Does the longer tenure of local government heads affect the performance of local governments? The Korean case

The relationship between the length of tenure of elected heads of local governments (HOLG) and performance of local governments remains ambiguous, with few empirical studies on it. Korea presents a compelling case in that it has limited HOLG to serve only three consecutive terms based on the untested belief that longer tenures have a negative effect on local governments. To address these gaps, this study applies the fixed effect panel model, using the Korean government data from 2008 to 2014. Our findings reveal a negative relationship between tenure length and efficiency, particularly among local governments demonstrating a low level of efficiency. The relationship between the length of tenure and integrity is also negative, especially among local governments with low levels of integrity. However, given that these relationships disappear when factors specific to local governments are controlled, our findings should be interpreted cautiously.     

Russia’s local government in the process of authoritarian regime transformation: incentives for the survival of local democracy

In 2003, the authorities of Russia launched a comprehensive reform of local government. One of the elements of this reform was the replacement of the previously predominant form of local government, characterised by the presence of directly elected mayors, with the council-manager model. While originally motivated largely by the desire to enhance the efficacy of local government, the reform was implemented concurrently with Russia’s transition to electoral authoritarianism, with the council-manager model emerging as a major tool of authoritarian transformation. This study uses the data from 79 capitals of Russia’s regions in order to identify those factors that facilitated the survival of directly elected mayors in these cities. The analysis reveals that the past trajectories of regime transitions at the regional level in the form of elite settlement, economic resourcefulness, and the lack of politically motivated deference to the federal authorities contributed to the survival of local democracy in Russia.     

The tying of aid and the problem of “local costs”

Son preference has persisted in the face of sweeping economic and social changes in the countries studied here. We attribute this persistence to their similar family systems, which generate strong disincentives to raise daughters – whether or not their marriages require dowries – while valuing adult women's contributions to the household. Urbanisation, female education and employment can only slowly change these incentives without more direct efforts by the state and civil society to increase the flexibility of the kinship system such that daughters and sons can be perceived as being more equally valuable. Much can be done to accelerate this process through social movements, legislation and the mass media.     

Critical peacebuilding and the dilemma of difference: the stigma of the ‘local’ and the quest for equality

Recent research has revealed the need to include and understand local actors in order to improve the effectiveness of peacebuilding. According to these analyses, peacebuilding could become more respectful of cultural differences thanks to a genuine engagement with the specificities of the local. Empirical studies of the ‘different’ local have thus flourished in the field with the ambition of countering the universalist tendency of traditional peacebuilding. Through the use of the concept of ‘dilemma of difference’, this article challenges this intuitive argument and argues that these approaches risk reproducing a stigma attached to the ‘different’ local. Indeed, emphasising difference in order to ensure its respect means separating and reifying ‘it’ as a deviation from the norm(al). As such, this analytical strategy is likely to recreate the stigma that contributed to the exclusion of local actors in previous peacebuilding practice and research. In contrast, I outline three strategies for studying difference differently in peacebuilding: focusing on the institutional arrangements that enabled specific differences to emerge and become visible; recognising that these differences are internal to peacebuilding (and thus an unlikely source of alternative and emancipation); and revealing the unstated and implicit Self for/from whom local difference is relevant.     

Views of public health leaders in English local authorities – changing perspectives following the transfer of responsibilities from the National Health Service to local government

This paper reports on the findings of a research project that examined the changes to the public health system in England introduced in 2013. Drawing on case study research and two national surveys the findings explore the impact of organisational change on the composition and role of public health teams. Views and experiences were obtained from public health leaders involved in the transfer of staff and functions from the National Health Service in England to local authorities. National surveys at two points in time aimed to compare and contrast views on the evolving changes. The new organisational and managerial arrangements had enabled public health professionals to widen their work and influence, and public health skills and budgets were welcomed by those in local government. Initially, in some areas, directors of public health were less certain of the benefits of the transfer to local government compared to high levels of confidence expressed by elected members, but perspectives changed over time and moved closer together. National headline figures were found to mask high levels of turbulence and churn being experienced by individual authorities identified in the case study research, and the trend of reducing capacity through cuts to staff, budget and services was a cause for serious concern.     

