Why Some Cities Provide More Public Goods than Others: A Subnational Comparison of the Provision of Public Goods in German Cities in 1912

What determines a government’s level of public goods provision? Most scholarship tends to focus on the “demand side” of public goods provision, highlighting how varying patterns of social preferences shape the provision of public goods. In an analysis of municipal hospitals and infant health clinics in Germany’s 84 largest cities in 1912, this article uses an original dataset to test a variety of hypotheses to introduce an alternative logic centered around the institutional capability of local governments. The findings suggest a supply-side theory of public goods provision in which the fiscal resources of cities and the professionalism of local government officials are important determinants of the level of public goods. The implications of these findings are two-fold: first, in federal political systems, highly capable local governments—with resources, expertise and professionalism—might represent a “decentralized” or “bottom-up” path for achieving higher overall levels of state infrastructural power in a political system. Second, public health threats might serve as a crucial trigger for the development of local capacity and hence state infrastructural power more broadly.     

State Infrastructural Power: Approaches to Conceptualization and Measurement

Michael Mann’s infrastructural power is a concept often applied but rarely rigorously conceptualized and precisely measured. Three distinct analytical lenses of infrastructural power can be derived from his definitions: infrastructural power as the capabilities of the central state, as the territorial reach of the state, and as the effects of the state on society. Exemplary texts applying each of these approaches are used to demonstrate their connection to Mann’s ideas, the relationships between these dimensions, and the boundaries between this and other aspects of the state’s strength. Moving from conceptualization to measurement, the paper shows the costs of common errors in the measurement of infrastructural power, and develops guidelines for its proper empirical application.     

Containing Conflict or Instigating Unrest? A Test of the Effects of State Infrastructural Power on Civil Violence

Several scholars argue that state infrastructural power affects the likelihood of civil violence yet make competing claims. Some propose that states with high levels of infrastructural power instigate violence by reducing local autonomy, while others suggest infrastructural power endows states with the capacity to contain civil violence. We test these claims using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Through a pooled time-series analysis of 32 former British colonies, we find that infrastructural power is not significantly related to civil violence, suggesting either that infrastructural power has no effect or no net effect. Then, through case studies of Burma and Botswana, we investigate the impact of infrastructural power on civil violence, focusing on mechanisms and causal conditions. The case studies provide evidence that infrastructural power produces competing mechanisms that negate any net effect and that different conditions and policies affect whether a state’s level of infrastructural power contains conflict or instigates unrest.     

The state and economic development

In this article it is argued that one must distinguish between the arbitrary, short-run power of the state and the long-run, infrastructural power of the state. Game theory concepts are used to illustrate these ideas and successful development is linked to the infrastructural power of the state. The evolution of the latter is related to culture/ideology and this is given operational meeting within the context of simple game theory. The historical experience of Japan is utilized to illustrate these ideas. Dr. Richard Grabowski is a professor of economics at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. His research interests include the role of the developmental state in economic development. His work has appeared inWorld Development, Journal of Developing Areas, Economic Development and Cultural Change.     

The tension between despotic and infrastructural power: The military and the political class in Nigeria, 1985–1993

In his extended study,The Sources of Social Power, Michael Mann suggests a distinction between despotic and infrastuctural power. Despotic power refers to the repressive capacities of a state, while infrastructural power refers to its ability to penetrate society and actually implement its decisions. This article uses the example of relations between the military and politicians in Nigeria from 1985 to 1993 to argue that weak states experience a conflict between despotic and infrastructural power. Whereas leaders cultivate alliances with powerful social groups to realize their infrastructural power, the exercise of despotic power can undermine such patterns of collaboration. In Nigeria, the military relied on a number of despotic strategies to extend their control over the political class as part of a promised transition to democracy: a large number of politicians were banned, two government created political parties were imposed, and elections that yielded outcomes threatening to military interests were annulled. While the military was successful in repressing the politicians, they were unable to restructure them in ways that would further the institutional power of the state. This persistent reliance on despotic strategies led to a long-term decline in the integrity and infrastructural capacity of the state. John Lucas is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Bucknell University. John Peeler and Mark Jendrysik provided helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. Nigerian Periodicals Cited Sentinel Newswatch Citizen     

Population,economy and society in West Bengal since the 1970s

West Bengal, a major state of eastern India, is conspicuous not only for being ruled by an elected Leftist coalition since 1977 (often described as sound ‘political stability’), but also for its widely acknowledged successes in fertility transition, execution of redistributive land reform and political decentralisation programmes. Ironically, however, the state, in almost all comparative assessments of social, human and infrastructural developments occupies a lagged position vis-à-vis many other states, especially in the south and even against all-India records. This paper seeks to examine this paradox by comprehensively evaluating West Bengal's relative performance in demographic and socio-economic transformations. A well-disciplined grassroots political mobilisation network, and the machinery of the Left Front parties, have been highly instrumental for comparatively fast declines of fertility and population growth and for lasting political stability in an otherwise ‘laggard’ development regime. However, a government geared to ensuring mass electoral support overwhelmingly via a grassroots mobilisation network but, with a relative neglect of social movements, economic infrastructure and human development, is likely to suffer adverse consequences in the longer term.     

