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This paper examines the selection of Nectarius of Tarsus as the first patriarch of Constantinople in A.D. 381. Nectarius, a layman and a retired senator from the provincial capital of Cilicia, was elected as the bishop of Constantinople during the sessions of the second general council. The election was a part of the agenda of the council, which had gathered under the auspices of the emperor Theodosius. The selection of Nectarius fit well within the imperial ideology, which sought an ecclesiastical reconciliation. Nectarius also had regional support from the Cilicians, who were in agreement with the Church of Antioch. His election was also a case of philia (friendship), which was an important factor in church politics in the 4th century. Theodoret, Socrates, and Sozomenus-near contemporary observers from the 5th century-provide reliable and comparable details of this election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rather than simply silencing or excluding actors, contemporary U.S. institutions commonly assign ways of speaking to the identities they forge and, therefore, preestablish ways of hearing the people who have come to inhabit them. Although institutional power is thereby reinscribed when “subalterns speak,” people can also inhabit such identities, and speak from these designated locales, in politically efficacious ways. Examining the rhetorical practices of clients and social workers at one institutional site, I highlight the process of anticipatory interpellation—reading how one is hailed as a particular kind of institutional subject and responding as such. [ anticipatory interpellation, language, performativity, politics, representation, social work] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Review of International Law & Politics / Uluslararasi Hukuk ve Politika is the property of International Strategic Research Organization and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study examines how defense institutions and personnel are formally organized in Latin America. In a region long plagued by praetorian armies, it is especially important that organizational designs ensure that civilians maintain institutional control over armed forces. For this to occur, it is argued that those designs must incorporate certain principles: (a) enhance the civilian presence in key defense institutions, (b) empower defense ministries, (c) lower the military's vertical authority along the chain of command, and (d) unify civilian power while dividing military power. Based on an examination of legal documents and other data for sixteen Latin American democracies, findings show three general organizational patterns: an ideal-typical defense structure that achieves all four objectives, a second best defense structure that still leaves too much military power unified, and a dual command structure that is least desirable for weakening the defense ministry while coalescing military might high up the ladder of influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article assesses the practice of political accountability in Hong Kong: whether it has largely been realised in practice, or whether it is merely a political slogan for the government to justify its executive-led governance. The analysis begins with a review of the theoretical concepts of political accountability and ministerial accountability, and then establishes an operational framework to analyse the current practice of political accountability in Hong Kong's political system. It concludes by addressing the degree of political accountability overall. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before 2002, Hong Kong's higher civil servants were required to play the dual role of quasi-ministers and civil servants. In such a context, can we make sense of the claim that Hong Kong's civil service has all along been politically neutral? What role has neutrality played in the governance of Hong Kong? Informed by Kernaghan's model of political neutrality and Oakeshott's idea of civil association, this article argues that the public service should not be regarded solely as an effective instrument of the government in power. In conclusion, this article proposes some institutional measures to strengthen the neutrality of the public service in Hong Kong and argues that properly understanding this will help prevent excessive or illegitimate partisan political power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the ethical and moral obligations of those elected to positions in public service. The author discusses his experience serving as a minister in the Taiwanese cabinet and offers the view of public accountability from the practitioner's perspective. Methods for breaking the barriers that inhibit the enhancement of public accountability are discussed.

