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Conclusion: Senior Officials in Western Europe

Edward C. Page and Vincent Wright

in Bureaucratic Elites in Western European States: A Comparative Analysis of Top Officials

The conclusion starts by noting that there are clearly highly diverse trends in the development of bureaucracy in Western Europe, and that, although in some countries patterns of change are quite ... More

The conclusion starts by noting that there are clearly highly diverse trends in the development of bureaucracy in Western Europe, and that, although in some countries patterns of change are quite distinct, change does not appear to have followed any one expected pattern or scale. It then looks at two central questions for the role of bureaucracy: its political controllability and efficiency. These enable us to point to differences in broad underlying principles that reflect how different countries have traditionally understood and dealt with these two central problems, allow us to make important distinctions between different forms of bureaucracies, and explore the causes and character of changes in the senior ranks of post‐war bureaucracies. The two central questions are then examined in sections on political control, performance, managerial changes, and changes in political control. The concluding section finds that there is a common theme underlying the development of relationships between bureaucratic and political elites that applies to most of the country studies: a deinstitutionalization or personalization of political trust. Understood as a question of trust, change in bureaucracy is linked to much wider political changes that have been identified outside the literature on bureaucracy.Less

Candidate Emergence, Political Ambition, and Seat Value

Wendy J. Schiller and Charles Stewart III

in Electing the Senate: Indirect Democracy before the Seventeenth Amendment

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the value of a Senate seat and a general assessment of the value that a Senate seat added to a state during this era of federalism. It argues that ... More

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the value of a Senate seat and a general assessment of the value that a Senate seat added to a state during this era of federalism. It argues that from a purely distributive standpoint, the value of a Senate seat was not high, but for political parties and business interests, the stakes were enormous for the maintenance of political organizations and control over local politics as well as the direction of national policies that affected state and local business interests. The chapter presents case studies from Pennsylvania and Rhode Island to illustrate the desire to use a Senate seat to consolidate state political control and reap the associated economic benefits. It also includes cases from Nevada and Wisconsin to demonstrate the role of national party policies in the dynamics of state-based Senate campaigns.Less

Entertaining the National Community

Corey Ross

in Media and the Making of Modern Germany: Mass Communications, Society, and Politics from the Empire to the Third Reich

This chapter shows that the processes of political control and commercial concentration outlined in Chapter 9 dovetailed with Nazi efforts to satisfy audiences with popular, if somewhat ... More

This chapter shows that the processes of political control and commercial concentration outlined in Chapter 9 dovetailed with Nazi efforts to satisfy audiences with popular, if somewhat circumscribed, entertainment. It goes beyond existing interpretations of Nazi mass culture as a form of political propaganda to consider also the extent to which it matched audience expectations and helped transcend older audience segmentations. Overall, it argues that the reconfiguration of the media and popular entertainment in the Third Reich — though in many ways merely an acceleration of existing trends and at base more destructive than creative — contributed to the increasing convergence of the media and their audiences in the 1930s, and ultimately to a more common cultural frame of reference shared by wider range of social groups.Less

Great Power Politics in the Age of Imperial Expansion, 1856–99

Dale C. Copeland

in Economic Interdependence and War

This chapter explores the forty-five-year period after the Crimean War when great powers of all stripes fell into an intense competition for formal political control over third-party territories. The ... More

This chapter explores the forty-five-year period after the Crimean War when great powers of all stripes fell into an intense competition for formal political control over third-party territories. The competition greatly increased the level of tension in the system, even if most of the struggles stopped short of a direct great power war. Most significantly, of course, France, Britain, and Germany dove into a scramble for colonial territory after 1880 that drew most of Africa and large parts of Asia into the European orbit. On two particular occasions—the Austro-Prussian “Seven Weeks' War” of 1866 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870—large-scale war between two great powers did break out. The purpose of the chapter is to uncover to what extent and in what manner economic interdependence shaped the struggles and wars of this almost-half-century period.Less

