International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
International organisations assert that political corruption is a major global problem. However, it is still unclear how to combat corruption. Previous research has studied corruption in central or local governments, rarely in regional ones. In this paper, we aim to identify factors influencing political corruption in regional governments. Using panel data, we analyse the statistical association between 29 economic, financial, political and socioeconomic variables and the corruption perceived by citizens, from January 2006 to September 2019. The results reveal that perceived political corruption is affected by government spending and ideological distance, among other factors. We propose several measures to reduce political corruption.Points for practitionersThe study has found that political corruption needs to be combatted through different measures for each administrative level. Our results support the idea that the following variables influence the perceived level of corruption within the regional governments: the volume of government borrowing, the ideological distance between the voter and the government, the percentage electoral participation and the volume of dependent and immigrant population of the region. Likewise, we also confirm that regional governments with higher values on the Quality of Government Index are perceived as less corrupt.
An election too far: Why do MPs leave politics before an election?
Party Politics, Ahead of Print.
Why are members of parliament retiring? In most parliamentary systems, a substantial number of MPs decide, before every election, not to run again. Though the decision to leave politics is essentially personal, a broader look at a large sample of MPs can reveal the existence of structural factors such as an uneven playing field or other sources of discrimination that could explain why certain individuals stay while others leave. A survey of the current literature indicates that the empirical work on this topic is almost exclusively focused on the US Congress. There is thus a need to conduct more research in other contexts to generate a more general explanation of why MPs leave politics on their own terms. The current literature suggests that the decision to leave could be explained by a complex combination of variables that are personal, partisan, and contextual. The purpose of this article is to better understand why sitting MPs decide not to run for re-election in parliamentary systems, focusing on three Westminster systems: Australia, Canada, and New Zealand since 1945. Various factors play a role, but our results suggest that as time passes, parliamentarians simply become less prone to seeking reelection.
Why are members of parliament retiring? In most parliamentary systems, a substantial number of MPs decide, before every election, not to run again. Though the decision to leave politics is essentially personal, a broader look at a large sample of MPs can reveal the existence of structural factors such as an uneven playing field or other sources of discrimination that could explain why certain individuals stay while others leave. A survey of the current literature indicates that the empirical work on this topic is almost exclusively focused on the US Congress. There is thus a need to conduct more research in other contexts to generate a more general explanation of why MPs leave politics on their own terms. The current literature suggests that the decision to leave could be explained by a complex combination of variables that are personal, partisan, and contextual. The purpose of this article is to better understand why sitting MPs decide not to run for re-election in parliamentary systems, focusing on three Westminster systems: Australia, Canada, and New Zealand since 1945. Various factors play a role, but our results suggest that as time passes, parliamentarians simply become less prone to seeking reelection.
Mapping issue salience divergence in Europe from 1945 to the present
Party Politics, Ahead of Print.
Issue salience is a fundamental component of party competition, yet we know little about when, where, or why parties’ issue emphases converge or diverge. I propose an original operationalization of issue salience divergence, the extent to which parties’ issue emphases differ from each other in an election, that generates values at the party-election and country-election levels. I leverage data from party manifestos to calculate scores for 2,308 party-election combinations of 381 unique parties in 426 elections across thirty European countries, the most comprehensive dataset to date. I find that issue salience divergence is generally low and has starkly decreased over time, but countries and parties differ substantially. As an initial step in understanding these differences, I propose and test initial expectations of how party and democracy age, electoral systems, and party type alter the incentives for divergent issue salience.
Issue salience is a fundamental component of party competition, yet we know little about when, where, or why parties’ issue emphases converge or diverge. I propose an original operationalization of issue salience divergence, the extent to which parties’ issue emphases differ from each other in an election, that generates values at the party-election and country-election levels. I leverage data from party manifestos to calculate scores for 2,308 party-election combinations of 381 unique parties in 426 elections across thirty European countries, the most comprehensive dataset to date. I find that issue salience divergence is generally low and has starkly decreased over time, but countries and parties differ substantially. As an initial step in understanding these differences, I propose and test initial expectations of how party and democracy age, electoral systems, and party type alter the incentives for divergent issue salience.
