A Tale of One City: The Devo Manc Deal and Its Implications for English Devolution

On 2 November 2014 George Osborne stood in the impressive great council chamber of Manchester town hall and, flanked by the ten leaders of Greater Manchester's local authorities, announced a devolution deal for the city‐region. Greater Manchester would receive a significant package of powers over transport, housing, planning, skills, business support and welfare in exchange for creating new governance structures, including a directly elected mayor for the city‐region. This article explores the background to the Devo Manc deal, arguing that it is the product of both a long history of local government collaboration in Greater Manchester and George Osborne's desire for a sweeping restructure of English governance. It traces how the key decisions were taken quickly and by a small number of key officials. The article also identifies some flaws in Devo Manc and considers whether it is an appropriate model for other city‐regions in the UK.     

Delegation and Institutional Design in Health‐Care Rationing

The delegation of decision‐making powers to nonmajoritarian, independent agencies has become a significant phenomenon in more and more policy areas. One of these is the health‐care sector, where decisions on the range of services covered within public systems have, in most developed countries, been delegated to specialized bodies. This article offers an analytical framework that seeks to grasp the empirical variety and complexity of delegative processes and appointed institutions. The framework is used to describe decision‐making processes and institutions in six countries: Austria, Germany, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. We find that, although constrained by preexisting institutional structures and traditions, delegators enjoy a considerable degree of discretion in their institutional design choices and engage in strategic design and redesign of appointed bodies.     

Vanuatu: The evolution of the administrative and political context of decentralization

Local government came late to Vanuatu (formerly the New Hebrides) and even then was more a response to external events than a reflection of community interests. The first local council experiment, from 1957 to 1958, failed because of rivalry between the colonial powers, Britain and France. Subsequently national political developments set up additional obstacles to the successful functioning of local government. Political conflicts at the national level, reflecting the divisions created by the Anglo-French condominium, delayed implementation and undermined the administrative viability and democratic quality of local councils. Popular support for and trust in local government has not developed. A system created in haste and altered to serve the interests of competing national elites has not been able to adapt to the needs of local communities. A viable system of decentralization requires a degree of national consensus to be combined with local involvement in planning and implementation.     

The Common Root of Commitment,Resistance and Power

Abstract

This essay responds to some of the questions raised by Infinitely Demanding from the perspective of tragic conflicts. On this view, the struggle for power cannot be disentangled from the freedom at stake in liberalism and capitalism, nor from the efforts of individuals and groups to resist the powers that be. I suggest, moreover, that this entanglement threatens to divide from within not just the ethical subject, but groups and institutions as well.     

Indigenous institutions and local government in the Torres Strait

The relationships between local governments and Indigenous institutions in Australia are unstudied, despite both being oriented to the local level. Related research focuses on the performance of Indigenous local governments, Indigenous forms of governance and its relation to local government, relations between local governments and Indigenous communities, and the intercultural dynamics of Indigenous and Western governance frameworks in local governments. This article presents the findings of a study that examines relations between local governments and Indigenous institutions in the Torres Strait, a relationship that is framed by s. 9(3) of the Local Government Act 2009 (Qld) (LGA) that allows local governments to ‘take account of Aboriginal tradition and Island custom’. A framework adapted from health-related studies, consisting of three alternative policy approaches—mainstreaming, indigenisation, and hybridisation—is used in this study to characterise relationships between local governments and Indigenous institutions. Kinship and country, two important Indigenous institutions, are marginalised in Queensland's mainstream system of local government, which in turn creates obstacles for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from participating and engaging in local government processes.

Points for practitioners

• Government that does not recognise the institutions which are fundamental to how Indigenous people govern will marginalise them from power.
• Indigenous institutions are legitimate actors whose voice must be considered within mainstreaming discussions.
• Representation within indigenous institutions influences local government relations.

