Politics in small independent communities: Conflict or consensus?

Innovation in the Public Sector

“…Consequently, both in designing administrative systems as well as in managing public organizations, the key is to find an optimal compromise between classical bureaucratic principles and flexibility. Small states may not merely represent, to paraphrase Richards (1982), a hybrid or halfway house between primitive and modern systems of administration. The form of administration in which the personal factor is so important is well recognized.…”

Pangs of nascent nationalism from the nationless state? Euro coins and undocumented migrants in Malta since 2004†

“…When the current President of the Republic of Malta, Edward Fenech Adami, was appointed (in spite of the MLP's objections) in 2004, after serving since 1977 as the leader of the Nationalist Party, he argued that Malta's ‘system of confrontational politics is positive in the sense that it provides stability’. In this way, the bimodality of Maltese society – its starkly ‘in or out’ politics (Richards 1982) – is seen as conducive to a political steadiness, with some of its legitimacy obtained from the altercations of power between two ‘catch‐all’ parties. Such a ‘stability’ makes short shrift of serious attempts at constructing nationalism; although, as this paper has sought to demonstrate, popular desires for a unifying symbolism – a popular (as against an elite‐driven) nationalism – continue to break surface and render themselves manifest.…”

Development administration in the small developing state: A review

“…Concentration on strictly quantitative measures however may be short-sighted. A second possible approach to an administrative definition of a small developing state has been presented by Richards (1982) and Jones (1976). These authors stress the importance of beginning the conceptualization of the smallness of a state by first distinguishing small-scale societies and small-scale territories.…”

“…Events in Grenada and the Falklands have demonstrated the kinds of consequences that small state proliferation has had on the international scene. The recent coup in Fiji provides yet another perspective on what Richards (1982) refers to as the question of the 'consensual or conflictual' nature of political activity in the 'small independent community'. Similarly, a number of regional (Murray, 1985;Hope, 1983;Khan, 1982) and individual state-level (Khan, 1976;Agor, 1981;Gillett, 1983;Kersell, 1985Kersell, , 1987 studies of the political and administrative practices of small developing governments have begun to fill a previous void in the literature on development administration.…”