TY - JOUR A1 - Fleischer, Julia A1 - Bezes, Philippe A1 - Yesilkagit, Kutsal T1 - Political time in public bureaucracies BT - explaining variation of structural duration in European governments JF - Public administration review N2 - Structural duration conveys stability but also resilience in central government and is therefore a key issue in the debate on the structure and organization of government. This paper discusses three core variants of structural duration to study the explanatory relevance of politics. We compare these durations across ministerialunits in four European democracies (Germany, France, The Netherlands, and Norway) from 1980 to 2013, totaling over 17,000 units. Our empirical analyses show that cabinets’ ideological turnover and extremism are the most significant predictors of all variants of duration, whereas polarization in parliament as well as new prime ministers without office experience yield the predicted significant negative effects for most models. We discuss these findings and avenues for futureresearch that acknowledge the definition and measures for structural change as well as temporal aspects of the empirical phenomenon more explicitly. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13740 SN - 0033-3352 SN - 1540-6210 VL - 83 IS - 6 SP - 1813 EP - 1832 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fleischer, Julia A1 - Pruin, Andree T1 - Organizational reputation in executive politics BT - citizen-oriented units in the German federal bureaucracy JF - International review of administrative sciences N2 - In recent years, governments have increased their efforts to strengthen the citizen-orientation in policy design. They have established temporary arenas as well as permanent units inside the machinery of government to integrate citizens into policy formulation, leading to a “laboratorization” of central government organizations. We argue that the evolution and role of these units herald new dynamics in the importance of organizational reputation for executive politics. These actors deviate from the classic palette of organizational units inside the machinery of government and thus require their own reputation vis-à-vis various audiences within and outside their parent organization. Based on a comparative case study of two of these units inside the German federal bureaucracy, we show how ambiguous expectations of their audiences challenge their organizational reputation. Both units resolve these tensions by balancing their weaker professional and procedural reputation with a stronger performative and moral reputation. We conclude that government units aiming to improve citizen orientation in policy design may benefit from engaging with citizens as their external audience to compensate for a weaker reputation in the eyes of their audiences inside the government organization. Points for practitioners: many governments have introduced novel means to strengthen citizen-centered policy design, which has led to an emergence of novel units inside central government that differ from traditional bureaucratic structures and procedures ; this study analyzes how these new units may build their organizational reputation vis-à-vis internal and external actors in government policymaking. ; we show that such units assert themselves primarily based on their performative and moral reputation. KW - citizen participation KW - government policymaking KW - organizational reputation Y1 - 0023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/00208523221132228 SN - 0020-8523 SN - 1461-7226 PB - Sage CY - Los Angeles, Calif. ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fleischer, Julia A1 - Wanckel, Camilla T1 - Job satisfaction and the digital transformation of the public sector BT - the mediating role of job autonomy JF - Review of Public Personnel Administration N2 - Worldwide, governments have introduced novel information and communication technologies (ICTs) for policy formulation and service delivery, radically changing the working environment of government employees. Following the debate on work stress and particularly on technostress, we argue that the use of ICTs triggers “digital overload” that decreases government employees’ job satisfaction via inhibiting their job autonomy. Contrary to prior research, we consider job autonomy as a consequence rather than a determinant of digital overload, because ICT-use accelerates work routines and interruptions and eventually diminishes employees’ freedom to decide how to work. Based on novel survey data from government employees in Germany, Italy, and Norway, our structural equation modeling (SEM) confirms a significant negative effect of digital overload on job autonomy. More importantly, job autonomy partially mediates the negative relationship between digital overload and job satisfaction, pointing to the importance of studying the micro-foundations of ICT-use in the public sector. KW - digital transformation KW - digital overload KW - job autonomy KW - job satisfaction KW - civil