Weep for the One Who Descends? African Democracies,Politics of Stomach Infrastructure,and Homology of Corruption

This article discusses contemporary African democratic practices vis-à-vis politics of stomach infrastructure that debilitates sustainable infrastructural development in the region. In this article, clarifications are articulated within four interlinked phenomena: the enthusiasm for democracy, its collapse, and the resurgence of hybrid-democratic order that metamorphosed into politics of stomach infrastructure that facilitates corruption in African postcolonial state. It unravels the existing democratic prototype against ideal democratic order. The article considered the prevailing democratic inclination moseyed through citizens and political elite’s armistice that presage democratic peril. The article argued that unscrupulous political collaboration and democratic debauchery that exist between the political elites and the electorates craft an opportunity for institutionalized corruption in the region. Finally, the article found homogenous paradigms of corruption in the selected African states, including South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nigeria.     

State Infrastructural Power and Nationalism: Comparative Lessons from Mexico and Argentina

This article focuses on the nexus between state infrastructural power and legitimacy. A comparative case study of nationalism in mid-twentieth-century Mexico and Argentina provides the basis for theorizing the impact of state infrastructural power on transformations of official understandings of nationhood. Both countries experienced a transition from liberal to popular nationalism. The extent to which popular nationalism became a regular product of state organizations varied between the two cases, depending on the timing of state development. The temporal congruence between the expansion of state infrastructural power and ideological change, as exemplified by Mexico under Cárdenas, facilitated the full institutionalization of the new official ideology, whereas a disjuncture between state development and ideological change, as exemplified by Argentina under Perón, inhibited such a comprehensive transformation of nationalism.     

At the limits of spatial governmentality: A message from the tip of Africa

Urban studies scholars drawing on Foucault's analysis of governmentality have investigated how urban social orders are increasingly more concerned with the management of space rather than on the discipline of offenders or the punishment of offences (Merry, 2001). This paper examines the 'rationality' and efficacy of spatial governmentality in post-apartheid Cape Town, and shows how the city has increasingly become a 'fortress city' (Davis, 1990), much like cities such as Los Angeles, Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. These 'global cities' are increasingly characterised by privatised security systems in middle class suburbs, shopping malls and gated communities (Caldeira, 1999). These spatial forms of governmentality draw on sophisticated security systems comprising razor wire and electrified walls, burglar alarms and safe rooms, as well as vicious guard dogs, neighbourhood watches, private security companies, and automated surveillance cameras. On the other side of the race and class divide are urban ghettoes characterised by growing poverty and everyday violence. These socio-spatial inequalities continue to be reproduced despite urban planning initiatives aimed at desegregating the apartheid city. Although the media and the middle classes highlight the dangers of crime and violence, they tend to ignore the structures of inequality that fuel the growth of crime syndicates and violent drug economies that are reproducing these urban governance crises. Given the diminished resources of the neo-liberal state, the policing of middle class residential and business districts is increasingly being 'outsourced' to private security companies. In working class neighbourhoods of Cape Town such as Manenberg, the state has attempted to re-establish governance by resorting to new forms of spatial governmentality. The paper draws attention to the limits of these attempts to assert state control through the management of space. Spatial governance in places like Manenberg will continue to be relatively ineffectual given existing levels of social inequality and racial polarization. Such processes are reproduced by massive unemployment and racialised poverty resulting from socio-spatial legacies of apartheid and Cape Town's shift from a manufacturing to a tourist, IT and financial services economy. Although this paper focuses on attempts at re-establishing governance in a crime and gangster-ridden working class neighbourhood of Cape Town, it addresses these issues in relation to city-wide shifts to new forms of spatial governmentality after apartheid.     

