The World of the West European Planner: A View from Inside

1974 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-330
Author(s):  
K. H. F. Dyson
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Full Range ◽  
The West ◽  
Analysis And Evaluation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
The World

EXISTINGTH EORIES AND METHODS OF GOVERNMENTAL PLANNING are incomplete. They neglect very often, for instance, the full range of factors which shape the behaviour and effectiveness of central government planners in liberal democratic regimes. It is essential, therefore, to refine the basic paradigm upon which analysis and evaluation of the activities of central planners is typically based if the major problems of their work are to be clearly understood.Central planners are concerned with the improvement of the intellectual dimension of public policy-making at both national and increasingly supranational levels in Western Europe by longer-term perspectives, forward co-ordination and more sophisticated discussion of alternatives. They seek to guide or control the activities of a group of agencies, a particular governmental system or even of society as a whole.

Searching for new Sources of growth. Are the Developing Countries Catching up with the Developed ones?

2015 ◽  
pp. 30-53
Author(s):  
V. Popov
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Gdp Per Capita ◽  
The West ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Divergence ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Relative Standing

This paper examines the trajectory of growth in the Global South. Before the 1500s all countries were roughly at the same level of development, but from the 1500s Western countries started to grow faster than the rest of the world and PPP GDP per capita by 1950 in the US, the richest Western nation, was nearly 5 times higher than the world average and 2 times higher than in Western Europe. Since 1950 this ratio stabilized - not only Western Europe and Japan improved their relative standing in per capita income versus the US, but also East Asia, South Asia and some developing countries in other regions started to bridge the gap with the West. After nearly half of the millennium of growing economic divergence, the world seems to have entered the era of convergence. The factors behind these trends are analyzed; implications for the future and possible scenarios are considered.

scholarly journals The Shi'ites, the West and the Future of Democracy: Reframing Political Change in a Religio-secular World

1970 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John A Rees
Keyword(s):  
Iraq War ◽  
International Affairs ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
The West ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Secular World ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Religious Actors

The present article critically reviews Paul McGeough’s important analysis of the most recent Iraq war within a broader consideration of secular-religious relations in international affairs. The thesis of Mission Impossible: The Sheikhs, the US and the Future of Iraq (2004) can be summarised around two ideas: that the US strategy in Iraq was flawed because it wilfully bypassed the traditional power structures of Iraqi society; and that these structures, formed around the tribe and the mosque, are anti-democratic thus rendering attempts at democratisation impossible. The article affirms McGeough’s argument concerning the inadequacy of the US strategy, but critically examines the author’s fatalism toward the democratic capacity of Iraqi structures, notably the structure of the mosque. By broadening the notion of democracy to include religious actors and agendas, and by an introductory interpretation of the Shi’ite community as vital players in an emerging Iraqi democracy, the article attempts to deconstruct the author’s secularist view that the world of the mosque exists in a ‘parallel universe’ to the liberal democratic West. Reframing the Shi’ites as essential actors in the democratic project thus situates political discourse in a ‘religio-secular world’ and brings the ‘other worlds’ of religion and secularism together in a sphere of interdependence. Such an approach emphasises the importance of post-secular structures in the discourses on democratic change.

Policy-making at local level: an analysis of Turkish municipalities

2018 ◽  
pp. 105-120
Author(s):  
Ulaş Bayraktar
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Service Provider ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Policy Cycle ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
General Overview ◽  
Radical Transformation

Turkish local governments have undergone a radical transformation since the 1980s. Accompanied by a rhetoric of decentralising and democratising reforms, related legal changes have been criticised in the light of either nationalist or democratic, participatory concerns. At the heart of such important waves of legal reforms lay the municipalities as the main service provider in urban settings. This chapter presents a general overview of the state of policy analysis in Turkish municipalities. It argues that municipalities governed by very strong executives, prioritise populist services delivered through subcontracts and controlled weakly by political and civil actors and arbitrarily by the central government. The classical public policy cycle approach will inform the discussion.

The Unity of the West and Free Trade: A Report From Washington

Worldview ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 14-16
Author(s):  
Lionel Gelber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Common Market ◽  
The West ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Common ◽  
De Gaulle

When the United States fostered the recovery and underwrote the security of Western Europe she had more than sentiment to impel her. That salient zone is a pivotal sector of the world balance, and while she may station fewer of her own troops upon its soil, she can entertain no total disengagement from it. But there is another West European item, the future of the Common Market, which calls for a fresh American scrutiny. The West will be better off if Western Europe acquires more of an ability to stand on its own feet. Gaullism, however, revealed a less modest goal, one that was not confined to France and did not vanish with the departure of General de Gaulle. On the contrary, it may have gained new leverage from his downfall.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Schulze
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
European Countries ◽  
General Level ◽  
The World ◽  
Nuclear Energy Policy

This chapter first evaluates the hypotheses presented in Chapter 2, drawing on the book’s seven country case studies. Second, it extends the scope of analysis to all of Western Europe, with short analytical narratives of the nuclear energy trajectory in the remaining West European countries in an appendix. The chapter distinguishes four groups of countries in terms of nuclear energy policy reversals and discusses the commonalities and differences between them. Third, the chapter turns to quantitative analysis. On the most general level the analyses in this book demonstrate that nuclear energy policy has become incorporated in the competition between the mainstream parties that have proved remarkably flexible in adapting their positions and policy-making if government office was at stake. The chapter highlights the factors that will be important for the future of nuclear energy in Western Europe and the world.