Party Patronage in Hungary: Capturing the State

Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling and Krisztina Jager

in Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies

This chapter examines party patronage in Hungary. It argues that party patronage reaches into all areas of the public sector. Political appointments are relatively more important for the ministerial ... More

This chapter examines party patronage in Hungary. It argues that party patronage reaches into all areas of the public sector. Political appointments are relatively more important for the ministerial bureaucracy than for executive agencies and executing institutions such as state-owned enterprises. They are more common at the top of institutions, predominantly for the sake of politically controlling the policy process. The chapter shows that party patronage varies across sectors. Three patterns are distinguished. They are labelled as ‘captured sectors’ such as the Media, ‘partially disciplined sectors’ such as Finance and Economy, and ‘partially insulated sectors’ such as the Judiciary. The chapter concludes that party patronage contributes to the stabilization of parties and party systems in Hungary. Yet patronage increases corruption risks in the public sector, breeds popular distrust in political parties, and hence runs the risk of being self-defeating for the parties that rely on it.Less

Ambition and Social Order

Catherine Kovesi Killerby

in Sumptuary Law in Italy 1200-1500

This chapter focuses on the attempts by governments to tackle the wider variety of problems presented by the changes due to sumptuary policy, as well as to cope with the problems of public order ... More

This chapter focuses on the attempts by governments to tackle the wider variety of problems presented by the changes due to sumptuary policy, as well as to cope with the problems of public order experienced by any state, no matter how stable. It demonstrates how sumptuary measures were used as a means of social and political control. It begins by discussing the governments' concern regarding modesty in outward apparel, and the avoidance of any clothing that might lead to, or encourage, immoral activities. It examines the governments' concern regarding behaviour at, and social practices during, public occasions such as weddings, funerals, christenings, and feasts in general. It adds that legislators were also concerned with the fundamental structure of society. This chapter also discusses laws that was supposed to apply to all citizens no matter what their status but did, however, make an extra distinction concerning servants and slaves.Less

The Democratic Legitimacy of Bureaucratic Leadership

John Kane and Haig Patapan

in Dispersed Democratic Leadership: Origins, Dynamics, and Implications

Elected democratic leaders have the tendency to face the challenges posed by dispersed leadership throughout society as entailed by democracy. The natural pluralism of a democratic society is ... More

Elected democratic leaders have the tendency to face the challenges posed by dispersed leadership throughout society as entailed by democracy. The natural pluralism of a democratic society is reflected in the dispersal of leadership among business groups, labour organizations, social movements, intellectual institutions, opposition parties, and other involved sectors. This chapter discusses how democratic leaders seek to develop further active public sectors by enhancing the value of services offered while avoiding external challenges set from a new leadership form. Leaders in a democratic state wish to combine administrative freedom with political control and this chapter examines whether they are successful with such endevour. It also explores the fundamental nature of the bureaucratic leadership challenge and its implications for the specific forms of leadership appropriate to the modern civil service.Less

Origins of City-States

David Stasavage

in States of Credit: Size, Power, and the Development of European Polities

This chapter examines the origins of European city-states. It has long been observed that within Europe, autonomous cities tended to emerge in a relatively narrow belt stretching from the Low ... More

This chapter examines the origins of European city-states. It has long been observed that within Europe, autonomous cities tended to emerge in a relatively narrow belt stretching from the Low Countries to northern Italy, and this empirical observation has generated a variety of explanations. Answering this question is critical to the conceptualization of the broad process of state formation in Europe. The chapter asks why city-states emerged in some European regions in the first place, whereas elsewhere territorial states became the dominant mode of state organization. It considers the principal existing explanation for the pattern of city-state development, the Rokkan/Tilly hypothesis, and compares it with the Carolingian partition hypothesis. Results of empirical tests show that city-states were able to emerge in Europe's central core because this was where central political control collapsed to the greatest extent after the partition of the Carolingian Empire.Less

