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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.
As presidents approach the end of their constitutionally defined term in office, they face a number of difficulties, most importantly the deprivation of sources of power, personal enrichment, and protection from prosecution. This leads many of them to attempt to circumvent their term limits. Recent studies explain both the reasons for the extension or full abolition of term limits, and failed attempts to do so. Key explanations include electoral competition and the post-term fate of previous post holders. What we do not know yet is how compliance with term limits may be tied to the current president's expectations for their post-term fate. In particular, we do not know whether leaders who attempt to remove term limits and fail to do so jeopardize their post-term career as a result, and conversely, whether leaders who comply will have better outcomes in terms of security, prestige, and economic gain. Hence, we ask how the decision of a leader to comply or not comply with term limits is conditioned by the expectation of their post-term fate. To address this question, this article introduces new data on the career trajectories of term-limited presidents and its systematic effect on term limit compliance.
The thesis focuses on the inter-departmental coordination of adaptation and mitigation of demographic change in East Germany. All Eastern German States (Länder) have set up inter-departmental committees (IDCs) that are expected to deliver joint strategies to tackle demographic change. IDCs provide an organizational setting for potential positive coordination, i.e. a joint approach to problem solving that pools and utilizes the expertise of many departments in a constructive manner from the very beginning. Whether they actually achieve positive coordination is contested within the academic debate. This motivates the first research question of this thesis: Do IDCs achieve positive coordination?
Interdepartmental committees and their role in horizontal coordination within the core executive triggered interest among scholars already more than fifty years ago. However, we don’t know much about their actual importance for the inter-departmental preparation of cross-cutting policies. Until now, few studies can be found that analyzes inter-departmental committees in a comparative way trying to identify whether they achieve positive coordination and what factors shape the coordination process and output of IDCs.
Each IDC has a chair organization that is responsible for managing the interactions within the IDCs. The chair organization is important, because it organizes and structures the overall process of coordination in the IDC. Consequently, the chair of an IDC serves as the main boundary-spanner and therefore has remarkable influence by arranging meetings and the work schedule or by distributing internal roles. Interestingly, in the German context we find two organizational approaches: while some states decided to put a line department (e.g. Department of Infrastructure) in charge of managing the IDC, others rely on the State Chancelleries, i.e. the center of government.
This situation allows for comparative research design that can address the role of the State Chancellery in inter-departmental coordination of cross-cutting policies. This is relevant, because the role of the center is crucial when studying coordination within central government. The academic debate on the center of government in the German politico-administrative system is essentially divided into two camps. One camp claims that the center can improve horizontal coordination and steer cross-cutting policy-making more effectively, while the other camp points to limits to central coordination due to departmental autonomy. This debate motivates the second research question of this thesis: Does the State Chancellery as chair organization achieve positive coordination in IDCs?
The center of government and its role in the German politic-administrative system has attracted academic attention already in the 1960s and 1970s. There is a research desiderate regarding the center’s role during the inter-departmental coordination process. There are only few studies that explicitly analyze centers of government and their role in coordination of cross-cutting policies, although some single case studies have been published. This gap in the academic debate will be addressed by the answer to the second research question.
The dependent variable of this study is the chair organization of IDCs. The value of this variable is dichotomous: either an IDC is chaired by a Line department or by a State Chancellery. We are interested whether this variable has an effect on two dependent variables. First, we will analyze the coordination process, i.e. interaction among bureaucrats within the IDC. Second, the focus of this thesis will be on the coordination result, i.e. the demography strategies that are produced by the respective IDCs.
In terms of the methodological approach, this thesis applies a comparative case study design based on a most-similar-systems logic. The German Federalism is quite suitable for such designs. Since the institutional framework largely is the same across all states, individual variables and their effect can be isolated and plausibly analyzed. To further control for potential intervening variables, we will limit our case selection to states located in East Germany, because the demographic situation is most problematic in the Eastern part of Germany, i.e. there is a equal problem pressure. Consequently, we will analyze five cases: Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt (line department) and Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony (State Chancellery).
There is no grand coordination theory that is ready to be applied to our case studies. Therefore, we need to tailor our own approach. Our assumption is that the individual chair organization has an effect on the coordination process and output of IDCs, although all cases are embedded in the same institutional setting, i.e. the German politico-administrative system. Therefore, we need an analytical approach than incorporates institutionalist and agency-based arguments. Therefore, this thesis will utilize Actor-Centered Institutionalism (ACI). Broadly speaking, ACI conceptualizes actors’ behavior as influenced - but not fully determined - by institutions. Since ACI is rather abstract we need to adapt it for the purpose of this thesis. Line Departments and State Chancelleries will be modeled as distinct actors with different action orientations and capabilities to steer the coordination process. However, their action is embedded within the institutional context of governments, which we will conceptualize as being comprised of regulative (formal rules) and normative (social norms) elements.
The background of civil service reform in Indonesia reveals the emergence of the reformation movement in 1998, following the fall of the authoritarian New Order regime. The reformation movement has seen the introduction of reforms in Indonesia's various governmental institutions, including the civil service. The civil service reforms were marked by the revision of Act 8/ 74 with Act 43 of 1999 on Civil Service Administration. The implementation of the civil service reform program, which was carried out by both central and local governments, required cooperation between the actors (in particular, Ministries, agencies and local governments), known as coordination.
