Do Formulas Reduce Political Influence on Intergovernmental Grants? Evidence from Tanzania

Sub-national governments usually depend on the central government for a large share of their revenues. Therefore, a fair allocation of intergovernmental grants is essential for financing vital local services like education and healthcare. In Tanzania, and many other countries, regions that are better represented in the national parliament receive significantly more funds than others. Recently, Tanzania replaced the previously existing discretionary method of grant allocation by allocation formulas. We study whether this has reduced the effect of malapportionment on grant allocation. Surprisingly, we find that formula allocation does not significantly change this effect. This has important policy implications.     

Decentralization,Government Capacity,and Environmental Policy Performance: A Cross-National Analysis

This study examines how decentralization and government capacity interactively shape national environmental policy performance. Despite the extensive literature on the policy consequences of decentralization, what remains deficient is a proper understanding of the role that government capacity may play in the process. This study advances an integrative proposition that decentralization can improve policy performance if the government is equipped with capable, efficient and trustworthy administrative apparatus. Findings from a cross-national analysis on national environmental policy performance lend strong support for the general argument by revealing that such positive effects of decentralization are significantly strengthened by the quality of government capacity.     

Local Government Modernisation in England: A Critical Review of the LGMA Evaluation Studies

New Labour has subjected English local government to an unparalleled period of reform. This article reviews the Local Government Modernisation Agenda evaluation studies commissioned by central government. The review identifies valuable insights from the studies into the contemporary state of English local government, central government and central–local relations. However, the studies also illustrate the need for research on public service reform to include analyses of the political origins of reform policies and the political–bureaucratic issues involved in their implementation. It is also argued that future research needs to rediscover the value of studying local politics ‘in the round’, the impact of socio-economic and non-local factors on local policy outcomes and the role of new sources of policy influence in the channels of central–local relations.     

Challenges to Decentralization of Disaster Management in Turkey: The Role of Political-Administrative Context

Global disaster policy frameworks promote decentralization as a prerequisite of good disaster governance. Using 44 interviews, this study contributes to the literature that focuses on disasters and decentralization by investigating three systemic mechanisms that seemingly challenge decentralization of disaster management in Turkey: introduction of oversight systems, resource-allocation failure, and central–local collaboration. The results indicate that these mechanisms are enabled by a combination of political-administrative system characteristics and disaster-induced processes. To better understand how to secure the benefits of decentralization, we should engage with a wide range of disaster management actor perspectives, and integrate research on political-administrative systems and collaborative governance.     

Policy communities,public housing and area improvement in Sweden

Taking recent research on central and local government relations as its point of departure, the article sets out to demonstrate the analytical applicability of the concept of a policy community. R. A.W. Rhodes's four-dimensional definition of the concept provides a framework for an analysis of policy communities for public-housing area improvement in Sweden. Using a central government program as an example, the analysis is carried out on two levels, relating policy to program, and program to local projects. Finally, the article discusses the question of whether there are policy relevant lessons to be learned from the implementation of the area improvement program under study. Although it is problematic to transplant experiences from one more or less unique context to another, it is still argued that the policy community approach might have some policy relevance, even in a cross-national perspective, although it would require a separate study to demonstrate this point.     

DECENTRALIZING HEALTH SERVICES IN THE UK: A NEW CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Decentralization is a central plank of current government health policy. However, it is possible to discern both centralist and decentralist movements in the UK. This paper examines existing frameworks of decentralization in relation to identifying whether policy is decentralist or not and identifies a number of problems that limit their value. Key problems relate to the way decentralization is conceptualized and defined. Existing frameworks are also highly contextualized and are therefore of limited value when applied in different contexts. The paper then presents a new framework which, it is argued, provides a more useful way of examining centralization and decentralization by providing a way of categorizing policies and actions and avoids the problems of being contextually constrained. The paper ends with a discussion of how the framework can be applied in a health context and shows how this framework helps avoid the problems found in previous discussions of decentralization.     