Communist Neo-Traditionalism: An Introductory Essay

Andrew G. Walder

in Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry

The neo-traditional image of communist society differs fundamentally from the images of totalitarianism and group theory. It shares with the totalitarian idea a focus on the distinctive communist ... More

The neo-traditional image of communist society differs fundamentally from the images of totalitarianism and group theory. It shares with the totalitarian idea a focus on the distinctive communist institutions that foster organized political control, and it shares the premise that these forms of organization shape patterns of association and political behavior in distinctive ways. The neo-traditional image stresses the social network as its main structural concept. The elements of workplace organization—generic features of modern communism—give rise to several other features of factory political life and authority relations that complete the definition of the type. Communist neo-traditionalism guides comparisons of industrial authority by focusing on organized dependence and institutional culture of the factory. The chapters included in this book explore the characteristics of neo-traditionalism in Chinese factories. They also determine the ways that the Chinese variant has diverged from the Soviet.Less

The Decline of the System for Controlling Students in Universities

Dingxin Zhao

in The Power of Tiananmen: State-Society Relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement

This chapter examines the student control system in Chinese universities during the 1980s, showing how it was greatly weakened by changes in social structure brought about by the reform. This ... More

This chapter examines the student control system in Chinese universities during the 1980s, showing how it was greatly weakened by changes in social structure brought about by the reform. This weakening facilitated the spread of non-conformist ideas from intellectual elites to the aggrieved students, thus contributing to the actual rise of the 1989 Beijing Student movement. The chapter first discusses the foundations and problems of the political control system in China. It then examines how a campus environment which had once facilitated control over students became conducive to student mobilization, and how political control institutions in Beijing universities were captured for mobilizational purposes after the decline of political control. Finally, it presents some quantitative evidence that directly links the effectiveness of political control to the level of student activism and that shows which facets of weakening control coincided with the spatial patterning of student activism.Less

Political control or legitimacy deficit? Bureaucracies’ symbolic responses to bottom-up public pressure

Saar Alon-Barkat and Sharon Gilad

Thomas Schillemans, Jon Pierre, Thomas Schillemans, and Jon Pierre (eds)

in Media and Governance: Exploring the Role of News Media in Complex Systems of Governance

Public administration research has focused on bureaucracies’responses to top-down pressures by elected politicians. By comparison, bureaucracies' responses to bottom-up public pressures, such as ... More

Public administration research has focused on bureaucracies’responses to top-down pressures by elected politicians. By comparison, bureaucracies' responses to bottom-up public pressures, such as media coverage and social protest, and the micro-mechanisms that underlie variation in their response, have received less attention. This study analyses the extent to which subjection to political control shapes direct response of bureaucracies to bottom-up public pressures. Based on current literature, we explore two distinct micro-mechanisms: firstly, building, inter alia, on principal–agent theory, we would expect higher levels of political control to render bureaucracies more attentive to public pressures in order to pre-empt intervention by politicians who are reliant on public support (principal–agent mechanism). Conversely, building on regulation theory, we would expect autonomous agencies to exhibit attentiveness to salient public pressures to compensate for their precarious democratic legitimacy (legitimacy-deficit mechanism). Empirically, we analyse the responses of a diverse set of 36 bureaucracies to unprecedented social protests taking place in Israel during 2011. We focus on bureaucracies', including independent agencies', symbolic responses via advertising campaigns. Our analysis shows that higher levels of political control enhanced the inclination of bureaucracies to engage in symbolic interactions in response to social protests, supporting our extended version of the principal–agent model.Less

Epilogue

Alton Hornsby

in Black Power in Dixie: A Political History of African Americans in Atlanta

This last chapter concludes that from the Reconstruction era to the pre-civil rights era, the blacks' participation in politics grew from being an occasional influence on general and special ... More

