political capacity
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2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Rebecca E. Wall

Abstract During the early 1970s, the Sahel suffered from drought and famine. Previous research has emphasized how these factors weakened West African states. The drought, however, provided an opportunity for a transnational river organization in the Senegal River basin (the OMVS) to obtain financing for an integrated development program. Wall shows how the OMVS leveraged concern about famine to obtain funding. She uses digital text analysis to demonstrate institutional priorities shifting to focus on agriculture. This combination of document analysis with digital methods demonstrates how famine strengthened a multi-state organization, requiring a revision of how this event affected African political capacity.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mrutuyanjaya Sahu

PurposeThe COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of government institutions and prompted a broad range of policy measures from governments around the world. Policy responses to the pandemic have varied considerably, both in nature and in success. This paper highlights the policy capacities of the UAE in different areas that have contributed to managing the COVID-19 crisis. Specifically, the paper examines the functional capacity, analytical capacity, fiscal capacity, well-timed information-sharing capacity and political capacity of the UAE in addressing the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe study on which this paper was based adopted a mixed-method approach to analyze policy capacities. The trajectory and timeframe of COVID-19 from February 2020 to February 2021 were observed intensively and included in the policy capacity analysis. The secondary dataset was collected from several sources and assessed using rapid content analysis to highlight the formal and institutional policy measures implemented during the crisis. To complement the policy analysis and understand the key role of policymakers, semi-structured interviews were conducted with local officials working in various line departments that formulate and implement policy strategies for the UAE government.FindingsThe findings of the study showed that although COVID-19 has severely impacted the UAE, the nation has effectively controlled the spread of the virus and reduced its mortality rate. The UAE government has taken swift policy actions concerning coercive control and mitigation based on a centralized decision-making style, the strengthening of administrative capacity by collaboration, coordination with different departments, successful communication with residents, the allocation of adequate financial resources and a high level of trust in the government by citizens.Originality/valueThis work contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the policy capacity approach to managing the crisis. The UAE case can be used by policymakers as comparative studies of policy designs, tools and capabilities that can be implemented to manage future pandemics and other crises.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Patrick Diamond

Abstract By the early 1990s, the core executive was established as the ‘new orthodoxy’ in the study of British government at the centre. Thirty years on, this article avers that its main assumptions are increasingly questionable in the light of more recent empirical evidence. The core executive approach may well have outlived its usefulness. This claim is derived from analysis of the Cameron premiership from 2010 to 2016. The focus is on how Whitehall reform radically altered the relationship between politicians and civil servants, reshaping prevailing public service bargains and rules of the game. Ministers identified mechanisms to rebuild political capacity, augmenting partisan control of the bureaucracy. They drew on resources from outside the core executive while politicians increased their sway over civil service appointments. As a result, officials felt they should be ‘responsive’ to ministers. The cumulative effect was to replace interpersonal and institutional resource dependency with a ‘them and us’ model. Consequently, the risk of policy disasters and fiascos grew.


Author(s):  
Octavio Luis-Pineda

Under the basic premise that an economy and its territory as a socioeconomic entity, are inscribed into a nation’s space. Accordingly, the concomitant sustainable handling of its natural resources and people ́s well-being depends on myriad factors among which stands out firstly, the country's own socioeconomic dynamics and secondly, but not least important, the political capacity of the State ́s intervention into the economy, as the foremost legal entity capable to advance the nation ́s economic strategy, to simultaneously foment growth and social well-being into the nation. Upon this premise, the article aims at analyzing the socioeconomic implications and multiple externalities derived from the neoliberal economic strategy implemented by Mexico in the last decades, with particular reference to the country ́s current urban imbalances around the country ́s top 15 municipalities including Mexico City to demonstrate its failure and the compelling need to reorient it towards a more balanced, social-inclusive and sustainable urban development. Time ́s horizon for this analysis ranges from 1980-2018.


Author(s):  
Stephen Cucharo

AbstractThis article draws out a critical, yet under-appreciated political theme in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics, namely his emphasis on guilt and atonement. First, the article assesses how Adorno’s Marxism allows him to think justice and guilt beyond the familiar legalistic frame. Second, the article reconstructs Adorno’s treatment of guilt as a distinctly political capacity to imagine one’s boundedness and indebtedness to others, and the affective engine enabling us to engage in a political ethic distinct from familiar categories of reparation. Third, the article shows how the themes of guilt and atonement give us a more complete picture of Negative Dialectics. This inquiry also intervenes in contemporary debates regarding the political status and emancipatory potential latent within guilt-feelings, and claims Adorno gives us a path forward to imagine the relation between guilt and politics in a novel way.