Public services and local government: the end of the principle of ‘funding following duties’

Recent attention to local government finance in England has focused on the substantial cuts in grant funding during the 2010–15 Parliament. However, the newly introduced Business Rates Retention Scheme, which links the distribution of central funding to business rate revenue raised in each local area, constitutes a historically significant disjuncture in the funding of English local authorities. Since the nineteenth century, with the exception of one short period, funding of English local government has followed statutory duties set by Parliament, a principle which underlay a variety of central control and audit regimes throughout the twentieth century. The new system breaks that link, implying a rejection of responsibility for local services by central government. This plays into demands for greater ‘autonomy’ currently emanating from local authorities, but this may not be a panacea for the stretched financial situation that many of them are experiencing at present.     

The place of corporate ownership and management in local government anti‐poverty strategy in Britain

Since devolution in 1999, the Welsh Government has developed a distinctive approach to the management of local government policy. Alongside an emphasis on welfarism and partnership, local authorities have been exhorted to put the citizen at the centre of public service delivery. Drawing on the notion of assemblage, developed in the governmentality literature, this paper identifies two different rationalities running through Welsh Government policy documents. On the basis of a series of interviews with government officials and their counterparts in the Welsh Local Government Association we find evidence of important tensions in the Welsh approach. While the emphasis on the citizen has worked in building a ‘political rationality’, the evidence from our interviews suggests that it works less well as a ‘government technology’.     

Querying the resilient local authority: the question of ‘resilience for whom?’

ABSTRACT

Analysis of how English local authorities (LAs) have fared post large cuts to their funding by the Coalition and now Conservative governments indicates a considerably resilient organisation. Engaging with recent critical strands in the resilience literature this paper, however, queries that resilient LA account. Better consideration of resilience’s repercussions across the landscape of local services provision is needed. The question of ‘resilience for whom?’, drawn from the conceptual literature, is introduced and frames an exploration of the experiences of LA resilience strategies among small charities in deprived areas of London. Deleterious dimensions of resilience are seen in its distancing and de-coupling effects and associated voluntary provider fading. There are losers and a dark underside to explore. Such perspectives add to the local government and austerity scholarship insight as to the noted ‘austerity puzzle’ and a questioning of its tendency towards a ‘great survivor’ account.     

Memories of ethnic cleansing and the local Iron Curtain in the Czech–German borderlands

The Czech–German borderlands are an archetypal European border region. They evoke not only Cold War histories, but also shelter layers of European memories of the ethnic reshaping of early post-war Europe. By means of life story interviews with German speakers of the border region, this article analyzes the symbolic meaning of and the individual dealing with the local Iron Curtain. It will shed light on the biographical and narrative interconnectedness of experiences of ethnic cleansing in the early post-war period and retrospective perceptions of the Iron Curtain in these borderlands. In particular, it inquires whether and to what extent the local Iron Curtain intensified fractures caused by the region's post-and pre-war attempts to halt the multiethnic composition of the border communities. The article suggests that the local Czech–German Iron Curtain would have never endured as strongly if the border communities' common identity had not already been severely damaged in the course of the region's traumatic history and forced population transfers.     

The paradoxes of the ‘everyday’: scrutinising the local turn in peace building

With the advent of the local turn in the mid-2000s, critical approaches have attempted to rethink peace building from the bottom up, placing local agents at the centre of the debate, declaring the end of top-down governance and affirming the fragmented, complex and plural nature of the social milieu. While local turn approaches have become popular in peace-building theory, this article invites the reader to question and problematise the local turn’s use of the concept of ‘everyday’, in order to explore paradoxes and contradictions that indicate the need to think more deeply about the impact of the local turn’s project of critique.     

Education: The management of the teaching profession—A note

Responding to Poverty: The Politics of Cash and Care. By Saul Becker. London, 1997. Pp.223. £12.99 pb.

Equal Opportunities and Social Policy. By Barbara Bagilhole. Longman, 1997. Pp.221. £14.99.

Policies for a Just Society. By David Donnison. Macmillan, 1998. pp.218. £40.00 hb; £12.50 pb.