The roles of ministers are complicated, multiple, and demanding. They need to perform both as a leader of public organization and as a political actor in the Cabinet as appointed by the president or prime minister. This research empirically examines which capacities and types of ministers account for their success. It concludes that a policy capacity is the most desirable ministerial capacity. In addition, this study concludes that a political type minister is the most appropriate ministerial type for ministerial success. However, there is not one best ministerial model, or one required capacity for ministerial success. That is, this study intends to better understand the virtue and the responsibility of ministers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política is the property of Instituto de Ciencia Politica (Universidad de la Republica de Uruguay) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The significance and the role of leadership in organizations and institutions have been widely discussed but not well understood. Much of the previous literature is limited to leadership practices and education as well as to the American context. Focusing on the Korean ministerial level, this study examines the ministerial leadership interplaying uniquely between the president (politics) and career civil servants (administration). Extending the typology of transformational and transactional leadership, this study presents five different leadership orientations and investigates their association with ministers' performances. Based on the 2002 Korean Minister Survey, this study shows that the strategic-transformational and external-transformational forms of leadership are the primary determinants of Korean ministers' performance. This study suggests that political appointees like Korean ministers should strike a balance between their political responsiveness as political appointees and their administrative responsibility as department heads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partisan behaviour and abuses by intelligence and security agencies have often been attributed to the fact that agencies have become 'out of control' or 'rogue elephants'. But a detailed empirical study of the politicization of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) over ten years shows that the agency was not 'out of control' but very much under the control of its minister. The partisan use of security information arose from directives issued through the 'democratic' control exercised by a government. On the basis of this study, prevention of abuses by tighter governmental control is unlikely to work. A combination of government control, autonomy of the agency and independent scrutiny by an inspector-general is more likely to succeed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the function of Inter-ministerial Policy Coordination (IMPC) and its critical role in governance. Following a definitional section, the authors give an overview of public sector governance in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia and discuss the application of governance principles to Inter-Ministerial Policy Coordination in these regions. They conclude with specific examples from the Republic of Macedonia and Central Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cabinet appointments to arm's-length agencies, boards and commissions are the last bastion of traditional party patronage in Canada. This paper discusses the strengths and limitations of legislative scrutiny of such appointments in the Canadian House of Commons and the provincial legislatures of Ontario and Nova Scotia. In no jurisdiction has the legislature been permitted to usurp the executive prerogative, nor is this a likely reform, given both the constitutional and political role of ministers. However, legislative review by committee does enhance the accountability of the cabinet to the legislature when members have the right to interview appointees and query them about their political affiliations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Limite is the property of Universidad de Tarapaca, Departamento de Filosofia y Psicologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Banchado were painted only for processions by the king or royal household that took place as part of royal rituals. Processions represent the moment when royal rituals are directly exposed to the ruled, as the rulers emerge from a closed space. State ceremonies of the Joseon dynasty constituted a highly-developed political mechanism designed to have the population naturally accommodate the legitimacy of state rule. Changes in banchado illustrations reflect the reality of the late Joseon dynasty that called for changes in achieving the eventual goal of justifying the royal authority. In state ceremonies held in the eighteenth century, the monarch intended not to remain a secluded head priest but to become a magnificent mastermind reorganizing state ceremonies and meeting his people in person. The royal processions aimed at reinforcing royal authority during this period was fully reflected in banchado. In the eighteenth century, the royal household was closed up considerably through attempts to strengthen monarchic authority, the phenomenon of which was sustained in the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upon winning the 1996 election, John Howard became the first Australian prime minister to codify his understanding of individual ministerial responsibility by publishing A Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility. This article examines how this ministerial code of conduct was applied to significant allegations of ministerial impropriety that occurred during the 1996–2007 Howard era, and highlights the relationship between the media, the Prime Minister's response and the ultimate outcome. It finds that Howard's early rigorous application of the Guide to allegations of conflicts of interest involved political pain and instigated its decline. Howard retreated, redefined ministerial responsibility as requiring deliberate wrongdoing and raised the threshold required for a minister's dismissal. His inability to firmly apply the Guide to instances of ministerial misconduct betrays the traditional view that ministers are responsible for their own actions. The contemporary practice is that ministers do not resign for departmental failures for which they are not personally responsible, irrespective of the gravity of that wrongdoing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the stability of individual ministers across parliamentary democracies. Our data show that this stability is only loosely related to the stability of cabinets, making it impossible to rely primarily on arguments about cabinet duration to explain patterns of individual stability. We argue that to explain patterns of