The slow transformation of Swiss federal administrative elites

This article sets out to study the profile of Swiss administrative elites at federal level by showing how their profile has evolved in the light of what has come to be known as the wave of New Public Management (NPM), which has benefited from a very fertile ground in Switzerland. These elites correspond to a specific institutional order, in relation to specific organizational structures and workings, and have specific characteristics in terms of career paths and academic background. However, the administrative reforms that have been rolled out since the 1980s have transformed the institutional order within which executives of the federal administration evolve. This article analyses the extent to which these transformations have had an impact on the characteristics of these elites, through indicators such as academic capital, social capital, and career path within and outside the administration. The results show a slow but significant transformation in the profiles of these elites towards an increasing managerialization, reflecting that of the context in which they evolve.Points for practitioners The relationship between politics and the administration is naturally shaped by individuals but is closely dependent on the profiles of the players. They are currently undergoing a transformation in the wake of administrative reforms, and also of the changing profiles of both the political and administrative players. Gaining an insight into the slow transformation of the profiles of administrative elites therefore sheds light on the political-administrative nexus. The gradual managerialization of the administrative elite highlighted in this article also allows for a better understanding of which professional experiences, qualifications and skills are valued today within the senior civil service in Switzerland.

The Same, but Different: Central Banks, Regulatory Agencies, and the Politics of Delegation to Independent Authorities

Independent regulatory agencies are the institutional foundations of the regulatory state that, during the past 15 years, has gained prominence throughout Europe. This article studies the rise of independent authorities in European countries by comparing regulatory agencies and central banks. Delegation to independent central banks and to independent regulatory agencies is similar in many respects. In both cases, agents are deliberately made independent from political principals through a specific institutional design. Moreover, it has been argued that delegation to both central banks and regulatory agencies is linked to the need for policy-makers to improve the credibility of policy commitments, to the wish of incumbent politicians to tie the hands of future majorities, and to the extent to which the institutional contexts safeguard policy stability. Through an analysis of the formal independence of central banks and regulatory agencies in Western Europe, this article identifies an empirical puzzle that casts doubts on the accuracy of current explanations. Veto players and the uncertainty of incumbent policy-makers in respect to their re-election prospects matter for delegation to both central banks and regulatory agencies, but in opposite ways. Making sense of these anomalies is necessary to achieve a better understanding of delegation to independent authorities.

Dispatch centres: what is the right population catchment size?

Literature on medical dispatch is growing, focusing mainly on efficiency (under and overtriage) and dispatch-assisted CPR. But the issue of population catchment size, functional costs and rationalization is rarely addressed. If we can observe a trend toward a decreasing number of dispatch centres in many European countries, there is today no evidence on what is the right catchment size to reach the best balance between quality of services and costs.

The offspring of the diabetic mother--short- and long-term implications.

In the 1980s, David Barker and Colleagues proposed that the major causes of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases have their roots in early development. There is now robust evidence that an hyperglycemic intrauterine environment is responsible not only for significant short-term morbidity in the fetus and the neonate but also for an increased risk of developing diabetes as well as other chronic, noncommunicable diseases at adulthood. The risk is higher in pregestational diabetes, but unrecognized and/or poorly managed gestational diabetes (GDM) may have similar consequences. Although a relatively clear picture of the pathogenesis of the fetal and neonatal complications of maternal diabetes and of their interrelationship is available today, the intimate molecular mechanisms involved in the long term are far from being understood. While the rate of GDM is sharply increasing in association with the pandemic of obesity and of type 2 diabetes over the world, we review here the current understanding of short- and long-term outcomes of fetuses exposed to a diabetic environment.