Summary
CHAPTER NOTES
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Chapter One - POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
Chapter Two - DEMOCRACY
Chapter Three - AUTHORITARIAN
RULE
Chapter Four - THE STATE IN A
GLOBAL CONTEXT
Chapter Five - THE COMPARATIVE
APPROACH
Chapter Six - POLITICAL CULTURE
Chapter Seven - POLITICAL
COMMUNICATION
Chapter Eight - POLITICAL
PARTICIPATION
Chapter Nine - ELECTIONS AND VOTERS
Chapter Ten - INTEREST GROUPS
Chapter Eleven - POLITICAL
PARTIES
Chapter Twelve - CONSTITUTIONS
AND THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK
Chapter Thirteen - FEDERAL,
UNITARY AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Chapter Fourteen -
LEGISLATURES
Chapter Fifteen - THE
POLITICAL EXECUTIVE
Chapter Sixteen - THE
BUREAUCRACY
Chapter Seventeen - THE POLICY PROCESS
CHAPTER ONE POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
1. Politics as the activity by which groups reach binding collective decisions
through attempting to reconcile differences among their members (pp.3-5).
2. Governments as institutions for making and enforcing collective decisions
(pp.5-6).
3. Governance as the activity, process or quality of governing, a task in which
government may not play a leading role (pp.5-6).
4. The state as a political community formed by a territorially-defined
population which is subject to one government. The capacity of the state to regulate the
legitimate use of force within its boundaries (pp.6-9).
5. The sovereign state as combining internal sovereignty (law-making power) and
external sovereignty (international recognition of the sovereign's jurisdiction) (pp.6-9).
6. The nation as a people inhabiting a defined territory seking political
expression of its shared identity, usually through a claim to statehood. Nationalism
as the doctrine that nations are entitled to self-determination (pp.9-10).
7. Power as the capacity to produce intended effects. Power to: the
capacity of a community to shape its own destiny. Power over: the ability of an
individual or group to get its way against opposition (pp.10-11).
8. Authority as the right to rule, existing when subordinates acknowledge the
right of superiors to give orders (pp.11-13).
9. A legitimate system of government as one based on authority; those subject to
the state recognise its right to make collective decisions (pp.11-13).
10. Established democracies are where representative and limited
governments operating by law provide an accepted framework for political competition. New
democracies are still subject to pre-democratic influences e.g. on media freedom and
human rights (pp 13-15).
11. Authoritarian regimes as political systems with limited, not
responsible, political pluralism, without eleaborate and guiding ideology
and in
which a leader or occasionally a small group exercises power within formally ill-defined
limits but actually quite predictable ones. (Linz). Totalitarian regimes share
the absence of pluralism but follow an explicit ideology and seek total control to
impelemnt their vision of a transformed society (pp. 13-15).
CHAPTER TWO DEMOCRACY
1. A democratic world: at least half the countries of the world now democratic
and at least half the world's people now live in democracies. Both proportions higher than
ever before (p.16).
2. The core principle of democracy: self-rule. Direct democracy as the denial of
any separation between state and society. Ancient Athens as the prime example (pp.16-18).
3. Modern representative and liberal democracies: not self-government but
representative government, not direct but indirect democracy. Features of liberal
demcracy, including the role of expertise and constitutional limits on government.
Compatiblilty with large states and market economies (pp.18-20).
4. The three waves of democratization: the first wave (1828-1926, e.g. UK, USA),
the second wave (1943-62, e.g. India, Japan), the third wave (1974-91, e.g. Spain,
Portugal). The USA as an example of liberal democracy; Britain as an example of
representative democracy (pp. 20-3).
5. New democracies, mainly postcommunist or post-military, face political
problems of an authoritarian legacy and economic problems of poverty and inequality
exacerbated by severe decline during the transition to a functioning market. Demands for
speedy transition are not easily satisfied though the global and regional environment is
more favourable than for the first wave (pp. 23-6).
