Recent decades have witnessed the remarkable rise of a kind of market authority almost as centralized as the state itself – two credit rating agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's. These agencies derive their influence from two sources. The first is the information content of their ratings. The second is both more profound and vastly more problematic: Ratings are incorporated into financial regulations in the United States and around the world. In this article we clarify the role of credit rating agencies in global capital markets, describe the host of problems that arise when their ratings are given the force of law, and outline the alternatives to the public policy dilemmas created when ratings receive a public imprimatur. We conclude that agencies designated for regulatory purposes should be required to provide more nuanced ratings exposing their perceptual and ideological underpinnings (especially for sovereigns), and facilitating consideration of alternatives to ratings-dependent regulation.

Numerous authors have highlighted utilitarian considerations as sources of public support for the European Union, suggesting that support results primarily from cost-benefit calculations of the gains and losses associated with integration. Benefits accrue, not only to different member states, but also to individuals. Within this discussion it is often suggested that the gains and losses are unevenly distributed across social groups, with the higher status groups being privileged and the lower status groups disadvantaged. This paper challenges arguments that assume a clear division between lower social strata and higher social strata in terms of winning and losing in Europeanization; it looks more closely at how Europeans rate the integration process as it affects them personally, and how this influences their support for integration. The results show that socio-economic characteristics cannot fully explain people's perceptions of being winners or losers, and a large proportion of EU citizens do not consider themselves either winners or losers. The paper also demonstrates that the winner/loser self-characterization is indeed a major determinant of support for the EU, but that it only partly coincides with people's socio-economic position.

The Internet is a global phenomenon, but the way in which national governments respond to it varies with the political, social and economic context of a country. However, much that is written about the Internet and governance concentrates on a few advanced industrial societies, and especially the United States. Yet the federal and fragmented system of governance in the United States creates obstacles to the use of the Internet, while smaller countries from Estonia to Singapore produce innovations in e-governance. Moreover, even though the United States has more Internet users than any other country today, the growth points in the use of the Internet in the next few years will occur in radically different places, ranging from Russia and Brazil to India and China.

The extent to which e-governance develops in a country is a function of the collective national and local capital supplying IT services and of informal social and human capital creating a demand for e-governance. Supply requires public officials and citizens to have access to the Internet and access varies enormously according to a country's modern resources and political openness. But the characterization of these differences as a digital divide is misleadingly static. A diffusion model of Internet access shows that it is more realistic to think of cross-national differences in terms of leading and lagging countries; in this model laggards have the potential to catch up with leaders. Differences in the capacity of countries to supply standard e-government services are a consequence of its degree of modern resources and to supply e-participation facilities reflects its political openness and extent of corruption. In countries with a high degree of modern resources and a majority of adults on line, digital choice creates limits as well as opportunities for e-governance, since most non-users of the Internet are older people who see no need for going on line. Among those on line a majority prefer to contact local and central government by traditional means, such as telephone or writing a letter. In the most modern and open societies the diffusion of the Internet is most likely to promote government efficiency and the virtual linkage of disparate public agencies serving the same client. In developing countries it will be one more pressure to reduce corruption and increase bureaucratization and in relatively closed regimes it can threaten destabilization by strengthening dissident mobilization within and across national borders. Globally, the diffusion process will promote openness in ‘intermestic’ public policies that involve both national and trans-national politics. It will also reduce the proportion of native English-speakers and increase bilingual and bicultural Internet users.

This paper provides a positive analysis of the evolution of competence allocation within the EU Competition Policy System. In the EU, competition policy competences are ascribed both to the European level and to each Member State. In regard to securing a sound antitrust system, the allocation and delimitation of these competences plays a major role. Accordingly, competence allocation has been a major issue in the recent reforms of cartel policy enforcement and merger control. Instead of normatively analysing the characteristics of optimal competence allocation, we positively identify the self-interest of the interacting groups of agents – European Commission and Courts, national authorities, business associations –  as a major-driving force of the reform process. We show that, as a consequence, the interest-driven outcomes of this process are largely ineffective and deficient – even if evaluated against the background of the publicly announced reform goals. This stands in accordance with longer-term patterns in competence allocation evolution in the EU Competition Policy System.

This article discusses the concept of contractual uncertainty and assesses its impact upon the ability of public sector bodies to obtain value for money from their suppliers. Particularly in the realm of public private partnerships, governments around the world are increasingly developing specifications that are likely to be subject to contractual uncertainty. Contractual uncertainty is not necessarily a problem in itself, but can be if the public body cannot avoid an unfavourable power relation in its dealings with the supplier, because it is in a poor position to undertake the inevitable post-contractual negotiations. The argument is illustrated with two cases from the UK public sector that highlight the fact that British public bodies are often seeking to manage contractual uncertainty from a position of weakness.

The literature on governing the Internet suffers from such lacunae as overly narrow, technocratic conceptions of Internet governance; insufficient attention to governance dynamics within countries; and limited appreciation for the micro-level political and social roots of governance. This essay suggests ways they may be addressed by asking two foundational questions ‘What is Internet governance and where does it come from?’ ‘Governance’ is defined as a syndrome of norms and rules controlling property rights, market structures, equity assumptions and authoritative definitions about which social actors are permitted to participate in governance processes and which are excluded. ICT governance originates in conflict and cooperation among contending elites who negotiate across four distinct societal sectors – government, the private sector, research and development, and civil society. This distinctive pattern of four-way negotiations is termed the ‘Quad’, a concept that helps explain the origins of governance, and points toward theories linking the structure of the Quad with the performance of the Internet cross-nationally. The concept of the Quad contributes both to scholarly understanding of Internet governance and to improved performance by practitioners charged with real-world governance responsibilities.