     

Let's Agree to Agree: Regional Interest Representation in the Negotiations for the 2007–13 and 2014–20 Structural Funds in Germany

The negotiating powers of regional authorities in the European Union (EU) have become more evident, especially with decentralization and regionalization happening across Europe. This empirical case study of regional interest representation offers a comparative analysis of the negotiations for the 2007–13 and 2014–20 EU Structural Funds. Based on qualitative interviews with German subnational officials, this paper explores how the German federal states (Länder) represented their interests at the federal and supranational level. It will be shown that the modes of interest representation changed which can largely be attributed to social learning. This article contributes to existing literature by illustrating the move towards co-operative interest representation with intra-state subnational mobilization.     

Love Thy Neighbour: A Social Capital Approach to Local Government Partnerships

While controversy surrounds compulsory consolidation as a means of improving the operational efficiency of local government, the literature suggests that gains can accrue to groups of local councils which form voluntary alliances as platforms for shared service delivery. However, real‐world experience has demonstrated that voluntary alliances in local government are difficult to establish and do not always endure in the longer term. After reviewing the limited extant scholarly literature on shared services and local council voluntary alliances, as well as applications of the social capital approach to inter‐organisational endeavour, such as the Weber and Weber (2010) venture capital model, this article argues that the social capital approach can offer insights into local council cooperative alliance and shared service models.     

Contemporary Challenges in Local Government: Evolving Roles and Responsibilities,Structures, and Processes

Editor's Note: The International City/County Management Association (ICMA) celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2014. This article is the first of several that will appear during the next year about the council‐manager plan to commemorate ICMA's 100th anniversary. Three contemporary leadership challenges face local governments today. The first encourages department heads to more actively work the intersection between political and administrative arenas. The second promotes collaborative work, synchronizing city and county boundaries with problems that have no jurisdictional homes. The third argues that citizen engagement is no longer optional—it is imperative—and that connecting engagement initiatives to traditional political values and governing processes is an important mark of successful community building. These three leadership challenges stem from a widening gap between the arenas of politics and administration—that is, between what is politically acceptable in public policy making and what is administratively sustainable. The gap is fueled by conflicting trends experienced locally and common internationally. Failure to bridge this gap between political acceptability and administrative sustainability results in decreasing legitimacy for governing institutions and increasing challenges.     

Institutional Differences and Local Government Performance: Evidence from Property Tax Assessment Quality

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between institutional differences embedded in local governance structures and government performance in the specific context of property assessment. In order to provide deeper insight into why certain governance structures perform better than others, we focus on the impact of nested levels of institutions—constitutional-level and substantive-level rules of governance—beyond the conventional perspective of the form of government. Based on panel data of cities and towns in New York State between 1993 and 2010, our analysis indicates that, among other institutional arrangements, municipalities employing the council–manager form with appointed assessors are most likely to achieve higher levels of assessment quality (uniformity) of the residential property. This indicates that having politically independent (more career-oriented), low-powered appointed governance structures rather than politically risk-averse (more voter-oriented), high-powered elected counterparts are more likely to be effective at reducing risk in tax equity issues, thus providing better financial performance.     

Decentralization of road administration: case studies in Africa and Asia

A study of decentralization of road administration in developing countries has been undertaken, including a literature review, and field studies in Nepal, Uganda and Zambia. The findings are reported under the headings of: constitutions and governance; policy and planning; financial and fiscal aspects; institutions, management and human resources; operations; and contribution to poverty alleviation. Decentralization of road administration has potential for improving the delivery of rural transport infrastructure services. But the evidence from this study suggests that it is proving difficult to realize fully the expected benefits. Problems include: lack of local government powers to exercise political influence; insufficient financial resources; lack of management capability; and a lack of accountability mechanisms. Limited data also suggest that there is little evidence of existing decentralized systems being particularly responsive to addressing the needs of the rural poor. There is a need for the poor to be involved more actively in the planning, financing and implementation process. Different models for administrative decentralization are described and recommendations are made for approaches likely to be the most appropriate for rural transport infrastructure administration and management. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decentralization and Development in Contemporary Uganda

Abstract

There has long been an emphasis on the importance of decentralization in providing better quality public services in the developing world. In order to assess the effectiveness of decentralization I examine here the case study of Uganda, which has seen major decentralization of power over the last quarter-century. In particular the current government has introduced a five-tiered local government structure, decentralized both fiscal and political power to local governments and introduced regular local government elections. However, initial excitement about Uganda's decentralization programme has tapered off in recent years due to a number of problems outlined here. In particular, I show that decentralization in Uganda has suffered from a lack of independence from central government control, which has led to a lack of effectiveness in the provision of high quality public goods.     