6. Semi-democracy: blends democratic and authoritarian elements. Either
'democratic despots' control the electoral process or 'democratic puppets' are manipulated
by non-elected power-holders. A tacit compromise between domestic elites and international
organizations? (pp.27-30).
CHAPTER THREE AUTHORITARIAN RULE
1. Authoritrian rule: the most common form of rule in history, still found in
China (a quarter of the worlds population) and a useful contrast with democracy (p.
31).
2. Traditional (pre-twentieth century) authoritarian rule took the form of
palace politics, based on the ruler rather than rules. Similar notions are
patrimonial, sultanistic and personal rule. Limited institutionalization. The Saudi
monarchy as an example (pp 31-34).
3. Authoritarian rule in the twnetieth century: communist and fascist rule as
totalitarian regimes exploiting the new-found power of the state. Military coups as a
response to a weak state. The cold war as a contributing factor to military intervention.
Can authoritrarian rule stimulate industrialization? (pp. 34-42).
4. Authoritarian rule today: the Asian examples of China, Pakistan, Iran and
Iraq. Rejection of Western liberal tradition but little else in common (pp. 43-6).
CHAPTER FOUR THE STATE IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT
1. The growth of international organizations.
Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and international nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs). Significant bodies which constrain and achieve compliance from member states? Or
arenas in which countries puruse national interests and which remain dominated by powerful
states? (pp. 47-50).
2. The effect of IGOs in fragmenting national policy-making. The emergence of
internatiofnal policy communities (see also ch. 15). Winners from globalization: the
bureaucracy, the executive, protective interest groups and perhaps the judiciary.
Assemblies and parties as losers (pp. 47-50).
3. NGOs as an implementation arm of IGOs in developing, and especially
collapsed, states. Implications for sovereignty (p.50).
4. Regionalism as a response to the end of the cold war. Characteristic form is
the free trade area, not the EU's quasi-federalism. Such regions yield winners and losers
within states and the political difficulties so caused. EU and NAFTA as contrasting
examples (pp.50-53).
5. Humanitarian intervention by the UN. Implications for traditional ideas of
state sovereignty. Practical problems of arranging and implementing intervention.
Conditional sovereignty'? Recent international courts and comparison with Nuremberg
(pp.53-6).
6. The global economy and developed states. Mobile capital and the competition
state. The relative resources of governments and multinational companies. Impact of global
financial flows. Increasing economic inequality within states and the problems of
political management resulting (pp.56-61).
7. The varying impact of the global economy on developing countries: Unbalanced
development. Political and economic conditionality. The political impact of economic
restructuring on rulers whose support base is sustained through economic rewards. The end
of the cold war and strategic marginalization (pp.56-61).
CHAPTER FIVE THE COMPARATIVE APPROACH
1. The object of comparative politics: to encompass the major political
similarities and differences between countries. (p.62).
2. Levels of analysis: institutions, societies and states (pp. 63-6).
3. Advantages of comparison: learning about other governments, improving our
classifications of politics, testing hypotheses and some potential for prediction and
control (pp. 67-8).
4. Difficulties of comparison: Knowledge requirements, varied meanings across
cultures, interdependence, selection bias, and too few countries (pp.68-71).
5. Case studies. The case for case studies. Multimethod approach. Thick
description. Types of case study: representative, prototypical, deviant, archetypal (pp.
71-3).
6. Focused comparisons (small N studies). A success story. Selecting similar or
contrasting cases. Most similar and most different designs (pp. 73-4).
7. Statistical analysis. A regression example. Outliers and residuals. Spurious
correlation and the direction of causation (pp. 74-5).
CHAPTER SIX POLITICAL CULTURE
1. Political culture as attitudes to the political system, not the government of
the day. Almond and Verba's classification: parochial, subject and participant cultures.
The civic culture as conducive to democratic stability. Declining trust in government in
the West but reserves of social capital (pp.79-82).
2. Postmaterialism: cultural change in Western democracies. The impact of
postwar peace, affluence and educational expansion. Generational replacement as a
mechanism. The emergence of political leaders with no experience of world war (pp.82-3).
