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Institutional Choices (institutional + choice)
Selected AbstractsRational Actors and Institutional Choices in KoreaPACIFIC FOCUS, Issue 1 2000HeeMin Kim First page of article [source] Powering, Puzzling, or Persuading?INTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2007The Mechanisms of Building Institutional Orders This article offers an agent-centered constructivist analysis of institution building; that of the "first" New Deal of the National Recovery Administration. It argues that in moments of uncertainty generated by the failure of existing institutions, institutional choice becomes underdetermined by structure and open to attempts at creative and underdetermined inter-elite persuasion. What matters in such moments are the locally generated "crisis-defining" ideas at hand rather than simply the ostensible material positions of the actors in question. How this process took place in the U.S. is compared with both similar historical cases and alternative materialist models. An alternative model is developed, and in conclusion it is suggested why periods of deflation may be particularly open to inter-elite attempts at persuasion. [source] A Nolan Committee for the German ethics infrastructure?EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 5 2002Nathalie Behnke An international trend towards establishing and conforming standards of ethical behaviour in the public sector has repeatedly been stated. Germany, however, remains surprisingly reluctant to adopt such recommendations. This article argues that the likelihood of German decision makers implementing new, and especially soft, ethics measures depends on the demand for such measures, on the one hand, and their supply, on the other. The analysis shows that contradictory forces have an impact on Germany. The demand for new ethics measures is relatively low as a high level of hard ethics measures incorporated in the longstanding formal legal system of rules and regulations make the implementation of new measures seem unnecessary. Also, the demand for soft ethics measures is less marked in Germany than in the United Kingdom. This comparatively weak pressure meets the natural inertia caused by cognitive and institutional path,dependency in institutional choices of political decision makers. On the other hand, external bodies (such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development , OECD) provide blueprints for soft ethics measures and encourage the implementation of uniform standards across countries. Which of these forces will prevail in the long run, however, cannot be deduced from the present situation. [source] The science commons in life science research: structure, function, and value of access to genetic diversityINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 188 2006Robert Cook-Deegan Innovation in the life sciences depends on how much information is produced as well as how widely and easily it is shared. Policies governing the science commons , or alternative, more restricted informational spaces , determine how widely and quickly information is distributed. The purpose of this paper is to highlight why the science commons matters and to analyse its structure and function. The main lesson from our analysis is that both the characteristics of the physical resources (from genes to microbes, plants and animals) and the norms and beliefs of the different research communities , think of the Bermuda rules in the human genome case or the Belem declaration for bioprospecting , matter in the institutional choices made when organising the science commons. We also show that the science commons contributes to solving some of the collective action dilemmas that arise in the production of knowledge in Pasteur's Quadrant, when information is both scientifically important and practically applicable. We show the importance of two of these dilemmas for the life sciences, which we call respectively the diffusion,innovation dilemma (how readily innovation diffuses) and the exploration,exploitation dilemma (when application requires collective action). [source] Sustainable development and institutional change: evidence from the Tiogo Forest in Burkina Faso,JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 8 2007Philippe Dulbecco Abstract The management of forest resources in developing countries is often inefficient and this is particularly the case when forests are a public good managed by the state. These inefficiencies are generally the result of both externalities and free-riding behaviour. The solution usually considered is to change the property rights structure of the resource, that is, privatisation of forests. It appears, however, that privatisation also has inefficiencies of its own, particularly when it is imposed on local populations. The aim of our contribution is to go beyond the usual state management versus privatisation debate, and to propose instead a property rights structure and related co-ordination scheme which take into account the specific institutional circumstances of the economic setting in which the natural resources are being exploited. The purpose is to suggest solutions based on the need to attain coherence between the external institutional structure and the behaviour of local players. In others words, the challenge is to establish the conditions necessary for an induced,rather than imposed,institutional change. A property rights structure of a resource must consequently be analysed from two perspectives. The first, and more traditional one, sees property rights as an efficient institutional structure of production enabling a reduction in transaction costs. The second proposes to evaluate any given property rights structure from the standpoint of its ability to offer a solution to the issue of an effective link between the legal framework and the behaviour of the players. Our analysis will make use of our knowledge of the forest of Tiogo in Burkina Faso based on a survey organised in 12 riverside villages, and using a sample of 300 households. The case of the Tiogo Forest suggests that institutional change needs to follow an incremental and path-dependent process within which the state is invited to play a major role together with the local communities. Indeed the institutional choices of the Tiogo Forest households indicate that they favour an inclusion of the local population in resource management and co-administration of forestry resources with the state. Such an institutional structure favours a negotiated rather than an imposed scheduling of measures, and seeks a minimum of consensus to ensure the adhesion of actors and users to the new institutional arrangements, whilst limiting the number of bad players. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Competitive Institution Building: The PT and Participatory Budgeting in Rio Grande do SulLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2006Benjamin Goldfrank ABSTRACT In the late 1990s, the Workers' Party (PT) government of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul introduced participatory budgeting, a process in which citizens establish annual investment priorities in public assemblies. This innovation was one of several attempts by incumbent parties to structure political conflict using budget institutions. The character of participatory budgeting is most evident in its policymaking processes and policy outcomes. The process circumvented legislative arenas where opponents held a majority, privileged participation by the PT's voter base, and reached into opposition strongholds. The outcomes favored the interests of potential supporters among poor and middle-class voters. The political project proved vulnerable to its own raised expectations: it failed to sustain the image of clean government; brought tax increases along with fiscal insecurity; and left unfulfilled the participants' expectations for targeted investments. This article highlights the role of participatory budgeting, indeed all budgeting, in partisan actors' institutional choices. [source] | ||||||||||