericsson ◽  
Camilla Sandström

Collaborative governance approaches have been suggested as strategies to handle wicked environmental problems. Evaluations have found promising examples of effective natural resource governance, but also highlighted the importance of social-ecological context and institutional design. The aim of this study was to identify factors that contribute to the achievement of social and ecological sustainability within Swedish moose (Alces alces) management. In 2012, a multi-level collaborative governance regime was implemented to decrease conflicts among stakeholders. We carried out semi-structured interviews with six ‘good examples’ (i.e., Moose Management Groups that showed positive social and ecological outcomes). We found that ‘good examples’ collectively identified existing knowledge gaps and management challenges and used their discretionary power to develop procedural arrangements that are adapted to the social-ecological context, their theory of change, and attributes of local actors. This contributed to the creation of bridging social capital and principled engagement across governance levels. Thus, our results indicate the existence of higher-order social learning as well as a positive feedback from within-level collaboration dynamics to between-level collaboration. Furthermore, our study illustrates the importance of institutional flexibility to utilize the existing knowledge across stakeholder groups and to allow for adaptations based on the social learning process.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 725-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip W. Gray ◽  
Sara Mattingly-Jordan

This article presents a conservative rejoinder to the Blacksburg perspective inviting a more discursive elaboration on the overlaps between key conservative thinkers, such as those from Michael Oakeshott, and portions of the Blacksburg view, specifically from the works of John Rohr and Charles T. Goodsell. We posit a conservative perspective that would contest three points in the Refounding texts. The article concludes by elaborating on the generative role that a discussion between the Refounders and key conservatives plays in positing new avenues for administrative theory and addressing challenges to the discretionary power of civil servants in a constitutional democracy.


1999 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Petry ◽  
Louis M. Imbeau ◽  
Jean Crête ◽  
Michel Clavet

AbstractThis study tests explanations of the growth of Canadian provincial governments that draw from the political budget cycle approach. The approach assumes that governments jointly respond to electoral and partisan goals. When the next election is not expected soon, the government uses its discretionary power to pursue its ideological target. When the next election is near, politicians in government, fearing electoral defeat, deviate from their normal behaviour and engage in a re-election effort by undertaking an expansionary policy. This study suggests that provincial governments behave in the opportunistic fashion described by the model. Moreover, there is no sign that this opportunistic behaviour has been affected by government cutbacks in the 1990s.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-23
Author(s):  
Roger Guy

The population of America's local, state, and federal prisons increased by nearly 340 percent between 1980 and 2005 (Paparozzi and Demichele 2008). Much of this increase reflects policy intended to get tough on criminals by locking them up longer and removing discretionary power of judges. Therefore, community corrections (i.e., probation and parole) have assumed increased attention recently as more prisoners are diverted and placed on probation and others are released through mandatory parole. One of the most measurable goals of community corrections is a reduction in recidivism. Much of what works today has its origins in symbolic interaction theory. Most social learning occurs through what Albert Bandura referred to as “observational learning.” One component of this approach as applied to community corrections involves parole officers modeling behavior for the offender. Research has shown us that successful modeling requires skill on the part of parole officers in order for the process of observational learning to occur. The second component in therapeutic intervention in corrections is that the client/offender must have the opportunity to reinforce the new behavior. Research suggests that this “role playing” should occur in a nonthreatening environment, with the offender receiving reinforcement for positive prosocial/noncriminal behavior and immediate disapproval for antisocial behavior. Finally, this paper will propose an integrative approach for prisoner reentry that extends this process of resocialization to include broader involvement of social institutions and the community.


1951 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 811-828 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. N. D. Anderson

Perhaps the first point which attracts the attention of the European lawyer who begins to study the treatment of qatl (homicide) in the text-books of Islamic law is that it is there treated, in modern parlance, more as a tort than a crime. To understand the offence properly, however, no such simple classification will suffice: instead, it is essential to view it in its historical setting and detailed development.Under the heading of ‘uqūbāt, or punishments, Muslim lawyers treat primarily the very limited number of offences for which definite penalties (hudūd, singular hadd) are expressly prescribed in the arīa, although reference is also frequently made to the discretionary power of the Ruler or Judge suitably to punish other wrongdoing. Offences in general, moreover, are normally sub-divided into those which are regarded as exclusively involving the “right of God”, those in which both the “right of God” and the right of some individual is recognized but the former is held to preponderate, and those in which the latter is regarded as predominant. In the first category all jurists include sariqa in its two degrees (theft and brigandage), zinā (illicit sex relations), urb (wine drinking) and, when placed in this context, irtidād (apostacy from Islam); in the second, some jurists place qaf (the unproved assertion of a chaste person's incontinence), although others put this in the third category; while in the latter all include homicide and wounding. In effect an offence in which the right of God (as the Head of the community) is held to be exclusive or preponderant more or less corresponds to the modern crime, and one in which a private individual's right is regarded as predominant to the modern tort, for the chief practical difference is that in the former neither the party primarily injured nor, indeed, the Court may drop the case or allow a settlement once it has been started, while in the latter the injured party may do either at his or her discretion.


