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Explores the connection between the political economy and the public policies that governments produce, using the cases of labour market policy in the 1980s in West Germany and the UK. Governments will favour policies that reinforce the comparative institutional advantage of their economic institutions, because policy options are constrained by the different organizational capacities of employers in CMEs and LMEs. It examines the constitutional and political sources of state power in the Federal Republic and UK, a contrast that suggests significant variation in the expected stability of the two labour market policy regimes. Business–government relations and public policies are therefore systematically correlated with varieties of capitalism, as also a function of broader political arrangements that may vary ‘across type’.

This chapter deals with Organization which is the existence (or absence) of adequate internal and external structures and procedures that enable an actor to pursue their interests and values during the different policy production stages (program formulation, implementation). It consists of real world interaction processes between specific actors (resource Personnel), which are regulated by rules that vary in terms of precision (general and policy-specific rules). In relation to public actors this resource corresponds to what we call a political-administrative arrangement (PAA), which shapes implementation processes in accordance with administrative procedural acts. Such arrangements can be made visible by retracing the dossier circulation process (including among decision-makers and other actors invited or obliged to provide advance notices), which are specific for the production of various categories of policy outputs. The chapter provides examples from water protection policy, institutional administrative reform policy, environmental policy, and agricultural and health policy. Its main focus concerns all kinds of administrative reforms aimed at improving the coordination between different public policies.

This chapter examines the relationship between values and institution in the context of democratic elections. It suggests that the debate over the value and place of elections in modern democracy stems from the problem of defining democracy itself. Analyzing the values implicit in the use of the term democracy is important in understanding the relationship between democracy and elections. This is because political arrangements can be evaluated only if the standards to be applied are clear and because a detailing of the values involved in debates over the meaning of democracy is necessary if the politics and outcome of institutional reforms are to be understood.

Collective rights, it is argued, are necessary to protect and promote the interests of members of minority groups. This latter claim is supported by theoretical and political arguments. The former suggest that unless bestowed upon a collective, the existence of some rights cannot be justified, while the latter assert that unless granted to a collective, some rights cannot be protected. This chapter argues that one can, and should, justify all rights in terms of individual rights. This does not imply that all the rights referred to as ‘collective rights’ can be reduced to individual rights. It is important to distinguish between rights and the political arrangements that ought to be put in place in order to defend and promote rights; the former ought to reflect the nature of moral and political agents, whereas the latter must take into account contingent limitations embedded in particular social and political circumstances. This chapter also discusses communal survival and violations of individual rights, collectives and associations, whether collectives can be rights-holders, and whether collective rights are indispensable.

This chapter explores the process involving policy programming from the perspective of both the constituent elements of a policy programme and that of the actor arrangements involved. It discusses how the political-administrative arrangement (PAA) of a policy represents the structured group of public and para-state actors who are responsible for its implementation. It notes that the majority of decisions concerning the designation of the competent authorities and services are already taken at the level of the PAA. It explains that the programming of a public policy generally unfolds on the basis of a highly formalized procedure.

The chapter argues that India’s recent scorecard in leading indigenous and innovative peace discourses onto the global template is not impressive despite the rich legacy of peace ideas and values including those of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. It also highlights the growing inclusion of the issues of justice and structural violence embedded in the existing political arrangements in Indian scholars’ analysis of both domestic and international conflicts.

The history of Hinduism can be demarcated into the pre-Vedic and Vedic period, the classical period, the medieval period, and the modern period. In order to gain a full understanding of the intellectual currents that characterize modern Hindu thought, it would be necessary to keep in mind the historical situation in which this process was occurring. Certain components of the Western presence in India played an important role in providing the context for a reconfiguration of Hindu concepts, four of which proved particularly consequential–Christianity, science, and the question of social and political arrangements. During the classical period, Hindu thought flowed through the channels of various schools of philosophy such as Nyāya or Vedānta. During the medieval period, the personalities of the saint-poets of the Bhakti movement began to stand out. This trend towards individualism becomes more pronounced during the modern period when individual thinkers began to matter.