Modelling Secessions from Municipalities

Under what conditions are quests for secession successful? Current debates in Scandinavia on the appropriate size of municipalities are taken as a point of departure for answering this question. I set out to analyse what processes are triggered through mergers of small political units into larger ones. The Swedish experience is analysed as an empirical illustration. A game‐theoretical model is constructed, in which I highlight questions of ideology, power and strategy when analysing secessions. I conclude that mergers, such as those in Sweden between 1952 and 1974, create a built‐in conflict in the larger unit. Certain geographical parts of the political unit get the worst of it in a conflict concerning resources, which will create tension based on geographical location. If these conflicts are not solved, questions of secession will inevitably be raised. In the Swedish context the law is phrased in such a way that the government decides whether or not secession will be allowed. The game‐theoretical model therefore suggests that campaigns for secession will be successful if the seceding part (SP) (a) meets the required physical criteria (which concern size and financial predisposition), (b) the quest for secession enjoys strong public support and (c) the party in government takes a benevolent view of municipality separations.     

Promoting Accountability in Municipalities

Local government financial reporting reforms in Australia in the late 1980s and early 1990s were promoted on the basis of usefulness for decision making and for enhanced accountability purposes. Persistent criticisms of these reforms continue to be made, including those made by councillors and other ratepayers who often appear to find such information to be too narrow, too complex and often bewildering. A case is made for rethinking the present mentality, requirements and practices, especially with respect to the contrived recognition of ‘community assets’. Instead, an emphasis is placed on advancing broad‐scope accountability and meaningful financial reporting. To this end, the disclosure of a set of factual, reliable and interpretable indicators is proposed to enable a broader, more functional notion of accountability to be applied in Australian local government within prevailing social and organisational contexts. This contribution seeks to present a series of views, questions and proposals that are strictly concerned with ‘promoting accountability in municipalities’ (PAM).     

Mexican Municipalities and the Flypaper Effect

We investigate the phenomenon of flypaper effect and its relationship with the local tax effort by using a panel data comprising approximately 48 percent of the Mexican municipalities. Our estimations based on the fixed effect and difference GMM estimators confirm the existence of flypaper effect. Moreover, we find evidence to suggest that the richer municipalities are likely to experience substitution effect, i.e., the lower levels of tax effort. We also find that the magnitude of the flypaper effect is a decreasing function of the economic wellbeing of municipalities. This calls for an overhaul of the allocation mechanism of unconditional grants to the Mexican municipalities.     

The Evolution of E-Government among Municipalities: Rhetoric or Reality?

Information technology has become one of the core elements of managerial reform, and electronic government (e-government) may figure prominently in future governance. This study is designed to examine the rhetoric and reality of e-government at the municipal level. Using data obtained from the 2000 E-government Survey conducted by International City/County Management Association and Public Technologies Inc., the article examines the current state of municipal e-government implementation and assesses its perceptual effectiveness. This study also explores two institutional factors (size and type of government) that contribute to the adoption of e-government among municipalities. Overall, this study concludes that e-government has been adopted by many municipal governments, but it is still at an early stage and has not obtained many of expected outcomes (cost savings, downsizing, etc.) that the rhetoric of e-government has promised. The study suggests there are some widely shared barriers (lack of financial, technical, and personnel capacities) and legal issues (such as privacy) to the progress of municipal e-government. This study also indicates that city size and manager-council government are positively associated with the adoption of a municipal Web site as well as the longevity of the Web site.     

TESTING ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS OF CAPITAL CONTROL LIBERALIZATION*

The literature on why restrictions over capital flows have been liberalized is filled with alternative causal stories (the pluralist, statist and systemic model, and economic explanations). In this article, we provide a test of these models of capital control liberalization within the context of 18 OECD countries from 1967 to 1995. We have avoided the usual practice of aggregating multiple governments in one country within one year into one country‐year observation, and use the country‐year‐government as the unit of analysis instead to correctly test the relationship between government characteristics and liberalization policy. We find that when the government considers lifting or imposing restrictions over capital flows, it responds to both systemic pressures and the key supporters of free capital flows. Governments also consider the current account balance and are heavily influenced by the prior policy choice regarding restrictions on capital transactions. We fail to find support for such explanations as the impact of government ideology, government strength, and central bank independence.     

Disparities in the Spending Needs of Highland Municipalities

A certain rough consensus holds that highland municipalities have higher spending needs than others, because of the particularly adverse conditions in which they provide essential public services. However, there is no empirical evidence to support this assertion. This study examines whether any relevant differences actually exist in the spending policies of highland and lowland municipalities. To this end, we make logarithmic estimations of per capita municipal spending in order to determine whether the indicators selected, which are based on local government powers, adequately reflect spending needs. Our results point to the special circumstances of highland districts as a key explanatory factor for higher municipal spending, along with demographic factors, locational population patterns, economic activity, subsidies, and local fiscal capacity.     