Author(s):  
Rafael ALIAGA RODRÍGUEZ

Laburpena: Administrazio publikoetako izendapen askeko lanpostuetarako izendapenetan “ahalmen diskrezionala” nola erabili aztertuko dugu. Funtzionario publikoen karrera profesionalerako eskubide subjektiboa ikertuko dugu, baita lanpostuak betetzeko sistemen arteko aldea ere: lehiaketa eta izendapen askea. Izendapen askearen diskrezionalitatearen kasuan, hura osatzen duten elementuak aztertuko ditugu, merezimenduari eta gaitasunari dagokienez. Prozesu hori objektibotasun-, inpartzialtasun- eta gardentasun-printzipioetatik abiatuta gauzatu beharko da, eta jarduera horren emaitzak hautatu beharreko hautagaia, pertsona egokia, zehaztera eramango gaitu. Resumen: Vamos a abordar cómo se debe ejercitar la “potestad discrecional” en el nombramiento en puestos de libre designación en las Administraciones Públicas. Analizaremos el derecho subjetivo a la carrera profesional del personal funcionario público y la distinción entre los sistemas de provisión de puestos de trabajo: el concurso y la libre designación. De la discrecionalidad de la libre designación escudriñaremos los elementos que la componen en relación con el mérito y la capacidad. El resultado de tal actividad, que deberá ejercerse desde los principios de objetividad, imparcialidad y transparencia, nos llevará hasta determinar la persona candidata a seleccionar, la persona idónea. Abstract: We are going to address how the “discretionary power” should be exercised in the appointment of freely appointed positions in the Public Administrations. We will analyze the subjective right to the professional career of public officials and the distinction between the systems for the provision of jobs: competition and free appointment. Regarding the discretion of free designation, we will scrutinize the elements that compose it in relation to merit and capacity. The result of such activity, which must be exercised from the principles of objectivity, impartiality and transparency, will lead us to determine the candidate to select, the ideal person.


2019 ◽  
pp. 21-37
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Amielańczyk

The objectives and functions of the punishment for a public offence (crimen) had already been discussed by M. Tullius Cicero, Seneca the Younger, or Aulus Gellius many centuries before Emperor Justinian. According to their statements, the Romans distinguished in principle all the types of punitive functions known today: deterrence (special and general prevention), reprisal (retaliation), elimination (protection of society against the perpetrator), and even the rehabilitation (educative) function. The emergence of the imperial judiciary extra ordinem in criminal matters could have been conducive to performance of various functions assigned to various penalties, along with the possibilities offered by the discretionary power of judicial decisions. However, when reading Emperor Justinian’s Constitutio Tanta and the numerous accounts from the Roman jurists included in his codification, contained in Book 48 of the Digest, one may be convinced that the function of paramount importance for the emperor was to deter potential perpetrators by means of severe penalties, including notably the death penalty. The educational function was rather marginal. The primary objective of the imperial criminal policy was the ruthlessly severe punishing for criminal offences (severitas, atrocitas) and the implementation of the postulate of inevitability of criminal responsibility.


2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (spe) ◽  
pp. 667-679
Author(s):  
BENI TROJBICZ ◽  
CATARINA IANNI SEGATTO

Abstract This article analyzes the Brazilian case of federal centralization of oil revenues, to show how jurisdictions’ preferences may direct federal dynamics through central federative mechanisms. The study uses historical and institutional approaches that explain continuity and change in territorial regimes. Specifically, we analyse the loss of discretionary power in the use of oil resources through the understanding whether and how these changes affected the approval of National Law 12858 in 2013, which determined that federal government, states, and municipalities should spend their share of oil revenues on education and health. We show the way subnational preferences affect federal policies, highlighting the importance of causality and context, both politically and institutionally, and indicating a return to a governability pattern that seemed to be buried with the economic stabilization plan of 1994.


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