A Survey of Perspectives on Intergovernmental Relations: A Comparative Analysis of the Czech and Slovak Republics

The results of a survey of local government officials from the Slovak and Czech Republics taken in December of 2005 are presented and analysed. Attitudes about and perspectives on intergovernmental fiscal relations in the two republics are probed. Differences and similarities in Czech and Slovak views are established regarding some of the perceptions of local autonomy and the sufficiency of available funds; whether or not public services are supplied by the appropriate levels of government; the potential benefits of adopting a serious rather than a nominal property tax; and the flexibility of local budget planning in Czech and Slovak cities and towns.     

Parties,Recruitment and Modernisation: Evidence from Local Election Candidates

Using pooled data from four separate nationwide surveys of local election candidates conducted from 2006–09 the paper assesses the role and importance of parties in the recruitment and selection of candidates. In many respects candidates are similar to councillors with men outnumbering women in a two to one ratio, with very few non-white candidates coming forward for selection and an age bias towards older rather than younger people. Candidates are found generally to have higher educational qualifications and to be employed in professional and managerial populations than in the public at large. Although a majority of candidates are resident in the ward that they contest a large fraction live elsewhere, suggesting that local parties cast the net widely during the recruitment process. The data suggest that the recruitment networks used by parties are relatively closed with many candidates reporting prior experience as local party officer holders or as members of charitable organisations and local public bodies. For two-thirds of candidates the initial decision to stand follows from a request by someone else, often a fellow party member. Women are more likely to be asked than men. Although candidates are aware of the current under-representation of some social and ethnic groups they are generally against using affirmative action measures to redress any imbalance. Although local parties are sometimes seen as contributing towards the problem of under-representation of some groups on council benches the data suggest than an increase in independent candidates would be unlikely to improve the situation and could perhaps cause it to deteriorate still further.     

When the center can hold: The primacy of politics in shaping Russian democracy

Violations of rights, a weak Duma, political parties dominated by bureaucrats, and corrupt privatization are ordinarily taken as signs or even causes of the failure of democracy in Russia or at best as normal traits of electoral politics in a middle-income state. Yet all of these are natural consequences of introducing democracy in a country with the Russian electorate’s distinctive recent experience of a loss of a third of the state’s territory and half its population. In such a democracy only a centrist, not a liberal, strategy can block a return to authoritarianism, and such a strategy in Russia will subordinate rights to the task of privatization that a Duma weakened by ideological, demographic and geographic impediments to party development cannot conduct. Consequently what are taken as signs or causes of democratic failure in Russia are instead necessary effects of introducing democracy in Russia’s special circumstances.     

Hemispheric reconfigurations in Northern Amazonia: the ‘Three Guianas’ amid regional change and Brazilian hegemony

Regional and hemispheric reconfigurations in Latin America and the Caribbean are increasingly mediated by Brazilian power, and the engagement of Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana with this emerging context is intriguing. They are tentatively moving away from a Caribbean region with which they are culturally contiguous, towards a South American continent in which they are geographically located. This is partly a reflection of the gradual opening up of the Northern Amazonian space that they share collectively, and also with Venezuela and Brazil. These processes are occurring as cause and effect of Brazil’s emergence as a regional – and even regionally hegemonic – power. With reference to wider debates on regionalism and hegemony, we analyse the uncertain consequences of these shifts.     

Corporatized Public Land Development Bodies in Australia: Who Are the Stakeholders and Why Are They Important?

This study examines post-corporatization activities of public sector organizations, which are expected to act according to commercial principles, but, at times, are also asked to undertake projects that are not profitable: community service obligations (CSOs). Managers of government-owned corporatized entities in land development are interviewed, and a focus group at a state Treasury department conducted. We determine, when undertaking CSOs, who are the stakeholders, as perceived by management, and why they are considered important. The stakeholders are government, community, treasury (as separate from government) and the relevant private sector. Values, in addition to power, urgency and legitimacy, influence stakeholder prioritization.     

