French local government reform and urban planning

Early Retirement, Ann E. McGoldrick and Cary L. Cooper, Gower, 1988, £30.00.

The Reform of Local Government Finance in Britain, edited by Stephen J. Bailey and Ronan Paddison, pp. 223, Routledge, 1988, £27.50 (hardback).

Britain's Industrial Renaissance: The Development, Manufacture and Use of Information Technology, edited by Philip Blackburn and Richard Sharpe, Comedia, pp. 180, Routledge, £7.95.

Local Business Taxes in Britain and Germany, edited by Robert J. Bennett and Günter Krebs, pp. 344, Nomos Verlags Gesellschaft, Baden‐Baden, 1988, 87.00 DM.

Marketing in Local Government, Kieron Walsh, Longman, 1989, pp. 128, £8.95 (paperback).

Remaking Planning, The Politics of Urban Change in the Thatcher Years, Tim Brindley, Yvonne Rydin and Gerry Stoker, Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp. 197, £25.00 (hardback), £8.95 (paperback).

Needs Assessment in Post‐16 Education, Tim Packwood and Tim Whitaker, The Falmer Press, 1988, Basingstoke, pp. 233, £18.95 (hardback), £9.95 (paperback).

The State and the City, Ted Robert Gurr and Desmond King, Macmillan, 1987, pp. 242, £30 (hardback), £8.95 (paperback).

Faith in the City and Local Politics, R. Farnell, General Synod Office of the Church of England, 1988, available from Church House Bookshop, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3NZ, £1.00 (by post £1.30).

Managing Fire Services (Second edition), R. J. Coleman and J. A. Granito (eds), International City Management Association, 1988, pp. 528, $38.95.

Area Initiatives Evaluation Handbook, prepared by PIEDA Consultants for the Industry Department for Scotland and Scottish Development Agency, IDS Economics and Statistics Research Paper 16, 1988, pp. 61 plus appendices, £5.00.

Local Labour‐Market Policies in Britain and Germany, Anglo‐German Foundation, 17 Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2LP 1988, pp. 134, £4.50 (paperback).

Land and Housing Policies in Europe and the USA: A Comparative Analysis, Graham Hallett (ed.), Routledge, 1988, pp. 215, £27.50 (hardback).

Town and Country Planning in Britain, J. B. Cullingworth, Unwin Hyman, 1988, pp. 408, Tenth edition, £10.95.

Basic Planning Law and Practice 1988, College of Law, 1988, pp. 127, £9.00.

Current Problems in Planning 1988, College of Law, 1988, pp. 94, £6.30.

Effective Planning Appeals, Hilaire McCoubrey, BSP Professional Books, 1988, pp. 147, £17.95 (hardback).

Reviews of United Kingdom Statistical Sources, Vol.XXIV: Local Government, J. M. Gillespie, Chapman &; Hall, 1988, pp. 342, £42.50 (hardback).

Performance Evaluation ‐ An Essential Management Tool, Christine Baker (Ed.), (ICMA), 1987, pp. 20, $21.00     

Management,markets and democracy: Australian local government reform in the 1990s

Australian local government has been subjected to extensive reform during the 1990s. This article considers the three main dimensions of the reforms — changes to management structures, the introduction of competition policy, and municipal consolidation. It reviews the evidence available about the nature of outcomes and examines the impact of the reforms on governance values. It is argued that, so far, economic considerations have been balanced by a commitment to community particpation. Recent political developments, however, may yet prove to be an emerging threat.     