Canada has a more restrictive biotechnology policy than the United States. Adopting a similar-cases-research-design, this article shows that policy networks explain this difference. The overlapping nature and the boundary between the multiple networks relevant to biotechnology in each country are distinct. In the United States, two policy networks deal with biotechnology. One primarily handles agricultural plants, while the other deals with food; key state actors overlap. In contrast, networks in Canada are separated between those dealing with regulation with two overlapping networks assessing environmental and health risks, and a network to manage biotechnology promotion. Promotion and regulation thus constitute a network boundary in Canada, but not in the United States, where networks deal with these two issues simultaneously. American networks have promoted beliefs favourable to more permissive regulatory preferences than the Canadian environmental and health risk assessment networks and American biotechnology policies are therefore even more permissive than those of Canada.

At its Lisbon Summit in March 2000, the European Council decided to apply the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) to innovation policies. The aim is to establish a European Research Area, in which the OMC shall increase the coherence of regional, national and European policies. Until now, however, the OMC has only been applied to a very limited extent. We argue that this development is due to the fact that there are specific conditions for policy coordination in the emerging European multi-level innovation system that have hardly been mirrored by late EU initiatives for a more coherent European Research Area and its new open method of coordination.

The relationship between nationalism and public policy remains largely unexplored. Focusing on the link between sub-state nationalism and social policy, this article formulates three main arguments. The first is that social policy is likely to factor into processes of identity- and nation-building spearheaded by sub-state nationalism, and that nationalist movements typically trigger pressures for the decentralization of social policy. The second is that recognizing the importance of this connection should not lead to hasty conclusions about the impact of societal and institutional pressures on public policy. Nationalism is not only a societal force; it is also a political construction that reflects broad institutional legacies. The third is that the historical sequence of nationalism and policy development may create institutional forces preventing the congruence between policies and ethno-linguistic boundaries, in spite of pressures emanating from nationalist movements. The analysis of Social Security politics in contemporary Belgium provides ground to these claims.

e-Government is a global project of technology transfer taking designs from one context into a different context. Using examples of ‘e-transparency’ projects, this paper finds that the context of design inscribed into e-government systems in both explicit and implicit ways can produce a mismatch with the context in which it is deployed. This creates a contextual collision that can often lead to e-government failure. In other cases, there is some form of accommodation between the two contexts: users may appropriate inscribed elements to their own purposes or there may even be a reciprocating accommodation leading to a viable system. Factors that shape either failure or accommodation are identified, as are the networks of interests that determine the design inscription and deployment accommodation processes. Conclusions are drawn about policy on e-government project design and development of e-government capacities; and about the relevance of developing/transitional economy cases for the literature on the sociology of technology.

Institutional fragmentation is usually assumed to influence social policy outcomes in countries with constitutional features such as federalism and divided government, but not in unitary and parliamentary states. The example of childcare politics in the Scandinavian countries suggests that institutional fragmentation and veto points also can play a significant role in unitary and parliamentary systems. The rules of childcare implementation in the Scandinavian countries to a varying degree provide municipalities and NGOs with veto opportunities and veto incentives against the realization of the central government's ambition of universal childcare coverage. In Norway but not in Sweden and Denmark municipalities and NGOs have been provided with significant veto opportunities as well as considerable incentives to act. This might help to understand why Norwegian childcare development has lagged behind its Scandinavian neighbours.

The rapid development of the Peoples' Republic of China has put increasing strains on an overwhelmed administrative and bureaucratic structure that was already hobbled by persistent inefficiency and corruption. In addition to anti-corruption and professionalization campaigns, the government has devised a system of e-governance with the goal of adding stability and order to a chaotic governing process. This includes re-establishing the control of the governing authorities, including improving the quality of surveillance and data gathering and hence policy-making; the elimination of corruption; and ultimately, the re-legitimation of the Communist Party of China. This paper discusses the critical administrative and political problems facing the government, demonstrates ways in which e-government has been designed to meet these, and discusses the problems presented by a reliance on e-government in a developing country.

Good service delivery for the users and efficient provision of the services in the back offices is a crucial objective of public administration. The article examines how governance among the different entities in the back offices of service production affects their interoperability and what the main conditions are to improve their integration and service delivery to citizens and companies as users. In a comparative study of back offices in public administrations in 17 European States three innovative strategies or ‘models’ were explored which can lead to improved integration of back offices jointly involved in the production of a specific service. This approach understands different solutions in different countries as functional equivalents. It takes into account that governance structures between entities of the different sectors of the governance triangle are historically grown and therefore cannot simply be copied from one state to another. It also provides leeway for political actors to look for the strategy that fits best their specific socio-political environment.

In this article we show that organisational structures are changing fundamentally. This change is caused by the growing use of ICT and the scope of services they now cover. Since public administrations face higher demands from citizens and society – higher level of services, lower costs of service production – the ICT and internet are used to redesign, not only the service delivery process, but also the organisational structure of the organisations involved. In this article we introduce some benchmarks that show the growth path in this transformation and the use and scope of ICT, and we present a case study to illustrate changes in depth. We also try to analyse these changes, using classical literature from organisational sociology. Amendments to the work of Joan Woodward and Max Weber are proposed to deliver extra heuristic power to understand recent developments in organisational change.

To study technologies of political participation in the era of internet we examine how civic associations in Eastern Europe create socio-technical platforms of civic participation. The creation of socio-technical platforms combines specific technological features with actors and types of acts. Based on data we collected on 1,585 East European civil society websites we identify five emergent genres of online platforms of civic participation: newsletters, interactive platforms, multilingual solicitations, directories, and brochures. In contrast to the utopistic image of a de-territorialized, participatory global civil society shaped by the new technology, our examination of civil society websites finds that the transnational are not inclined to be participatory and the participatory are less likely to be transnational.