Abolishing the Audit Commission:framing, discourse coalitions and administrative reform

The abolition of the Audit Commission in England raises questions about how a major reform was achieved with so little controversy, why the agency lacked the institutional stickiness commonly described in the literature on organisational reform and why it did not strategise to survive. In this paper, we apply argumentative discourse analysis to rich empirical data to reveal the pattern and evolution of storylines and discourse coalitions, and the ways in which these interact with and affect the practices of Parliament, the media and the Audit Commission itself. Our analysis shows that the politics of administrative reform are as much about discursive framing and the ability of pro-reformers to gain discursive structuration and institutionalisation as they are about the material resources available to a newly elected government and its ministers. Questions of technical feasibility are unlikely to derail a reform initiative once its promoters gain discursive ascendency.

Modernisation in small steps? Comparing the organisational reforms of the British Conservative Party and the German CDU

Research on political parties has long identified “environmental” pressures upon parties to undertake organisational and programmatic reforms – this applies in particular to “catch-all” parties or Volksparteien. Changed social and media structures, the decline of organisations traditionally associated with the parties, and the growth in alternative possibilities of political participation create significant organisational – as well as programmatic – challenges. This paper compares the German CDU and the British Conservatives in two respects: in particular it focuses on their organisational responses to the election defeats they suffered at the end of the 1990s, examining those reforms which took place and consider whether these match the expectations of organisational reforms anticipated by proponents of the “cartel party thesis”. While in both cases there are similarities, but (in particular in the German case) it is important not to understate the extent of internal party resistance to reform, and thus the difficulties with which aspiring party reformers are confronted. This conclusion suggests, more broadly, that in reality the process of party change is more than an almost automatic, isomorphic, and inevitable response to a changing environment. Rather it is punctuated, messy, and often contingent on events and agents.

Bureaucratic reform in post-Asian crisis Indonesia:the Directorate General of Tax

Our research examines a key aspect of the extensive bureaucratic reform program that was applied to the Indonesian public sector following the Asian Economic crisis. The organisation we focus on is the Indonesian Directorate of Tax. The reforms moved the case organisation towards more bureaucratic organisational arrangements. The most notable elements of the reforms related to the organisational efficiency and changes in administrative style and culture. An ethnographic approach was adopted, in which the researcher was immersed in the life of the selected case organisation over an extended period of time. This research extends a thin literature on the topic of management control and culture in the Indonesian context. Also, this paper fills a gap in the theoretic approaches for studying bureaucracy, which is dominated by western conceptualisations. This paper provides a reminder to policy makers (including organisation such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) of the consequences of neglecting cultural influences when conducting bureaucratic reform.