The Depoliticisation of Development and the Democratisation of Politics in Tanzania: Parallel Structures as Obstacles to Delivering Services to the Poor

Local democracy and the involvement of local communities in the provision of social services are central issues in the local government reforms that are presently being implemented in many developing countries. At the same time, institutions that run parallel to local authorities, such as social funds and various user-committees, are established to improve accountability and participation. By focusing on actual political processes rather than administrative, legal and fiscal aspects of decentralisation, this article traces the breakdown of two development projects in Tanzania to the existence of parallel structures. It suggests that user-committees and social funds should be integrated in local authority structures to avoid fragmentation of participation and to enhance local democracy.     

GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: CHANGES AND CHALLENGES

This paper examines the issue of governance in the process of economic development. The paper first provides a literature review on the various arguments regarding the role of government in promoting economic development and the major issues emphasized in recent government reform projects. The paper then focuses on three major policy changes and reforms that are related to the area of governance and economic development: (1) regulatory reform, (2) privatization policy, and (3) decentralization policy. The paper concludes with discussions about the continuing arguments about the role of government, the increasing importance of local governments, and the contribution of nongovernmental or nonprofit organizations in economic development.     

Joint Planning across the Health/Social Services Boundary since 1946

This article reviews the development of post-war policy on the joint planning of health and social services for older people in the context of broader theoretical ideas about inter-organisational collaboration. It identifies the lack of organisational homogeneity and the absence of domain consensus across the health/social services boundary as the main obstacles to progress. However, the article hrther suggests that, if these problems are to be properly understood, the broader policy context within which joint planning took place must also be investigated. In this regard, the article suggests that central government's attempts to encourage joint planning since the 1960s have repeatedly been hampered by distrust among local agencies of its more general policy intentions in this area.     

Community councils in Wales

One set of problems facing anyone trying to track public expenditure programmes is how to handle the intergovernmental aspects. This can be illustrated by Rose and Davies's study of public expenditure in Britain. Amongst these problems are changes to the system of grants from central government to local authorities and transfers of functions between local and central government. There are also problems in the consistency with which Rose and Davies use central government grant or all of relevant expenditure in devising programmes. As a result, Rose and Davies findings about local government expenditure programmes lack consistency over time or between programmes. These discrepancies occur in what in some cases are the largest programmes in their policy area, so they also undermine the empirical and theoretical conclusions drawn about policy change as a whole in Britain. Alternative approaches and data may provide a more meaningful tracking of policy change.     

Financial Discrepancies in Political Party Funding by Indonesian Local Government Authorities

Through different forms of decentralization variables, this study investigates Indonesian local government authorities' 2006 financial accountability reports in terms of local government authorities' contributing funds to political parties. Audit results by the Supreme Audit Body reveal that many articles were violated by these authorities in regard to the distributing, administrating, and reporting of assistance funds from them to political parties. Each rupiah committed by the 221 local government authorities involved in this study violated, on average, 1.8 articles, indicating a low level of compliance.

Critically, the study finds that administrative, fiscal, and political decentralization decreases discrepancies. The less administratively decentralized provincial authorities, where decision making is a level of government farther from the people, are more likely than non-provincial local government authorities to make discrepancies with political party legislation and regulations. Fiscally decentralized local government authorities, who earn a higher fraction of their revenue from local sources, also tend to have fewer discrepanciesFinally, politically decentralized authorities with a higher percentage of elected officials from the decentralized supporting ruling coalition, also have fewer discrepancies.     

Towards pluralism and partnership in management development in local government

'Joined-up government' has been a policy thrust characterising much of the first term of the Labour government. The last four years have seen a flourish of area-based and local partnership initiatives. Information and IT are seen as crucial to facilitate joined-up government and improved service delivery at both central and local level. Ambitious targets are thus set to make all dealings with government deliverable electronically by 2005. This article examines data sharing in a local partnership, using as an example the preparation of the Children's Service Plan 2000-2003 in the city of Sheffield, setting out the national policy background, with particular reference to children's services plans; introducing the project; discussing the results obtained in the data collection exercise, and concluding that the organisational and cultural change necessary to share information effectively require time, and above all a period of relative stability to mature and take hold.     