Local governance under the Conservatives: super-austerity,devolution and the ‘smarter state’

Through their ambitious devolution programme, the Conservatives show a new assertiveness in relation to restructuring the local state, in contrast to the laissez-faire approach of the previous Coalition government. Although the Coalition piloted devolution, its signature policies of ‘localism’ and the ‘Big Society’ focused on non-state actors, providing rights and opportunities for communities to challenge local government and establish their own services. The Conservatives are promoting devolution as a strategy to stimulate economic growth based on greater sub-regional autonomy and increased competitiveness across and between English localities. ‘Combined authorities’ have the opportunity to champion local identities and acquire new economic development powers from Whitehall. But devolution could be a strategy to decentralise austerity, shifting responsibility to the local level for deeper cuts (56% by 2020) and inevitable service reductions. Local government confronts ‘super-austerity’, where new cuts come on top of previous ones, compounding original impacts and creating dangerous (and unevenly spread) multiplier effects. The Conservatives’ ‘smarter state’ policies, aimed at delivering ‘more for less’, amount to little more than a recycling of new public management diktats. The emerging patchwork of ‘devolution deals’ challenges the redistributive assumptions of the grant regime and could leave disadvantaged areas at particular risk of failure. ‘Metro mayors’ are intended to provide visible and accountable leadership; but roles for locally elected councillors, and prospects for community and citizen engagement, remain unclear. The public has yet to be adequately engaged in what is in danger of becoming a technocratic transfer of power.     

Identifying Spatial Efficiency–Equity Trade-offs in Territorial Development Policies: Evidence from Uganda

Abstract

We contribute to the debate on the spatial allocation of infrastructure investments by examining where these investments generate the highest economic return (‘spatial efficiency’), and identifying trade-offs when infrastructure coverage is made more equitable across regions (‘spatial equity’). We estimate models of firm location choice in Uganda, drawing on insights from the new economic geography literature. The main findings show that manufacturing firms gain from being in areas that offer a diverse mix of economic activities. Public infrastructure investments in other locations are likely to attract fewer private investors, and will pose a spatial efficiency–equity trade-off.     

State Failure,Polarisation, and Minority Engagement in Germany’s Refugee Crisis

Talk about a ‘refugee crisis’ dominated Germany’s political discourse in 2015/2016. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of foreigners desiring protection shaped public and private debates. However, rather than taking the term refugee crisis for granted, this article suggests that critical experiences in Germany, and responses to them, were shaped by the failure of state institutions. In the same year, as further austerity measures were imposed on Greece, German citizens questioned the state of their own public infrastructure. Following privatisation and cuts to social services, national, regional, and local authorities lacked the capacity to respond adequately to newcomers’ needs. The sight of failing state institutions contributed to a sense of crisis. Simultaneously, however, the apparent state incapacity—particularly also in Berlin, the focus of this article—opened up spaces for emergent civil society actors, including minority groups. Muslims organised in associations could perform relevance as reliable citizens and raise their public profile. Different groups also put forward alternative visions of society. At the same time, government support for asylum seekers and the greater visibility of actors in a pluralist society pushed some conservatives towards a new far-right force: the Alternative for Germany party (AfD). The gaps in public administration that were revealed in 2015/2016 resulted in social polarisation left and right of centrist politics: nationalist conservatives rejected an increasingly multicultural country and found a new political home in the AfD, whereas left wingers and minority groups challenged austerity and claimed greater political representation for their views.     

Light,dark and the powers that be: a hydroelectric project in Butembo

Despite its major importance in international trade, the city of Butembo in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo is deprived of such basic urban infrastructure as electricity. Private and public actors have attempted to bring power to the city, but their efforts have remained fruitless. Analysis of these failed projects to electrify the city offers a glimpse of local power relations. Why, rather than cooperating, do various local power holders counteract each other? Will gaining credit for bringing electric power to the city in turn yield political power over its future? With a special focus on a hydroelectric dam that was built but never functioned, this article sheds light on the way in which the citizens of Butembo relate to different bodies of authority. I argue that the hydroelectric dam gradually became a tool in a larger political strategy.     

A Power Horizontal. The Public–Private Enforcement of Judicial Decisions in Russia

Based on fieldwork done in Ekaterinburg, this article deals with the enforcement of legal decisions about economic disputes in the late 2000s in Russia. As state employees, bailiffs are responsible for the implementation of court decisions but their efficiency depends on the cases they deal with. In the most successful cases, they are backed by private enforcers, hired by the claimant and often coming from the law enforcement agencies. This common work reflects an informal public–private partnership from below in which bailiffs and private enforcers co-execute judicial decisions. Such autonomous public–private power configurations at local level challenge the governmental claim to build a ‘power vertical’ in Russia from the top.     

Measuring Governance in Urban Innovation

Abstract

The international political science literature is ambiguous on the point if the involvement of a plurality of external actors (citizens, economic and social groups, NGOs and CSOs, Universities and experts, different public authorities at the same or at different territorial level, etc.) in governance processes is an end in itself (because it increases democracy) or it is useful in order to achieve better results in the production of public goods.

