Post-colonialism & Street-Level Bureaucracy

HC 4: Post-colonialism

• Mainstream Street-Level Bureaucracy(SLB) literature overlooks social tensions in developing countries.
• Critical factors from the global south underestimated are high levels of inequalities and the state's role in reflecting/reproducing them.
• Northern perspectives describe southern states as weak/dysfunctional, failing to represent the experiences of people living there.
• Trust in institutions differs, with citizens adapting expectations and strategies based on their interactions.
• State formation in the global south is imported from colonial powers, not organic.
• Interactions between citizens and state institutions cannot be functionally regulated by other values.
• Ideals and practices diverge more as social distance grows, fostering disconnection between citizenship ideals and expectations.
• Social inequalities limit marginalized groups' access to political representation and pluralistic policies.
• Administrative capacity is dynamic and context-dependent, requiring continuous adaptation/reflection.
• State capacity is a multidimensional concept of organizational and bureaucratic possibilities.

Building Administrative Capacity

• State capacity can achieve effective policy, resource utilization, law & order and is built through professionalization, centralization, interactive networks.
• Contextual determinants of state capacity include historical factors like colonialism, nature of state formation (communism, post-colonial, capitalist), and political factors (form of government, ruling elites), and economic factors (resource endowment, national income, market system).
• Conceptual understanding of administrative capacity is crucial, gained via bottom-up approaches and public debate.
• Donor agency strategies often fail by not considering context, and the uniqueness of each level/sector is overlooked.

HC 5: Digitalisation

• Key questions regarding new approaches are what drives them, and whether public sector machine learning represents a continuation of e-Government or a challenge to public administration practices.
• Automation increases quantity/efficiency through computation.
• Augmentation improves decision-making.
• Challenges include difficulty quantifying policy for data models and loss of professional judgement.

Three Levels of Governance Challenges

• Macro level: Governments react to AI by creating new bodies/guidance, but useful for low-stakes systems.
• New cross-cutting rights counterbalance algorithmic systems.
• New capacities build training/career paths to support machine learning.
• Meso level: Peer review offers quality assurance, but may be biased.
• AI systems' performance can be monitored via transparency, but it can reveal policy-making's “black box” and reduce secrecy.
• Micro level: Automated processing enhances efficiency but risks violating citizen rights.
• AI decisions reduce human insight, leading to less legitimacy.

States and Citizens in the Age of the Internet

• E-government focuses on efficiency but limited citizen participation.
• E-government uses Information and Communication Tech(ICTs) for efficiency, control, speed, and professionalism.
• Reliance of ICTs on technical/financial resources leads states to buy off-the-shelf systems, defining usage post-purchase.

Three Models of Interaction in E-governance

• Managerial Model: quantitative improvement, efficiency, citizens as "customers".
• Key aspects include improving information flow and service delivery: one-way communication.
• Consultative Model: ICT facilitates citizen opinions, "pull" model.
• Key Aspects: electronic consultations, limited interaction, potential for participation.
• Participatory Model: complex, horizontal, deliberative democracy.
• Key Aspects: active citizens, virtual communities, citizen engagement.

Interaction Model Comparison

• Managerial: government responds to "new economy" needs.
• Consultative: responds to societal interests electronically.
• Participatory: protects free speech.
• Managerial: government/business interests.
• Consultative: business/interest groups interests.
• Participatory: voluntary associations interact spontaneously.
• Managerial: unilinear flow of info.
• Consultative: unilinear flow of info.
• Participatory: complex flow of info.
• Managerial: has online tax, government data collection, dissemination.
• Consultative: e-voting, polling, referendums.
• Participatory: uses listservs, peer-to-peer tech to compress time/distance.
• Managerial/Consultative: Market based access.
• Participatory: universal access is key.
• Managerial: service delivery/policy.
• Consultative: has technical accuracy.
• Participatory: emphasizes deliberation.
• Evolution of E-government = Clinton/Gore pioneers.
• Emphasis place on electronic portals, service efficiency and cost reduction.

European Union Information Management

• Labour government introduced "joined-up government" focus on modernization of services and improvement of information management.
• Initially strong focus on economic potential with a gradual recognition of ICT's democratic potential in the European Union.

HC 6: Policy Transfer

• Policy transfer = actors borrowing policies from one setting to another.
• Different that lesson drawing, focuses on voluntary transfer from free will.
• Policy transfer covers both voluntary and coercive actions.

