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The Government will create a motivated, merit-based, performance-driven, and professional civil service that is resistant to temptations of corruption and which provides efficient, effective and transparent public services that do not force customers to pay bribes.
— (GoIRA, 2006, p. 106)
We were in a black hole! We had an empty glass and had nothing from our side to fill it with! Thus, we accepted anything anybody offered; that is how our glass was filled; that is how we reformed our civil service.
— (Former Advisor to IARCSC, personal communication, August 2015)
How and under what conditions were the post-Taleban Civil Service Reforms of Afghanistan initiated? What were the main components of the reforms? What were their objectives and to which extent were they achieved? Who were the leading domestic and foreign actors involved in the process? Finally, what specific factors influenced the success and failure Afghanistan’s Civil Service Reforms since 2002? Guided by such fundamental questions, this research studies the wicked process of reforming the Afghan civil service in an environment where a variety of contextual, programmatic, and external factors affected the design and implementation of reforms that were entirely funded and technically assisted by the international community.
Focusing on the core components of reforms—recruitment, remuneration, and appraisal of civil servants—the qualitative study provides a detailed picture of the pre-reform civil service and its major human resources developments in the past. Following discussions on the content and purposes of the main reform programs, it will then analyze the extent of changes in policies and practices by examining the outputs and effects of these reforms.
Moreover, the study defines the specific factors that led the reforms toward a situation where most of the intended objectives remain unachieved. Doing so, it explores and explains how an overwhelming influence of international actors with conflicting interests, large-scale corruption, political interference, networks of patronage, institutionalized nepotism, culturally accepted cronyism and widespread ethnic favoritism created a very complex environment and prevented the reforms from transforming Afghanistan’s patrimonial civil service into a professional civil service, which is driven by performance and merit.
Given the rising popularity of social networking sites (SNSs), the influence of these platforms on the subjective well-being (SWB) of their users is an emerging topic in information systems research. Building on the norm of reciprocity and the social functional approach to positive emotions, we posit that targeted reciprocity-evoking forms of SNS activities are best suited to promote users’ positive emotions. The favourable potential of these activities is likely to be particularly pronounced among adolescents who pay special attention to social acceptance, which can be channelled with the help of reciprocal communication. Therefore, we conducted a quantitative 7-day diary study of 162 adolescent Facebook users attending German schools, looking at the impact of their daily SNS activities on their SWB. Based on a linear mixed model analysis, our results confirm a positive link between targeted reciprocity-evoking activities – such as chatting, giving and receiving feedback – and adolescents’ positive emotions. Our findings provide a reassuring perspective on the implications of the sociotechnical design of SNS communication channels. Specifically, by encouraging targeted activities, providers, users, and other stakeholders can ensure the beneficial impact of this technology on users’ SWB.
Die Stadtwerkebetriebe, zumindest diejenigen die im Strom- und Gassektor tätig sind, sind meist nicht mehr im Stadtwerke Eigenbetrieb organisiert, sondern von den Kommunen in den vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnten in die Privatrechtsform der GmbH ausgegliedert worden. Hinzu kommt, dass diese kommunalen Unternehmen in einem Energiebinnenmarkt agieren, der durch die EU-Marktliberalisierung entstanden ist. Die unternehmerische Verselbstständigung der Stadtwerke GmbH von politischer Steuerung wird durch das Credo des Neuen Steuerungsmodells bestärkt, das gerade in der unternehmerischen Unabhängigkeit die Voraussetzungen für wirtschaftlichen Erfolg sieht. Diese Rahmenbedingungen zwingen die Unternehmen der kommunalen Wirtschaft, sich ausschließlich nach unternehmerischen und marktinduzierten Systemen zu richten. Dass die Logik des unternehmerischen Handelns keinen Platz lässt für eine politische Steuerung der Unternehmen, wird zum Legitimationsproblem für die kommunale Wirtschaft. Denn eine ausschließliche Orientierung an den Überschüssen der kommunalen Unternehmen legitimiert nicht den öffentlichen Zweck, weder politisch noch organisationsrechtlich. Die Gemeinwohlorientierung ist konstitutiver Bestandteil der kommunalen wirtschaftlichen Betätigung. Hier wird die These hervorgebracht, dass Bürgerbeteiligung in dieser Situation von den Stadtwerken zugelassen wird, um dieses Legitimationsdefizit abzuschwächen. Zwei Fälle werden qualitativ analysiert und verglichen: erstens die Stadtwerke Wolfhagen GmbH, die anhand von Bürgerbeteiligung Akzeptanz für einen Windpark generieren wollen. Zweitens die Stadtwerke Potsdam GmbH, die aus einer - hier als PR-Krise beschriebenen - Situation heraus, Legitimation mit verschiedenen Instrumenten der Bürgerbeteiligung wiederherzustellen versuchen.
Mit der Zeitreihenstudie „Jugend in Brandenburg“ werden seit Anfang der 1990er Jahre Veränderungen ausgewählter Lebensbedingungen und Einstellungen brandenburgischer Jugendlicher in unterschiedlichen zeitlichen Abständen erfasst. Im Zentrum der aktuellen Studie stehen das Freizeitverhalten, Migrationspläne sowie die politischen Einstellungen.