3. Political culture in authoritarian states: leaders can ignore, manipulate or
seek to transform political culture. Failure of transformation under communism; effect is
to breed anti-politics. (pp. 83-4).
4. Problems of building a supportive culture in new democracies: unrealistic
expectations, initial economic decline and survival of authoritarian traditions (pp.
84-6).
5. The importance of elite political culture. Dimensions: elite faith in its
right to rule, willingness to act on the national interest and attitudes to the rules of
the game (pp.86-8).
6. Political socialization: transmitting culture across the generations.
Informal and diffuse process. Primacy and recency models (pp.88-91).
7. The power of religion to legitimate and delegitimate. Secularization, now
reversed. The new Christian right. Religion as the culture of the dispossessed. Liberation
theology in Latin America. The resurgence of Islam; Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims (pp.91-3).
8. Viewing political culture in a global context. Commitment of the postwar
European elite to European integration; Asian leaders' desire to catch up with the West.
Huntington's clash of civilizations. But does globalization just equal Westernization just
equal Americanization? (pp.93-4)
CHAPTER SEVEN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
1. Democracy as a form of communication. Politics as signalling. The
transmission model and its limits (p. 95).
2. The development of the media from writing to the Internet. Mass literacy as a
function, achievement and affirmation of the modern state. Newspapers vs broadcasting (pp.
96-8).
3. Contemporary trends: commercialization, fragmentation and globalization of
the media. Impact is to reduce politicians control (pp. 98-9).
4. The impact of television and newspapers in established democracies.
Reinforcement and agenda setting. Contained competition between politicians
and journalists (pp. 99-104).
5. Public opinion and the limits of its impact. Techniques for measuring public
opinion, from opinion polls to focus groups (pp. 104-6).
6. Techniques used to limit the media in authoritarian states. Islamic and
communist concepts of the role of the media. The communist experiment showing the limits
of control through propaganda (pp. 106-8).
7. Limits of the media in new democracies: ownership as a political resource,
lack of a professional, news-gathering tradition (pp. 108).
CHAPTER EIGHT POLITICAL PARTICIPATION
1. Forms of individual participation: voluntary participation (democracies),
regimented participation (totalitarian) and manipulated participation(authoritarian
regimes) (pp.110-11).
2. Gladiators, spectators and apathetics. But multiple dimensions: how, not just
how much. For example, mainstream vs. unorthodox; voting specialists vs. contactors
(pp.111).
3. Participation skewed to well-educated, middle-class, middle-aged white men.
Political resources and political interest as explanations. Under-representation of women,
especially at higher levels. Explaining low female representation in assemblies: non-PR
systems, slow turnover and political culture (pp.110-13). Bowling alone (p. 115).
4. Not just 'who participates?' but 'who doesn't?' Problem of political exclusion,
often linked to social exclusion (pp.113).
5. New politics in established democracies: expressive, value and
identity-based. But still a minority sport, a training ground for future national leaders?
Social movements in the developing world: collective self-help groups. Local
orientation limits national significance (pp.113-14).
6. Communist states - regimented participation, high in quantity but low in
quality. Some genuine participation permitted before the collapse of communism but only if
it did not threaten the party. (p. 117).
7. Participation in authoritarian regimes: limited but also negotiated. Military
governments as an example. Clientelism defined: both a response to insecurity and
an affirmation of inequality. Patron-client networks; the president as Big Man. Patronage
may bankrupt the Treasury but does link rich and poor, centre and periphery. Factions,
clans and ethnic groups as devices for extracting state resources (pp. 114-17).
8. Problems of building a civil society in new democracies: anti-politics,
poverty and the strong-man tradition (pp. 117-20).
9. Political violence, terror and genocide defined. Violence by and through the
state. The case of Rwanda (pp. 120-2).
10. Revolutions as usually-violent system changes. The French Revolution as the
archetypal case. Marxist theory and its discrepancies with the experience of communist
revolutions. Social psychological theory and relative deprivation. Contrasted with
structural theories - relationships between classes and states (pp. 122-6).