A New Typology of Contemporary Armed Non-State-Actors: Interpreting The Diversity

This study analyzes contemporary non-state-actors (NSAs) finding four major categories: secessionist organizations fighting for a federal regime or full independence. These have a homogenous character and are domestically oriented. Secessionist NSAs that enjoy strong sponsorship are running a state within a state, possessing regular forces. Second, radical left revolutionary NSAs are fighting to overthrow the existing social order and to relocate power within a country. Arming with limited weaponry that they steal and purchase, they wage guerrilla war from dense jungles and rough mountains. Sectarian-based revolutionary NSAs seek regime change to stop state marginalization. They could evolve into a regular force, armed with heavy weapons. The fourth category and the most powerful is the global revolutionary organizations. They are religious based, seeking to impose Islamic rule in their own countries or worldwide through jihad. They are transnational, specializing in suicide bombing and sophisticated martyrdom assaults.     

Anti-Doping Policy in Sport: The Politics of International Policy Co-ordination

The characteristics and functioning of international policy processes are examined through the analysis of a case which explores the development of policy towards doping by athletes. Changes are traced in the dominant perception of the issue of doping in sport from a series of relatively self-contained problems which could be addressed by individual sports federations or competition organizers to one that requires extensive co-operation between federations and governments, and which has brought the issue of harmonization of policy to the forefront. The interests of the policy actors are identified and the role of two key organizations, the Council of Europe and the International Olympic Committee, in facilitating closer co-ordination, is examined. It is argued that the process is best understood by using the concept of a policy network as both a metaphor and as an analytical tool. The value of the concept of an epistemic community is also considered and it is suggested that not only are doctors and scientists marginal in shaping anti-doping policy, but that there are also limited conditions under which epistemic communities can fulfil an effective role in the policy process.     

Civil society,hybridity and peacebuilding in Burundi: questioning authenticity

Critics argue that liberal peacebuilding has resulted in the creation of a civil society populated with organisations that are artificial and externalised. These associations are contrasted with more locally-based groups that are considered to be more authentic and better able to build a hybrid peace that is emancipatory. At first glance, this characterisation appears to describe civil society in post-war Burundi, but on closer inspection a much more complex and interesting picture is revealed which challenges existing conceptualisations of post-conflict civil society. The paper finds that even associations that are deeply rooted in local communities are composites forged through their encounters with the global. Furthermore, this hybridity is not new. Rather it is the product of decades of prior hybridisation, raising important questions about the authenticity and legitimacy of these organisations and, ultimately, their ability to promote a peace that is transformative.     

Spending and cutting are two different worlds: experimental evidence from Danish local councils

This article investigates politicians’ preferences for cutting and spending. The research questions are where do politicians prefer to cut, where do they prefer to spend and how is this influenced by political ideology? These questions are investigated in a large-scale survey experiment fielded to Danish local councillors, who are randomly assigned to a decision-making situation, where the block grant provided to their municipality is either increased or reduced. The results show that the politicians’ preferences for cutting and spending are asymmetric, in the sense that the policy areas, which are assigned the least cuts when the grant is reduced, are rarely the ones which are assigned extra money when the grant is increased. Areas with well-organised interests and a target group which is perceived as deserving are granted more money, whereas policy areas where the target group is perceived as less deserving receive the highest cuts. Ideology matters as left-wing councillors prefer more vague categories when cutting and prioritise childcare and unemployment policies when increasing spending. In contrast, right-wing councillors prefer to cut administration and increase spending on roads.     

Administrative innovation in municipal government

The purpose of this study is to identify those factors which account for administrative innovation in municipal government bureaucracies. Two dimensions of administrative innovation are examined: management and technology. Management innovation refers to procedures and methods by which policies are implemented. Technology innovation refers to the adoption of new physical products or processes. Multiple indicators of specific innovative practices are used to create a management scale and a technology scale and the two scales are then combined to create a composite administration innovation scale. In order to explain the dimensions of innovation the study employs a model comprised of three sets of independent variables: community variables, political system variables, and bureaucratic variables. Multiple regression analysis is used to examine the relationship between each set of independent variables and the dipensions of innovation. A second stage of analysis combines the three sets of explanatory variables into a single equation for each type of innovation. The results indicate that the three sets of variables are of significant power in explaining innovation, although as one moves from community variables to political variables to bureaucratic variables there is a decline in the amount of variation explained. Some variables are more important for certain types of innovation than for others, but population size, community growth rate, and electoral competition cut across the various types of innovation.     