Who Transfers Policy

• Elected officials, political parties, bureaucrats, pressure groups, policy experts, Supra-national organizations.
• Supra-national organizations promotes Comparison.
• Member states becoming aware of what competitors are doing.

Why Policy Transfer

• Voluntary reasons involve dissatisfaction with the status quo as seen by the government or public.
• Direct coercive transfer is when a government forces policy adoption, mostly in supra-national organizations.
• Indirect coercive transfer happens due to technology advancements or economics.

What is Transferred

• Policy goals, structure/content(Borrowers prioritize structure over effect, techniques, institution, ideology), ideas, attitudes, and negative lessons are all potentially transferred.

Degrees of Transfer

• Copying (1 on 1 copy).
• Emulation (adapting general idea).
• Hybridization/synthesis (combining elements).
• Lessons draw from A country's past and within organizations.
• Lessons also learn from other country/region and requires ideological/resource similarities.

Factors Constraining Policy Transfer

• Single-goal programmes are more transferable.
• Simpler problems are easier to transfer.
• Greater perceived problem-solution connection increases transfer.
• Fewer side-effects increase transfer likelihood.
• More information about programme operation eases transfer.
• Predictable outcomes simplify transfer.
• Debate exists around whether policy transfer is independent.
• Literature is narrowly focused on the pluralism of power.
• Studies are positively biased and ignore problems.

What is Lesson Drawing

• Lesson-drawing is the circumstances and the extent a programme that is effective in one place can transfer to another.
• Needed when there is disruption, gap of aspirations and uncertainty.
• Compatibility with institutions, edits to context, political/social acceptance help lesson-drawing.

HC 7: Social Welfare States

• New Social Risks(NSRs) = socio-economic changes, require different approaches, flexible protection.
• Post-industrial problems: reconcile work/family, lone parenthood, unemployment, obsolete skills.
• NSR groups are young, unskilled, female.
• NSR voters have participation gap.
• Policy change strategies involve modernizing compromises

Combining Elements to Change Policys

• Austerity measures.
• New social protection.
• Political Negotiations.
• Shared benefits of NSR policies.
• Addressing labour shortages, increasing labor participation and employer convergence contribute.
• Challenges faced in creating policy include, mobilization, aging electorate and budget constraints.
• Opportunities made, innovative policies, cross-cutting coalitions and adaptive welfare systems.

Welfare Capitalism

• Decommodification = service provided as right without market reliance.
• Social stratification is promoted by social policy/welfare.
• Three welfare forms = Esping-Andersen: Liberal, Conservative corporatist, Social-democratic.

Welfare Regime Types

• Liberal = embodies individualism, low benefit levels and high dependance on market.
• Conservative corporatist = moderate decommodification and values family.
• Social-democratic = achieve generous contribution from all and high distribution.
• Women encourage to work, in order to ensure stable social welfare environment.
• Additional regime = Mediterranean, fragmented security, family dependence.

Antipodean Welfare

• More inclusive than liberal
• Includes Means-tested income.
• Redistributions via labour.
• Hybrid regime exists: liberal, social-democratic elements

HC 8: Migration Policy

• Immigration federalism = involvement sub-national.
• Core characteristics = cooperation, states can develop policies and States can select immigrants.
• Canadian immigration, initiated provinces, addressed demographic and distribution of immigrants.

Australian Immigration

• Immigration is initiated by the federal government with themes, uneven immigrant distribution/activation of state governments.
• Common Gradual transformation, interdependence and regional needs.

Migration Governance

• Crisis is dependent on perceptions of policymakers.

Components of Crisis

• Multiple actors, laws and policies and narratives interact.
• Narratives shape policy, laws unstable.
• Narratives framed to seek national security, populistic reason and needs control.
• Governance by crisis is uncertain, temporary, ad-hoc.
• Causes increasing securitization, restricted legislation.

HC 9: Democratic Backsliding

• Democratic backsliding = reduction of pluralism.
• Populism = believing there are only 2 sides of people, the pure and the corrupt elite seeking to transform the bureaucracy.
• Public administration (PA) policy = government programme to reform bureaucracy for specific ideology.
• Using force is authoritarian, however some policies can be populist.
• View of the state is fragile, has low change and resistance.
• If robust, high difficulty required to reform or take over.

Ways to Cause Backsliding

• Centralizing, re-aligning and politicalizing structures.
• Reduce external influence.
• Side-lining bodies, give autocracy to government side.
• Engagement with the state in liberal/democratic settings.
• Examples = Orban in Hungary, radical, limited in Switzerland.