Comments on Hasenfeld and Gidron: “Understanding multi-purpose hybrid voluntary organizations”

The article develops a theoretical framework to analyse the social construction of citizenship at the local level in Bolivia through the Ley de Participación Popular (LPP). It explains how decentralization at the municipal level and the introduction of participatory mechanisms affect the development of civil society in Bolivia. I argue that decentralization at the city level can provide new formal spaces for the development of civil society in relation with the state, which can in turn foster the social construction of a more inclusive citizenship regime. Many factors, however, determine if such potential is exploited. Drawing from the Bolivian experience, the article elaborates on the socio-political conditions necessary for local governance to have a positive impact on citizenship. It shows that the institutional shortcomings of the LPP, an elite-driven reform adopted in a country with a legacy of weak institutions and civil society, posed fundamental limits for social participation at the municipal level to lead to the social construction of an inclusive citizenship regime.     

Understanding micro-processes of institutionalization: stewardship contracting and national forest management

This paper examines micro-processes of institutionalization, using the case of stewardship contracting within the US Forest Service. Our basic premise is that, until a new policy becomes an everyday practice among local actors, it will not become institutionalized at the macro-scale. We find that micro-processes of institutionalization are driven by a mixture of large-scale institutional dynamics and how frontline decision-makers understand and interpret these dynamics, given the local social and ecological context in which they operate. For example, this paper suggests that a new policy may become institutionalized when it is understood to solve problems that old institutions at once create and demand to be solved. Agency actors cannot be conceptualized as untethered from the institutions in which they operate. Yet, within larger institutional dynamics, field personnel make key choices about whether to adopt a new policy, making them important players in the micro-processes of policy institutionalization. The interplay of actors and institutions turns agencies, such as the Forest Service, into complex systems that cannot be understood as artifacts of their own history or as a sum of the decisions of individual actors. This dynamic also implies that macro-level institutional change will be uneven, incomplete, and gradual, mirroring uneven, contingent micro-level processes.     

The decentralization of primary health care delivery in Chile

The article argues that during the 1980s the process of decentralization in Chile under the military government of General Pinochet shifted the delivery of primary health care to the municipal level. Despite the return to more democratic forms of government in 1990 the overall structure of local‐level service delivery has remained largely unchanged. The municipalities have retained responsibility for service delivery but resources remain centrally determined. In an attempt to enhance accessibility, choice and the responsiveness of the system to individual and local need, reform has been made to the financial transfer mechanisms and a new model of primary health care delivery has recently been introduced. However, problems of resourcing and implementation limit the effectiveness of some of the changes that have accompanied decentralization. Problems have resulted in primary health care delivery because administrative decentralization has not been accompanied by fiscal decentralization, nor effective political decentralization. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Iron Houses in the Tropical Heat: Decentralization Reforms in Africa and their Consequences

Abstract

Decentralization reforms introduced to Africa have not always delivered the intended outcomes. Through interaction with the broader historical, political, social and economic context, reforms seem to have engendered political consequences beyond decentralization itself. Most of the literature on decentralization and development emphasizes questions of institutional design and policy, but here we expand the focus of analysis and incorporate the harder-to-pin-down political patterns marking the workings of decentralization in Africa. Through the case-studies of Ghana, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ethiopia and Uganda we seek to connect the debates on development with the scholarly literatures on comparative federalism, comparative decentralization and local democracy. The conclusion that emerges is that no magic formula which can turn countries into peaceful, stable and prosperous democracies overnight exists. And, importing formal institutions without regard to the local historical, political, social and economic context risks leaving us with elegant but dysfunctional iron houses in the tropical heat.     