Why aren't countries rich?: Weak states and bad neighbourhoods

This article challenges a common viewpoint that the policy choices made by state leaders are central to explanations of economic growth. It argues that there are two possible flaws in this viewpoint. First, that state leaders have a free choice in policy decisions; second, that it is policies that in large part determine growth rates. Using a set of variables designed to capture the weakness of the policy autonomy of the state and possible non‐policy influences on growth rates, the article concludes that initial conditions are a better determinant of wealth and growth than free policy choice.     

The communitarian revolutionary subject: new forms of social transformation

Abstract

The hope for a unique revolutionary actor in the twentieth century evaporated as a result of the weaknesses of social organisations. This paper examines the potential of an almost-forgotten group of revolutionary actors – collectively organised and deliberately involved in processes of social and productive transformation with a legitimate claim to territory – whose present-day activities involve them in concerted processes to consolidate a different constellation of societies on the margins of the global capitalist system. Indigenous and peasant communities throughout the Americas are self-consciously restructuring their organisations and governance structures, taking control of territories they claimed for generations. They are also reorganising production to generate surplus, assembling their members to take advantage of underutilised resources and peoples’ energies for improving their ability to raise living standards and assure environmental conservation and restoration. These communities are not operating in isolation. They coordinate activities, share information and build alliances. Hundreds of millions of people are participating in this growing movement; they occupy much more than one-quarter of the world’s land area. There is great potential for others to join them, expanding from the substantial areas where they are already operational. Global social networks are ensuring that this dynamic accelerates.     

Patronage,politics and performance: radio call-in programmes and the myth of accountability

The role of media in promoting political accountability and citizen participation is a central issue in governance debates. Drawing on research into the interactions between radio station owners, journalists, audiences and public authorities during Somali radio call-in programmes we argue that these programmes do not simply offer a new platform for citizens to challenge those who are governing but that they are also spaces where existing power structures reproduce themselves in new forms. We identify the ways the programmes are structured and the different motivations the audience has for participation. Three types of programmes are identified and their relationships with patronage, politics, and performance are examined. Rather than focusing on normative assumptions about the media as a tool of accountability, the article emphasises the importance of understanding radio programmes in their social and political environment, including the overlapping relationships between on-air and off-air networks.     

The Social Outcomes of Education and Feedbacks on Growth in Africa

Most of the effects of education included in the complete model presented here are shown to be consistent with those found in the mainstream of the research on each outcome using microeconomic data. This, however, is a first effort to estimate net education effects more comprehensively, beyond just growth and health effects on other key measures of development in Africa, and also a new view of indirect feedbacks on economic growth and of externalities. After developing the conceptual framework, the regression estimates are presented together with a discussion of the net direct and indirect effects of education on each outcome. These are shown to improve infant mortality, increase longevity, strengthen civic institutions and democratisation, increase political stability, and increase investment in physical capital, which in turn have positive delayed feedback effects on the economic growth process. The effects also lower fertility rates and population growth rates but the latter occurs only after long delays because of the short-term positive effects of education on health. There are significant net education effects reducing poverty, inequality and crime, the latter after netting out negative externalities from growth and white-collar crime. Education effects reducing poverty and substituting skills for extractive exports also contribute to environmental sustainability. Simulations solve the complete model endogenously and iteratively over time for all of the direct and indirect (largely externality) effects. They reveal that indirect feedback effects including those on non-market outcomes are larger than the direct effects. Some effects are immediate, but many of the lags are long. So policy options for a continent in crisis that consider these lags are considered.     

Russian Non-Profit Organisations in Service Delivery: Neoliberal and Statist Social Policy Principles Intertwined

Abstract

The essay examines the social policy principles underlying state funding schemes that shape the functioning of non-profit organisations in service delivery in Russia. Scrutinising federal and regional financial tools, the analysis reveals that some non-profit organisations are engaged with a neoliberal logic promoting state funding based on competitive grant processes and a means-tested approach to clients, while others seek privileged access to state resources to secure a statist and stratified service provision for their members. The essay argues that neoliberal principles are extended through contracting-out and are undermining statist practices; however, a situation is emerging within competitive outsourcing procedures in which selected organisations are still receiving privileged treatment from the state.     

