Three Models of Democratic Meritocracy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The Third ◽  
Electoral Democracy ◽  
Pros And Cons ◽  
Voting Scheme ◽  
Political Meritocracy

This chapter discusses three models of “democratic meritocracy,” along with their pros and cons: a model that combines democracy and meritocracy at the level of the voter; a horizontal model that combines democracy and meritocracy at the level of central political institutions; and a vertical model with political meritocracy at the level of the central government and democracy at the local level. It argues that the third model is the best of the three and goes on to consider John Stuart Mill's proposal for a plural voting scheme, Jiang Qing's proposal for a tricameral legislature, and Chinese Minister Li Yuanchao's views on the meritocratic nature of selection at higher levels of government in China. Finally, it examines the implications of referendum for electoral democracy by citing the case of Chile in the second half of the twentieth century.

scholarly journals Rethinking Performance Management Practices in Local Administrations? An Evaluation of BV, CPA, And WPI Practices in the United Kingdom

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Demokaan Demirel
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Performance Management ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Local Area ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Local Actors

AbstractPerformance is a fundamental tool that improves results oriented on public administration. Performance management applications have become very popular in public institutions over the past 20 years. Direct accountability to the political institutions and the public is ensured by defining the performance of public administrations according to their organizational goals and objectives. Local governments are using performance management practices to assess the quality of public services offered. In the United Kingdom, performance management practices at the local level were promoted under the leadership of the central government. However, there cannot be a certain standardization or stability in performance management applications. The Best Value (BV) regime was applied primarily in England and Wales. The system was later applied in Scotland in 2003. In 2002, Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) Programme was introduced. Wales preferred to stay outside of this program. The Wales Programme for Improvement (WPI) has adopted self-assessment and holistic assessment. After 2009, the cost-effectiveness of local services was evaluated through comprehensive area assessments. This practice was abolished after 2010, adopting a governance approach based on the common negotiations of local actors. This study aims to evaluate the performance measurement systems applied in the local area in the United Kingdom.

The Emergence and Consolidation of the Monarchies of Enarea and Jimma in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

1965 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mordechai Abir
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The Third ◽  
Southwestern Ethiopia

In most of Ethiopia the Galla preserved, to a great extent, their ‘democratic’ traditional social and political institutions until the twentieth century. However, in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, one hears of five Galla centralized despotic monarchies in southwestern Ethiopia. It seems that this was the culmination of a long process by which the authority of the traditional officeholders among the Macha Galla was gradually strengthened. As the Macha became more sedentary, they were greatly influenced by the Sidama among whom they lived and by Muslim merchants from north Ethiopia who settled in the area from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The most famous among the Macha monarchies were Limmu-Enarea and Jimma-Kakka. It is believed that Enarea was established by Bofo (Abba Gomol), the son of Boku, in the first or possibly in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Jimma-Kakka emerged in the 1830s, after a number of Jimma tribes were united by Abba Jifar-Sana.One is led to believe that the monarchical system was adopted by the Macha tribes in order that they might be better able to take advantage of the revival of trade between southwestern Ethiopia and the coast. Enarea and Jimma clashed continuously, from the late 1830s, over the issue of the revenue from this trade. Finally, in the third quarter of the century Jimma emerged triumphant and Enarea sank again to obscurity.It is intriguing to speculate on the possible crucial influence of commerce, aided by Sidama tradition and Islam, on the emergence of the Macha Galla monarchies.

scholarly journals Performance of Decentralized Local Service Delivery in Developed Countries: Case Study of Japan

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (35) ◽  
Author(s):  
Priyantha W. Mudalige
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Local Service ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative

Many countries decentralize the administrative, fiscal, and political functions of the central government to lower-level governments. In many developing and developed countries, governments and their policymakers have used decentralization as a means of improving the delivery of local service. Accordingly, this study is based on the delivery of local services to the people by the local governments of Japan as a developed country. The overall objective of this article is to review the performance of decentralized local service delivery in developed countries and based on a case study of Japan. The study also aims to examine the correlation between the revenue and expenditure of local governments of Japan and its trends. Basically, this article has been written based on secondary data materials. This data consists of qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Hence, a qualitative and quantitative descriptive method has been applied to analyse the performance of local government decentralization in Japan, and descriptive statistical methods are used to analyse the data and the correlation between revenue and expenditure. The problem in this research is how the functional political institutions created for local service delivery at the sub-national governments in Japan affects the success of decentralization. This research revealed several findings. The local governments of Japan have a sound institutional system and several powers recognized by the constitution. Japanese local governments monitor over 70% of national works, but a majority of the standard public services are the responsibility of local governments. Karl Pearson’s correlation value of revenue and expenditure is 0.979, and there is a strong positive relationship between revenues and expenditure. In Japan, the highest value of local government spending is on public welfare. It is followed by education, civil engineering works, and general administration, second, third, and fourth, respectively. Also, its central and local administrative institutions are maintained in a mutually dependent and mutually complementary relationship. Most of the local governments are collaborating with the private sector in Japan. As a result, the efficiency of service delivery has improved at the local level. In this way, waste management, which is a major local problem in Japan, is being dealt with closely by the central government and the local governments.

Stakeholder Engagement in Water Management: Lessons from five Cases in Central Europe

MedienJournal ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-91
Author(s):  
Daniel Polzer ◽  
Angelika Maier
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Stakeholder Engagement ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Communication Strategies ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Corporate Communication ◽  
High Degree

This paper deals with a stakeholder-focused perception of stakeholder engagement and the question of how much media and corporate communication influence people to get engaged with environmental issues and resources and the water issue in particular. With five case studies at a European, national, regional and local level it is shown that only a high degree of problematization of an issue (here: flooding or water scarcity and droughts) leads to participation as well as engagement which – much more than participation or activism – depends on the existence of organizational structures. Study findings conclude that stakeholder engagement equals a highly complex, autonomous and individual process that requires qualitative research methods. Organizations, political institutions as well as corporations have to acknowledge that stake - holders get engaged “themselves”, whereas the problematization of issues can foster engagement. Implications also refer to the field of Public Relations, where highly individual and customized communication strategies are needed.

Historical Fragments’ Mobile Echo

Transfers ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Bell ◽  
Kathy Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Revolution ◽  
Ming Dynasty ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Third ◽  
Opium War ◽  
The Subject

Translocation – Transformation is an ambitious contribution to the subject of mobility. Materially, it interlinks seemingly disparate objects into a surprisingly unified exhibition on mobile histories and heritages: twelve bronze zodiac heads, silk and bamboo creatures, worn life vests, pressed Pu-erh tea, thousands of broken antique teapot spouts, and an ancestral wooden temple from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) used by a tea-trading family. Historically and politically, the exhibition engages Chinese stories from the third century BCE, empires in eighteenth-century Austria and China, the Second Opium War in the nineteenth century, the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the mid-twentieth century, and today’s global refugee crisis.

A war hero or a Hitler soldier?

2019 ◽  
pp. 50-57
Author(s):  
Pavel Gotovetsky
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
National Committee ◽  
World War ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
The Third Reich

The article is devoted to the biography of General Pavlo Shandruk, an Ukrainian officer who served as a Polish contract officer in the interwar period and at the beginning of the World War II, and in 1945 became the organizer and commander of the Ukrainian National Army fighting alongside the Third Reich in the last months of the war. The author focuses on the symbolic event of 1961, which was the decoration of General Shandruk with the highest Polish (émigré) military decoration – the Virtuti Militari order, for his heroic military service in 1939. By describing the controversy and emotions among Poles and Ukrainians, which accompanied the award of the former Hitler's soldier, the author tries to answer the question of how the General Shandruk’s activities should be assessed in the perspective of the uneasy Twentieth-Century Polish-Ukrainian relations. Keywords: Pavlo Shandruk, Władysław Anders, Virtuti Militari, Ukrainian National Army, Ukrainian National Committee, contract officer.