individual stability, it is useful to focus on the problems that party leaders have in identifying which individuals have the qualities necessary to do their jobs well. The institutional powers of ministers, coalition attributes, and party-specific variables should affect the uncertainty that party leaders have about which individuals will be successful ministers, on one hand, and the ability of party leaders to replace unsuccessful ministers, on the other. Our empirical tests support these arguments. The analysis therefore has implications for expectations regarding the circumstances under which minister stability should positively or negatively influence the policymaking performance of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The style of politician speeches reveals their personalities and their communication strategies. In order to analyse the style of Quebec prime ministers, from 1960 to 2005, a corpus of 789 speeches have been built up and a quantitative stylistic analysis has been applied to it. The main indicators used are the grammatical categories, especially the verbs and pronouns, the length and the structure of the sentences. This statistical comparison shows some important differences between the styles of the prime ministers and between the communication strategies they have followed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One problem of Canadian parliamentary democracy is the concentration of power in the hands of the Prime Minister and the ascendancy of the Prime Ministers Office over Parliament. This article looks at some of the reasons for the weakness of the House of Commons vis à vis the Prime Minister. It then looks at the Senate and the place a reformed Senate may have in acting as a counterweight to a system that has been transformed from executive centred to prime ministerial dominated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article starts by discussing 'agencification' and fragmentation in national governments. When dealing with the problems that these developments might cause for democratic control and agency accountability, one only tends to look at the relationships between agencies and various national stakeholders, in particular ministerial departments. Has a 'methodological nationalism' hindered us from seeing the emerging executive centre at the level above, i.e. the European Commission, and the re-coupling of nationally decoupled agencies into a multilevel Union administration? The development of the EU, due to its peculiar institutional architecture, takes quite another direction than intergovernmental cooperation and comes to challenge governments in an unprecedented way. National agencies become parts of two administrations - a national as well as a Union administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presenting Michael Jackson™ explicates the marketed product that parades as a man we think we know well because he has grown up on stage, in front of documenting cameras. Such screened coverage belies the calculations that Michael Jackson™ entails. To discuss them, the essay compares Michael's notorious, late and pajama-sporting arrival to his trial in March 2005 and the November 1991 debut of the short film Black or White to consider Michael the man's hand in the public dissembling of the icon so many once thought so safe. In that Michael Jackson™ is always seemingly on the verge of collapse, the essay finds an opportunity to assess the popular possibilities for poststructuralist thinking, namely the Derridean deconstruction that makes possible queer theory methodology. The kind of play that remains when reading Michael's life-as-career illustrates the enchanting reach that Derrida's "theatre of the countersignature" can have when staged by an actor who commands still a global audience. Surveillance awaits a curiosity Michael continues to deliver with such precision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In various guises, public value has become extraordinarily popular in recent years. We challenge the relevance and usefulness of the approach in Westminster systems with their dominant hierarchies of control, strong roles for ministers, and tight authorising regimes underpinned by disciplined two-party systems. We start by spelling out the core assumptions behind the public value approach. We identify two key confusions; about public value as theory, and in defining ‘public managers’. We identify five linked core assumptions in public value: the benign view of large-scale organisations; the primacy of management; the relevance of private sector experience; the downgrading of party politics; and public servants as Platonic guardians. We then focus on the last two assumptions because they are the least applicable in Westminster systems. We defend the ‘primacy of party politics’ and we criticise the notion that public managers should play the role of Platonic guardians deciding the public interest. The final section of the article presents a ‘ladder of public value’ by which to gauge the utility of the approach for public managers in Westminster systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of ministerial advisers of the partisan variety – a third element interposing itself into Westminster's bilateral monopoly – has been acknowledged as a significant development in a number of jurisdictions. While there are commonalities across contexts, the New Zealand experience provides an opportunity to explore the extent to which the advent of ministerial advisers is consistent with rational choice accounts of relations between political and administrative actors in executive government. Public administration reform in New Zealand since the mid 1980s – and in particular machinery of government design – was quite explicitly informed by rational choice accounts, and normative Public Choice in particular. This article reflects on the role of ministerial advisers in the policy-making process and, on the basis of assessments by a variety of political and policy actors, examines the extent to which the institutional and relational aspects of executive government are indeed consistent with rational choice accounts of the ‘politics of policy-making’. The reader is offered a new perspective through which to view the advent, and the contribution of ministerial advisers to policy-making in executive government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the autonomy of secretaries in Australia's public service department from political pressure from their respective department ministers. He argues that the criticism of the current system relies on anecdotal evidence which is inconclusive: there can be instances brought up for secretaries holding the same and opposing views as their ministers. The author suggests that secretaries are no longer solely responsible for advising ministers.