Study on the Participation of Citizens in Public Policy Formulation

2014 ◽  
Vol 687-691 ◽  
pp. 5128-5130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Public Policy Making ◽  
Democratic Development ◽  
The World ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Citizen’S Participation

Hot topic in the world of political democratic development is citizen participation, in the governance of the community, public policy making is a key element, citizen’s participation can unify the wisdom of the masses, and thus safeguard the fairness of the policy-making and rationality, so it will bring accordance for public policy formulation, evaluation, and adjustment. Today, citizen participation in public policy making in our country is an important way of citizen participation, is being gradually spread. To this end, this paper describes an effective strategy to improve citizen participation in public policy formulation.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Yossi Harpaz
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
The West ◽  
Developed Country ◽  
Dual Citizenship ◽  
Practical Usefulness ◽  
The World ◽  
Strategic Acquisition

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the rise of dual citizenship. For most of the twentieth century, citizenship was an exclusive bond between an individual and a state. Countries refused to share their citizens with other countries just like they do not share their territories. Since the 1990s, however, the principle of exclusive citizenship has been abandoned, and dozens of countries moved to permit dual citizenship. Today, toleration of multiple citizenship has become the norm, and tens of millions of persons around the world hold citizenship in two—sometimes even three or four—countries. The legitimation and proliferation of multiple citizenships is creating new realities on the ground, reshaping patterns of international migration, political participation, global security, and ethnic relations. Previous studies mostly examined dual citizenship in the context of immigration to Western Europe and North America. This book focuses instead on the strategic acquisition of dual citizenship by nonimmigrants from outside the West. Once one shifts the empirical focus, a crucial but overlooked aspect comes into sharp relief: the disparity in the value of the “citizenship packages” that different countries offer, and the tremendous practical usefulness that a second citizenship from a more developed country may provide.

Asymmetric decentralisation, economic cycle, regional and local government’s borrowing in Spain

2014 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-461 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Toboso
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Economic Cycle ◽  
The World ◽  
Fiscal Decentralisation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Intense Process

This paper investigates the evolution of sub-central government borrowing in Spain over the period 1996–2011. The arguments and figures provided show that the intense process of political and fiscal decentralisation that took place over the 1990s and 2000s did not lead to higher debt ratios in terms of GDP at these tiers of government until 2007. Although a kind of overspending bias was in effect until the late 2000s, the paper shows that the evolution of GDP and tax revenues provided regional and local governments with enough resources to vigorously pursue their devolved public policy responsibilities and still keep their debt ratios under control. However, since 2008, when the world financial crisis broke out, the situation has changed dramatically. Even though the crisis originated in the financial sector, the paper concludes by stressing the importance of creating incentives and setting controls through institutional arrangements characterising multilevel government for all tiers of government to save in periods of economic growth in order to confront the impact of recession once it comes.

scholarly journals Liberalism, Democracy, and the State: Reclaiming the Unity of Liberal Politics

2001 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-782 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gus diZerega
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Liberal Society ◽  
The West ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
Political Status ◽  
The World ◽  
Liberal Vision ◽  
Liberal Thought

Liberal political thought has fractured into “classical” and “modern” camps. This division is rooted in differing reactions to the rise of capitalism and democracy, which are institutional outgrowths of liberal principles, unanticipated by its seminal thinkers. Both “classical” and “modern” liberalism are led astray by classifying liberal democracy as a kind of state. But democracies are not states; they are selforganizing systems. When the nature of this error is grasped, a more coherent liberal vision emerges, where the key tension in liberal society is between selforganizing systems and instrumental organizations. Possibilities in public policy take on new dimensions as well.The world we know is largely the institutional outcome of liberalism's political triumph, first in the West and increasingly worldwide. Yet today liberal thought is deeply divided against itself and, in this division, often unable to comprehend a world in many ways its product. This division grows primarily from tensions between two liberal institutions: liberal, or representative, democracy and the market, and also from the near universal failure of liberals to grasp democratic government's unusual systemic character. Tensions between liberal democracy and the market are central issues, whereas the character of democratic government receives far less attention. Yet how the first issue is evaluated depends in part on understanding the last. Liberalism has strengthened the intellectual, legal, economic and political status of individuals within society, emphasizing equality of status for all people.

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