CHAPTER NINE ELECTIONS AND VOTERS
1. Competitive elections in established democracies:bottom-up or top-down
sources of influence? Compromise view: elections both expand and limit elite authority.
Classifying competitive elections. Defining free and fair elections (pp.129-31).
2. Dimensions of electoral systems: how many elected offices? who can vote? who
does vote? Individual and system-level variables which increase turnout. Compulsory
voting: is there a case? Second-order elections. Declining turnout (pp.131-3).
3. Electing legislatures: nonproportional systems for representing territory -
plurality and majority methods. The alternative vote. Proportional representation for
representing parties and assemblies. Party lists. Open and closed lists, district
magnitude and thresholds. The additional member system - the best of both worlds? The
impact of electoral systems on party systems. Strengths and weaknesses of nonproportional
and proportional methods. Electoral reform no cure-all (pp.134-9).
4. Electing presidents: predominance of majority system. Indirect election. Term
limits. Whether concurrent with assembly elections or not (pp.139-40).
5. Referendums and allied mechanisms. Use for constitutional and moral issues.
Safety-valve function. Easily manipulated. Reluctance of voters to embrace change. How
desirable is push-button democracy? (pp.140-1).
6. Elections in authoritarian states: semi- and non-competitive elections:
dominant party; candidate-choice; acclamatory. Increasing difficulty of 'making' elections
(pp. 143-5).
7. Voting behaviour: traditional party identification model. Dealignment and its
causes. Newer variables: political issues, the economy, party leaders and party image
(pp.141-3).
8. Elections in new democracies: decline between founding and second elections.
Transfers of power becoming routine but manipulation becoming endemic (pp. 145-6).
CHAPTER TEN INTEREST GROUPS
1. Waves of interest group development and causes thereof. Olson's problem of
collective action: collective goods and free riders. The impact of the international
dimension: all levels of government now lobby and are lobbied (pp.148-9).
2. Classifying interest groups: power of protective groups. Growing influence of
promotional groups (pp.149-51).
3. Channels of access, especially the bureaucracy. Links between groups and
parties and the emergence of 'interest parties'. Importance of the media to promotional
groups and, increasingly, to protective groups. Specialized lobbying firms (pp.151-5).
4. Conditions of influence: how open is the political system? Other variables:
sanctions, legitimacy, membership (both size and density) and resources (pp.155-7).
5. Modelling the relationship between groups and politics. Policy communities:
issue triangles and subgovernments in the policy 'village'. The decay of policy
communities and causes thereof. The emergence of issue networks (policy 'towns'):
who knows what, not just who knows whom (pp.157-8).
6. Pluralism and corporatism as models of state-society relations. Pluralism as
rule by the many and the absence of a governing elite. The state as a referee of group
competition. The American example. Criticisms of pluralism (pp.159-62).
7. Corporatism as state co-ordination of a hierarchy of groups in
highly-organised societies. Functional rather than electoral representation. The leading
role of the state. Austria as an example. Corporatism as political sclerosis. Decline of
union power (pp.159-62).
8. Interest groups in authoritarian states Constraints on groups: traditional
leaders, patron-client relationships and often a repressive state. Incorporation of
favoured groups within some authoritarian regimes but the risk of violence from the
excluded. Some limited expression of group interests in later communism. Corporatism in
fascist thinking. (pp.162-4).
9. New democracies: interests influence decisions in particularistic, secretive,
individualistic and often corrupt ways. Limited role for organised interest groups in
plunder capitalism. Paradox that pluralism cannot develop without a stronger state
(pp.164-5).
CHAPTER ELEVEN POLITICAL PARTIES
1. The twentieth century as the century of parties, drawing the mass population
into politics, contrasted with the decline of parties (falling membership, thinning
ideology, communication through the media) early in the twenty first century (pp. 167-8).
2. Functions of parties: elite recruitment, interest aggregation, reference
point for supporters and especially directing government (pp.167).
3. Party organization. Importance of 'the founding moment'. Elite, mass and
catch-all parties. The relationship between party organization and the parliamentary party
(pp.168-70).