Political advisers are an established third element in a number of Westminster-styled jurisdictions, as they are in New Zealand’s institution of executive government. In this paper we report the initial findings of a research project focusing on the role and accountabilities of ministerial advisers in New Zealand. We locate these findings in the context of a growing body of international and comparative research on the role and accountabilities of non civil- or public-service advisers within political executives and comment on the extent to which the findings affirm or refute the view that the ‘third element’ constitutes a threat to the continued application of Westminster principles and practices in New Zealand’s system of government – once described as more Westminster than Westminster. In doing so, we highlight deficiencies in standard conceptions of politicization and argue that there is a need to more clearly differentiate between its procedural and substantive dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2001 parliament saw a renewed interest in Commons reform. Between 2001 and 2005 the House of Commons Modernisation Committee put forward several significant reports recommending changes to the select committees, sitting patterns, questioning of ministers and engaging with the public. The article examines the political factors that shaped the development and implementation of those reforms, and in particular assesses the role of the Leader of the Commons in managing the divergent expectations of MPs, committees, ministers and whips. It argues that too many analyses assume government conspiracy as the main blockage when reforms fail to get through, and therefore miss the inherently political nature of the process. In conclusion, it suggests five areas likely to have a bearing on the success or failure of proposed reforms. These include acknowledging the personal and political incentives that shape MPs' own attitudes to reform, and recognising that MPs are not necessarily the best defenders of parliamentary principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between ministerial responsibility and the machinery of government. It discusses how constitutional government and the practical day-to-day functioning of a parliamentary democracy depend on ministerial responsibility as the bedrock principle for the organization and operation of the machinery of government across the range of government organizations. It concludes that ministerial responsibility remains the pivotal constitutional doctrine essential to the functioning of a parliamentary democracy; that notwithstanding the undue concentration of authority in the hands of first ministers, their machinery of government powers ought not to be reduced; and that first ministers in particular should pay closer attention to ministerial responsibility as the foundation of the machinery of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the ministerial Web sites of Government of Nepal to project the overall impression of government Web sites in Nepal. It was found that of the twenty ministries only seventeen ministries (85 percent) had dedicated Web sites and provided information and, in some cases, downloadable digital forms that could be filled in and submitted offline. However, the study focused on the content of the sites crucial for citizen-government interaction. Since the Web content evaluation metrics are not completely exhaustive, this study based the Web analysis on four determinants - transparency, interactivity, accessibility, and usability - and evaluated all the ministerial Web sites. It was found that Web features that are critical in fostering government openness, government-government communication, and citizen participation and satisfaction are still infrequent or completely absent in the ministerial Web sites. The study suggests that the government needs to cultivate standards for its Web site design exploit the benefits offered by information and communication technologies to promote good governance through electronic government. The government should also continuously evolve the site design techniques to meet citizens' expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2004, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) announced changes to the guidelines and protocols of some 40 ministerial councils and intergovernmental fora which comprise the web of intergovernmental consultative arrangements. This article examines the impact of the guidelines on the operation of the oldest of the sectoral ministerial councils, those relating to agriculture. The COAG guidelines aim to increase the strategic focus of the councils. However, in the case of agricultural policy there appears to have been a centralising of policy control, both within state governments and towards the Commonwealth, which undermines that objective and leaves the ministerial councils focusing on the more technical issues which they are more effective at addressing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on youth ministry. The thinkers of youth ministry posses advanced degrees in sociology, social work, psychology, and education. It is common to retrieve theories from various fields and sciences in youth ministry articles and books. Youth ministry has evaluated practices and procedures of good ministerial action. Youth ministry hardly apply Bible verses or theological points of old to research on adolescent behavior or ministerial practices.

