The lack of adoption and use of the e-CODEX (e-Justice Communication via Online Data Exchange) system in the European justice domain mirrors the complexity of realising interoperability in Europe....Show moreThe lack of adoption and use of the e-CODEX (e-Justice Communication via Online Data Exchange) system in the European justice domain mirrors the complexity of realising interoperability in Europe. Connecting the information systems of autonomous organisations with the means of technological innovation for improved efficiency can be a difficult task, and requires cooperation between all parties involved. But what drives or holds back organisations to adopt such technological innovations? While much research has been conducted on the adoption of (technological) innovations in the public and private sector, theoretical and empirical research on innovation adoption in a cross-border and judicial context is still lacking. This qualitative explanatory study used a combination of Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory and Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE) framework as foundation to examine the relationship between fourteen factors (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability, top management support, slack resources, costs, championship, facilitative leadership, disposition to and readiness for collaboration, trust, external pressure of social networks and network externalities, and legislation and policy) and the adoption of interoperable electronic information sharing by judicial organisations. By using e-CODEX as a case study, this thesis contributes to the literature on IT adoption by adding the cross-border, European, and judicial contexts. E-CODEX (e-Justice Communication via Online Data Exchange) is an example of a voluntary initiative that was developed with European Union (EU) financial support by a number of Member States in 2010. It is a tool based on the principle of interoperability that enables judicial authorities to exchange information and documents in a secure way. It is interoperable because it establishes a decentralised communication network between national IT systems in cross-border civil and criminal procedures. Data was gathered from interviews with members of the e-CODEX project consortium, judicial organisations (previously) participating in e-CODEX pilots, and one organisation that is currently planning to adopt e-CODEX. The findings indicate that all proposed factors in this study seem to be relevant to at least some extent for the adoption of IEIS. However, the findings also show that some factors have greater relevance than others.Show less
Although they had been on the rise for the last few decades, Radical right parties (RRPs) across Europe enjoyed a significant surge in popularity following the refugee crisis of 2015 that saw...Show moreAlthough they had been on the rise for the last few decades, Radical right parties (RRPs) across Europe enjoyed a significant surge in popularity following the refugee crisis of 2015 that saw millions of refugees pour into Europe. While these parties traditionally tend to contest elections on their distinct positions on socio-cultural issues such as immigration and religious polarization, their attitudes and preferences on socio-economic issues such as the welfare state have received little scholarly attention until recently. This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature in this domain by examining the changes in welfare attitudes of two RRPs: Germany’s AfD and United Kingdom’s UKIP, in light of the 2015 refugee. Analysis of the two parties’ election manifestos for general elections held before and after the crisis shows that the radical-right ideology of nativism and xenophobia is more pronounced in the socio-cultural dimension for both parties in the post-crisis period. But when it comes to the socio-economic dimension and their attitudes towards the welfare state, radical-right behaviour of welfare chauvinism is more pronounced in AfD’s post-crisis manifesto compared to UKIP’s. The paper concludes by suggesting that this disparity in welfare attitudes may possibly be a result of the two countries having different types of welfare regimes more than due to their different experience with the refugee crisis itself.Show less
Abstract Purpose: This thesis aims to understand, clarify, and further explore the mechanism underlying the relationship between gender and corruption. The objective is to test and develop theory...Show moreAbstract Purpose: This thesis aims to understand, clarify, and further explore the mechanism underlying the relationship between gender and corruption. The objective is to test and develop theory about the link between gender representation in the legislature and corruption levels. Design and methodology: The research design is qualitative. Eight (8) semi-structured interviews with municipal councillors were conducted, coded, and analysed. Through the interviewees’ lived experiences, patterns of attitudes and relationships can be explored, and causation can be established. Findings: The results find that marginalisation is the mechanism that mediates between high corruption levels and low female representation in the legislature. Women are not less corrupt than men. They have fewer opportunities to engage in corrupt behaviour. The lack of accessibility in corrupt networks mediates the link between gender and corruption in the legislature. Research contribution: The existence of an association between gender representation in the legislature and corruption levels has already been established. This thesis answers the call for more research on the mechanism underlying the link between gender and corruption. Practical implications: The findings are relevant for policymakers in Greece. Marginalisation leads women to leave the political scene, further exacerbating the issue of lack of representation. On the contrary, a high female representation may not lead to lower levels of corruption, but it may encourage diverse views for the society’s benefit to be expressed.Show less
