The Production of Institutional Facts in Economic Discourse

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teppo Eskelinen ◽  
Ville-Pekka Sorsa
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Economic Discourse ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Institutional Economic ◽  
Limited Scope

AbstractEconomic discourses are dominated by stylized facts and other statements of fact concerning the institutional economic order. Yet, there is still very little knowledge on how exactly facts are formed in economic discourse, how they serve as a means for rendering issues “economic”, and how they legitimize, renew and change institutions. This article introduces a theoretical model for studying the relationships between the presentation of institutional facts, institutional change and processes of economization. The model is based on John R. Searle’s theory of speech acts, on the so-called discursive institutionalism in political science and the study of institutional entrepreneurship as a political activity. The model is then applied on a limited scope to study the construction of institutional facts concerning public sector economies in three Finnish government and consultant reports. The key empirical findings conclude that the most common institutional facts are produced either by generalizing individual facts for various institutionalized activities or by combining one fact into various meanings. These facts are used to legitimize various policies, including cuts in public spending, strengthening the power of experts, increasing budgetary stability, lengthening working careers and the increase in public sector productivity.

Declarations and Status Functions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirk Ludwig
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Institutional Facts ◽  
Collective Acceptance ◽  
Recent Claim

Chapter 12 evaluates, in the light of the analysis of status functions in previous chapters, a recent claim by Searle that all institutional facts, and so all status functions, are created by declarative speech acts. An example of a declaration is an employer saying “You’re fired” to an employee and thereby making it the case that he is fired. The chapter argues that while declarations are often used, given background conventions in a community, to impose status functions on objects, they are not necessary, and that more generally the idea that status functions are imposed by representing that object as having them is mistaken, in the light of the earlier analysis of collective acceptance as a matter of members of a community having appropriate we-intentions or conditional we-intentions directed at the relevant things.

scholarly journals What Predicts Corruption?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuele Colonnelli ◽  
Jorge Gallego ◽  
Mounu Prem
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Financial Development ◽  
Predictive Power ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Learning Models ◽  
Micro Data ◽  
Machine Learning Models

The ability to predict corruption is crucial to policy. Using rich micro-data from Brazil, we show that multiple machine learning models display high levels of performance in predicting municipality-level corruption in public spending. We then quantify which individual municipality features and groups of similar characteristics have the highest predictive power. We find that measures of private sector activity, financial development, and human capital are the strongest predictors of corruption, while public sector and political features play a secondary role. Our findings have implications for the design and cost-effectiveness of various anti-corruption policies.

Policies under Cameron: modernisation abandoned

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dorey
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Welfare Recipients ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Welfare Provision ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Poor

Upon becoming Conservative leader in December 2005, David Cameron spoke passionately about the need for the Party to move on from Thatcherism. In so doing, he alluded to the need for a more compassionate and constructive Conservatism, one which was more sympathetic to the poor, and which also wanted to foster a partnership with professionals in the public sector. However, following the 2008 financial crash, the Conservative Party's policies became increasingly hostile both to welfare recipients and the public sector, whereupon the need to cut public spending was repeatedly invoked to justify major cuts in welfare provision and further marketisation or privatisation of the public sector. Regardless of Cameron's initially emollient rhetoric and allusions to One Nation Toryism, the trajectory of key Conservative policies since 2010 has remained firmly within a Thatcherite paradigm. Conservative modernisation has quietly been abandoned.

Portal for Employees in the Public Sector

2018 ◽  
pp. 342-362
Author(s):  
Ana Campos Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
Human Resources Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Reforms ◽  
Shared Management ◽  
New Public

The need to reduce public spending has led Portugal to make administrative reforms. To that end, it called on the so-called e-government, using ICT as a mechanism to increase the quality and transparency of public services while lowering costs and operationalizing new public policies. Although administrative decentralisation is enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, only recently has it been prioritised as one of the great objectives of the administrative reforms of the state. To this end, the transfer of the necessary financial and human resources are foreseen. This will imply the implementation of human resources management strategies and mechanisms that avoid surplus or shortage of human resources, both in Central and Local Administration. Therefore, in this chapter, the creation of the “Portal for Employees in the Public Sector” is proposed as a shared management tool.

Portal for Employees in the Public Sector

2022 ◽  
pp. 659-679
Author(s):  
Ana Campos Cruz
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Human Resources ◽  
Human Resources Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Reforms ◽  
Shared Management ◽  
New Public

The need to reduce public spending has led Portugal to make administrative reforms. To that end, it called on the so-called e-government, using ICT as a mechanism to increase the quality and transparency of public services while lowering costs and operationalizing new public policies. Although administrative decentralisation is enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, only recently has it been prioritised as one of the great objectives of the administrative reforms of the state. To this end, the transfer of the necessary financial and human resources are foreseen. This will imply the implementation of human resources management strategies and mechanisms that avoid surplus or shortage of human resources, both in Central and Local Administration. Therefore, in this chapter, the creation of the “Portal for Employees in the Public Sector” is proposed as a shared management tool.

Iraq's Abadi likely to survive reform challenge

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Us Military ◽  
The Us ◽  
Step Down

Significance Criticism of his reforms, which involve sweeping cuts to government positions and an anti-corruption drive, has mounted in recent weeks despite initially receiving strong support from Shia politicians. However, parliamentarians are now openly debating whether parliament should withdraw its support for the reforms, with some even suggesting that Abadi should step down. Impacts Abadi's reform drive may stall if he is forced to reverse his cuts to government positions and create new ones to rebuild his support base. Failure to rein in public spending will affect Iraq's attempts to seek international financial assistance. Abadi's weakening would strengthen the Shia militias, and thereby reduce prospects for reconciliation with the Sunni community. It would also increase attempts by hardliners to sideline the US military in the fight against ISG. Abadi may well climb down on the public sector salary issue and attempt to depoliticise it.

State capture from below? The contradictory effects of decentralisation on public spending

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Mueller ◽  
Adrian Vatter ◽  
Tobias Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Political System ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
State Capture ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Swiss Cantons ◽  
Self Rule

AbstractThis study analyses the contradictory effects of decentralisation on public spending. We distinguish three dimensions of decentralisation and analyse their joint and separate effects on public spending in the Swiss cantons over 20 years. We find that overall decentralisation has a strong, significant and negative effect on the size of the public sector, thus confirming the Leviathan hypothesis. The same holds for fiscal and institutional decentralisation. However, the extent to which political processes and actors are organised locally rather than centrally actually increases central and decreases local spending. This suggests that actors behave strategically when dealing with the centre by offloading the more costly policies. The wider implication of our study is that the balance between self-rule and shared rule has implications also for the size of the overall political system.

scholarly journals Public Employees as Politicians: Evidence from Close Elections

2017 ◽  
Vol 112 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
ARI HYYTINEN ◽  
JAAKKO MERILÄINEN ◽  
TUUKKA SAARIMAA ◽  
OTTO TOIVANEN ◽  
JANNE TUKIAINEN
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Public Spending ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
The Public ◽  
Employment Sector ◽  
Municipal Employees ◽  
Election System ◽  
Municipal Employee ◽  
Information Advantage

We analyze the effect of municipal employees’ political representation in municipal councils on local public spending. We use within-party, as-good-as-random variation in close elections in the Finnish open-list proportional election system to quantify the effect. One more councilor employed by the public sector increases spending by about 1%. The effect comes largely through the largest party and is specific to the employment sector of the municipal employee. The results are consistent with public employees having an information advantage over other politicians, and thus, being able to influence policy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document