4. The growing role of individual members in candidate selection. Primary
elections and their consequences (pp.170-1).
5. The roots of Western European parties in the national, industrial and
postindustrial revolutions. Protest parties as a reaction against these social
changes. Declining membership of 'mass membership' parties and their increasing financial
dependence on the state (pp.171-3).
6. Party systems. Downs' model and criticisms thereof. Dominant party systems
and their factions. Two-party systems and adversary politics. The decay of both dominant
party and two party systems. Multiparty systems: consensual but how dynamic? (pp.173-8)
7. Parties in authoritarian systems. No-party and one-party systems. The
communist model: penetration of society and democratic centralism within the party.
Fascist parties as the supreme leaders route to power (pp. 178-81).
8. Parties in new democracies. Failure to develop a mass membership. Leaders'
realiance on the media. Fragmentation of national anti-communist movements. Multiplication
of agrarian, peasant, ethnic and interest parties. Antipolitics, antiparty tradition.
Successor parties and their (temporary?) resurgence. Postcommunist party structures as the
future for parties in consolidated democracies? (pp.181-2)
CHAPTER TWELVE CONSTITUTIONS AND THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK
1. Liberal democracy as government by law. The wave of constitution-making in
new democracies. The 'judicialization' of politics (p.185).
2. Constitutional rule - the rule of law. Limiting the scope of government,
specifying individual rights and providing opportunities for redress. The USA as a
defining case, the UK (pre-1997) as a deviant case. A constitution insufficient for
constitutionalism (pp. 185-6).
3. Constitutions: power-limiting and power-maps. How constitutional documents
are arranged. Codified or uncodified, rigid or flexible? Procedures for amendment.
Adaptation by the courts (pp.186-8).
4. Making constitutions: fresh starts built on messy compromises. Most
successful when limited in their ambition. Danger of fighting the last war and of giving
too little power to new rulers (pp.188-90).
5. Judicial review and constitutional courts. Courts as guardians of the
constitution. Using ordinary courts or special constitutional courts for this purpose.
Judicial decisions not self-implementing. The American Supreme Court and the German
Constitutional Court. The European Court of Justice (pp. 190-2).
6. The rise of judicial activism in response to the declining weight of other
institutions and ideologies. Contrast with judicial restraint. Crossnational variations in
judicial activism. USA vs. Britain. Integrating judicial supremacy with parliamentary
sovereignty (pp.192-5).
7. Judicial independence and recruitment. Methods of selection: trading-off
independence and responsiveness. The political dimension of recruitment to courts charged
with judicial review. Judges as surprise packets (pp.193-5).
8. Limits on the judiciary in authoritarian regimes. But some growth of
'socialist legality' before the collapse of communism. Techniques for downgrading the
judiciary (pp.195-6).
9. Building the rule of law into new democracies. Problems of ineffective
policing and unprofessional judiciary (e.g. Latin America). Traditions of personal power
(e.g. Central Asia) (pp. 196-8).
10. Administrative law defined. Expansion thereof. How organised: separatist,
integrationist and supervisory systems (pp.198-200).
11. International law and regimes. The growth of international law and states'
adherence to it. Incorporation into national law. Can apply directly to individuals.
(pp.200-01).
CHAPTER THIRTEEN FEDERAL, UNITARY AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
1. Federalism: sharing sovereignty between two entrenched levels. Which powers
go to which level? Residual powers. Federalism as the principle of which federations are
examples. Confederations. The federalist aspiration: combining the economic and military
advantages of size with the continuation of local control (pp.202-4).
2. Origins of federations: usually a voluntary compact. Motives mainly negative
- fear. A way to bridge ethnic diversity? Belgium: from unitary to federal. Free trade
areas as a modern alternative (pp. 204-6).
3. Federal-state relations: a competition without end. Dual and cooperative
federalism. Growing interdependence and its causes. Growing power of centre until final
decades of the twentieth century. Fiscal federalism: the significance of financial flows.
The rebirth of the states since the 1980s. Courts as referee. Assessing federalism
(pp.206-9).