Since December 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic is travelling around the world. In the first waves, governments are struggling how to deal with the pandemic. Each government has their own view on the...Show moreSince December 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic is travelling around the world. In the first waves, governments are struggling how to deal with the pandemic. Each government has their own view on the coronavirus and how to battle against it. In whatever way governments fight Covid-19, they have to take into account a number of aspects. One of these aspects is the level of democratic values in a country. In the first part of this thesis, I researched whether or not democratic values, as measured by the V-dem have been shaping the stringency of policy, as measured by the Oxford Stringency Index, in the first periods of the Covid-19 pandemic. It turned out that the democratic values had no statistically significant effect on the peak of stringency in policy. Out of the variables that I controlled for, only the number of Covid-19 deaths had this significant effect. In the second part of this thesis, a small case study was conducted to outlying cases. This case study showed that fear, prevention, a lack of knowledge and the economy interests has driven the initial responses in the Covid-19 pandemic.Show less
Purpose: This thesis aims to understand the causal mechanistic relationship between organisational centralisation and Public Service Motivation (PSM). It tests and explains one existing causal...Show morePurpose: This thesis aims to understand the causal mechanistic relationship between organisational centralisation and Public Service Motivation (PSM). It tests and explains one existing causal mechanism based on PSM theory and explores an alternative causal mechanism based on the logic of Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Design and methodology: This qualitative, single-case deductive study includes some explorative elements to explain and probe causal mechanisms. Nine semi-structured interviews provide the data which this study transcribed, coded, and analysed. Findings: The results find that organisational centralisation indeed creates stark hierarchical structures and a certain degree of autonomy loss for individual employees. This negatively impacts PSM. However, centralisation of more services in organisations such as contact centres also makes their job more varied and rewarding due to direct contact with service beneficiaries and therefore satisfies four basic universal psychological needs. In turn, this positively impacts employee motivation (PSM). Originality/value: Although not a first, this thesis brings the PSM and SDT literature closer by using the latter as a logic through which the effects of an independent variable (organisational centralisation) on the former can be explained. Furthermore, organisational centralisation has barely been studied alone as an antecedent of PSM. This thesis also shifts the continued focus from quantitative PSM studies to qualitative research. Thusly advancing the internal validity of the theory and passed research. Practical implications: The findings are especially relevant for foreign affairs ministries wishing to establish a 24/7 contact centre resembling that of the Netherlands. Centralised provision of consular and other information can be excellent for providing uniform and high-quality information to people abroad. Moreover, since good public service depends on the motivation of public employees, centralised or centralising (public) organisations should balance hierarchy creation whilst maintaining high levels of employee need satisfaction.Show less
This paper explores the European Union's discourse in response to the #MeToo movement. To this aim, a qualitative exploratory study with a critical discourse analysis was conducted after in-depth...Show moreThis paper explores the European Union's discourse in response to the #MeToo movement. To this aim, a qualitative exploratory study with a critical discourse analysis was conducted after in-depth reading and manual coding of European Union preparatory legislative documents explicitly mentioning the movement. In addition, a sample of these documents was compared to similar papers before the movement to investigate whether it has influenced the formal discourse of the Union on gender-based violence and women rights. According to the results, the #MeToo movement has been used to go further and quicker on previous initiative already ongoing to fight against gender-based violence such as the Member States ratification of the Istanbul Convention. Even though prevention is at the heart of the European Union discourse in every document, it seems that after the #MeToo movement, there is a partial shift from exclusive prevention to more