Pertti Ahonen

Looking for governance configurations of European welfare states

The aim of this article is to provide empirical findings on welfare-state governance through the application of a particular comparative procedure: Qualitative Paired Comparison. This procedure is utilized to outline governance configurations, clusters of aspects that are relevant to responding to governance challenges. The examination of governance configurations focuses predominantly on structural institutional features (see Wilensky, 2002). Empirically, the article concentrates on public administration in the governance of European Union member states. Governance has no singular meaning, either in practice or in research (Rhodes, 1997). It has been used in the context of the overall evaluation of the quality of national states (World Bank, 2003), the interaction between governments (Rosamond, 2000), and the provision of welfare for citizens (Merrien, 1998). Nonetheless, there have been many efforts to capture the essential features in the word’s usage. According to Stoker (1998), governance deals with the conditions for some specific shape of ordered rule and ensuing collective action in order to reduce and manage complexity. In this sense, Stoker goes on to identify five aspects of governance. It refers to institutions and actors drawn both from and beyond government, and to the blurring of boundaries and the mixing of responsibilities in tackling social and economic issues. It also refers to mutual dependence and vigorous exchanges between the institutions involved. It is not a matter of hierarchy or anarchy, but of networks of actors, and here, coordination, equilibration, integration and regulation are important. It is argued in this study that the concept of governance configuration enables comparative research which then makes it possible to focus upon diversity within a rather small set of cases. This focus positions our analysis within what is known as the configurative approach to comparison (Verba, 1967; Mintzberg, 1979; Miller and Friesen, 1984; Miller and Mintzberg, 1987; Ragin, 1989; 1994; 2000). The configurative approach involves exploring the middle ground between ‘treating analytic objects as members of fixed, homogenous populations, on the one hand, and focusing exclusively on the specificity of individual cases, on the other’ (Ragin, 2000: 35). Unlike some other configurative efforts, the explanatory capacity of configurations is not highlighted here; they are used mainly as classification constructs. Even so, the general purpose of statistical and other comparisons to support the validation and cross-validation of conclusions will be important in this analysis (Maxwell, 1998). The comparison is restricted to a set of 15 cases: the European Union member states prior to the latest enlargement. Comparability can be expected here since the European Union is a definite common denominator among these states. The comparison of these 15 states is performed by applying the Qualitative Paired Comparison procedure. The basic objective is to search for empirical governance configurations, made up of two or more states which show likeness in the chosen variables. This procedure makes new classifications available, and, to some extent, challenges some well-known existing classifications. It follows, then, that the question is not only about the procedure itself, but about what variables will be included in the comparison. New and confirmed existing classifications are considered here as combinations of three different sets of variables. First, the analysis will take aspects of economic institutions into consideration: specifically, the size of the public sector and the publicLooking for governance configurations of European welfare states

Aspects of the institutionalization of evaluation in Finland: Basic, agency, process and change

This article draws on neo-institutional theoretical ideas to empirically examine the institutionalization of evaluation in the national government of Finland. The results indicate ambiguity in the basic institutionalization of Finnish evaluation, and imprecision in the agency of the actors that carry out or commission evaluations or utilize the evaluation results. Some Finnish institutional practices of evaluation enhance formal rationality such as efficiency and effectiveness, some support legitimation, and others do both in combination. The strength of coupling of evaluation to decision-making varies greatly. For future research, the article suggests studies on the institutionalization of evaluation in other countries. For evaluation practice, the results highlight the position of evaluation along the rationality-legitimation axis, and the variable linkages of evaluation to decision-making.

Understanding Evaluation in the Social Sector: Two Reflexive Metaevaluation Case Studies Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu

Abstract The study covers evaluation in the social sector with special reference to the European Union and its member states. The analysis is a non-technical metaevaluation based on Pierre Bourdieus sociological concepts. The first of the two cases concerns the EU open method of coordination (OMC) in employment and social-protection policies, and the second is on international evaluation standards. In practice, evaluation hardly conforms to the ideal types and is deeply embedded in its structural and temporal contexts. Acknowledgement of this is crucial in the pursuance of better evaluation research and practice.

Institutionalizing Big Data methods in social and political research

We expect Big Data methods to contribute to research with results that are not inferior to those attained in other ways but possibly better, or hard or impossible to generate in other ways. Those who apply these methods may also aspire to augment the arsenal of research methods, offer surrogates for existing research designs, and re-orient research. Moreover, we can critically examine the institutional, societal and political effects of the Big Data methods and the conditions for the solid institutionalization of these methods in social and political research. To reach its primary objective, this article elaborates conclusions on how Big Data methods, not only by means of their ‘social life’ but also by their ‘political life’, may influence the institutionalization of social and political research. To reach its secondary objective, the article re-examines a study of budgetary legislation in 13 countries carried out by means of Big Data methods to draw conclusions concerning the augmentation of the arsenal of research methods, the surrogation of existing research designs, and the re-orientation of research.

