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 -