condemnation. However, the word perpetrator is almost absent compared to victim in all the documents analysed, even more in the ones mentioning the movement. Thus, we know what the European Union is urgently condemning but we do not know who. Moreover, progressive feminist discourses such as the rejection of patriarchal social order seem to have overtaken the arena of the European Parliament. Still, most of the perspective taken in the discourses and initiatives listed are symptomatologic treatment of the problem. Finally, the European Commission's texts differ from those of the European Parliament because of a significant economic cost-benefit approach to gender equality. This perspective could be described as a neoliberal discourse using feminist values of egalitarianism and empowerment for non-feminist purposes. This raises the question of gender equality for whom and especially for what?Show less
This thesis explores the coping mechanisms street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) adopt to cope with patients who believe or share a form of mis- or disinformation. This is done by looking at two types of...Show moreThis thesis explores the coping mechanisms street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) adopt to cope with patients who believe or share a form of mis- or disinformation. This is done by looking at two types of street-level bureaucrats: health workers and teachers. Although health workers and teachers are often exposed to encounters where a patient believes or shares a form of mis- or disinformation and it is recognized that street-level bureaucrats have considerate discretion and can act as policymakers (Lipsky, 2010), the current literature has not taken SLBs into consideration with misinformation and disinformation yet. During the current pandemic, an excessive amount of misinformation and disinformation spreads on social media, and in today’s digital society it has become rather difficult to identify fake news (Vermanen, 2020)(Deprez, 2020). The spreading and belief in mis- and disinformation can have harmful consequences for democracy, public health, and societies' trust in science (Diepstraten, 2021). Through a qualitative analysis consisting of interviews and (media) documents, the results presented in this explored that SLBs adopt a wide variety of coping mechanisms. The findings of this study suggest that SLBs their coping mechanisms for clients who believe or share misinformation and disinformation are more similar than one expected beforehand and that the type of encounter is more important than the type of SLB. The results of this study can provide valuable insights into how SLBs can cope with mis- and disinformation, ultimately contributing to combatting and preventing the spread and belief in mis- and disinformation.Show less
"We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again," (Johnson, 2022). This quote was made by the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on January 4th, 2022....Show more"We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again," (Johnson, 2022). This quote was made by the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on January 4th, 2022. It shows the desire not to shut down the country by implementing another lockdown despite the highly infectious Omicron variant of the Covid-19 virus. This quote shows his perception on the virus, whilst on the other side of the world, Prime Minister Ardern had closed the national borders of New Zealand back in 2020 which have remained closed until further notice. This difference in policy adoption and decision-making processes between two countries which are seemingly very similar in terms of the economic stability, political stability, territory size, and collaborative international partners is very puzzling. This research will therefore concern the identification of the core cause of this difference in policy adoption. The research has been conducted through the use of official governmental legislative documents as well as reliable secondary sources in order to conduct a comparative small-N design-based research. The method of this small-N design is the Most Similar Systems Design II method which aims to uncover the key cause of the difference in outcome of a specific case. For this research, the theories by Kingdon (Kingdon, 1984) ; (Béland & Howlett, 2016) and Dai et al. (Dai, et al., 2021) are used.Show less
Open data policies, as well as e-government policies, are usually associated with many promises that range from transparency to efficiency gains for the public administration. However, how...Show moreOpen data policies, as well as e-government policies, are usually associated with many promises that range from transparency to efficiency gains for the public administration. However, how effective these policies are in meeting the (high) expectations of practitioners, politicians, and citizens is a topic of debate. In this thesis we focus on the Italian case, in which transparency is often evoked as a solution to many societal problems, to investigate the relationship between transparency and institutional and organizational features of local governments. The thesis also introduces the concept of open data mediated transparency as a way to complement the concept of open government. Open data mediated transparency aims at capturing how open data sharing through the Italian National Open data portal translates into transparency. To measure this concept, this