Political equality in unequal territories: the impact of territorial inequalities on voter turnout in Italy’s regional elections
Political equality in unequal territories: the impact of territorial inequalities on voter turnout in Italy’s regional elections
Geopolitics of Disability and the Ablenationalism of Refuge
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Games, Mimesis and the Environmental-Imagination: Childhood in Select Dalit Autobiographies
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
The theme of childhood remains an integral part of any life-writing narratives and, when it comes to Dalit autobiographies it is no exception. Strikingly, researchers on Dalit autobiographies have focused mostly on the ‘darker-side’ of the childhood by revealing only the socio-economic deprivations (food, clothes and shelter), plight, and the mental trauma and physical abuse, humiliation, and pain of the Dalit children, often overlooking the diversifying aspects of Dalit childhood. Though caste system pushes Dalit children to live in isolated ghettos, they still create their own imaginary world within the confines of their Dalit inhabitations by playing games with things available at hand, by role-playing some characters seen in their environs, by celebrating traditional festivals, and by listening to the elders’ stories! The article, therefore, attempts to examine how the playful activities of Dalit children, as represented in the autobiographies, embody an ecological imagination of interconnectedness. By inscribing their lived experience of subjugation in nature, Dalit children not only share a relationship of common oppression with the environment, but such an entanglement sheds new insights on the human–non-human relationship. I have chosen four Dalit autobiographies to exemplify the fact that through their games and play Dalit-children nurture an ‘intra-active’ communication between humans and the non-human environment which in turn makes ‘multispecies liveability possible’. The article draws insights from eco-criticism to reflect on the embodied experience of Dalit childhood.
The theme of childhood remains an integral part of any life-writing narratives and, when it comes to Dalit autobiographies it is no exception. Strikingly, researchers on Dalit autobiographies have focused mostly on the ‘darker-side’ of the childhood by revealing only the socio-economic deprivations (food, clothes and shelter), plight, and the mental trauma and physical abuse, humiliation, and pain of the Dalit children, often overlooking the diversifying aspects of Dalit childhood. Though caste system pushes Dalit children to live in isolated ghettos, they still create their own imaginary world within the confines of their Dalit inhabitations by playing games with things available at hand, by role-playing some characters seen in their environs, by celebrating traditional festivals, and by listening to the elders’ stories! The article, therefore, attempts to examine how the playful activities of Dalit children, as represented in the autobiographies, embody an ecological imagination of interconnectedness. By inscribing their lived experience of subjugation in nature, Dalit children not only share a relationship of common oppression with the environment, but such an entanglement sheds new insights on the human–non-human relationship. I have chosen four Dalit autobiographies to exemplify the fact that through their games and play Dalit-children nurture an ‘intra-active’ communication between humans and the non-human environment which in turn makes ‘multispecies liveability possible’. The article draws insights from eco-criticism to reflect on the embodied experience of Dalit childhood.
Articulating Dalit Autobiographical Narratives in Social Work Education: Ideological Imperatives for Anti-Caste and Ubuntu Practice
Contemporary Voice of Dalit, Ahead of Print.
Dalit and subaltern literature have gained colossal space in the global academic community. This literature is prominently studied, analyzed and used in literary, cultural or linguistic studies in national and international universities. The use of literary texts such as autobiographical narratives in social work teaching, research and practice is a less researched area. In this article, the author has highlighted the importance of Dalit autobiographies and how they could be used as an indigenous knowledge source in social work teaching and practice to strengthen anti-caste/anti-oppressive perspectives among social work educators, students and practitioners. This emancipatory framework could also help to address the structural as well as micro-macro level issues to ensure the realization of social justice and human rights as a foundation and core principles of the social work profession.
Dalit and subaltern literature have gained colossal space in the global academic community. This literature is prominently studied, analyzed and used in literary, cultural or linguistic studies in national and international universities. The use of literary texts such as autobiographical narratives in social work teaching, research and practice is a less researched area. In this article, the author has highlighted the importance of Dalit autobiographies and how they could be used as an indigenous knowledge source in social work teaching and practice to strengthen anti-caste/anti-oppressive perspectives among social work educators, students and practitioners. This emancipatory framework could also help to address the structural as well as micro-macro level issues to ensure the realization of social justice and human rights as a foundation and core principles of the social work profession.
