What’s in a Name? Assessing the Performance of Local Government Classification Systems

Local government classification systems are employed in many countries for regulation, grant transfers and other public policy purposes. Given the pivotal role these classification systems play in public policy, their accuracy is a matter of some importance. Classification systems take several forms typically consisting of groupings of municipalities based on factors such as degree of urbanisation, population size and the like. However, to date none of these classification systems have been tested for homogeneity with respect to environmental constraints or validated against external data. This paper employs the classification system for New South Wales (NSW) local authorities as a representative case study to demonstrate that a wider range of external constraints should be considered for the robust classification of local councils.     

What are the Local Political Costs of Centrally Determined Reforms of Local Government?

Taking advantage of a quasi-experimental setting and drawing upon analysis of electoral results and a survey of voters, this article explores the political costs of reform through the example of the 2009 local elections in Denmark. The article finds that the local parties of mayors were punished at the polls for implementing municipal amalgamations decided by the central government. However, the effect on the mayoral parties’ electoral result is more indirect than direct. Analyses of the electoral results demonstrates that the political parties holding the mayoralty in times of amalgamations tend to nominate very tenured mayors as candidates, thereby missing the positive first-term incumbency effect, which a new mayor could have acquired. And analyses of a survey of voters demonstrates higher levels of dissatisfaction with the municipal service in amalgamated municipalities, leading to a higher cost of ruling for mayoral parties which have led the implementation of an amalgamation.     

What is the opposite of corruption?

Corruption has turned out to be difficult to define and what should be counted as the opposite to corruption remains widely disputed. If the goal for a post-conflict society is not only to become democratic and prevent a return to violence but also to reduce systemic corruption, we need to know what it is that should be fought and how the opposite to systemic corruption should be conceptualised. To define the opposite to corruption, choices have to be made along four conceptual dimensions. These are universalism vs relativism, uni- vs multidimensionality, normative vs empirical and whether the definition should relate to political procedures or policy substance. As a result of this conceptual analysis, it is argued, a universal, one-dimensional, normative and procedural definition should be preferred. The suggested definition is that of impartiality as the basic norm for the implementation of laws and policies. This conceptual analysis ends with a discussion of why such a norm has historically and in the contemporary world been hard to achieve and why it is especially problematic in post-conflict societies.     

What is a region? Towards a statehood theory of regions

This article presents the outline of a statehood theory of regions with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of what regions are, how they function and how they emerge. First, a definition of region is introduced that starts from the use of the concept of region in everyday language. It is argued that ‘region’ is a discursive tool used to refer to governance units that are not states but have some statehood properties. Second, a comparative framework is developed that allows to present theories of regions in a systematic way. Third, this framework is used to outline a general theory of regions at the supra-national, sub-national or cross-border level. This theory can be labelled as a ‘statehood theory of regions’ as it underlines the statehood properties of regions as well as the complex relationships between states and regions. According to this theory, regions are in a double relation to states: they are to some extent supportive to the state(s) that created them, and they have a tendency to gain autonomy from their creators. The whole paper can also be regarded as an exercise in interdisciplinarity as it brings in perspectives from psychology and personality theory in order to transpose the Hobbesian metaphor of states acting as persons to the understanding of regions.     

What about Financial Sustainability of Local Government!—A Critical Review of Accountability,Transparency, and Public Assurance Arrangements in England during Austerity

Austerity strained the financial sustainability of governments and ability of policy-makers to address policy challenges, and so having appropriate accountability and transparency arrangements to assure the public they were getting value for money took on renewed urgency. Comparing and contrasting findings from a critical review of policy developments in English Local Government during the Conservative led coalition central government 2010–2015 with those from related studies on accountability and transparency more generally, the article offers key themes for practitioners and policy-makers seeking to build stronger democratic systems of governance that go well beyond the UK jurisdiction.     

Accountability by Professionalism or Managerialism? Exploring Attitudes Among Swedish and Norwegian Local Government Leaders

Most developed countries continue to experience problems with malfeasance and corruption, making accountability a fundamental concern of the public government. Still, the mechanisms which ensure accountability are not given. This article explores two different and apparently conflicting principles of accountability in public organizations: “Professionalism” based on values and internalized incentive structures and “Managerialism” based on externalized incentives and hierarchy. The empirical analysis is based on a comparative survey among local government leaders in Sweden and Norway. The analysis shows that both professionalism and managerialism are regarded as important means for accountability and tend to be understood as complementary more than competing principles.     

What Encourages Cities to Become Sustainable? Measuring the Effectiveness of Implementing Local Adaptation Policies

This research seeks to understand which essential characteristics are necessary to drive municipal governments to adopt smart growth measures. By testing previously expected outcomes for why a local government would adopt a particular policy, we find an inherent need to create strong needs-based policies promoted by interest groups. We conducted a principal component analysis and a linear regression model to test several hypotheses. A discussion of this analysis is provided along with policy recommendations to explain why and when metropolitan areas use sustainability plans and how to encourage more to do so.     

What is performance measurement for? Multiple uses of performance information within organizations

Recent research in performance measurement has focused on the tension between two uses of performance information: ‘passive’, to ensure compliance, and ‘purposeful’, to improve services. This article presents an in-depth study of two public sector organizations in England and shows that the main tension may actually lie between a combined purposeful and passive use, and an exclusively passive one. This tension was most pronounced between organizational levels, where a combined use was dominant among senior managers, and an exclusively passive one was prevalent among middle managers and frontline staff. This split was not intentional—instead, it reflected how people interpreted the role of performance measurement, suggesting that simply promoting greater use of information may not be sufficient for linking measurement with service improvement. This study extends the theoretical understanding of the dynamics of performance information use in organizations and generates implications for using performance measurement to improve service delivery.