Inter-regional diffusion of policy innovation in China: A comparative case study

Classic theoretical research on the diffusion of policy innovation is usually based on decentralized democratic regimes. However, in authoritarian centralized countries such as China, questions such as, ‘What are the driving forces and the structural dynamics behind local government policy innovation and inter-regional diffusion?’ and ‘How do the governmental structural factors lead to the different patterns of diffusion of policy innovation across local governments?’ are interesting research topics. The theoretical framework proposed in this study highlights the roles of the contingent vertical and horizontal governmental relations in innovation diffusion. I extract two key properties: vertical mandatory intervention from the central government and horizontal political competition among peer governments. This research uses four models to develop a new typology of the inter-regional diffusion of policy innovation in China: (1) the enlightenment model, (2) the championship model, (3) the designation model, and (4) the recognition model. A comparative case study is conducted in this research, with four policy cases showing that China has developed diversified mechanisms to encourage local governments to perform policy innovation and inter-regional diffusion.     

The Prefect and State Reform

The article intends to explain why although tremendous changes have occurred in the structure of government – especially the laws organizing decentralization since 1982 – the institution of the Prefect is still alive in the year 2000. Created in 1800, the institution of the Prefect derives from the will of the central authority to rely on its own representatives to ensure that public policies will be equally implemented over the whole territory. This objective remains but it has to be combined with the objectives of decentralization which are to transfer a number of responsibilities to elected bodies. Consequently, the task of the Prefect is to co-ordinate locally the action of the representatives of the ministers with the action of the elected body. To study the conditions under which the institution carries out this task the article focuses primarily on the limited capacity of the Prefect to mobilize the relevant actors. The second point concerns the difficulty of bringing together the information produced by field services. The third point considers the valuation of proximity and its impact on the action of the Prefect. The article concludes that the function of the Prefect is still the framing of local action but within the new context this can be done more often through the diffusion of information and less often through authority.     

HOW POLICY NETWORKS CAN DAMAGE DEMOCRATIC HEALTH: A CASE STUDY IN THE GOVERNMENT OF GOVERNANCE

This article examines a detailed case study of implementation networks in England using the example of the relocation of the Norfolk and Norwich hospital, which became a flagship PFI project for the Labour government after 1997. The case study illustrates the workings of the new order of multi‐layered governance with both local and national networks from different policy areas interacting. However, it also sheds light on the governance debate and illustrates how in the world of new public management, powerful actors, or policy entrepreneurs, with their own agenda, still have the facility, by exercising power and authority, to shape and determine the policy outputs through implementation networks. It is argued that, whereas policy networks are normally portrayed as enriching and promoting pluralist democratic processes, implementation networks in multi‐layered government can also undermine democratic accountability. Four aspects here are pertinent: (1) the degree of central government power; (2) local elite domination; (3) the fragmentation of responsibility; and (4) the dynamics of decision making which facilitates the work of policy entrepreneurs. All these factors illustrate the importance of ‘the government of governance’ in the British state.     

Financing the decentralization of urban services in developing countries: Administrative requirements for fiscal improvements

Rapid urbanization in developing countries is placing increasing strains on the financial capacity of governments to provide the urban services and infrastructure that will be needed to promote sustainable economic growth. The growing complexity of urban systems in developing countries and the financial constraints on central government agencies are pressuring governments to decentralize a wider range of responsibilities for financing and providing public services in urban areas. Experiments with five approaches to local finance in many developing countries have focused more on revenue generation than on strengthening the administrative capacity of local governments to manage new responsibilities. The success of decentralization and of local revenue generation in the future, however, will depend on strengthening the ability of local governments to manage revenues and expenditures more efficiently and to maintain urban services more effectively. Dennis A. Rondinelli is senior policy analyst and principal scientist in the Office for International Programs at the Research Triangle Institute, PO Box 12194, Research Triangle Park NC 27709. Dr. Rondinelli has served as an advisor to governments in developing countries and international assistance organizations on public administration, municipal management and urban development policy, subjects on which he has published ten books and more than one-hundred articles. His most recent books includePlanning Education Reforms in Developing Countries (Duke University Press),Urban Services in Developing Countries, (Macmillan), andDevelopment Administration and U.S. Foreign Aid Policy (Lynn Rienner).     

