Local government and urban protest in Colombia

This article examines how urban conflict in Colombia is highlighting important features of local government in that country. Four interrelated questions are asked: (a) What is the role of local government in the provision of public goods and services in urban communities? (b) To what extent has local government been the target of urban community protest? (c) Has local government taken on a petitioner role by being a participant in urban community protest? (d) Does urban protest threaten the system of political domination of which local government is an integral part? The article points to certain key features of local government in Colombia that may be built upon in order to create a more progressive, democratic and community-based system of local government. There are, however, powerful political constraints on this occurring.     

Manufacturing Trust: Community Currencies and the Creation of Social Capital

In this study I examine whether an innovative government program in Ichikawa, Japan has been successful in increasing the level of generalized interpersonal trust in the community by rewarding civic participation by local citizens. Japan has sponsored the development of a number of “community currency” programs at the local level that are designed to create social capital. A community currency is a local “money” that is only useable within a neighborhood or town. In a typical community currency program, a town rewards civic volunteers with credits to barter with other citizens, use at participating stores, or pay for town services. These programs are specifically designed to stimulate generalized trust by rewarding civic engagement and encouraging social interaction. I evaluate whether the new Tekona community currency program in Ichikawa, Japan has been successful in raising levels of trust among participants, as compared to a randomly selected control group of town residents. I find that community currency involvement increases general trust, which demonstrates that it is possible to institute government programs that create social capital.

International Conflict and the Tenure of Leaders: Is War Still Ex Post Inefficient?

Recent work in comparative politics and international relations has shown a marked shift toward leaders as the theoretical unit of analysis. In most of the new theoretical models a core assumption is that leaders act to stay in power. There exists, however, remarkably little systematic empirical knowledge about the factors that affect the tenure of leaders. To provide a baseline of empirical results we explore how a broad range of domestic and international factors affects the tenure of leaders. We focus in particular on the effect of conflict and its outcome. We find that political institutions fundamentally mediate the costs and benefits of international conflict and that war is not necessarily ex post inefficient for leaders. This suggests that the assumption that war is ex post inefficient for unitary rational actors can not be simply extended to leaders. Therefore, a focus on leaders may yield important new rationalist explanations for war .     

Foreign Aid Shocks as a Cause of Violent Armed Conflict

In this study we resolve part of the confusion over how foreign aid affects armed conflict. We argue that aid shocks—severe decreases in aid revenues—inadvertently shift the domestic balance of power and potentially induce violence. During aid shocks, potential rebels gain bargaining strength vis‐à‐vis the government. To appease the rebels, the government must promise future resource transfers, but the government has no incentive to continue its promised transfers if the aid shock proves to be temporary. With the government unable to credibly commit to future resource transfers, violence breaks out. Using AidData's comprehensive dataset of bilateral and multilateral aid from 1981 to 2005, we evaluate the effects of foreign aid on violent armed conflict. In addition to rare‐event logit analysis, we employ matching methods to account for the possibility that aid donors anticipate conflict. The results show that negative aid shocks significantly increase the probability of armed conflict onset.     

Customer-Oriented E-Government

Abstract

E-govemment's next phase-a seamless, customer-oriented Web presence-faces more formidable barriers to development than did earlier advances. Progress toward customer-focused e-government requires fundamental organizational changes to existing bureaucracies, so that the government's Web presence can be comprehensive, efficient, and easy for citizens to use. To compel individual “stovepipe” agencies to develop a combined Web presence, chief information officers must be able to focus political and bureaucratic resources on making government websites truly customer-centric. The rewards for success in this next stage of e-government are significantnot only will it benefit citizens directly, but integrated e-government can also make offline government more efficient and effective.     

Transforming Scotland's Public-sector Housing through Community Ownership: The Reterritorialisation of Housing Governance?

In recent decades, UK public-sector housing has increasingly been problematised, with government solutions focusing on modernising the sector by transferring ownership of the housing from the public to the voluntary sector through stock transfer. This promises to transform the organisation of social housing by devolving control from local government to housing organisations located within, and governed by, the communities in which they are based. The Scottish Executive's national housing policy of community ownership is the epitome of this governmental rationale par excellence. Drawing upon empirical research on the 2003 Glasgow housing stock transfer, this paper argues that, whilst community ownership is underpinned by governmental rationales that seek to establish community as the new territory of social housing governance, the realisation of these political ambitions has been marred by emergent central–local conflict. Paradoxically, the fragmentation of social housing through the break-up of municipal provision, co-exists with continued political centralisation within the state apparatus.     

