Local government reforms: between multifunction and single-purpose organisations

The paper argues that, in ‘revisiting’ the referred-to article published back in 2004, the concept then guiding the analysis would need to be modified particularly on three scores. For one, in order to achieve a more adequate comparison the country selection should be expanded beyond the earlier sample (UK, France, Germany and Sweden) to also capture Southern and Central Eastern European countries. Second, the ‘developmental’ (‘over time’) analysis of the pertinent institutional changes should be further accentuated and complemented by proceeding ‘by (developmental)stages’ instead of ‘country by country’. Third, while still deeming the distinction between ‘multifunction’ and ‘single-purpose’ organisations fruitful to guide a ‘government versus governance’ analysis and interpretation, the distinction between ‘political rationality’ and ‘economic rationality’ should be added with the former (ideal-typically) identified with elected (local) government and the latter seen characteristic of many of the actors in the governance-typical actor networks.     

Bridging the accountability and transparency gap in inter-municipal collaboration

Municipal governments are increasingly showing interest in inter-municipal cooperation. Often overlooked in the discussion of such collaborative relationships are concerns related to accountability and transparency. In this article, we introduce a framework to measure accountability and transparency in inter-local relationships and test it with a brief case study of inter-municipal cooperative agreements collected from the Greater Toronto Area. Overall, the agreements collected score very low on our accountability scale, mainly because of low levels of public access and poor internal accountability. We conclude the study by examining the challenges of having multiple lines of accountability in local service collaboration.     

Local government and the arts revisited

This article discusses policy developments in the arts and local government since the publication of the original article on this topic. It assesses the continued relevance of the thinking behind policy attachment in the original article for understanding and explaining policy in this sector, and indicates the direction in which the concept of policy attachment could be developed in both analytical and empirical ways.     

Bridging the donor-decentralization gap: Rethinking incentives and institutional impacts in control-oriented bureaucracies

Some important studies suggest that the organizational imperatives of donor agencies explain the tendency of foreign aid to reinforce institutional centralization rather than to support the development of decentralized institutions in recipient countries. This article shows that certain design features of two decentralized USAID projects completed in Peru during the 1980s facilitated achieving donor objectives, decentralized institutional development, and national-level reforms favoring decentralization. Analysis of this experience reveals that these design features reduced the costs and increased the benefits of decentralized implementation for the donor, while allowing synergies between implementation and institution building to be exploited. Indeed, in the context of Peru’s highly centralized, control-oriented public sector, bypass mechanisms traditionally used by donors to expedite implementation and insulate projects from uncertainty also generally enhanced the development of decentralized institutions. The lessons distilled in this case study have broad relevance since the sorts of administrative obstacles encountered by USAID in Peru—excessive centralization, disbursement bottlenecks, and onerous bureaucratic controls—are all too frequently found in other developing countries. Gregory D. Schmidt is an associate professor of political science at Northern Illinois University and an associate ofSeguimiento, Análisis y Evaluación Para el Desarrollo (SASE), a Peruvian nongovernmental organization specializing in grassroots development. He is the author of a book and various journal articles on development issues, and of a forthcoming book on the 1990 Peruvian presidential election.     

Local government fiscal reform: principles and options for the future

U.S. local governments in the 1980s were under increasing fiscal stress. The fiscal outlook is not particularly bright because of projected rapid growth of certain expenditures and the slow growth of most local revenue sources. Potentially major changes in fiscal responsibilities at the federal and state levels may call for local government fiscal reform in the future. This article uses a case study of Broome County, New York, to illustrate the difficulties local governments face and then suggests a series of revenue reforms that can enhance equity, efficiency, revenue productivity, and administrative simplicity.     

The view from below: Local government and Putin's reforms

Local government reforms in contemporary Russia are placed in the broader contexts of political reform under Putin and the historical relationship between local administration and the state. Reforms of local government thus help illuminate the architecture of contemporary state building in Russia and the degree to which contemporary Russia perpetuates political traditions. This study reviews the antecedent action in local government prior to the Putin era. It then examines the Kozak Commission and the new law on local government, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of these reforms. Finally, this study examines the challenges of implementing the reforms and what these challenges tell us about devolution and centralisation under Putin.     