RESTRUCTURING GOVERNMENT NEW ZEALAND STYLE

The fourth Labour government (1984–90) has carried out a radical restructuring of executive government comparable to corresonding reforms in Britain. The changes described have been carried out in government Bepartments, state-owned enterprises, the civil service, minister/civil servant relationships, regional and local overnment, and in the organization of the health and education services. The reforms folfow a consistent blueprint based on ideas of economists andublic choice theorists, especially those relating to agency theory and transaction costs. The themes of the New Zealand blueprint are 'decoupling' policy from service delivery, a PrinapaVagent model of managerial decentralization, new financial accounting systems, contracting for service provision and monitoring managerial performance. In implementation, where there are elected authorities but government is the main funding agent, there is uncertainty about the degree of discretion and appropriate accountabilities. Implementation has also illustrated the problems of defining desired outputs and outcomes and in malung them useable by professional workers and elected representatives.     

PUBLIC SECTOR PAY BARGAINING: COMPARABILITY, DECENTRALIZATION AND CONTROL

Public sector pay, as a key component of public expenditure, has been a major issue for government since the mid-1970s. This article analyses public services pay bargaining since 1979 and examines the continuing tension between the control of public sector pay levels on the one hand and the wish to make pay levels more responsive to external market forces on the other.
The article concentrates on the changes in pay bargaining in the public services. It does not purport to provide a detailed economic analysis of the outcomes of the various phases in public sector pay policy, but does attempt to explain the process implications of the political contingencies and rationale driving government policy on pay determination. In particular it notes the resilience of national pay-setting arrangements and pay comparability throughout most of the period under review, despite the political rhetoric, emphasizing the pragmatism of government policy. The latter section of the article reviews the current policy, with its emphasis on decentralized pay determination, and considers these new developments within the context of private sector collective bargaining theory.
The evidence from the private sector suggests that pay determination in the private sector is complex and that levels of bargaining relate to various factors. Decentralization is neither a panacea for poor performance nor necessarily problem free. Devolved pay determination can lead to problems of control over costs and, in the context of high levels of trade union organization, to pay'leapfrogging'. The article concludes that there is a continuing contradiction between the role of the government as an employer, keen to devolve pay decisions to local level, and that of economic regulator with responsibility for the wider economy. This continuing tension indicates that decentralized pay bargaining in the public sector will be limited in its scope by some form of central government control.     

Subnational Lobbying and Structural Funds: A French–Scottish Comparison

This article examines subnational actors’ engagement with the European Union's structural funds, and whether these actors are significant in this policy sector. It examines this question by comparing one French regional council with one set of Scottish local authorities. It concludes that there are considerable similarities between the subnational actors studied, in spite of differences in their location and the constitutional structure within which they are located. The subnational actors have unilaterally developed a capacity for engaging in the policy sector. In both cases, however, this engagement is not evidence of a ‘by-passing’ of the central government. Instead, the subnational authorities have worked alongside central government departments to achieve their goals.     

Local Government Policy Diffusion in a Decentralised System: Childbirth Support Policy in South Korea

South Korean local governments have recently adopted pronatalist policies to cope with the pressing problem of low and declining fertility, despite this central coordination by the national government has been limited in this policy domain. This study attempts to explain the process by which childbirth support policies have spread among localities over time by addressing two questions: whether interjurisdictional and internal factors of policy diffusion have been at work; and how vertical and horizontal diffusion mechanisms have interactively affected local policy adoptions in the developing country. Empirical findings show that horizontal and vertical mechanisms of diffusion considerably outperform intrajurisdictional factors in spreading childbirth support policies among localities. Furthermore, the vertical influence from the central government has a positive conditional effect that stimulates horizontal interactions among local governments for policy formulation. These findings thus suggest that horizontal interactions among localities can provide an important route for the nationalisation of a domestic social policy in the nascent decentralised system.