service survey Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X221148403 SN - 0734-371X SN - 1552-759X PB - Sage CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fleischer, Julia A1 - Wanckel, Camilla T1 - Creativity in policy capacity BT - organizational and individual determinants JF - Public administration review N2 - Creativity is a crucial part of policy capacity in governments. Existing studies on creative behavior in the public sector assess employees' openness to new ideas and creative solutions, and they confirm the relevance of organizational and individual determinants for pro-creativity attitudes. Yet we lack systemic evidence on the explicit level of work-related creativity among policy officials in government organizations. At the same time, novel technologies and particularly social networking services change the working environment of policy officials radically, alter organizational features, and may also yield crucial individual effects. Our study analyses “policy creativity” of policy officials in three European governments. We demonstrate the importance of organizational and individual features, including the stress triggered by using social networking services. Our study captures officials' creativity explicitly and adds to debates on creativity and innovation in the public sector as well as the micro-level foundations of the digital transformation in the public sector. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13676 SN - 0033-3352 SN - 1540-6210 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hecke, Steven van A1 - Fuhr, Harald A1 - Wolfs, Wouter T1 - The politics of crisis management by regional and international organizations in fighting against a global pandemic BT - the member states at a crossroads JF - International review of administrative sciences : an international journal of comparative public administration N2 - Despite new challenges like climate change and digitalization, global and regional organizations recently went through turbulent times due to a lack of support from several of their member states. Next to this crisis of multilateralism, the COVID-19 pandemic now seems to question the added value of international organizations for addressing global governance issues more specifically. This article analyses this double challenge that several organizations are facing and compares their ways of managing the crisis by looking at their institutional and political context, their governance structure, and their behaviour during the pandemic until June 2020. More specifically, it will explain the different and fragmented responses of the World Health Organization, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund/World Bank. With the aim of understanding the old and new problems that these international organizations are trying to solve, this article argues that the level of autonomy vis-a-vis the member states is crucial for understanding the politics of crisis management.
Points for practitioners
As intergovernmental bodies, international organizations require authorization by their member states. Since they also need funding for their operations, different degrees of autonomy also matter for reacting to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The potential for international organizations is limited, though through proactive and bold initiatives, they can seize the opportunity of the crisis and partly overcome institutional and political constraints. KW - autonomy KW - COVID-19 KW - crisis management KW - European Union KW - International KW - Monetary Fund KW - international organizations KW - multilateralism KW - World Bank KW - World Health Organization Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852320984516 SN - 0020-8523 SN - 1461-7226 VL - 87 IS - 3 SP - 672 EP - 690 PB - Sage CY - Los Angeles, Calif. [u.a.] ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Juchler, Ingo T1 - Aporien des Rechts BT - Ferdinand von Schirachs Theaterstücke in der politischen Bildung JF - Zeitschrift für Menschenrechte KW - Menschenrechte KW - Religionsfreiheit KW - Verschwindenlassen KW - Folter KW - Lieferkettengesetz KW - Ferdinand von Schirach Y1 - 2021 SN - 978-3-7344-1405-3 SN - 1864-6492 SN - 2749-4845 VL - 15 IS - 2 SP - 196 EP - 206 PB - Wochenschau Verlag CY - Frankfurt am Main ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kuhlmann, Sabine A1 - Bogumil, Jörg T1 - Legitimation von Verwaltungshandeln - Veränderungen und Konstanten BT - Einleitung JF - Der moderne Staat : dms ; Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management N2 - Der Beitrag untersucht das Wechsel- und Zusammenspiel von öffentlichem Verwaltungshandeln und Legitimität. Ausgegangen wird davon, dass in den letzten Jahren sowohl die Input- als auch die Outputdimension staatlicher Legitimationsbeschaffung signifikante Veränderungen durchlaufen haben, die die öffentliche Verwaltung intensiv berühren. Mit Rückgriff auf die anderen Beiträge des Schwerpunktheftes und unter Hinzuziehung weiterer Erkenntnisse