Essay:Poland and Our Geopolitical Moment. The history of Poland was critical to the history of Europe as a whole over the course of seven centuries. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its successor the Polish-Lithuanian Union was a one time one of the largest political entities on the continent. It had the misfortune, however, of being caught between sev-eral other large empires, and disappeared in three successive partitions in the late 18th century. Poland re-emerged after the First World War as a sovereign country, only to be swallowed up again after the Nazi-Soviet Pact, re-appear-ing in 1945 as a war-ravaged satellite of the Soviet Union. It was only in 1989 that the country could emerge finally as a fully sovereign and democratic na-tion, standing at the core of a new Europe “whole and free.”

La ola global de retroceso democrático ha puesto en tela de juicio el predominio de la democracia en el siglo XXI. Un presunto declive en la confianza política y en la satisfacción con la democracia, junto con el ascenso de autocracias de alto rendimiento, ha generado conjeturas sobre si el apoyo popular al proyecto democrático se está erosionando en favor de alternativas nuevas y más autoritarias. Parte de este debate se centra en el grado de importancia que poseen la prestación de servicios y la obtención de resultados para la legitimidad y estabilidad de la democracia. Sostenemos que la eficacia en la provisión de servicios a la ciudadanía resulta crucial para reconstruir el contrato social y afianzar el apoyo a la democracia, además de contrarrestar su retroceso. Para efectos de exposición, reflexionamos sobre la infraestructura como un bien público.

Abstract: The global wave of democratic backsliding has questioned the ascendancy of democracy in the 21st century. A purported decline in political trust and satisfaction with democracy, alongside the rise of high-performing autocracies, has sparked conjectures that popular support for the democratic project is eroding in favor of new, more authoritarian alternatives. Part of this discussion concerns the extent to which service delivery and outcomes matter for the legitimacy and stability of democracy. We argue that delivery for citizens is crucial to rebuilding the social contract and hence support for democracy alongside thwarting backsliding. We reflect on infrastructure as a public good for exposition.

The interactions between bureaucratic agencies and political actors shape governance outcomes, yet scholars disagree about how bureaucratic autonomy relates to government quality. Some claim that enhancing autonomy improves quality, whereas others maintain the opposite. An influential article by Fukuyama (2013) in Governance suggests a curvilinear relationship, moderated by capacity. This article evaluates the theory empirically, focusing on within-country variation and two dimensions of autonomy: independence and discretion. Drawing on an original survey of over 3200 public sector workers in Brazil and administrative data on 325,000 public servants, we find evidence suggesting that the relationship between perceived autonomy and quality depends on the type of perceived autonomy and level of capacity. Public servants' perceptions of independence from political actors are associated with increased perceptions about governance quality in a linear fashion. For perceived discretion, we find initial evidence of a Goldilocks relationship: too little reduces perceptions of government quality but so does too much, especially in low-capacity areas. Our findings offer initial evidence that may qualify claims that limiting bureaucratic discretion while increasing political oversight improves governance; instead, context may be crucial.

This article is part of Global Perspectives Review Symposium on Democracy.

In political science, one issue still in need of greater theorizing is the proper measurement of bureaucratic autonomy, that is, the degree of discretion that political principals should grant to bureaucratic agents. This article reviews the literature on bureaucratic autonomy both in US administrative law and in political science. It uses the American experience to define five mechanisms by which political principals grant and limit autonomy, then goes on to survey the comparative literature on other democratic systems using the American framework as a baseline. Other democracies use different mixtures of these mechanisms, for example by substituting stronger ex post review for ex ante procedures or using appointment and removal power in place of either. We find that the administrative law and social science literatures on this topic approach it very differently, and that each would profit from greater awareness of the other discipline.

How do civil service management practices differ within and across governments? How do core attitudes of public servants—such as their motivation or satisfaction—differ within and across governments? Understanding how public administrations around the world function and differ is crucial for strengthening their effectiveness. Most comparative measures of bureaucracy rely on surveys of experts, households, or firms, rather than directly questioning bureaucrats. Direct surveys of public officials enable governments to benchmark themselves and scholars to study comparative public administration and the state differently, based on micro-data from actors who experience government first-hand. This paper introduces the Global Survey of Public Servants, a global initiative to collect and harmonize large-scale, comparable survey data on public servants. The Global Survey of Public Servants can help scholars compare public administrations around the world and understand the internal dynamics of governments, with the published Global Survey of Public Servants data freely available online.