2021 ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Molly M. Melin

This chapter examines the conditions that encourage corporations to engage in proactive peacebuilding. It explains variation in firm-led peacebuilding as a product of the operating environment. These environmental variations offer insights into how corporations respond to local dynamics and shifts in political capacity, as well as threats to the ability to conduct business. The chapter also considers the alternative explanation that firms use peacebuilding to overcome past bad behavior. It tests these arguments on the original cross-national data of peacebuilding efforts. The findings bring large-N empirical analysis to a topic dominated by case studies and emphasize the need for peace science scholars to examine the role of the private sector in many of the topics we study.


2021 ◽  
Vol 97 (5) ◽  
pp. 1469-1488
Author(s):  
Jarrod Hayes ◽  
Katja Weber

Abstract Increased nationalism, greater protectionism and a gradual move away from a rules-based international order by some members of the international community do not bode well for vulnerable populations around the globe. Human security is threatened by a host of non-traditional security challenges catalysed by the growth of physical technologies and require multifaceted responses from a variety of actors. Many of those actors look to transnational networks built on globalized liberal order's social norms—what we call social technologies—for protection. The dwindling interconnectedness of deglobalization is likely to further empower corrupt governments at the expense of vulnerable citizens. This results from a decreased willingness by states and international institutions to defend human security. Whether one looks at the plight of persecuted citizens during Burma's military junta, human slaves in the fisheries off the coast of Indonesia, or farmers uprooted from their land by palm oil plantations, without social technologies to counterbalance the negative implications of physical technology the international community will lack the political capacity (sanctions, arms embargoes, travel restrictions, etc.), to aid those most in need. Ultimately, the effects of deglobalization on human security will depend largely on the trajectory of social technology developing alongside advances in physical technology.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Torok

Historically an unequal distribution of capacity existed among local Municipalities and Conservation Authorities with regards to protecting water in Ontario, as well there was no specific legislation pertaining solely to source water protection. The aim of this research project is to present and analyze through a comparative assessment, the financial capacity requirements and the technical, institutional, social and political capacity progress observed among the 19 Source Protection Regions across Ontario in terms of protecting source water following the Walkerton event and the enactment of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The results indicate that through the enactment of the CWA, capacity building initiatives have taken place through a top-down model with the provincial governments' guidance, direction and support to local municipalities and CAs. When the provincial government takes control and provides capacity related assistance, the lower level municipal and CA governments become regulated; functioning more effectively and with a level of consistency across the province.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Torok

Historically an unequal distribution of capacity existed among local Municipalities and Conservation Authorities with regards to protecting water in Ontario, as well there was no specific legislation pertaining solely to source water protection. The aim of this research project is to present and analyze through a comparative assessment, the financial capacity requirements and the technical, institutional, social and political capacity progress observed among the 19 Source Protection Regions across Ontario in terms of protecting source water following the Walkerton event and the enactment of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The results indicate that through the enactment of the CWA, capacity building initiatives have taken place through a top-down model with the provincial governments' guidance, direction and support to local municipalities and CAs. When the provincial government takes control and provides capacity related assistance, the lower level municipal and CA governments become regulated; functioning more effectively and with a level of consistency across the province.


Author(s):  
Tamiris Cristhina Resende ◽  
Marcus Vinícius Gonçalves da Cruz ◽  
Marco Aurélio Marques Ferreira

This paper analyzes the advances and limitations of citizen engagement in government planning implemented in the State of Minas Gerais by the Regional Government Forums (FRGs) between 2015 and 2017. Specifically, we examine the institutional arrangements through a political capacity according to Gomide and Pires (2014). The case study was adopted as a research methodology. In the data collection, we used documentary survey, observation in forums events and semi-structured interviews. As far as political capacity is concerned, we can see the predominance of public servants, followed by representatives of social movements, with low participation of business organizations in the analyzed territory. It is concluded that the FRGs break with the previous technocratic logic, based on the parameters of the new public management.


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