This article analyses how institutional and contextual factors explain the approval of presidential initiatives - presidential legislative success - in highly disciplined and cartelized assemblies. Of particular importance is to test whether public opinion, the electoral cycle and the use of different institutional rules affect the approval of presidential initiatives in Congress. Using a multilevel Bayesian model of legislative success, I model bill approval rates at individual and aggregate levels. This strategy is extremely flexible, allowing us to disentangle the different institutional and contextual factors that determine the approval of presidential initiatives in the Argentine Congress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse the determinants of ministerial hazard rates in Britain from 1945 to 1997. We focus on three sets of attributes (i) personal characteristics of the minister; (ii) political characteristics of the minister; and (iii) characteristics pertaining to the government in which the minister serves. We find that educational background increases ministers' capacity to survive, that female ministers have lower hazard rates and older ministers have higher hazard rates. Experienced ministers have higher hazard rates than newly appointed ministers. Ministerial rank increases a minister's capacity to survive, with full cabinet members having the lowest hazard rates in our sample. We use different strategies to control for the characteristics of the government the minister serves in. Our results are robust to any of these controls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a study of bicameral conflict resolution between the Council and the European Parliament in the European Union, which has established a bicameral conciliation process under the co-decision procedure. Scholars commonly agree that the European Parliament has gained power under the co-decision procedure, but the impact of the conciliation process on the power distribution between the Council and the European Parliament remains unclear. The scholarly debate suggests that the power of the institutional actors depends on their proximity to the status quo, the (im-)patience and the specific preference distribution of the institutional actors, although most analyses assume that the Commission plays an insignificant role. Using an ordered probit model, this study examines the power distribution between the two institutional actors, the factors for their bargaining success and the role of the Commission in the period between 1999 and 2002. The findings show that the European Parliament wins most conflicts, but that the Council is more successful in multi-dimensional disputes. The results confirm some theoretical claims made in the literature, such as the importance of the status quo location and of preference cohesiveness. However, they also reject a major assumption in the literature on the irrelevance of the Commission in the conciliation process, which we show to have an influential informational position for parliamentary success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores strategic political steering after New Public Management reforms, focusing on the new role assigned to government ministers. The NPM model of strategic steering and the problems embedded in it are addressed. The primary empirical data concern the practices of strategic political steering in Finland. The Finnish experience is contrasted with existing evidence from the UK and Australia and from Nordic local politics. The empirical conclusion is that management reforms aiming at introducing the strategic role of politicians have not been a success. Theoretically, this is not a surprise as politics does not follow the logic of rational managerial models. Politicians are not eager to define goals and to set priorities, nor are they motivated to consider issues that are not realized in the immediate future. In addition, they tend to focus on specific issues and to intervene in details. Consequently, it may not be relevant to ask whether ministers are able to adopt the strategic role but to consider the possibility that they do not, and will not, have incentives to do so, making it quite frustrating to develop rational managerial models as tools for politicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, British MPs had established high levels of commitment to constituency work. The introduction of devolution in Scotland and Wales posed new challenges locally from AMs and MSPs. The article shows that the volume of constituency work for MPs in Scotland and Wales has declined, but this has not been as sharp as may have been expected. Co-operation and competition between members over constituency work is strongly, though not exclusively, related to partisan relationships. In particular, MPs in Scotland are much more inclined than those in Wales to forward enquiries relating to devolved matters to members of the relevant devolved institution. Evidence supports findings that constituency work is driven in part by electoral incentives - but this does not tell the whole story. Institutional and cultural factors are also important, as are individual members' preferences and styles. Scottish and Welsh MPs are sanguine about their experience, although it has diminished enthusiasm, such as it was, for introducing an MMP electoral system at Westminster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sample of 1,276 Anglican parochial clergymen in England completed a modified form of the Glass Ministerial Job Satisfaction Scale, a self-reported scale on parental images, and the short-form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. The aim of the present study was to test empirically the relationship between parental images and current levels of ministerial job satisfaction among clergymen. Given the fact that previous studies have demonstrated the relationship between aspects of clergy work-related psychological health and individual differences in personality, the present study also included an established measure of personality. The data demonstrate that negative parental images are a significant predictor of poor