Terrorism,Dynamic Commitment Problems,and Military Conflict

Since 9/11, several states have initiated military conflicts in the name of fighting terrorism. However, studies indicate that the costs of terrorism are insignificant compared to the damage created by war. This raises the question: Why do states initiate costly wars when the risk posed by terrorism appears marginal? This study presents two explanations. First, we argue that while terrorists frequently fail to achieve their strategic objectives, terrorists can accomplish tactical objectives and may transition to insurgencies by seizing control of pockets of territory. States may respond by initiating preventive wars to stop terrorists from consolidating control over their strategically valuable territories (e.g., resource‐rich areas). Second, rival states may opportunistically exploit terrorist violence by declaring that the government is a “weak state.” This allows rivals to seize portions of the government's territory under the cover of fighting terror. We test these hypotheses using post–Cold War African dyads from 1990 to 2006.     

An essay on the rationality of economic policy: The test-case of the electional cycle

The literature on electional cycles is discussed in the light of the empirical findings by, in particular, the author. Two basically different types of explanations of such cycles are compared: (α) explanations based on the maximizing behavior of governments aiming at re-election. (β) explanations building on the insufficiently controlled pressures of events in a democracy. It is demonstrated that even when the most well known theory under (α) — the Nordhaus-MacRaemodel — is a rather fragile construction, a more robust argument, termed the ‘popularity investment argument,’ can be constructed yielding the same basic result. From the empirical literature it is concluded that almost the opposite pattern actually occurs in the data. It is finally demonstrated that the weak, but significant, empirical pattern is easy to explain by (β): The elections generate promises, which give most real expansion in the second governmental year and most inflation in the third year. An average behavior which hardly implies even medium-term maximization by governments as assumed under (α).     

More Than One Trap: Problematic Interpretations and Overlooked Lessons from Thucydides

Popular rendition of the so-called Thucydides’ Trap focuses excessively on only one possible explanation of interstate wars to the exclusion of others. It also commits various acts of commission and omission that threaten the validity of its central proposition. This essay reviews some of the major problems pertaining to the logic of inquiry characteristic to this genre of analysis, its interpretation of historical evidence, and its neglect of alternative explanations of war – even those that Thucydides had written about in his account. There is a danger of self-fulfilling prophecy to the extent that leaders in Beijing and Washington are inclined to believe in an analogy to an ancient war that happened some 2500 years ago. Conventional invocations of Thucydides’ Trap fail to recognize that there are several possible pathways to war. Because they offer only a structural explanation based on interstate power shifts, they give short shrift to the role of human agency and fail to attend sufficiently to what leaders can do to avoid conflict.

     

Measuring the Growth of the Nonprofit Sector: A Longitudinal Analysis

Scholars have examined the effects of various environmental factors on the nonprofit sector to elucidate the role of nonprofits in modern society. However, researchers report a paucity of information on nonprofit growth using longitudinal data, especially outside the United States. This article analyzes 40 years of political, economic, and sociodemographic data in South Korea to test theories of nonprofit growth and to determine whether the concepts and theories developed for Western societies can be successfully applied in South Korea. The results show that demand‐ and supply‐side economic theories account for variations in nonprofit growth, but the existing socioeconomic explanations fail to recognize the political influences on nonprofit development. Nonprofit organizations have emerged from social and economic necessity but have also been nurtured within a political framework.     

Distance and Voting: Evidence from Danish Municipalities

Living far from the assigned polling station possibly renders voting less convenient than if the polls are right around the corner. Using a cross‐sectional dataset of about 2.3 million potential voters, including the distances between each household and the assigned polling station, a substantial impact of distance on the propensity to vote is found. An individual living five kilometers from the polling station has a ten percentage‐point lower propensity to turnout than an individual living right next to it. The relationship between distance and turnout is found to be approximately logarithmic. Additionally, the impact of distance appears to be conditional on the availability of cars in the household. The policy implications of the results are discussed in the concluding section.     

The Impact of Administrator Willingness on Website E-Participation: Some Evidence from Municipalities

The rapid development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has led to the rise of e-participation, whereby governments adopt digital tools to promote citizen involvement. Disparities exist, however, among jurisdictions concerning the opportunities they offer residents; some governments have extensive online participation forums while others do not. Research to explain the diffusion of e-participation has examined the roles of various kinds of governmental capacity and some other factors, including political culture and jurisdiction size. Researchers have paid less attention to the role of administrator willingness, that is to say whether administrators want to use ICT to advance participation. With data from municipal managers/business administrators in New Jersey, this exploratory study found that administrator willingness has significant impact on e-participation offerings, both directly and indirectly. Governments where the senior administrator has stronger willingness to involve citizens and use ICT are more likely to have more extensive e-participation offerings.     

The Political Economy of Automobile Safety Inspections

Studies of traffic safety typically assumethat policies are adopted to further thepublic interest, thereby ignoring thepolitical motives for policy. Sincepolitical motives can influence the designor enforcement of policies, accounting forpolitical motives has relevance forevaluating policy effectiveness. Weexamine the political motives concerning afrequently-studied traffic safety policy: state-mandated vehicle safety inspection. We distinguish between public interest andspecial interest explanations for safetyinspection. Our econometric models examinethe incidence of inspection across states,and determinants of regulated inspectionfees. The evidence strongly rejects apublic interest explanation, but specialinterest hypotheses also do not proveentirely satisfactory. Since recentstudies find that inspections fail toimprove highway safety, we attribute thecontinued existence of inspection programsto political transaction costs rather thanto the demands of interest groups.     