4. Unitary government. Not always centralised and becoming less so.
Deconcentration, decentralization and devolution distinguished. The resources of the
centre and the localities. Dual and fused systems. The successful expansion of the
intermediate level, e.g. regional government, and causes thereof. The focus of the middle
level on economic planning and infrastructure (pp.208-11).
5. Local government. Problem of combining small scale with efficiency. Consortia
and special-purpose authorities as solutions. The growing appeal of elected mayors. The
pragmatic character of local government in the new world. Higher status in continental
Europe: general competence and subsidiarity. The British exception: large size and limited
powers, now under review. Functions. The enabling authority (pp.211-15).
6. Authoritarian states. Little significance for local government under
communism and fascism. Centre and periphery linked through patronage, not institutions.
Local areas as personal fiefdoms. Frequent reorganisations. Soviet façade
federalism but nationalities policy had long-term consequences (pp. 215-16).
7. New democracies. Local government last in line: under prepared and under
resourced. Some progress in Central Europe but central powers and local notables still the
dominant tradition in many new democracies (pp. 216-7).
CHAPTER FOURTEEN LEGISLATURES
1. The representative role of legislatures, exemplifying liberal and democratic
politics. Growing significance in a democratic world (p.218).
2. Structure. Population and legislative size. The predominance of unicameral
legislatures; the functions a second chamber can perform, not least in federations. Mode
of selection to second chamber: direct election, indirect election, appointment.
(pp.219-21).
3. The importance of committees to the modern legislature. Functions of
committees. Working and talking assemblies. The American example. Types of committee.
Scandinavia's 'committee parliamentarianism'. The importance of expertise to committee
effectiveness and the conditions enabling expertise to develop (pp.221-2).
4. Functions of modern assemblies: representation, deliberation and legislation.
Other functions: making governments, authorizing expenditure and scrutiny (p.223).
5. Interpretations of representation: microcosm, trustee and party models.
Incompatibility of microcosm with election. Survival of trustee tradition. Dominance of
party model (p.223).
6. Deliberation: either through floor debate or through the 'policy refinery' of
committees (pp.223-4).
7. Legislation: much governance does not involve law-making. Dominance of the
executive in law-making (the ninety per cent rule). Some exceptions: new democracies, the
USA (pp.224-5).
8. Authorizing expenditure - now usually executive-controlled (the American
exception).
9. Making governments - where PR, coalitions made through the assembly. Minimum
winning coalitions. Minority cabinets. Government turnover (pp.226-7).
10. Scrutiny - an emerging and useful role but the executive reluctant to cede
relevant powers. Techniques of oversight (pp. 227-8).
11. Recruitment - The assembly in parliamentary systems as a training and
proving ground. A model of recruitment: from the population to eligibles, aspirants,
candidates and members. Socially unrepresentative members. Financial background common on
the right, education common on the left. Importance of legal training in some countries.
Family inheritance: a political caste? The rise and impact of the career politician. The
incumbency effect and slow turnover (pp.228-31).
12. Legislatures in authoritarian states: minimal and marginal. Large size and
infrequent sessions. Grievance-raising and constituency representations. Quotas under
communism. The fascist critique of talking shops (pp. 231-4).
13. Legislatures in new democracies. Problems of inexperience, turnover and lack
of resources. Southern Europe, Latin America and Eastern Europe compared (pp. 234-5).
CHAPTER FIFTEEN THE POLITICAL EXECUTIVE
1. The executive as the energizing force of government. Accountable and
nonaccountable forms (p.236).
2. Presidential government. Direct election, fixed term, separation from
legislature. Defining features. Influence of the USA. The American president: exceptional
powers exercised under exceptional limits. The power to persuade. The advisory system and
its weaknesses. Limits of accountable presidents in Latin America. Advantages and
disadvantages of the presidential system. Linz's critique of presidentialism for new
democracies (pp.236-8).
3. Parliamentary government. Collegial executive emerging from,and depending on,
the legislature. The British exemplar. Single-party and coalition forms. Procedures for
forming coalitions. Conditions which encourage stable coalitions. The varying and evolving
balance between cabinet, prime minister and ministers. The emergence of cabinet committees
as formal decision sites (pp.238-44).