Response to Mark Kramer | Communist and Post-Communist Studies - Volume 35, Issue 2

It is a rare and rewarding opportunity for an author to receive a truly careful and thoughtful review written by a highly regarded scholar and, in addition, to be able to respond directly to reviewer’s observations and criticisms. We are fortunate to be in such a situation and we are very grateful to the journal’s editor for his kind offer and an effort to facilitate this exchange.Mark Kramer is very generous in his praise, stern in his criticism. While some of comments are well taken and will allow us to improve our conceptualizations, data collection techniques and analysis in possible further work on the subject of protest politics in postcommunist Eastern Europe, some other criticisms are misdirected or not well founded and call for corrections or rebuttal. Our response will come in two parts. First, we will address the issues that are the result of unfortunate editorial errors or, perhaps, our insufficiently clear presentation. Second, we will debate several specific points; here our disagreements with the review are more substantial. In this section we will also acknowledge Kramer’s critical points that should help us identify those weaknesses of our work that can be remedied in the future.     

Administrative practices of the Aztecs,Incas, and Mayas: lessons for modern development administration ∗

Some of the policies and practices of the ancient civilizations of the Aztecs, Incas, and Mayas are reviewed in this paper. Although the author finds them inadequate as a model for development in the modern world, he suggests that some of the developing countries could learn form the rational administrative systems of these ancient civilizations. Five characteristics of countries that are experimenting a process of development administration are reviewed in the context of these ancient civilizations. These characteristics are: (a) Unorganized and inefficient bureaucracy; (b) Inadequate and unfair tax collection system; (c) Nugatory agricultural practices; (d) A warped judicial order: (e) A poor educational system.     

Terrorism and the political process

In conventional terms, politics is defined according to the common usages in the context under discussion. In functional terms, politics is defined to serve the need of specialists for a common frame of reference for comparative purposes. Functionally, politics is the process of receiving and giving support in making important decisions in the social process. “Important decisions” are enforceable if challenged by the most severe sanctions available to a group (territorial, pluralistic). Terrorism as a problem is discussed in terms of policy goals, trends, conditions, and alternatives. We are particularly interested in sanctioning objectives and strategies: deterrence, withdrawal, rehabilitation, correction, prevention, and reconstruction. In a terror process we distinguish the terrorist, the proximate victim, and impact targets. Terrorists are participants in the political process who strive for political results by arousing acute anxieties. Terrorist strategy proceeds by the symbolic enhancement of instruments of procedures of destruction. Some selected systematic studies of terror are reviewed, especially as a phase of rebellion and as a system. Recurring seizures by a sense of weakness are likely to precipitate periodic revivals of terror as a strategy of territorial or pluralistic elements in the world social process.     

The distribution of power from government-by -area to government-by -bureau

This essay is concerned with the shift in the distribution of power - from areal functional agencies - and the impact on decision-making. The principal approaches to the issue of the distribution of power among national ministries, regional agencies, and local units may be viewed in a spectrum ranging from a functional to an areal emphasis. Four major patterns among present day governments may be discerned based on their use of a coordinating ministry, a regional executive, and the local chief executive. Prototypes are the Federal Republic of Germany (modified government-by-aea), adn the United Kingdom (government-by-bureau). The shift affects not only the environment in which decisions are made but also what type of officials make decisions, where decisions are made, and what kind of decisions are made.     

Determinants of smallholder landownership: Evidence from south Sulawesi,Indonesia

This article analyses differences in landownership between smallholders using survey data from six villages in a land abundant region in Indonesia. Differences in landholdings are only partially explained by differences in labour availability. Land‐holdings are positively correlated with educational level, and early settlers have more land than late settlers. The hypothesis is put forward that early settlers are wealthier, and some empirical evidence is offered in support. Finally, the paper uses a conditional logit model of land purchases to test whether wealthier households are better able to purchase (additional) land. The results support this hypothesis.