Governance-An International Journal of Policy Administration and Institutions最新文献

Street-level organizations (SLOs) play a key, but understudied, political role in democratic governance as they are responsible for the direct-delivery of public services that are vital to the functioning of the state. To discuss the political role of SLOs in general, this study begins by identifying four SLO roles, which are conceptualized here by distinguishing policy-sphere versus politics-sphere and “SLOs-as-takers” versus “SLOs-as-makers.” SLOs' political role in a democratic backsliding and populism context is specified by distinguishing whether SLOs converge to, or diverge from, illiberal policies, and distinguishing reactive and proactive responses. Each of the four responses is elaborated by referring to how SLOs both influence, and are influenced by, populism and democratic backsliding. Shifting attention to the specific context of democratic erosion allows a more nuanced distinction between policy sectors and countries, as well as identifying the ways through which public service provision facilitates or inhibits democratic backsliding.

Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) are central to the implementation of government policies, which becomes crucial in the context of democratic backsliding. Their willingness to carry out policies developed by “unprincipled” principals influences the final impact of backsliding on citizens. Research on civil servants and anecdotal evidence indicate that SLBs may engage in various dissent activities when they disagree with politicians and their policies. However, the scale of this behavior depends on how many of them perceive the government as “unprincipled.” Hence, to understand the potential for dissent activities in the face of democratic backsliding, we need to examine SLBs' support for the ruling government. This paper focuses on Poland, an important case of democratic backsliding, analyzing the approval of the opposition parties and the protests in the wake of democracy-undermining reforms among the SLBs. By analyzing Polish Center for Public Opinion Research survey data, it concludes that SLBs' support for the opposition was not overwhelming, rendering significant scale of dissent activities at the street level unlikely.

Policy capacity plays a pivotal role in shaping the extent of global governmental responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. While scholars have primarily examined this phenomenon through individual case studies, focusing on demographic variables that influence governments' COVID-19 responses, little understanding exists regarding how existing policy capacities (systemic, organizational, and individual) have either constrained or empowered governments to navigate the pandemic diversely. To address this gap, our study focuses on the worldwide patterns of school closures and re-openings during COVID-19. Utilizing configurational analysis on data from 110 countries, we reveal that factors such as less professional organizational capacities, flawed individual leadership capacities, and contextual factors such as heightened political polarization serve as quasi-sufficient conditions for longer school closures, while their significant presence leads to extended periods of schools remaining open. The research is supported by detailed case studies of the US, Colombia, Israel, and South Korea, elucidating diverse policy trajectories and combinations influencing prolonged closures or swift re-openings.

In the past decades, European Union (EU) agencies have proliferated to address a plethora of governance problems. When designing EU agencies, EU legislators confront a tension: Legislators want agencies to be competent problem-solvers, but they also want to keep agencies under control. How do EU legislators balance these two imperatives? We argue that agencies' political principals do not necessarily have to trade competence for control, and vice versa, but can draw on different institutional strategies – manipulating agencies' decision-making and decision-maker independence – to mitigate the competence-control dilemma. Drawing on an original dataset on EU agencies' formal independence, we demonstrate empirically that principals customize EU agencies' independence to match the respective competence and control demands that come with specific agency tasks: regulation, authorization, implementation and information. The paper makes an important contribution to the literature on the drivers of the EU's agencification and to debates on the institutional design of regulatory institutions in the EU and beyond.

Frontline workers who are confronted with crises need enormous resilience and the ability to deal with stress from crisis-related increases in demands and risks. Simultaneously, populist governments with an illiberal agenda may undermine the work of street-level bureaucracies for political reasons. Little is known about how deconstruction of the administrative state by populist government—through lacking government support when it is needed the most—affects frontline work. Thus, this article asks: how does lacking support by a populist government affect frontline workers' self-efficacy when they face a crisis? Based on unique data from an online survey of 3229 Brazilian frontline workers during the early COVID-19 pandemic, when the Bolsonaro government denied the existence of the pandemic, we test the relationship between government support, demands, and resources on frontline workers' perceived self-efficacy. Results show that lacking government support from the federal and local government are negatively associated with frontline workers' self-efficacy. At the same time, resources and managerial support exhibit positive associations—but they cannot always compensate for a lack of government assistance.