Concept of Power Decentralization in Political Science and Approaches to its Methodological Study

2017 ◽  
pp. 229-235
Author(s):  
Halyna Kuzub
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Perfect State ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Structural Functionalism

The problem of power decentralization is up to date in a modern political science. We can trace its historical genesis first in European and further in the USA political ideas. Decentralization of power was considered along with the study of a perfect state system, civil society and local self-government. It is argued that the major part of successful process of power decentralization in the Western Europe was due to the idea nature for their political culture. The article attempts to retrace the history of the idea of power decentralization. As a background of the investigations of such thinkers as J. Bodin, J. Althusius, J. Locke, J.-J. Rousseau, C.-L. Montesquieu, R. Owen, C. Fourier, J. S.Mill, T. Jefferson, A. de Tocqueville and M. Dragomanov were thoroughly investigated. The paper also considers the modern definitions of power decentralization. Likewise the value of structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism and constructivism are argued in terms of further surveys of power decentralization. To conclude, the author opines that civil servants training, their theoretical teaching and moral education have to become the main objectives in perspective investigations. Furthermore, the success of power decentralization depends not only on devoting authority by central government, but also on capacity of its implementation by deputies on the local level. Keywords: Decentralization of power, deconcentration of power, administrative and political decentralization, classical and non-classical philosophy, structural functionalism, symbolic interactionism, construc-tivism

Female Representation in Colombia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Pachón ◽  
Santiago E. Lacouture
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
Political Arena ◽  
Substantive Representation ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Electoral Democracy ◽  
Almost All

Mónica Pachón and Santiago E. Lacouture examine the case of Colombia and show that women’s representation has been low and remains low in most arenas of representation and across national and subnational levels of government. The authors identify institutions and the highly personalized Colombian political context as the primary reasons for this. Despite the fact that Colombia was an electoral democracy through almost all of the twentieth century, it was one of the last countries in the region to grant women political rights. Still, even given women’s small numbers, they do bring women’s issues to the political arena. Pachón and Lacoutre show that women are more likely to sponsor bills on women-focused topics, which may ultimately lead to greater substantive representation of women in Colombia.

Past

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Kellerman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Business Schools ◽  
First Century ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Lao Tzu ◽  
Leadership And Management ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Agents Of Change ◽  
The Many

The chapter focuses on how leadership was taught in the distant and recent past. The first section is on five of the greatest leadership teachers ever—Lao-tzu, Confucius, Plato, Plutarch, and Machiavelli—who shared a deep belief in the idea that leadership could be taught and left legacies that included timeless and transcendent literary masterworks. The second section explores how leadership went from being conceived of as a practice reserved only for a select few to one that could be exercised by the many. The ideas of the Enlightenment changed our conception of leadership. Since then, the leadership literature has urged people without power and authority, that is, followers, to understand that they too could be agents of change. The third section turns to leadership and management in business. It was precisely the twentieth-century failure of business schools to make management a profession that gave rise to the twenty-first-century leadership industry.

Diploma Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bovens ◽  
Anchrit Wille
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
University Graduates ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Organized Interests ◽  
Political Office ◽  
Political Meritocracy ◽  
Almost All

Lay politics lies at the heart of democracy. Political offices are the only offices for which no formal qualifications are required. Contemporary political practices are diametrically opposed to this constitutional ideal. Most contemporary democracies in Western Europe are diploma democracies—ruled by those with the highest formal qualifications. Citizens with low or medium educational qualification levels currently make up about 70 per cent of the electorates, yet they have become virtually absent from almost all political arenas. University graduates have come to dominate all relevant political institutions and venues, from political parties, parliaments and cabinets, to organized interests, deliberative settings, and internet consultations. This rise of a political meritocracy is part of larger trend. In the information society, educational background, like class, or religion, is an important source of social and political divides. Those who are well educated tend to be cosmopolitans, whereas the lesser educated citizens are more likely to be nationalists. This book documents the context, contours, and consequences of this rise of a political meritocracy. It explores the domination of higher educated citizens in political participation, civil society, and political office in Western Europe. It discusses the consequences of this rise of political meritocracy, such as descriptive deficits, policy incongruences, biased standards, and cynicism and distrust. Also, it looks at ways to remedy, or at least mitigate, some of the negative effects of diploma democracy.

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