General considerations and user experiences of project cycle management in a small donor-transitional country context

Promoted by the EC in 1993, project cycle management (PCM) helps project planning, managment and evaluation. This article analyses a feasibility and planning exercise for a specific project between a small donor country and a transitional, developing country. It focuses on generic questions about PCM, based on the hypotheses: PCM should be applied flexibly; it tends to exert unintended conditions on its use; new professionals may get carried away by it, while users coming from other methods may have to ‘unlearn’; it can be used with varying intensities and degrees of teamwork; its strengths include its hierarchical structure, its explicit inclusion of preconditions and assumptions, and its iterative structure.

Administrative Research in a Neoinstitutionalist Perspective: Finland, Calling for Globalization, and the Rehabilitation of Public Administration

Applying a neoinstitutionalist perspective, the article analyzes administrative research in Finland. The results pinpoint contradictory official microinstitutional regulation influencing the research albeit moderated by flexible implementation, and recent institutional weakening in the status of the research field. Institutional trade-offs obtain between the limited global scholarly contribution of Finland’s administrative research and the domestic legitimation it has enjoyed so far. The characteristic radical institutional changes have comprised measures for the academic upgrading of teaching and research disciplines. Besides invigorating the global contribution of Finland’s administrative research, the results suggest the rehabilitation of public administration as an academic field in the country.

Transitory and Resilient Salient Issues in Party Manifestos, Finland, 1880s to 2010s - Content Analysis by Means of Topic Modeling.

The performance of computational methods has been proven many times over. However, special efforts may be needed to ensure access to the research results achieved by means of these methods within specialized social science disciplines. This study joins previous efforts towards the mainstreaming of a specific computational method in the political science field of salience research. Rather than joining previous studies on the influence of the salience of issues to parties upon their electoral results or their propensity to form or join governments, this study represents the part of salience research that examines salience and its changes in their own right. Adapting ideas of digital historical humanities given the long study period, this study inserts salience theory within the frames of critical junctures theory to examine issues discontinuity, and path dependence theory to account for issue resilience. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling with 734 Finnish party manifestos from the 1880s to the 2010s as the research material, testing two hypotheses gave the following results. First, although many issues in the manifestos have been transitory, there have also been issues with resilience over critical junctures. Second, although there are resilient issues whose meanings have stayed the same by and large during longer periods, the meanings of some other resilient issues have pronouncedly changed, either suddenly at critical junctures or gradually during periods of path dependence. The implications for future studies are also discussed.

Holdings of National and Local Governments in Companies in Finland: Persistence and Change in the Longer Term

Applying an approach of neo-institutional research, this article examines the history of company holdings of the national government and local governments in Finland in the longer term. The article examines the genealogy of the institutional forms of these holdings, the diffusion, adoption and adaptation of these forms, and the political legitimacy of new forms and the political de-legitimation of earlier forms. For theory, the results indicate that the individual tailoring of institutional forms offers flexibility but increases complexity. For practice, the results suggest that the company form may too easily marginalize alternative institutional forms such as co-operatives, associations, and foundations.

A historical theory of organization and management in Europe's Orthodox East: A Weberian re-enchantment of disenchanted rationalization

Abstract With my article I first and foremost aim to contribute with a re-enchanting historical alternative to the winning western model of disenchanted rationalization in organization and management. I also promote moderation to the dominance of organization and management theories of Northern America and core Europe. I spell out a Weberian ideal-type theory of Eastern Orthodox monastic organization and management, implementing Webers advice to contextualize social and human science research on the principle of Kulturbedeutung – cultural relevance. This I seek from presentday organization and management research, Webers works, the self-understanding of Eastern Orthodox monasticism, and the geographical and historical predicament of my country, Finland. I advance from questions of aims and agency in Orthodox monasticism to its ethics, its aesthetics, its organization and management rules and hierarchies, and its self-understanding made up by aporiai – hard-to-resolve logical puzzles. Advised also by Weber, in my conclusions I contrast my ideal type with organization and management theories of Catholic monasticism elaborated by Alfred Kieser and others, with two pronouncedly purified ideal types of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and with a representative of present-day general organization and management theory.

New Public Financial Management in Church Parishes: Municipalities as a Model in Finland

The Finnish state churches had by 1997–8 become ready to accept new principles for their financial management and accounting. The new model is largely borrowed from the Finnish municipalities. The new principles also resemble those applied in Finnish business companies as prescribed by the general Accounting Act (kirjanpitolaki).