Bridging the gap: An attempt to reconcile strategic planning and very local community-based planning in rural England

This paper reviews briefly the emergence of holistic governance at the strategic and very local levels in rural England before reporting a programme of action research designed to address the need to develop an effective ‘bridge’ between planning activity at those two levels. Attention is focused particularly upon the recent wave of parish and market town plans on the one hand and local strategic partnerships and community strategies on the other. Taking cognisance of relevant contextual literature relating to representative and participative democracy and to top-down and bottom-up planning, it draws conclusions about the challenge of developing a synergistic relationship between strategic and very local planning and about the prospects for reconciling some of the tensions pointed up in those theoretical debates.     

The role of government in economic development: the chinese experience

This study examines the role of government in China's economic reform and development years. The study first provides a literature review about major functions government played in the modern economic system and the importance of government policies to economic development. It then evaluates the experience of the Chinese government in the process of reform and development by focusing on five major roles: (a) promoter of growth, (b) manager of economy, (c) distributor of income, (d) regulator of industry, and (e) protector of citizen and business. The implications of the Chinese experience are discussed.     

Battling for the regions: Local government policy networks and the reform of the european structural funds

The recent reform of the European Structural Funds led to a wide‐ranging set of lobbying activities on the part of UK regions which felt their previous allocations were likely to be threatened. Much of this activity took place through existing networks or alliances of networks at a national and transnational level. This paper examines the issues at stake in the reforms, the attitudes of the networks to those issues and the need for networks to have a common focus, adequate resources and effective internal communication structures to be effective.     

The public costs of private blessings: Fundamentals of the economic role of government

The main thrust of this overview is to demonstrate how the shift of government authority over time—from a defense of the realm against foreign intruders to an adjudication of conflicting citizen claims—has created a new set of problems and challenges for the modern state in search of development. It is argued that the power of the state expands as traditional forms of economic rivalries and class claims weaken, and as recourse to legal decision-making becomes widely accepted by all social and economic sectors. Government has proven better able to satisfy existing claims than at initiating new forms of social relations. Experiences in a variety of economic structures thus argue for a continued interplay of public and private, federal and personal claims. Irving Louis Horowitz is Hannah Arendt Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Political Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08933. Among his major works on development theory and practice areThree Worlds of Development: The Theory and Practice of International Stratification (Oxford University Press, 1965, 1972), andBeyond Empire and Revolution: Militarization and Modernization in the Third World (Oxford University Press, 1982). He was founding editor ofStudies in Comparative International Development.     

Local government in post-communist poland: A study of federalism and executive authority in plock

This article examines the establishment of local government in post-communist Poland. Its purpose is to examine the realignment of central state and local government authority established through the Polish National Assembly's (Sejm) 1990 reforms and to provide an assessment of developing local government autonomy and executive authority in the new city government structure.

The conceptual framework is comparative, using an American perspective to examine issues of local government autonomy and executive authority.     

The role of local government in rural communities: culture-based development strategies

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses local development and various governance strategies that local governments can use to engage actors in rural communities and resources from a broader environment to achieve desired socio-economic outcomes. We ask: How can local governance vary in rural communities? How can governance arrangements lead to contrasting socio-economic outcomes? Our conceptual framework combines a typology of local governance roles with socio-economic outcomes associated with neo-endogenous development theory. We explore culture-based development projects from three rural communities. We find that local governance strategies vary between relatively similar rural communities and that they represent compromises in terms of socio-economic outcomes. Local government in rural communities can act strategically through use of local networks. Local governance here is best understood as an emergent quality of the local context, history, institutions, culture, and, power relations. Therefore, governance strategies in rural contexts should be based on careful reflection on potential roles, trade-offs and desirable outcomes.