study uses the four dimensions of governmental transparency developed by the Pew Institute and adapts them to the Italian case. The following question is central in this thesis: what are the institutional and organizational factors that influence open data mediated transparency in Italian local governments? Objectives: This thesis has three research objectives. First, the thesis aims to assess the implementation of open data initiatives in Italian municipalities through the attainment of transparency goals. Second, the study wishes to improve our understanding of the open data phenomenon in the context of Italian local administration. The final goal of this thesis is to investigate institutional and organizational factors that might influence how transparent Italian local administrations are and, therefore, how open data policies are implemented in Italy. Methods: The study is based on a quantitative deductive approach. A Poisson regression is used to test the different hypotheses. Key findings: The results of the analysis show that there is no support for population size, level of education of the personnel of the public administration, organizational resistance, and political affiliation as factors that affects open data mediated transparency. Overall, open data mediated transparency varies greatly among municipalities with few local administrations sharing transparent and relevant datasets. The results are discussed and lead to suggestions for future research and policy recommendations.Show less
Trust in the European Union is a complex issue with many factors affecting it. Some of the factors that could also be influencing each other. This research focusses on how the relation between...Show moreTrust in the European Union is a complex issue with many factors affecting it. Some of the factors that could also be influencing each other. This research focusses on how the relation between Eastern orthodoxy and trust in the European Parliament is influenced by nationalism. The question central to this thesis is: To what degree does nationalism affect the relation between Eastern orthodox religiousness and an individual's level of trust in the European Union in Bulgaria and Cyprus? The objective of the research is to find how strong the relation is between Eastern orthodoxy and European trust in an environment where the potential link between Eastern orthodoxy and nationalism is at its strongest. Excising literature suggested that in majority Orthodox countries, there seems to be a strong tie between nationalism, a variable with a historic negative relation to European support, and Eastern orthodoxy, a variable that has a historic positive relation with European support. Therefore the expectation is that when excluding nationalism from the analysis, the relation between Eastern orthodoxy and European trust would be more negative compared to the analysis with nationalism included. However, through a multiple regression analysis using the data from the European Social Survey, this hypothesis finds no supporting evidence for the supposed relation between Eastern orthodoxy and European trust. The inclusion of nationalism into the regression does not make a significant change to this result. Instead, nationalism seems to be a strong predictor for European trust without heavily affecting the effect of Eastern orthodoxy. This leads to the conclusion that to understand Euroscepticism, factors like country of residence and emotional attachment to a country make for stronger predictors of Euroscepticism compared to religion.Show less
Purpose: This study tests the recently advanced ‘collaborative model’ of political-bureaucratic relations in the case of Rwanda. This model has been at the root of many developmental success...Show morePurpose: This study tests the recently advanced ‘collaborative model’ of political-bureaucratic relations in the case of Rwanda. This model has been at the root of many developmental success stories, yet this the first study to empirically test this model post-formulation. Thus, this study ascertains the model’s presence and functioning, and observes how it manifests itself in one of Africa’s most rapidly developing countries. Methodology: This case study uses a theory-testing process-tracing method to examine the presence and functioning of the theorised model in empirical reality. Data is retrieved from government documents, books, third party reports, previous academic works and selected news articles. Findings: The collaborative model is deemed to be present in the case. Rwanda’s elites are committed to development and have gone to great lengths to create a capable state. Yet this study finds that bureaucratic autonomy, a vital feature of the model, is often limited. The country’s central economic ministry, which plays a key role in development and the Rwandan policy process, is a key exception. Implications: This study argues that the collaborative model of political-bureaucratic relations is a useful tool in understanding developing country governance. Areas for refinement of the model include bureaucratic autonomy and the dimension that aid brings to the African context if the model is to be of value in this context. Contribution: This study adds to a rapidly growing body of public administration literature focused on the developing country context, as well as the extensive bodies of literature concerning political-bureaucratic relations and Rwanda’s governance and development.Show less
