Research guidelines III. Working Group on Strategic Leadership in Central Government

The focus of the Working Group for the 12^th NISPAcee Annual Conference in 2004 will be twofold:

(i) the development of institutional arrangements at the centre of government for enhancing strategic leadership;

Papers should study the development of institutional arrangements that enable core executives to ensure a strategic orientation in government action. In institutional terms the focus here will be in particular on:

- political cabinets of the chief executive

- cabinet or government offices

- forward or strategic studies units

- government-sponsored think tanks

- government legislative centers

- finance ministries

- EU integration secretariats

- government commissioners/plenipotentiaries

- coalition management mechanisms

Papers should do all of the following:

(a) describe cross-temporal changes in resources available to such institutions (personnel, finance, organization, etc);

(b) identify practices, processes or channels through which such institutions are involved in government decision-making;

(c) analyze the political process behind the building of such institutions (organizational dilemma, relations with political actors, reform strategies, etc).

Special preference will be given to papers that study more than one institution and/or explore interactions between different parts of the core executive.

Papers should trace the development of strategic leadership capacities in a single or multi-country framework. While generalized accounts of institutional arrangements are preferred, papers addressing particular policy fields are also welcome (e.g. budgetary policy, EU integration, public sector reform).

Papers should adopt an explicit research methodology (qualitative or quantitative) and be guided by a rigorous analytical/theoretical approach.

(ii) the impact of different institutional arrangements on strategic decision-making in central government;

Papers should largely adopt an evaluative perspective and should study the effects of different institutional arrangements at the centre of government for the process and outputs of governmental decision-making. They should do all of the following:

(a) develop performance indicators (both qualitative and quantitative) that will measure the extent to which government action is driven by strategic orientation. These may refer both to procedural and substantive aspects of policy making (e.g. reliability of government long-term commitments, quality of legislative preparation process, etc).

(b) suggest explanations that link cross-sectoral or cross-temporal variation in performance scores to changes in institutional arrangements at the centre of government (see above for a non-exhaustive list of institutions). Papers should develop and test hypotheses with regard to policy effects of different institutional configurations.

(c) formulate generalizable recommendations on institutional best practices that contribute to high quality strategic leadership.

Special preference will be given to papers that study more than one institution and/or explore interactions between different parts of the core executive.

Papers should study institutional effects in a single-country or multi-country framework. Cross-sectoral studies are also welcome.

Papers should adopt an explicit research methodology (qualitative or quantitative) and be guided by a rigorous analytical/theoretical approach.