“Not Imminent in My Domain!” County Leaders’ Attitudes toward Eminent Domain Decisions

Eminent domain is an urgent problem facing local government administrators and scholars throughout the United States. However, the literature is sparse regarding how local leaders make decisions on this hot‐button issue. A 2006 Government Accountability Office report noted a lack of data about local governments’ use of their eminent domain authority. A survey of county managers in North Carolina was conducted to redress this apparent knowledge gap. Although the findings are primarily generalizable only to other Dillon’s rule states, such data demonstrate that eminent domain applies more often for “narrow” (public use) purposes, such as water and sewer systems, than for “broad” (public good) purposes, such as economic development. Current and future property considerations also influence eminent domain decisions. [A] law that takes property from A, and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it. —Associate Justice Samuel Chase, majority opinion, Calder v. Bull (1798)     

What Influences City Council Adoption and Support for Reinventing Government? Environmental or Institutional Factors?

What influences the degree to which city councils support reinventing government (REGO)? Controlling for environmental factors that are likely to shape council policy adoption as well as the tenure of the chief administrator, the findings of this study underscore that the type of representation system is most consistently related to opposition to REGO. In addition, the economic health of the city and the tenure of the chief administrator are positively associated with council support. Overall, institutional factors affect council policy adoption more than either environmental factors or an administrator's seniority, at least in this policy area.     

Dual Decentralization and Fragmented Authoritarianism in Governance: Crowding Out among Social Programmes in China

In this paper, we use city‐level datasets of social assistance programmes over 280 cities between year 2003 and 2011 to verify the existence of the crowding out between social assistance programmes and unemployment insurance in China. In other words, the expansion of social assistance programmes is associated with a reduction in the enrolment of unemployment insurance. With verifying the existence of the crowding out, this article argues that the crowding out is a result of an ineffective coordination across government departments. In the process of ‘dual decentralization,’ in which the central government has delegated welfare provision responsibility to local governments, the misalignment of incentive and institutions between central and local governments explains the ineffective coordination. Different from many studies in the literature, this paper presents an adverse consequence of China's bureaucratic incentive system in social policy implementation. Also, while the conceptual framework ‘fragmented authoritarianism’ has highlighted the policy ineffectiveness in the economic policy area, this paper contributes to this literature by illustrating the policy ineffectiveness in the social policy areas. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Decentralization for regional development: A comparative study of Tanzania,Zambia and Papua New Guinea

Decentralization has been a common aim in administrative reform and this article points to common themes in the decentralization programmes of Tanzania, Zambia and Papua New Guinea. The programmes involve both developing field administrative structures on an area basis in which horizontal links between the field staff of different ministries are at least as important as the vertical lines of authority linking field staff with headquarters' departments, and also decentralizing authority over planning and implementing development programmes to local decision making bodies. The impact of these decentralization programmes has not hitherto been adequately monitored or evaluated, and experience of attempts at doing this in Tanzania emphasizes the importance of building into a decentralization programme a method of monitoring it which produces usable information. The article points to the plans for monitoring to be pursued in Zambia.     

The role of credible commitments in state finance

Margaret Levi's Of Rule and Revenue raises a host of important problems in the theory of the state. It provides an important step in the development of a theory that combines economic and political institutions into the same framework, potentially allowing scholars to address important issues such as the divergent economic paths taken by various states. It will therefore be an important book, and warrants attention. This approach holds much promise for the development of a theory of institutional development of the state from the middle ages onward.I have tried to sketch some additional directions for the theory to develop, pointing toward the answer of questions not directly faced by Levi — or for that matter, by much of the public choice literature: How do we explain the evolution of a predatory state into one with explicit limits on its powers? How do we explain the rise of representative institutions? Answering these questions often requires looking beyond the individual state to its international context. Competition among states, especially in the form of war, plays a key role here, and has two consequences. First, a major consequence of large-scale wars was fiscal stress. At such times, even a preditory state might agree to exchange limitations on its own powers for revenue. Second, the brief discussion of early modern Europe suggests that states with limited government might have had a financial advantage over those which were not so limited. The latter played a major role in the successful Dutch revolt against Spain and in the English defeat of France.