ministerial job satisfaction, after controlling for individual differences in age and in personality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparatively, Taoisigh have one of the most restricted pools from which to select ministers. This has an impact on the ability of Taoisigh to deselect ministers, which in turn affects the choices Taoisigh make in constructing their cabinets. This article argues that the small and stable political elite in Ireland cause personal relationships and loyalty to be important in Irish politics. As a result Taoisigh tend to be conservative when selecting ministers. Only those TDs with experience or who are well known tend to be selected as ministers. Empirical analysis predicting cabinet membership confirms this and other expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is now widespread acknowledgement that the traditional notion of ministerial responsibility is itself no longer satisfactory and can no longer serve as the sole constitutional touchstone of accountability. However, attempts to reform and give clarity to what is regarded as an outmoded system with the introduction of managerialist ideas such as letting ‘the managers manage’ have not always led to the effectiveness envisaged. This discussion aims to investigate political and managerial accountability in Ireland using the case of the illegal charging of long term residents in state nursing homes since 1976 and the subsequent Travers report that investigated this issue in 2005. The case illustrates that the recent legislative reform seeking to clarify political/managerial roles does not appear to have had the anticipated and desired impact and that the growth in ministerial advisers also seems to complicate interpretations of accountability. The article illustrates the complexities of political/managerial roles for ministers, civil servants and political advisers and underlines the enduring ambiguity concerning the long‐standing principle of ministerial responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the Canadian Sponsorship Scandal under the minority government of the country's Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin. The situation caused the defeat of the Canadian government in the general elections of 2004 as Martin step on his position following his predecessor Jean Chrétien. However, the government recovered and was able to participate in the 2005 election through the carrying out of a confidence vote.

This paper analyzes the a priori influence of the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of Ministers (CM) on legislation of the European Union adopted under its codecision procedure. In contrast to studies which use conventional power indices, both institutions are assumed to act strategically. Predicted bargaining outcomes of the crucial Conciliation stage of codecision are shown to be strongly biased towards the legislative status quo. Making symmetric preference assumptions for members of CM and EP, CM is on an average much more conservative because of its internal qualified majority rule. This makes CM by an order of magnitude more influential than EP, in contrast to a seeming formal parity between the two ‘co-legislators’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes an overview of the creation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and summarises its main recommendations. It considers what happened to those recommendations and what steps government has taken to implement, amend or avoid them. It also looks at how far the recommendations that are implemented in whole or in part complement or overlap with existing institutions and procedures. In this context, it assesses in more detail the regional variations in terms of institutional arrangements and processes and whether or not there are any lessons to be learnt from variations in approaches. Overall the article reviews the various procedural and institutional configurations, noting the differences and similarities, government reactions and what might be the next steps in the delivery of the ethical framework whose progress is being shaped by the various Committee reports in the past 10 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the duties and responsibilities and other key issues concerning the ministerial staff, the personal staff of government ministers in Australia. Although the ministerial staff provide significant support to ministers, their position in the country's government is poorly stated. They have been involved in various controversies, including the disciplining of Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty by the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff in 2004 and the Children Overboard controversy. Their presence and growth in numbers as well as lack of accountability mechanisms for these staff, enabled ministers to escape responsibility for their actions in the controversies and to use them as a shield to deny prior knowledge of the incidents.

There is now a well-established literature on the various second-order effects of the adoption of proportional representation in New Zealand. One feature of the contemporary executive landscape, however, remains substantially under-researched. This article reports on research regarding ministerial advisers in New Zealand Cabinet ministers' offices. More specifically, it compares senior public servants' current attitudes towards ministerial advisers with pre-MMP speculation regarding the possible future influence of such advisers. The article concludes that while there are concerns about the possible long-term influence of political advisers, for the majority of senior officials working relationships with ministerial advisers are positive and productive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the independence of the legislative assembly of Ontario through the continuing evolution of the relationship between the executive and the legislative branches of government. The contribution of speakers of the legislative assembly of Ontario to the evolution of the legislative assembly is cited. A background of the existence of the legislative assembly of the province is presented.

