Local Government and Local Governance: 1944–2011

Abstract

Since the establishment of the tri-partite system of state education after the Second World War, the once simple relationships between central government and local government and the individual school have become increasingly complex. This article considers the key governance issues for schools and colleges in England and how they have been affected by the redistribution of power between central government and local government. The principal foci are the main legislative changes and the impact they have had on the respective powers and responsibilities of central government, local government and schools and colleges. The radical developments since the formation of the coalition government in May 2010 have accelerated the shift of power to central government from local government and by the end of the first term of the coalition the local authority will have little more than a vestigial role in the provision of secondary education and a diminishing role in primary and special education. As academy status becomes the norm (as it already is for secondary schools in some authorities) central government will be dealing directly with autonomous schools and academy chains. With more schools directly employing staff and with funding levels set nationally, the pattern and nature of public education will have been irrevocably changed.     

Local Governance ‘in Swedish’? Globalisation,Local Welfare Government and Beyond

In this article local governance in the Swedish context is discussed. A case study of a Swedish city is framed in its historical, national and international context. By locating the redevelopment of an old harbour within a historical context, new insights are brought into the understanding of local governance. Cities are indeed nested. Deteriorating public finances, the deregulation of the economy (nationally and globally), the changed status of the welfare state, the restructuring of industry and the neo-liberal wave all taken together form a formidable challenge. A radical questioning of the values, principles and forms of the Swedish welfare state has tangible impacts on local governance. It is concluded that Swedish municipal actors face the dual challenge of acting efficiently (being sensitive to the needs and demands of local elites), while keeping democratic legitimacy (being sensitive to the needs and demands of all citizens).     

Community Participation in Local Governance – An Empirical Analysis of Urbanized Local Governments in the Philippines and Uganda

This article addresses community participation in local government, a controversial issue in the era of governance. Under the context of decentralisation reform in particular, active participation of the community in local governance has been expected, where as a range of critical arguments has been made on its concepts, ideas and feasibilities. Despite the significance of the issue, practices of community participation at the local level are academically under-examined, even in developed countries, let alone in developing countries. Given such situations, empirical observations from local governments of the Philippines and Uganda are introduced and comparatively analysed with in a specific analytical framework of participation. By doing so, the artide leads us to some keys to success for community participation schemes in the development context, which include the local leadership, functions of the central government and enhancing awareness of values of community participation both in the public and the local government.     

Seniors’ Motivations for Participation in Local Governance: Evidence from an Australian Study

Increasing expectations of citizen involvement as well as demographic changes brought by population ageing make evidence about the factors impacting on seniors’ participation increasingly important for local governments. In particular, knowledge about motivations for involvement can assist local governments in attempting to attract input from more than just the usual suspects, and to determine whose interests are represented. This article reports on an Australian study exploring seniors’ motivations for participation in governance processes, using a two-phase mixed method approach. Findings from this study suggested that seniors’ participation was motivated by both self- and other-directed, and both practical and abstract factors. Comparison of the sources highlighted nuances in the data which reflect questions about representation, representativeness and inclusion. Findings are discussed in relation to these questions, and implications for local government engagement practices are addressed.     

Decentralisation,Governance and the Structure of Local Political Institutions: Lessons for Reform?

Many governments are devolving power to elected local councils, hoping to improve service delivery and citizen representation by bringing officials closer to the people. While these decentralisation reforms hold the promise of improved governance, they also present national and sub-national leaders with a complex array of options about how to structure newly empowered local political institutions. This article draws on cross-national experience and the latest research to identify the trade-offs inherent in structuring local political institutions. The study's specific interest is in the impact of strong, locally elected councils on governance and representation. Proceeding from an empirical basis that competitive elections are vital for the legitimacy and efficiency of local political institutions, the analysis first questions the impact of four institutional features – central versus local control, local executive versus local council authority, local council structure, and the role of parties – on service provision and fiscal solvency. The article's second section analyses the impact of decentralisation on political representation, with a particular focus on the role of institutional design in combating the threat of extremist parties. A final section summarises empirical findings and advances some policy-relevant conclusions.     