The term "deep state" originally referred to the hidden security bureaucracies in countries like Turkey and Egypt with sinister overtones. The term has been applied by American conservatives to the existing permanent US bureaucracy, which they argue is exerting tyrannical control over citizens and needs to be destroyed root and branch. The fact is that the US administrative state is highly transparent and plays a critical role in delivering services and outcomes that citizens demand. Modern government cannot function without a high degree of delegation to bureaucratic agents; as such the US "deep state" needs to be defended and not vilified. There are several critical mechanisms for democratic principals to exert control over bureaucratic agents. While there are instances of bureaucratic over-reach, the US system provides a number of checks on agency power that are under-utilised. A separate problem lies in under-delegation, where political principals write detailed rules constraining bureaucratic autonomy in ways that hinder effective and timely government action. Future efforts by conservatives to undermine the "deep state" will result in grave weakening of American government and return the country to the 19th century patronage system.

Understanding how public administrations around the world function and differ is crucial for strengthening their effectiveness. Most comparative measures of bureaucracy rely on surveys of experts, households, or firms, rather than directly questioning bureaucrats. Direct surveys of public officials create granular data for analysis and government action, so are becoming a cornerstone of public sector management. This article introduces the Global Survey of Public Servants (GSPS), a global initiative to collect and harmonize large-scale, comparable survey data on public servants. The corresponding GSPS data set currently contains responses from 1,300,000+ bureaucrats in 1,300+ government institutions in 23 countries. The surveys measure both employee attitudes (such as job satisfaction and motivation), and their experience with management practices (such as recruitment and performance management). This harmonized data enables governments to benchmark themselves and scholars to study comparative public administration and the state differently, based on micro-data from actors who experience government first-hand.

Over the past decade, there has been an extremely rapid increase in bilaterally financed infrastructure projects globally, as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is a broad initiative involving many Chinese state-owned enterprises to develop transport and other infrastructure across the developing world, with bilateral financing from either the China Development Bank (CDB) or the China Export-Import Bank (CEXIM). More recently, many large BRI projects have undergone renegotiations with borrower nations or caused financial distress. This provides a useful opportunity to evaluate the BRI through the lens of the obsolescing bargain model. The obsolescing bargain has historically been used to describe the relationship between multinational corporations (MNCs) and the developing countries they invest in. For large capital investments paid off over a long operating period, such as infrastructure projects, the obsolescing bargain describes a shift in leverage from MNCs to the host nation once the capital investment is complete, often leading to renegotiation or even expropriation. This study examines the BRI through the lens of the obsolescing bargain to evaluate the practices of China's state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and policy banks in mitigating political risk.

Previous articleNext article No AccessResponse to the Polity CollectionFrancis FukuyamaFrancis FukuyamaStanford University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Polity Volume 54, Number 4October 2022STOP WARS The Journal of the Northeastern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/721670 Views: 206Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref HistoryPublished online August 23, 2022 © 2022 Northeastern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Alyson Cole, Robyn Marasco, and Charles Tien STOP WARS, Polity 54, no.44 (Sep 2022): 651–657.https://doi.org/10.1086/721695

A pesar de que cada vez mas gente esta convencida de que las grandes empresas tecnologicas constituyen una amenaza para la democracia, no hay mucho acuerdo sobre que hacer al respecto. Sin una ruta clara, muchos criticos presionan a las plataformas tecnologicas para que se autorregulen. Pero los danos politicos que causan, mucho mas graves que los economicos, han pasado practicamente inadvertidos.

Abstract:The power of large internet platforms to amplify or silence certain voices at a scale that can alter major political outcomes poses a grave threat to democracy. Approaches to reducing this power have thus far fallen into four main categories: 1) using antitrust legislation to break up companies such as Facebook and Google; 2) government regulation of content; 3) data portability, or empowering users to move their data between platforms; and 4) applying privacy legislation to limit how platforms can use the data they collect. Yet each of these four approaches is inadequate in its own way. A more promising solution lies in using both technology and regulation to outsource content curation from the dominant platforms to a competitive layer of "middleware companies."