Governance quality, administrative values and disaster risk management

PurposeThis study explores the relationships between governance quality and disaster risk in respect to the pillar values of public administration. The objective is to strengthen the focus and resolve of bureaucratic institutions to engage with disaster risk management (DRM) as a core function.Design/methodology/approachMultiple correlation analysis is conducted using data from global indices of disaster risk and governance quality. This is situated in the argument for the importance of public administration to conduct DRM under the auspices of core values for governance.FindingsThere are strong relationships between measures of disaster risk and various qualities of governance that adhere to the administrative theories of public welfare management, particularly through measures for mitigation and preparedness.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is conducted at the national level and may obscure regional effects of governance quality and disaster risk that occur in larger and environmentally diverse countries.Originality/valueThere are few studies that champion the value of public administration's qualities and values in the efforts of DRM. This research provides support for such a position by connecting governance quality to disaster risk and overlaying the influence of the core administrative values of efficiency, effectiveness, the economy and equity.

The Politics of Labour Migration and Demographic Change in Contemporary Japan

<p>Japan currently faces a demographic crisis resulting from declines in fertility rates and rapid expansion of Japan’s elderly population. Public pensions will come under immense strain as shrinking numbers of working age people are forced to support ever more retirees. At the same time, declines in fertility and falling population figures threaten Japan’s future economic growth and vitality. This thesis investigates the relationship between the demographic crisis and Japan’s strict immigration policies. Policymakers continue to refuse to allow migration to Japan in order to offset declines in Japan’s own working age population. The thesis aims to explain why Japan remains so reluctant to accept migrant workers from abroad, even though this may offer a solution to the problems of demographic decline and depopulation. I contend that conventional analyses of Japan’s immigration policies do not provide adequate explanations for why Japan continues to exclude foreign labourers. Rather, I argue that Japan’s attitude must be understood in connection with a binary, “us-and-them” mindset toward foreign countries and communities collectively that exists in Japan’s governing and bureaucratic institutions. This mindset is evident in Japan’s practical labour policy implementation, and has important cultural and political implications for Japan’s public discourses of national identity and interests. The thesis argues that Japan remains unwilling to accept migrant labourers because of an immigration policy structure that resolutely adheres to an outdated view of migrants as mere units of labour. This overlooks changed global models of migration that prioritise human rights, proactive social integration and strategic selection of migrants. While Japan could ease the effects of depopulation and demographic decline by revising core policy assumptions in order to effectively integrate migrants into the dwindling national workforce, it has so far failed to engage with newer models of migration. My analysis locates Japan’s crisis within a wider context of global demographic change and transnational population movement in the twenty-first century.</p>

The Politics of Labour Migration and Demographic Change in Contemporary Japan

<p>Japan currently faces a demographic crisis resulting from declines in fertility rates and rapid expansion of Japan’s elderly population. Public pensions will come under immense strain as shrinking numbers of working age people are forced to support ever more retirees. At the same time, declines in fertility and falling population figures threaten Japan’s future economic growth and vitality. This thesis investigates the relationship between the demographic crisis and Japan’s strict immigration policies. Policymakers continue to refuse to allow migration to Japan in order to offset declines in Japan’s own working age population. The thesis aims to explain why Japan remains so reluctant to accept migrant workers from abroad, even though this may offer a solution to the problems of demographic decline and depopulation. I contend that conventional analyses of Japan’s immigration policies do not provide adequate explanations for why Japan continues to exclude foreign labourers. Rather, I argue that Japan’s attitude must be understood in connection with a binary, “us-and-them” mindset toward foreign countries and communities collectively that exists in Japan’s governing and bureaucratic institutions. This mindset is evident in Japan’s practical labour policy implementation, and has important cultural and political implications for Japan’s public discourses of national identity and interests. The thesis argues that Japan remains unwilling to accept migrant labourers because of an immigration policy structure that resolutely adheres to an outdated view of migrants as mere units of labour. This overlooks changed global models of migration that prioritise human rights, proactive social integration and strategic selection of migrants. While Japan could ease the effects of depopulation and demographic decline by revising core policy assumptions in order to effectively integrate migrants into the dwindling national workforce, it has so far failed to engage with newer models of migration. My analysis locates Japan’s crisis within a wider context of global demographic change and transnational population movement in the twenty-first century.</p>

Leadership and City Waste Politics: A Case Study on the Waste Management in Depok City, West Java Province 2014 – 2017

This article aims to ascertain the role of a local leader in the transformation of waste management in Depok City, West Java, between 2014 and 2017. In 2005, Depok was identified as one of the dirtiest cities in Indonesia; by 2017, it had successfully transformed itself and received the Adipura Award for Indonesia's cleanest city. Based on qualitative fieldwork, we argue that Depok's waste management was transformed through a series of policies made by the mayor in conjunction with the Government of Depok City between 2006 and 2016. The example of Depok shows that formal leadership plays an important role in encouraging the emergence of innovative policies to address public problems. In this case, the vision of the leader was translated into policy and implemented by bureaucratic institutions, thereby driving important changes in the region. Further contributing factors included credibility, protection from opposition, and access to resources. We also emphasize the importance of leadership in giving direct examples to local communities on how we understand waste; how we reduce, reuse, recycle, and participate. The leader's ability to consolidate his ideas within the broader community, as well as his commitment to sustainable change, become the main driver of his policy performance.