wird überblicksartig untersucht, ob sich die Legitimationsproduktion durch Verwaltungshandeln verändert hat und wenn ja, inwiefern. Im Ergebnis ergibt sich ein partieller Wandel hinsichtlich der Legitimationsquellen von Verwaltungshandeln. Sowohl im Input-Bereich (Transparenzgesetze, vorgezogene Bürgerbeteiligung) als auch im Output-Bereich (z.B. Normenkontrollrat) gibt es neue bzw. einen stärkeren Einsatz schon bekannter Instrumente (Expertenkommissionen). Ob dieser Wandel der Instrumente und der potenziellen Quellen von Legitimation allerdings tatsächlich die Legitimität des Verwaltungshandelns verändert, also zu einer Legitimitätssteigerung führt, wird teils skeptisch beurteilt und bedarf daher weiterer empirischer Untersuchung. Y1 - 2015 SN - 1865-7192 SN - 2196-1395 VL - 8 IS - 2 SP - 237 EP - 251 PB - Budrich CY - Leverkusen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kuhlmann, Sabine A1 - Bogumil, Jörg A1 - Hafner, Jonas T1 - Verwaltungshandeln in der Flüchtlingskrise BT - Die Erstaufnahmeeinrichtungen der Länder und die Zukunft des Verwaltungsvollzugssystems Asyl JF - Verwaltung & Management : VM ; Zeitschrift für moderne Verwaltung N2 - In dem Beitrag werden das Verwaltungshandeln in der Flüchtlingskrise und mögliche Ursachen der aufgetretenen Vollzugsprobleme untersucht. Im Fokus stehen vor allem die Vollzugsrealität und die Verwaltungsvarianz im Bereich der Erstaufnahme von Flüchtlingen auf der Länderebene sowie die durch das BAMF als auch die Bundes länder mittlerweile begonnenen Reformen im Verwaltungsvollzugssystem. Leitfrage des Aufsatzes ist, ob das bestehende Verwaltungsvollzugssystem nicht nur in den jeweiligen Zuständigkeiten reformbedürftig ist, sondern ob es auch zu einer neuen Zuständigkeitsverteilung im Bundesstaat kommen sollte. Y1 - 2016 SN - 0947-9856 IS - 3 SP - 126 EP - 136 PB - Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft CY - Baden-Baden ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kuhlmann, Sabine A1 - Reiter, Renate T1 - Decentralization of the French welfare state: from 'big bang' to 'muddling through' JF - International Review of Administrative Sciences N2 - This article analyses the decentralization of the French welfare state focusing on the transfer of the Revenu minimum d’insertion (RMI) welfare benefit to the departments in 2003 and 2004. We map and explain the effects of the reform on the system and performance of the subnational provision of welfare tasks. To evaluate the impact of decentralization on the RMI-related action of the departments, we carry out a qualitative document analysis and use data from two case studies. The RMI decentralization offers an exemplary insight into the incremental implementation of French decentralization. We find many unintended effects in terms of the performance and outcome of the subnational welfare provision. This is traced back to the combining of institutional and policy reforms and the inadequate translation of high political expectations into an inadequate action programme both resulting in excessive demands on the local actors. Points for practitioners The decentralization of public tasks is associated with high expectations in terms of the effects on the performance of public services and public governance on the subnational levels. For an in-depth measure the range of administrative performance and political systems effects should be taken into account. We propose a five-dimensional scheme allowing for the determination of decentralization effects on the resource input to and the operative output of subnational public services, on the horizontal coordination between subnational task holders and the affected non-public stakeholders, on the vertical intergovernmental coordination, and on the democratic accountability of subnational authorities. KW - decentralization KW - France KW - incremental reform KW - welfare state Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/0.1177/0020852315583194 SN - 0020-8523 SN - 1461-7226 VL - 82 IS - 2 SP - 255 EP - 272 PB - Sage CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Reiners, Nina T1 - Despite or because of contestation? BT - how water became a human right JF - Human rights quarterly : a comparative and international journal of the social sciences, humanities, and law N2 - Almost twenty years after its recognition in international human rights law, the human right to water continues to spark discussions about its scope and meaning. This article revisits the evolution and contestation of the right's first international legal framework, General Comment No. 15 from the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The analysis highlights the contestation of economic and social rights as a universal phenomenon at multiple levels, but argues that these meaning-making practices can support their validation and recognition. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2021.0021 SN - 0275-0392 SN - 1085-794X VL - 43 IS - 2 SP - 329 EP - 343 PB - Johns Hopkins Univ. Press CY - Baltimore ER -