This last chapter concludes that from the Reconstruction era to the pre-civil rights era, the blacks' participation in politics grew from being an occasional influence on general and special occasions to having three people elected to public office to holding a significant balanced power in local elections. Then by the turn of 1960s and 1970s, African Americans substantially increased their influence and amplified their political clout until they gained political control of the city. While the African Americans gained political influence and control over the city, this would have not been achieved without their coalition with other classes and ethnicities. The only realistic hope for the black Atlantans in ending discrimination, deprivation, and exploitation based on race, class and gender was by forging coalitions of the oppressed and the dispossessed and forging allies with the middle and upper classes.Less

The Political Economy of Mubarak's Fall

Samer Soliman

in Arab Spring in Egypt: Revolution and Beyond (A Tahrir Studies Edition)

As authoritarian regimes do not rest only on repression, the Mubarak's one had to rely on ideology and money. Mubarak's fall should be explained by the weakening of his mechanisms of control in these ... More

As authoritarian regimes do not rest only on repression, the Mubarak's one had to rely on ideology and money. Mubarak's fall should be explained by the weakening of his mechanisms of control in these two fields. The objective of this chapter is to explain the transformation of the Egyptian political economy and how it brought the demise of the Egyptian regime. This transformation should not be reduced to a certain ‘economic crisis’ and a rising social discontent, although it certainly includes such a variable. In fact, under Mubarak the state has lost much of easy public revenues or rent coming from foreign aid, oil and Suez Canal revenues. Taxing the population has become a necessity. The State has been in the process of change from a semi-rentier state to a tax state[i]. This structural change helped transforming Egyptians from subjects to citizens. In addition, the contraction of public revenues limited the ‘political purchasing power’ of the regime, hence reducing the number of its dependents and supporters and created a process of fragmentation of political power. For more than two decades, Mubarak maneuvered in order to lessen the political outcomes of this transformation in the political economy of the country. But finally, structural factors imposed their outcome on Egyptian politics and they helped the fall of Mubarak. [i] The analysis of the end of the semi rentier state in Egypt is based on our earlier work: Samer Soliman. The Autumn of Dictatorship. Fiscal Crisis and Political Change in Egypt under Mubarak. (Stanford: Stanford university press, 2011).Less

Rain Is Only One Aspect of Water

Angela Impey

in Song Walking: Women, Music, and Environmental Justice in an African Borderland

This chapter considers incomers’ shifting landscape epistemologies, reflecting at first on their interaction with the rivers and pans that dominate the region, and the ways that experiences, images ... More

This chapter considers incomers’ shifting landscape epistemologies, reflecting at first on their interaction with the rivers and pans that dominate the region, and the ways that experiences, images and metaphors of water influence visions of themselves and those they lived amongst. The chapter traces the mutation of these fluid metaphors into “grounded” images of economic extraction and political control, which result from white industrial expansion and the permanent settlement in Maputaland by European traders and farmers. The reconstruction of this transformative moment in the history of the region builds on fragments of information drawn from memoirs, letters and personal interviews. As with Chapter Four’s concern with the textualised history of the region, this material represents storying told remotely, and while the patchwork of quotes and citations are used to insert a sense of livedness within the chapter, its unfolding is generally devoid of the sensory, the quotidian and the sounded.Less

Justice clings to its chains, 1989–2004

Tom Gallagher

in Romania and the European Union: How the Weak Vanquished the Strong

This chapter explores the degree of political control that was exercised over the justice system in Romania, and the degree to which this undermined meaningful prospects for reform. It demonstrates ... More

This chapter explores the degree of political control that was exercised over the justice system in Romania, and the degree to which this undermined meaningful prospects for reform. It demonstrates how the courts and prosecution service remained adjuncts of the Adrian Năstase government and its allies even as negotiations with the European Union (EU) were reaching their height. International financial institutions and the EU were slow to realise how important a compliant legal system was for autocratic rulers determined that the experiment with democracy would have definite limits. The tainted ethics of the justice system were no more sharply on display than during the Panait affair. Under Rodica Stănoiu, independent-minded prosecutors were hounded and purged. The EU seemed to feel that the partisan steps taken by Stănoiu and her aides were the dying gasps of the old politicised legal system.Less