The Salvadoran elections of 1982–1991

Criticisms of the elections of the Salvadoran transition of 1979–1992 assume an external staging capacity notoriously absent from processes of regime change. An analysis of possible causal determinants of voting turnout in the elections of 1982–1991 suggests a much more complex picture, characteristic of social processes shaped by multiple conjuctural causation. It is not the machinations of the Reagan administration and of the Salvadoran Right, but a complex interaction of legal requirements, contextual nuances, and factors related to party competition, that emerge as more relevant determinants of the nature and outcomes of those elections. Whatever “demonstrative effects” may be attributed to them, one cannot ignore their impact on a domestic audience of ordinary citizens and political leaders who eventually came to understand their, limitations as well as their ultimate efficacy. In 1971 ENRIQUE A. BALOYRA, received his Ph.D. at The University of Florida and joined the Department of Political Science at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he became full professor and director of the Institute of Latin American Studies. In 1985 he joined the Graduate School of International Studies of the University of Miami, serving as associate dean until 1991. His early work was on electoral participation and public opinion in Venezuela. In 1982 he publishedEl Salvador in Transition (The University of North Carolina Press) and followed this with a dozen articles and chapters on the dynamics of the Salvadoran civil war and regime transition. This fall, The University of New Mexico Press is publishingContradictions and Change in Cuba, an anthology which he co-edited and to which he contributed three chapters. His current project is a Boolean analysis of regime transitions.     

Problem of early elections and dissolution power in the Czech Republic

Theory of parliamentary regimes presumes that parliament can express vote of no confidence in government. On the other hand executive power (government or head of state) is endowed with right to dissolve the parliament. However, these “doomsday devices” are not in balance in many parliamentary regimes, including the Czech Republic. On the basis of a comparative analysis of dissolution provisions in the constitutions of European states the article argues that the government in the Czech Republic should be given the right to dissolve the lower chamber at least in case that the latter expresses vote of no confidence in the former.     

Europe and local government

The Care in the Community initiative has resulted in a renewed interest in collaboration between local and health authorities. The focus of such collaboration is commonly on the transfer of long‐stay patients from psychiatric and mental handicap hospitals that are due to close, though the extent of local authority involvement in closure programmes varies considerably.

Joint planning typically involves a number of local authority departments: social services, housing, chief executives’ offices and legal services. It sometimes also involves education, recreation and leisure departments. Joint planning can be very time‐consuming and can call for considerable effort. It frequently gives rise to a good deal of conflict between the participating agencies. The pay‐offs, on the other hand, often appear to be small. Such plans as are finally implemented tend to be small‐scale: attempts at broader strategic planning almost invariably come to grief. The question then has to be asked, whether joint planning is worth all the effort. In the end, the primary justification for such planning has to lie in its ability to produce more appropriate services for service‐users.

This paper examines one local authority's experience of joint planning in relation to the closure of a large psychiatric hospital. Despite several setbacks, joint plans were eventually agreed and a number of former long‐stay patients were able to move into the community. The paper considers both the achievements and the shortcomings of the authority's collaboration with the health service.     

Administrators and professionals in local government

This article evaluates the shift to an executive and scrutiny model in local government by assessing the changes at Devon County Council. Interviews were used to evaluate support for the changes and identify the key issues and problems. Most members had little enthusiasm for the reforms, support for the changes was dependent on the loyalty of Liberal Democrat backbenchers towards the leadership and central government's legislative agenda. The analysis revealed substantial problems with the operation of the reformed structure and suggested that the changes might fail to deliver the benefits expected by central government.     

Taiwanese campaigning and elections, 1991 an outsider’s view

Note from the Editor: From time to time, there are opportunities to report informally to readers of SCID on matters of interest that do not fall neatly into our usual categories of development theory, research, and policy. One such occasion presented itself recently when, participating with an international team, I observed the Taiwanese campaign and elections of December 1991. Subsequently, the team presented recommendations in both Taiwan and the United States, and in addition to the following article, a more orthodox academic publication is also being readied. What follows, however, is a personal, even idiosyncratic, commentary on a significant experience in political change and development.     

Professional leadership in local government

Local public service professionals are experts who temper their use of expertise with public service ethics. Public service ethics differ from the ethical codes of most professions in that they stress external accountability. Ethical codes of private sector professions create a sense of responsibility to the profession and help undergird professional autonomy. Public service ethics emphasize public responsibility and help create public accountability. City and county managers show how public service ethics can help make experts accountable to the public.