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The Belgian senior civil service is in transition, with external pressures clearly pushing the government firmly towards a reform agenda and improving public confidence in the administrative system, in terms of democracy and accountability and of economy and efficiency. In addition, budgetary pressures have combined with political will to ensure that the operation of the administration complies with the new managerialist paradigm. This chapter gives an overview of the position of senior civil servants in the Belgian federal ministries (the federal civil service). It consists of three main sections: the first describes the coexistence of two opposing civil service models, a formal bureaucratic one and an informal politicized one, and assesses the implications of the clash between these models for the position (job definition, classification, and security; the career ladder; salaries; political appointments; and ministerial cabinets) and role conceptions of top civil servants; the second addresses the issue of representativeness of the senior civil service in terms of education, language, and gender; the third deals with the two major challenges to the Belgian senior civil service (external pressure and internal constraints) and the resulting structural reform agenda.

This chapter introduces the concept of a judicial “role conception”. A role conception assists the court in maintaining democratic legitimacy, adherence to opinions and execution of orders. The nature of these demands is contingent on the constitutional polity in which a court finds itself. The Chapter argues that the South African Constitutional Court enjoys a catalytic role conception, which explains the variety of stances towards judicial review that it adopts when adjudicating economic and social rights. The choice of a particular stance is responsive to whether government intransigence, incompetence or inattentiveness has caused the rights-infringement in question. This explanation is offered as one superior to the distinction between negative and positive obligations, the maturity of the jurisprudence, or whether the right is quantifiable or costly. A catalytic court seeks to lower the political energy that is required by other legal actors to secure economic and social rights

This chapter presents an overview of literature on the function of social norms and roles in shaping emotions and beliefs, with particular attention to journalistic professional practice. Through the concepts of accountability, transparency, truth, and social responsibility, journalism is presented as a norm-driven socially constructed profession. For example, journalists’ intrinsic personal norms are shown to be stronger in predicting their behaviour compared with extrinsic influences, such as regulatory laws or organizational policies. This chapter also focusses on journalists’ changing concepts of their own occupational role. A case study is presented on the acceptance and use of digital technologies in journalism in Nigeria, which is discussed as a double-edged sword. Although broadcast journalists may be significantly empowered by the use of such technologies, there is also a perceived dumbing down effect on journalistic practice, such that certain normative roles (e.g., sourcing information and expertise) may be jeopardized and professional ethics violated.

This chapter introduces the central questions and analytical framework of the book, which seeks to explain the causes and consequences of the regional understandings of the North Korean and Iranian challenges in East Asia and the Middle East. It argues that regional role conceptions (e.g., externally or internally shaped regional roles) in regional countries influence their understanding of threat and national interests vis-à-vis North Korea and Iran. The prevalence of a particular regional role in each country affects the way regional countries perceive and approach North Korea and Iran and responds to the global proliferation approach. As for regional order, the more congruent the externally and internally shaped regional roles become, a more stable and inclusive regional order emerges in the form of greater alliance cohesion and broader regional cooperation. Conversely, the greater the conflict between the two roles, a more conflictual and exclusive regional order ensues.

This chapter concludes the book with a summary of findings and a discussion of theoretical and policy implications. By locating contested regional role conceptions at the center of analysis, this book explains both the varied regional responses to the global proliferation campaign and a lack of progress in building a cooperative regional order. The East Asian and Middle Eastern cases suggest that for proliferation strategy to be effective, the United States should pay greater attention to the regional understandings of the North Korean and Iranian challenges. This chapter also considers the extension of the regional role framework to other issue areas, such as the rise of China and Sino–U.S. relations in East Asia and the sources of discord concerning East Asian regionalism.

This chapter examines how the Bush administration’s approach toward North Korea interacted with regional role conceptions in China, Japan, and South Korea. It demonstrates the impact of the role conflict prompted by the Bush Doctrine on alliance relations and regionalism in East Asia. Specifically, during the second North Korean nuclear crisis, America’s alliance mechanisms in East Asia became strained as the United States and South Korea clashed over the North Korean question and South Korea’s relations with China markedly improved. As a consequence, the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) among the United States, Japan, and South Korea ceased to function. The role conflict also intensified domestic contestation over North Korea, pitting domestic actors against one another and making regional cooperation among the East Asian states more difficult. It resulted in a narrowed and conflictual regional order in East Asia.

This chapter extends the analytical framework of the book to the Middle East. It explores how the different regional role considerations and regional visions of Middle Eastern countries shaped their understandings of and policies toward Iran. As seen in the East Asian case, Iran’s neighbors thought more about regional order, both in security and economic terms, than about the nuclear dimension. With an empirical focus on Turkey, Israel, and several Persian Gulf States, the chapter examines the regional understandings of Iran and the links to regional role conceptions. It then demonstrates the impact of regional role conceptions on the regional order in the Middle East by examining U.S. alliance dynamics and regional cooperation through the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). As with the North Korean case, focusing narrowly on the nuclear dimension and overlooking a larger shift in the regional strategic landscape was detrimental for both U.S. Middle East strategy and regional stability.