Currently, the coordination that occurs between actors tends to be rigid and hierarchical. As a result, targets are not efficiently and effectively met. Hierarchical coordination, without a strong public sector infrastructure, tends to have a negative impact on achieving the desired outcomes of the civil service reform program. As an intrinsic part of the New Order regime, hierarchical coordination resulted in inefficiency and lack of efficacy. Despite these inefficiencies, the administration and the political environment have changed significantly as a result of the reform process.
Obvious examples of the reforms are changes in recruitment patterns, placement and remuneration policies. However, in the case of Indonesia, it appears that every state institution has its own policy. Thus, it appears that there has not been policy coherence in the civil service reform program, resulting in the lack of a sustainable program. The important thing to examine is how the coordination mechanisms of the civil service reform program in the central government have developed during the reform era in Indonesia
The purpose of this study is to analyse the linkages between coordination mechanisms and the actual implementation of civil service reform programs. This is undertaken as a basis for intervention based on the structures and patterns of coordination mechanisms in the implementation of civil service reform programs. The next step is to formulate the development coordination mechanisms, particularly to create structures and patterns of civil service reforms which are more sustainable to the specific characteristics of public sector organisations in Indonesia.
The benefits of this research are a stronger understanding of the linkages between the mechanisms of coordination and implementation of civil service reform programs. Through this analysis, the findings can then be applied as a basic consideration in planning a sustainable civil service reform program. In the basis of theoretical issues concerning the linkages between coordination mechanisms and implementation of civil service reform program sustainability, this book explores the type of coordination, which is needed to test the proportional and sustainable concept of the intended civil service reform program in Indonesia.
Research conducted through studies, surveys and donors has shown that poor coordination is the major hindrance to the civil service program reform in Indonesia. This research employs a qualitative approach. In this study, the coordination mechanisms and implementations of civil service reform programs are demonstrated by means of case studies of the State Ministry for Administrative Reform, the National Civil Service Agency and the National Public Administration Institute. The coordination mechanisms in these Ministries and agencies were analysed using indicators of effective and efficient coordination. The analysis of the coordination mechanisms shows a tendency towards rigid hierarchical coordination. This raises concerns about fragmentation among departments and agencies at the central government level and calls for integrated civil service reform both at central and local governmental levels. In the context of implementation programs, a hierarchical mechanism of coordination leverages on various aspects, such as the program formulation, implementation flow of the program, the impact of policies, and achievement targets. In particular, there was a shift process of the mainstream civil service reform in the Ministries and agencies which are marked by the emergence of sectoral interest and inefficiencies in the civil service reform program. The primary result of successful civil service reform is increased professionalism in the civil service.
The findings on hierarchical mechanisms and the prescriptions which will follow show that the professionalism of Indonesia’s civil service is at stake. The implementation of the program through coordination mechanisms in Ministries and agencies is measured in various dimensions: the centre of coordination, integration of coordination, sustainability of coordination and multidimensionality of coordination.
The results of this analysis show that coordination mechanisms and the implementation of civil service reform are more successful when they are integration rather than hierarchical mechanisms. For a successful implementation of the reform program, it is crucial to intervene and change the type of coordination at the central government through the integration approach (hierarchy, market, and network). Furthermore, in order to move towards the integration type mechanism of coordination the separation of the administration and politics in the practice of good governance needs to be carried out immediately and simultaneously. Based on this analysis, it can be concluded that the integration type mechanism of coordination is a suitable for Indonesia for a sustainable civil service reform program. Finally, to achieve coherent civil service reforms, national policies developed according to the central government's priorities are indispensable, establishing a coordination mechanism that can be adhered to throughout all reform sectors.
Confounding is one of the major types of bias encountered in observational epidemiologic surveys designed to study the relation between an exposure factor and a health event. A common way to remove confounding bias during the statistical analysis phase is to adjust for the confounders in a regression model. If a confounding factor is assessed as a continuous variable, it is necessary to define how the variable is entered into the regression model. In the case of logistic regression, we illustrate through simulation that coding by a binary variable or a categorical variable with broad categories may lead to substantial residual confounding. Specific approaches can be used to define a coding method that limits residual confounding. Among these, we briefly present nonparametric approaches and describe in detail several semiparametric approaches (generalised partial linear models, spline regression and fractional polynomials). These can be used to estimate the relation between a continuous factor and the health event of interest by a smooth non pre-specified function. In semiparametric models, the effect of certain covariates is coded by a parametric function, whereas the coding of one or two continuous variables is represented by a nonparametric function. These models can be used in exploratory analyses to describe dose-effect relations between the confounder and the health event, and thus help to define a relevant coding for the confounder
The era of public management change is said to challenge traditional "command and control" modes of governance, encouraging a move toward either more informal forms of (co-) governance or market-type incentives and competition. Regardless of whether these claims are made by reform advocates or by more sceptical observers within the wider governance debate, less attention has been paid by either side on the mechanisms that are supposed to facilitate the spread of new forms of control. This article seeks to advance this state of affairs in two ways. First, it utilizes the notion of institutional isomorphism to explore the nature of change of modes of control. In particular, it assesses the mechanisms for change, whether control mechanisms are changing due to coercive, mimetic, or professional mechanisms. Second, it explores the impact of these mechanisms in the federal context of Germany in two policy domains, prison and local government supervision (in the field of building administration). Finally, this article suggests that cultural theory offers considerable insights for the study of institutional isomorphism by emphasizing conflicting worldviews and the diversity of related policy ideas as driving forces of change in modes of governance