Partnership against Poverty and Exclusion? By Mike Geddes. The Policy Press, 1997. Pp.136. £12.95 pb.

Youth, the ‘Underclass’ and Social Exclusion. By Robert MacDonald. Routledge, 1997. Pp.228. £45.00 hb; £13.99 pb.

Affirming the Comprehensive Ideal. By Richard Pring and Geoffrey Walford. Falmer, 1997. Pp.209. £42.00 hb; £14.95 pb.

Punishment in the Community: The Future of Criminal Justice. By Anne Worrall. Longman, 1997. Pp.170. £12.99 pb.     

Gender and the experiences of local elected members – a focus on Wales

This article explores issue of gender in relation to the experiences of local elected members. Member experiences are important as this may be one of the factors which lie behind the under-representation of women in political life at all levels. This article is focused on Wales where women make up 26% of local councillors, hold only 20% of cabinet positions and occupy one Leader position. This article reports on the views of male and female councillors from a number of Welsh authorities who, when interviewed, identified very different experiences of elected office. Central to their experiences are their routes into office, personal circumstances and societal influences. The existence of a dominant male political culture is evident and this may have an impact on the participation of women in local political life.     

Improving organisational performance—some thoughts on the role of management development

This article addresses the issue of local citizenship in the context of shifting urban structures. Drawing on the literature on modes of responses to local public policy based on Hirschman's (1970) model of Exit, Voice and Loyalty, the study offers the concept of urban civic worlds as an explanatory concept for local citizenship behavioural manifestations. The hypotheses regarding urban civic worlds are tested in a survey in the city of Tel Aviv. Eight types of urban civic worlds are examined. The implications of the multiplicity of urban civic world on the governance in localities is discussed.     

Coming out of the shadow? Studies of local governments in Central and Eastern Europe in European academic research

This article is an analysis of the changing role of research on local governments in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) within mainstream European studies. It refers to dependency theory (Wallerstein, Prebish) as applied to scientific research. It classifies CEE as being in the semi-periphery of academic research. The empirical analysis consists of two parts: (1) qualitative review of the most important of the comparative studies of European local governments. It includes a discussion on the role of local governments and researchers from CEE in these studies; (2) quantitative based on an analysis of articles published in international journals and citations for those articles in Scopus. The analysis covers 14 countries (all new member states who joined the EU from 2004 onwards, plus the Balkan countries: Albania, Macedonia, and Serbia).     

Is local authority procurement supporting SMEs? An analysis of practice in English local authorities

The UK coalition government wishes to improve the access of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to public procurement, in recognition of their importance to the economy and for the benefits they can bring to public procurement and the wider public sector. Local government provides a significant opportunity for small firms, spending £84 billion of the total procurement spend of £230 billion. However, about two-thirds of both small businesses and local authorities think that SMEs face barriers in successfully accessing public procurement. This paper examines how councils are supporting SMEs in the procurement process by analysing 67 entry forms to the ‘Best Councils to do business with’ competition. This unique data source has provided insight into councils’ attitudes and procurement practices, and demonstrates that although a wide range of supportive actions are being employed there is considerable diversity across councils. Ambiguities and tensions in policies, between local and central government, have also emerged.     

Joined up policy in practice? The coherence and impacts of the local government modernisation agenda

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed a raft of new policies designed to transform the politics and performance of local authorities in the UK. Over the next three years, a specially commissioned themed section of Local Government Studies will explore the impact of these policies drawing on recent empirical studies by leading researchers in the field. This paper, the first in the series, sets the scene by tracing the evolution of key policies, analysing their objectives and assessing the extent to which they can, as central government has claimed, be seen as a coherent package of complementary policies. It concludes that whilst at first sight the links between policies within the Local Government Modernisation Agenda are not obvious, policies have become increasingly holistic. Local authority officers perceive them to be interacting in ways that contribute to the achievement of service improvement, more effective community leadership, increased stakeholder engagement, greater accountability and increased public confidence. However, the lack of ‘joined up’ working across Whitehall presents significant problems for councils and other agencies that are responsible for local service delivery and a continuing challenge for central government.