4. Heads of state in parliamentary government. Efficient and dignified roles.
Survival of monarchs and their occasional influence in some countries. In others,
ceremonial presidents, elected or appointed, can sometimes exert influence if they
articulate a national mood (pp.241-2).
5. The semi-presidential (dual) executive: presidents and prime ministers.
Division of responsibilities. The French exemplar. Cohabitation. Popularity in
postcommunist Europe but the further east we go, the more the president dominates. The
president as a national figure, the assembly as a collection of sectional interests.
Frequent conflict between president and prime minister. What future for the dual executive
in Eastern Europe? (pp.244-7)
6. The authoritarian executive. Weak institutionalization, leading to succession
struggles and preeminence of politics over policy. A game of high stakes. Patriachal rule
in the Middle East: personal but stable. Personal rule in Africa. Constraints on
authoritarian rulers. The totalitarian executive and the communist exemplar: slow turnover
and policy inertia. Stalinism and its debated causes. (pp.215-8).
7. The executive in new democracies. Bias to presidential government in Latin
America and to parliamentary government in Eastern Europe (pp. 251-3).
CHAPTER SIXTEEN THE BUREAUCRACY
1. The public sector, the civil service and top policy-advisers (mandarins). Weber's
model of bureaucracy and its claims (pp.254-5).
2. The evolution of bureaucracies. In Western Europe: from royal patriachy to
modern bureaucracy. In the USA: from spoils-based to merit-based. Bureaucracy's
twentieth-century zenith: waging war and providing welfare (pp.255-6).
3. Recruitment. Unified vs. departmental approaches. Importance of legal
background in some unified systems. Corps system. Kingsley's representative
bureaucracy. (pp.256-7).
4. Organization of the public sector. Departments, divisions and non-departmental
bodies. Departments as the Weberian centrepiece. Divisons as operating units. Autonomy
of bureaus in the USA.
5. Accountability. Internal controls: ministerial direction, the reach of
political appointments, the use of special advisers and professional standards. External
scrutiny: the judiciary, legislative committees and the ombudsman as sources of oversight.
Also public opinion and the media (pp.261-4).
6. Components of the new public management (NPM). The critique of Weber. Osborne
and Gaebler. Which countries have gone furthest and why? New Zealand's experience. The
impact of NPM on accountability (pp.264-6).
7. Bureaucracies in authoritarian states: not just the rulers
implementation arm; sometimes also impetus for industrialization. More often overstaffed
and ill-directed. Gigantic scale under communism (pp. 266-7).
8. Bureaucracies in new democracies: the collapse of central control. Up goes
the cost of bribes. Still pre-Weberian in operation, a tax on the market. Inimical to
development of market economies. Which countries have made most progress and why?
(pp.267-70).
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN THE POLICY PROCESS
1. Analytical (not chronological) stages of the policy process. Initiation - the
influence of science, technology and the media (pp.273-4).
2. Formulation - rational vs incremental approaches. Cost-benefit analysis
(pp.274-6).
3. Implementation - top-down and bottom-up approaches (p.276).
4. Evaluation - the problem of mushy goals. Policy outputs vs. outcomes.
Naturalistic evaluation (pp.276-7).
5. Review: continue, revise or terminate? Why agencies persist (pp.277-8).
6. Public policy in established democracies: from the night-watchman state
(pre-nineteenth century) to the welfare state (second half of the twentieth
century) to the regulatory state (final decades of the twentieth century and
later). Financial problems of the welfare state, e.g. funding public pensions.
Case-by-case privatization. Problems of acountability in the regulatory state.
7. Public policy in authoritarian regimes: nature and limits of planning under
communism. Elsewhere, politics takes precedence over policy in systems of
personal rule.
8. Public policy in new democracies: rebuilidng the ship at sea. A private
economy as a public achievement. Mass rather than case-by-case privatization. Problems of
capacity-building, both public and private, especially in Africa.
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