Local Governance under the Coalition Government: Austerity,Localism and the ‘Big Society’

The Coalition between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, formally created on 11^th May 2010, has introduced a range of initiatives which affect local governance, from the announcement of a new Localism Bill through to the abolition of the Audit Commission and the arrival of the ‘Big Society’ agenda. This article reviews the key policy announcements of the Coalition's first year and analyses the underlying themes and trends which are emerging. It argues that the Coalition's reforms do show traces of an ideological commitment to localism and a new understanding of local self-government; there is an ideological agenda which has the potential to deliver a radically different form of local governance. However, the reform process is far from coherent and the potential for radical change is heavily constrained by: conflicts in Conservative thinking and the failure of the Liberal Democrats to assert their own ideology; the political expediency of budget cuts during an era of austerity and; the problems of implementing an apparently radical agenda after 13 years of New Labour.     

Participatory Governance: Hope or Danger for Democracy? A Case Study of Local Agenda 21

Participatory governance is a concept that is receiving increasing prominence. However, more empirical research is needed to clarify whether participatory governance is beneficial or detrimental to democracy. The local level is a dynamic field for participatory experiments and, therefore, particularly rewarding for researchers interested in scrutinizing the impacts of participatory governance empirically. In this article, Local Agenda 21 serves as an example to discuss both hypotheses. The study, conducted predominantly in Germany, shows that neither the supporters nor the sceptics of participatory governance are completely right. The findings about Local Agenda 21 demonstrate that this form of participatory governance can improve civic skills and social capital, but has little impact on input-legitimacy and is barely effective, i.e. reaches the goal of enforcing sustainable development only to a limited degree.     

Directly Elected Mayors: A Tonic for Local Governance or Old Wine in New Bottles?

The introduction of directly elected mayors into the landscape of English local politics has the potential to change the dynamics of local political leadership and the relationship between citizens and local government. The paper explores whether the conditions exist locally for such potential to be realised. It focuses on the reaction to the mayoral experiment of both mayors and the councillors that sit on mayoral authorities, as it is the reactions of the latter, as well as the actions of the former, that indicate the success or failure of mayoral governance. The paper also assesses the way in which political parties and party groups have accommodated the mayoral experiment and changed or maintained patterns of political behaviour and organisation.     

Subsidiary,supporter or challenger? Local‐national relations in Japan

The impact of governance attributes on frequently overlooked attitudes of local councillors towards local governance reform agendas is assessed, based on the MAELG survey of approximately 11,000 councillors in 15 European countries and Israel. Eighteen policy statements are grouped into six reform agendas, followed by analyses of their explanatory factors. Europe's north–south divide is found meaningful for the understanding of variations in attitudes towards reform, being most profound in notions of democracy, participation and devolution. Southern Europe, including post-communist Europe, shows clear support for new democratic mechanisms, whereas northern European councillors reveal more reserved, perhaps weary, attitudes towards reforms. Councillors may provide the ‘correct’ statements in the south, because less has been reformed there so far, knowing that change would anyway be difficult. Substantial variations between different northern sub-groups could be linked to the memory of non-democratic regimes in Germany and Austria and to the influence of existing systems, deeply embedded in local political cultures. Nevertheless, the impact of present institutional practices is far from universal. Councillors in liberal regimes are not pro-privatisation, and cautious attitudes towards reform are shared by northern decentralised and centralised countries.     

Local Fiscal Stress in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Kenyan Example

Abstract

This article identifies the fiscal weaknesses of local government in Africa, with concentration of the fiscal stress that is endemic to their condition. It then examines Kenya, as a case study in sub‐Saharan Africa. It continues to focus down on three Kenyan cities—Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu, and identifies their six major revenue sources: land based revenues, regulatory revenues, income‐based taxes, service revenues, user charges, and government grants. Although some of the data is problematic, it is possible to determine several reasons for local fiscal stress. These reasons include limited access to stable financial resources, unstable national economic performance, centralized governmental control, mixed results of decentralization, and institutional and managerial weaknesses, including corruption in the collection and use of resources. Four recommendations are advanced to help these local governments: the development of local credit systems, the use of non‐governmental organizations, the clarification of the use of foreign aid, and the development of a greater capacity for governance. This articles main theoretical contribution is the development of an analytic framework for examining the reasons for fiscal stress in sub‐Saharan Africa. By examining revenue and expenditure patterns of the three localities, the article develops a data set that highlights some of the reasons for local government financial problems—the governments do not know how much revenue can be collected from a particular revenue source, they do not have records of existing sources of revenue, and they only collect about 40–60% of their estimated collections.     