Delegated governance refers to the wide range of quasi-autonomous organizations – ‘fringe bodies, quangos and all that’ – to which an increasing proportion of state activity is now delegated. Recent reports by the OECD have emphasized the growing role of these bodies in relation to policy-making, regulation and administration within advanced industrial countries. However, the existence of delegated forms of governance enjoying an arm's length relationship to elected politicians raises fundamental questions regarding the operation and nature of representative democracy. Political devolution to regions within nation states has long been advocated as a potential solution to concerns regarding the control, accountability and patronage in relation to these bodies. This article presents the findings of a research project that examined the degree to which devolution to Scotland since 1998 has impacted upon the structure of delegated governance and the possible policy implications this may have for other European states. The research suggests that although the sphere of delegated governance in Scotland post-devolution has grown it has led to the creation of a new governance framework, which may assuage concerns regarding the ‘democratic deficit’ that is commonly associated with quasi-autonomous public bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parliamentarians have an incessant need for timely, authoritative, and current information because of the enormous social responsibility bestowed on them by the electorates or society. A strong information accessibility that empowers them to fulfill this responsibility effectively is therefore very significant. Essentially and traditionally, parliamentary libraries are expected to provide legislators with most of the information they need. The study aimed at determining the information sources, service and systems used in South Africa by the parliamentarians, and also to investigate the role of the parliamentary libraries in the information provision process. A survey was conducted by use of questionnaires targeting all parliamentarians in South Africa and a response rate of 23% (167) was received. This study has revealed that parliamentary libraries are underutilized because parliamentarians use other equally competing in formation sources largely accessed through the internet. Further, South Africa has enormous information sources and services that legislators can access and exploit and the use of electronic sources of information is growing rapidly, almost reaching the level of use of print sources. Unexpectedly, oral sources of information are used less. Parliamentary libraries have a potential to offer a variety of services to parliamentarians, yet they are not well-utilized, perhaps because of reasons such as poor marketing and innovative information services. Wilson's model on information seeking has been extended by a new model proposing and explaining information-seeking strategies popular to parliamentarians in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions cannot be understood without exploring the actors who occupy them, while actors cannot be understood without examining the institutions they inhabit. Ultimately, the actions of both institutions and actors cannot be understood separate to the political, social and economic context within which they are located. Tony Blair, rightly cited as an example of a powerful prime minister, does not have a monopoly of power, but he does have an extensive authority. The prime minister requires two things to operate effectively within Whitehall and Westminster: first, power over their parliamentary majority; and second, power within the government they lead. Because this power is contested and challenged, the age-old question, the actual degree of collegiality within government, is as central to contemporary debates about the working of the core executive as to the ancient debate about prime ministerial versus cabinet government. The prime minister is therefore best modelled as a strong, but sometimes weak, parliamentary chief executive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the debate about quangos, which occurred in Britain during the 1970s. Contributions from academics, politicians and popular commentators are evaluated and contrasted. The study identifies five main concerns about these organisations. They are accused of being wasteful, unaccountable and too numerous. The system of ministerial appointments and the provision of information about quangos are also criticised. The debate is linked to wider political themes such as the role of the state, governmental effectiveness and ministerial power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on cabinet reshuffles in five Westminster parliamentary Systems. A cabinet reshuffle involves the promotion of minister or a reallocation of portfolios by prime minister during the parliamentary term. Reshuffles are prominent political events, but, relative to coalition formation, portfolio allocation and cabinet survival. The titles of various ministerial offices vary by country, but it is almost always possible to distinguish clearly between cabinet ministers proper, senior ministers-who sit outside cabinet but still exercise some independent authority and may occasionally attend cabinet meetings-and junior ministers, who are mere delegates of their respective cabinet ministers. Recent research indicates that the allocation and movement of noncabinet ministers within the government is a significant element of parliamentary politics. Accordingly, one also take account of movements of senior noncabinet ministers. Under rule, the movement of a single cabinet minister and two senior ministers outside cabinet would count as a reshuffle-provided that these ministers straddled at least two portfolios and all three moves occurred within one month.

Reports on the events surrounding the setup of the Ministerial Taskforce on Child Support "In the Best Interests of Children? Reforming the Child Support Scheme." Recommendation for the formation of the taskforce to examine the child support formula of the Australian government; Areas of expertise required by the members of the taskforce; Key conclusions as derived upon by the taskforce.