States, Markets, and Foreign Aid

Why do some donor governments pursue international development through recipient governments, while others bypass such local authorities? Weaving together scholarship in political economy, public administration and historical institutionalism, Simone Dietrich argues that the bureaucratic institutions of donor countries shape donor–recipient interactions differently despite similar international and recipient country conditions. Donor nations employ institutional constraints that authorize, enable and justify particular aid delivery tactics while precluding others. Offering quantitative and qualitative analyses of donor decision-making, the book illuminates how donors with neoliberally organized public sectors bypass recipient governments, while donors with more traditional public-sector-oriented institutions cooperate and engage recipient authorities on aid delivery. The book demonstrates how internal beliefs and practices about states and markets inform how donors see and set their objectives for foreign aid and international development itself. It informs debates about aid effectiveness and donor coordination and carries implications for the study of foreign policy, more broadly.

From Weber to Kafka: Political Instability and the Overproduction of Laws

With inefficient bureaucratic institutions, the effects of laws are hard to assess and incompetent politicians may pass laws to build a reputation as skillful reformers. Since too many laws curtail bureaucratic efficiency, this mechanism can generate a steady state with Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Temporary surges in political instability heighten the incentives to overproduce laws and can shift the economy towards the Kafkaesque state. Consistent with the theory, after a surge in political instability in the early 1990s, Italy experienced a significant increase in the amount of poor-quality legislation and a decrease in bureaucratic efficiency. (JEL D72, D73)

Defense Sector Politics

Ownership and control of defense industrial firms affords the military power, autonomy, and a claim to economic rents. Why do some countries succeed at shifting some or all such firms from military to civilian ownership and control, while others do not? I argue that differing configurations of relative civilian and military coalitional and institutional strength contribute to outcomes. Civilian and military must find party and executive-branch allies who can compete for them to craft or defeat legislation affecting their interests, but coalition building alone is insufficient. Actors must also cultivate executive bureaucratic institutions able to design and implement policies promoting their interests. How coalitions and institutions form, ossify, or fail to develop is assessed through a comparative study of Chile, Argentina (1983–1989), and Argentina (1989–1997).

Operating the Panoptic Sort

This chapter emphasizes the nature of the panoptic sort as a discriminatory technology. It emphasizes the role played by surveillance, or the collection, processing, and analysis of data gathered from a variety of transactions, many of them commercial, but many involving bureaucratic institutions involved in governance. While there is already an extensive literature on the nature and usage of data gathered by governments, this chapter focuses primarily on the transaction-generated information gathered by corporations. Its coverage includes traditional data-gathering methods familiar to government and social service agencies, but also includes technological systems, including the rapidly evolving telecommunications network. Considerable attention is paid to developments in the use of computers for data processing and analysis, including a primary function of the panoptic sort: classification, clustering, and segmentation of individuals into groups. The chapter ends with a discussion of an important but emergent segment of the information marketplace, that served by organizations that generate extensive lists of categories or types of persons, often described in terms of their market, or policy-related value.

Birokrasi, Disrupsi, dan Anak Muda: Mendorong Birokrat Muda menciptakan Dynamic Governance

Bureaucratic governance in Indonesia is still thick with the nuances of traditional governance. Under Joko Widodo regime, there was a momentum for change in the bureaucracy by introducing Smart ASN as a new idea for the bureaucracy to make adaptive improvements to the development of the digital era. The digital era is important for bureaucratic institutions as an effort to innovate public services that is responsive and leads directly to the community. The implementation of technology in the bureaucracy certainly requires young people to better understand technology and of course these changes will have an impact on the work patterns of the bureaucracy. This study wants to see how young people are able to encourage changes in the technology-minded bureaucracy. The research method in this article uses a desk study. Data collection techniques in this study will be carried out using library research techniques. Library research is a technique that uses library data as material to be studied and examined in research in order to obtain objective results. This research shows that the right “agent of change” to change the bureaucratic work system are young people’s. Meanwhile, the concept of bureaucratic reform needs to apply flexible working that will bring out global governance, digital governance and knowledge based governance. This bureaucratic reform will change the work system that leads to the use of technology so that bureaucrats can freely innovate services that are directly beneficial to the community.

The Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman rulers masterfully combined military prowess with state-building skills. Having adopted Persian bureaucratic institutions, at the same time they maintained such typical Turkic traits as the nomadic warrior ethos, religious tolerance, and the institution of slave soldiers. To their Greek and Slavic subjects in the Balkans, the Ottoman sultans appealed as a viable (and more successful) alternative to the Roman/Byzantine emperors; to Arab subjects in the Middle East, they were the legitimate successors of the first caliphs. Yet in the long run, keeping such distinct traits proved difficult: the more rigid the Ottoman rulers were in their confessional policy in order to consolidate the Sunni Muslim core of the empire’s population, the more they alienated those who did not belong to this core. The empire’s final decades were characterized by the rising nationalisms and ethnic cleansings whose effects were further deepened by the humanitarian catastrophe related to the wars fought incessantly in the years 1911–1922.