This article espouses the latter hypothesis and tries to understand if a governance perspective brings about a higher level of innovation in metropolitan areas. In order to test this hypothesis, two metrics are designed: ? In measuring innovation, the ideas are that there are four dimensions in urban innovation (agenda innovation, process innovation, product innovation and innovative communication) and that a metropolitan city has to score high in most of them in order to be considered really innovative.

? As far as governance is concerned, the analytical proposal is that the ideal governance network is at the same time complex (bringing together actors from different territorial levels and from different societal and institutional domains), dense (favouring direct interaction between the actors) and ‘focused’ (showing one or few actors able to act as focal points of the network).

Drawing from a research done in four Italian cities (Turin, Milan, Florence and Naples) through the reconstruction of 120 urban innovation processes, the article illustrates the analytical steps taken and the conclusions that can be reached.     

EMBRYONIC ASSOCIATIONALISM: NEW LABOUR AND URBAN GOVERNANCE

This article considers the role of ideas in New Labour’s approach to the governance of urban regeneration and characterizes this approach as ‘embryonic associationalism’. This approach contrasts with the economic rationalism of previous Conservative governments and leads to a more determined effort to empower local community groups within the policy process. We analyse the effects of this shift in approach in practice through a comparative case study of changing patterns of governance in different areas of the English city of Sheffield over a ten‐year period. We conclude that while other factors are important in shaping the nature of community empowerment, New Labour’s approach has promoted a political environment in which it is increasingly difficult for local state actors to ignore the voice of local communities. However, while we refer to this as ‘New Labour’s approach’, we are clear that this relates to a tradition of ideas that is far from new in Labour thought.     

Regenerating the City: People,Politics, Power and the Public Sphere

Abstract

The transformative potential that has come to be associated with networking in all areas of social, economic and political life, not least initiatives designed to tackle urban deprivation, is premised upon the idea that better outcomes prevail when state, market and civil society actors work together in partnership to agree and implement change. Such a perspective is informed by two underlying and related assumptions; first, an understanding of democracy as being essentially deliberative in nature; second, an understanding of social and political change as being essentially consensus based. An agonistic model and alternative explanation questioning these assumptions and the ‘transformative’ claims made on behalf of partnership is presented in this article. In contrast to what is termed a ‘neo-liberal orthodox’ approach an alternative interpretation of regeneration located within a radical conceptualisation of civil society is proposed. Regeneration, it is argued, is better conceptualised in terms of contestation between state, market and third-sector interests with better outcomes for communities prevailing when third-sector actors develop the legitimacy and power to engage politically within the context of a contested public sphere.     

Distributive Politics and Regional Development: Assessing the Territorial Distribution of Turkey’s Public Investment

Turkey is often perceived as a country with low bureaucratic capacity and prone to political manipulation and ‘pork-barrel’. This article tests whether this is the case, by analysing the extent to which politics, rather than equity and efficiency criteria, have determined the geographical allocation of public investment across the 81 provinces of Turkey between 2005 and 2012. The results show that although the Turkish government has indeed channelled public expenditures to reward its core constituencies, socioeconomic factors remained the most relevant predictors of investment. Moreover, in contrast to official regional development policy principles, we uncover the concentration of public investment in areas with comparatively higher levels of development. We interpret this as the state bureaucracy’s intentional strategy of focussing on efficiency by concentrating resources on ‘the better off among the most in need’.     

An Unusual Economic Arrangement: The Brazilian Economy during the First Lula Administration, 2003–2006

This paper describes the economic policy and economic performance of Brazil during the first Lula administration, in 2003–2006. I show that in his first term as president Lula chose fast disinflation as one of the main priority of its economic policy. This choice required the adoption of high real interest rates, which also demanded an increase in the government’s primary surplus to keep the country’s public debt under control. Consequently, as I strive to demonstrate, investment in social safety net (the administration’s other main priority) was financed not only by the increase in tax revenues but also by a reduction in the government’s expenditure on both wages and benefits of public employees and in public investments in infrastructure. A combination of, on the one hand, a favorable global environment and, on the other, successful economic policies resulted in a significant improvement in the Brazilian macroeconomic performance. This in turn contributed a great deal to a reduction in both income inequality and poverty rates. I conclude by unveiling what I view as a quite unusual economic arrangement: president Lula’s economic choices over the 2003–2006 period ended up benefiting most the extremely rich (through high real interest rates) and the very poor (through the increase in income transfers).     

Local Government Support for Women in the Informal Economy in Durban, South Africa

This paper examines the response of the city government of Durban to the growth of the informal economy. It argues that, unlike the national government of South Africa, Durban's government has been creative in designing policies that favor informal economy workers, particularly women. These progressive policies are the result of an innovative local government and, to some extent, an emerging self-employed women worker's union that has been able to exert influence on informal economy policies.