Three Forms of Interpersonal Trust: Evidence from Swedish Municipalities

Social trust is usually treated as a dichotomy between particularized and generalized trust. In this article it is argued that a third distinct form, community trust, is neither particularized nor generalized and bounded in space rather than persons. Factor analysis of survey data from 33 Swedish municipalities (N = 6,453) distinguishes between particularized, generalized and community trust. Furthermore, regression analyses show that the three trust forms have partly distinct antecedents and linked to different types of behaviours. While generalized trust best predicts leaps of faith in relation to strangers, community trust is the only trust form significantly predicting taking part in local problem solving. Finally, multilevel analysis shows that community trust is the trust form most vulnerable to changes with respect to ethnic diversity and socioeconomic equality.     

Measuring the Financial Position of Municipalities: Numbers Do Not Speak for Themselves

There are several challenges facing someone who wants to know if a city's revenue structure is fair and reasonable. There are few generally accepted standards to use as benchmarks of financial condition, and there is no generally accepted methodology to assess relative financial position. This article reviews literature on financial position and condition, and then develops a methodological approach that creates a cohort of similar cities for benchmarking financial position, and then forming a basis for assessing financial condition. Based on a study of the financial position of a medium-sized city, the article offers lessons for practitioners and scholars.     

Explaining the birthright citizenship lottery: Longitudinal and cross‐national evidence for key determinants

In the modern nation‐state, birthright citizenship laws – jus soli and jus sanguinis – are the two main gateways to sociopolitical membership. The vast majority of the world's population (97 percent) obtains their citizenship as a matter of birthright. Yet because comparative research has focused on measuring and explaining the multiple components of citizenship and immigration policies, a systematic analysis of birthright citizenship is lacking. We bridge this gap by analyzing the birthright component in prominent databases on citizenship policies and complementing them with original data and measures. This allows us to systematically test institutional and electoral explanations for contemporary and over‐time variation in birthright citizenship. Institutional explanations – legal codes and colonial history – are consistently associated with limitations on birthright law. As for electoral explanations, specific electoral powers – Nationalist, Socialist and Social‐Democratic parties – rather than the traditional left/right‐wing divide, are linked with reforms in birthright regimes.     

Britain's poll tax policy: An Institutionalist approach

Previous interpretations of Britain's poll tax policy fail to offer sufficient explanations. This article argues that the poll tax can only be fully understood by taking an explicit lnstitutionalist approach, which argues for an examination of the interaction of ideas, interests and institutions. The following analysis shows that the genesis of the policy was the inability of the Conservatives to force local expenditure reductions through the previous local government finance system. This led to a search for new policy options which, interacting with Thatcherite ideas on local government, produced the poll tax policy.     

Models of Municipal Budget Allocation: Empirical Data from Spanish Municipalities

The present work empirically analyzes diverse budgetary theories (incrementalism, garbage can, rational) in municipal cost programs, paying special attention to the utility of financial information in decision making. The sample analyzed corresponds to a set of Spanish city councils in the period 1996–2004, and the econometric methodology used is a dynamic panel data model. The main conclusion reached is that the budgetary allocation of municipal costs does not follow a random path; incrementalism is of particular importance, together with financial information variables. The utility of budgetary indicators is reflected in the fact that municipal managers adopt rational elements, although incrementalism remains the habitual behavior.     

Alternative Methods of Service Delivery in Small and Rural Municipalities

Data from approximately 1,000 small, mostly rural municipalities in Illinois, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin address local choices on production and contracting arrangements for a wide range of services. The results suggest that the use of both for‐profit contractors and cooperative agreements with other governments correlate negatively with population size. Small municipalities are less likely to use competitive bidding processes, compare costs between production options, or report that privatization produces savings. Median income, rural geography, and ideology show statistically significant associations with contracting decisions. Respondents generally consider themselves “satisfied” with services provided by contract, although satisfaction levels are lower than those associated with self‐provision of the same services. Citizen satisfaction associated with services delivered by other governments is lower than those provided by private contractors, suggesting that no trade‐off in service quality is directly attributable to for‐profit contractors.     

Federations of Municipalities: A Practical Alternative to Local Government Consolidations in Japan?

This article examines the merits of Wide Area Federations of Municipalities (MFs) as a public service delivery alternative to local government consolidation in Japan. It argues that MFs provide localities with a reasonable option to mergers where amalgamations are politically or geographically impractical, such as in sparsely populated, mountainous, and agricultural areas. Conversely, it maintains that MFs are less practical, efficient, and common in urbanized regions. These findings, the article concludes, suggest a new era of local government in Japan has begun. In this period, to be known as The Race for Local Power , national policies have provoked a new wave of municipal mergers.