Open Source Governance—A More Ambitious Cousin of Collaborative Governance

Open source represents a model generally known for its success in software production. The objective of this article is to establish a new strategic approach of using open source development principles for managing collaborative arrangements between citizens and public administration. The identity of open source governance is developed by highlighting how it is different from its main “competitor”—collaborative governance, and from other two popular concepts—open government and e-democracy. The other sections are designed to answer to public managers regarding why and what to adopt from this governance model for public sector services.     

Issues of Women’s Political Participation and Decision-Making in Local Governance: Perspectives from the Central Region of Ghana

This article suggests that although women participate in voting during district assembly elections and are very active in voluntary associations where the majority of them exhibit their leadership skill, they are marginalized in local governance politics. Their leadership qualities have not been translated into leadership opportunities in local governance because of factors such as patriarchy, poverty, lack of access to financial resources, and illiteracy. The study recommends that more attention should be paid to more training at the grassroots level using women’s voluntary associations to improve women’s agency in contesting for, and participating in, local governance elections.     

Joining it up? Health and Wellbeing Boards in English Local Governance: Evidence from Clinical Commissioning Groups and Shadow Health and Wellbeing Boards

Statutory responsibility for health care and social care has long been separated between National Health Service (NHS) bodies and local government authorities. Repeated policy attempts to promote service integration through collaboration between such authorities have achieved little. The latest of such policy interventions are the Health and Wellbeing Boards (HWBs) established by the 2012 Health and Social Care Act (HSCA) alongside a range of other organisational innovations, including Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). These organisations await full legal and operational status but have begun to develop structures and processes. HWBs are intended to lead the integrated assessment of local needs to inform both NHS health and local authority social care commissioners. We undertook detailed qualitative case studies in eight CCGs during 2011–2012 and here report observational and interview data related to CCGs’ perspectives and observations of early HWB developments. We found that developing HWBs vary greatly in their structure and approach, but we also identified a number of significant issues that are familiar from earlier research into health and social care integration. These include heavy dependence on voluntary agreements to align the strategic plans of the many different new statutory bodies; a significant role for mundane organisational processes in determining the extent of effective co-operation; and problems arising from factors such as size and the arrangements of local boundaries.     

Being Strategic in Partnership – Interpreting Local Knowledge of Modern Local Government

Broad and international literature exists on networked governance which has both described and informed recent transformations in local government. Reforms in the UK have led to the development of strategic partnerships to join up services and solve wicked issues. In Scotland, these are referred to as Community Planning Partnerships. Evidence from numerous studies has highlighted the partial nature of this transformation, particularly around community engagement, with some of the pioneers of this work now questioning earlier assumptions. This article presents an interpretive policy analysis of strategic partnership in Scotland to add three themes to this literature. First, to demonstrate the historical contingency of ‘joined-up government’; second, to explore the practices and meanings used by policy actors to understand ‘strategic’ and ‘partnerships’. Finally, the article problematises strategic partnership working, suggesting that in and of itself it creates effective barriers to community empowerment and even engagement.     

The New Governance of French Education?

This article contributes to ongoing debates in comparative public administration through exploring the governance paradigm in the unfavourable empirical terrain of French education. After identifying potentially relevant features of governance, we investigate changing patterns of policy-making in French education at macro, meso and micro levels. Extrapolating research findings from extensive interviews and participant observation at ministerial meetings, we conclude the existence of a French-style governance that operates within distinctive ideational and institutional environments and interest structures. The article emphasizes the importance of historical and institutional traditions in framing the available pathways of governance.     

Can Democratic Governance Be Achieved in Egypt?

This article contributes to our understanding of whether democratic governance can be achieved in post-revolution Egypt. It explores the status of three key pillars of democratic governance in the context of the January 2011 People’s Revolution and subsequent political developments through August 2013: (1) inclusive participation, (2) responsive institutions, and (3) adherence to international practices and principles. Available evidence suggests that none of the democratic governance pillars has been realized so far as a result of political instability in Egypt. The article argues that the current political environment is not favorable to achieving democratic governance in Egypt.