Comply while keeping your autonomy, or the art of managing paradox through dialogue
International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
Our paper analyses the role of dialogue in managing the autonomy and compliance paradox within a public authority. The literature on paradoxes presents management as being characterised by the coexistence of contradictory elements. We propose to build on this work by drawing on the literature on the concept of ‘dialogue’. By focusing on the case of a French Departmental Council that set up a procedure to manage travel authorisations for its staff, we study the way in which the dialogue between stakeholders ensured both the application of the framework prescribed by the procedure and the autonomy of the management teams when it came to managing these rules on the ground. Using a longitudinal analysis methodology combining semi-directive interviews and observations of working group meetings, we show that this space for dialogue provides an important opportunity for a face-off between the demands for compliance and autonomy and their further evolution.Points for practitionersThe research raises awareness among public managers of the importance of establishing forums as a way of managing the complementarity of the logics of autonomy and compliance. Discussion offers opportunities to explore together the different possibility of management. Our paper thus underlines the importance of the art of interaction and discussion between the stakeholders, by creating opportunities for brainstorming and convergence.
Our paper analyses the role of dialogue in managing the autonomy and compliance paradox within a public authority. The literature on paradoxes presents management as being characterised by the coexistence of contradictory elements. We propose to build on this work by drawing on the literature on the concept of ‘dialogue’. By focusing on the case of a French Departmental Council that set up a procedure to manage travel authorisations for its staff, we study the way in which the dialogue between stakeholders ensured both the application of the framework prescribed by the procedure and the autonomy of the management teams when it came to managing these rules on the ground. Using a longitudinal analysis methodology combining semi-directive interviews and observations of working group meetings, we show that this space for dialogue provides an important opportunity for a face-off between the demands for compliance and autonomy and their further evolution.Points for practitionersThe research raises awareness among public managers of the importance of establishing forums as a way of managing the complementarity of the logics of autonomy and compliance. Discussion offers opportunities to explore together the different possibility of management. Our paper thus underlines the importance of the art of interaction and discussion between the stakeholders, by creating opportunities for brainstorming and convergence.
Drivers and risk factors of German local financial sustainability focusing on adjusted income
International Review of Administrative Sciences, Ahead of Print.
Analysing the financial sustainability of local governments is of great interest, as they offer a wide range of services and are close to citizens. Various organizations have pointed out the need to analyse the determinants of financial sustainability, and recent research has focused on several European countries, using adjusted income as a dependent variable. To fill the research gap in the context of German local governments, we conduct an empirical analysis with 5 years of data from 363 local governments from North Rhine–Westphalia to analyse the impact of socio-demographic and financial-economic factors on financial sustainability, focusing on the adjusted income. Our results indicate that financial sustainability is influenced by factors on which the local governments have no impact or at least only a limited impact. Specifically, the debt level and the level of population are identified as risk factors, whereas own taxes, rate support grants and the net cash surplus serve as drivers of financial sustainability.Points for practitionersUnderstanding the determinants of financial sustainability is important for politicians and public managers in order to improve their risk management and decision-making processes and to prevent future sustainability problems. This paper identifies several socio-demographic and financial-economic determinants of FS, on which the local governments have only a limited impact. Considering that the financial sustainability of German local governments in North Rhine–Westphalia largely depends on external factors might be of great interest for policymakers with regard to future financial crises.
Analysing the financial sustainability of local governments is of great interest, as they offer a wide range of services and are close to citizens. Various organizations have pointed out the need to analyse the determinants of financial sustainability, and recent research has focused on several European countries, using adjusted income as a dependent variable. To fill the research gap in the context of German local governments, we conduct an empirical analysis with 5 years of data from 363 local governments from North Rhine–Westphalia to analyse the impact of socio-demographic and financial-economic factors on financial sustainability, focusing on the adjusted income. Our results indicate that financial sustainability is influenced by factors on which the local governments have no impact or at least only a limited impact. Specifically, the debt level and the level of population are identified as risk factors, whereas own taxes, rate support grants and the net cash surplus serve as drivers of financial sustainability.Points for practitionersUnderstanding the determinants of financial sustainability is important for politicians and public managers in order to improve their risk management and decision-making processes and to prevent future sustainability problems. This paper identifies several socio-demographic and financial-economic determinants of FS, on which the local governments have only a limited impact. Considering that the financial sustainability of German local governments in North Rhine–Westphalia largely depends on external factors might be of great interest for policymakers with regard to future financial crises.