Strengthening Efforts to Engage the Hispanic Community in Citizen‐Driven Governance: An Assessment of Efforts in Utah

How can the Hispanic community in Utah strengthen its active engagement in government? Interviews by the authors with key government and community‐based organization representatives offer evidence on (1) who is being engaged in the Hispanic community, (2) what are the barriers to engagement, and (3) which modes of engagement are likely to be effective and under what conditions. Findings indicate that only a small elite in the Hispanic community is currently involved. Even for the elite, engagement is fairly superficial. Historical patterns characterize the Hispanic community limited interaction. The peculiar nature of Utah government also reduces their participation. Pragmatic lessons are drawn to enhance substantially improved partnerships, build comprehensive action plans, and strengthen government commitment to civic inclusion that transcend Utah and apply to diverse minority communities everywhere.     

Problems of co-ordination in upazila administration in Bangladesh

The present government of Bangladesh has extensively reformed the administrative system and upgraded the previous thana to upazila (sub-district) to serve as the focal point of development administration. A new tier of local government called Upazila Parishad (UZP) has been created and a large number of functions have been devolved to this institution along with the placement of central government employees at its disposal. The reformers argue that the present system will remove the inadequacies of the previous administrative system and will bring about an improvement in the co-ordination of field services at the upazila level. However, the actual situation represents a totally different picture. The desired integration— both vertical and horizontal—and co-ordination in local level planning is non-existent due to the absence of any clear direction from the central government. Proper co-ordination among the field services in the upazila administration does not exist due to the anomalous relation between the upazila and the national government, including excessive central control; the involvement of multiple agencies of the central government in guiding and supervising; ambiguity in government thinking; the absence of clarification from the ministries concerned and agencies on the timing of different development programmes; and conflict over the allocation of resources. There is also conflict between the different tiers of local government in respect of authority and resources. Relations between public representatives and officials at the upazila level are strained because a clear allocation of authority to political executives is lacking; areas for co-operation among different agencies have not been clarified; and public representatives and government officials lack mutual respect.     

Coalition Government and Committee Power

Recent research suggests that committees in parliamentary democracies may, at least partly, be endogenous to the prevalence of coalition government. In this article, I examine the conditions under which parliamentary majorities reform legislative rules to expand or reduce committee power. I expect that, ceteris paribus, the greater the conflict inside the governing coalition, the higher the probability that parties in government will adopt reforms expanding committee power and the lower the chance that they will implement changes reducing such power. These expectations are tested using original new data on the reforms of committee agenda powers undertaken in eight European states within 20 years from democratic transition. I find some evidence to support the endogeneity of committee power to the ideological heterogeneity of parliamentary government.     

New Community Associations for Established Neighborhoods

From 1980 to 2000, 50 percent the new housing in the United States was located in a development project where it was subject to the governance of a private community association. The creation of a community association requires unanimous consent, which is achieved in practice by requiring home owner agreement as a condition of initial purchase in new developments. In an established neighborhood of existing homes and other properties, however, it is for practical purposes impossible at present to create a private community association. This paper proposes that state governments enact legislation to allow for retroactive creation of private community associations in established neighborhoods with a vote of less than unanimous consent. In this way, the same advantages of private neighborhood government that have proven so attractive to such large numbers of suburban homeowners in recent years could be extended as well into inner city areas.     

Avian influenza, ‘viral sovereignty’, and the politics of health security in Indonesia

Abstract

In December 2006, Indonesian Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, shocked the world when announcing her government would no longer be sharing samples of the H5N1 avian flu virus, collected from Indonesian patients, with the World Health Organization, at a time when global fears of a deadly influenza pandemic were running high. For observers of Southeast Asian politics, the decision reinforced the view of the region as made up of states determined to protect their national sovereignty, at almost all costs. This established view of the region, however, generally neglects the variable and selective manner in which sovereignty has been invoked by Southeast Asian governments, or parts thereof, and fails to identify the conditions shaping the deployment of sovereignty. In this paper, it is argued that Siti's action was designed to harness claims of sovereignty to a domestic political struggle. It was a response to the growing fragmentation and, in some cases, denationalisation of the governance apparatus dealing with public health in Indonesia, along with the ‘securitisation’ of H5N1 internationally. The examination of the virus-sharing dispute demonstrates that in Southeast Asia sovereignty is not so much the ends of government action, but the means utilised by government actors for advancing particular political goals.     

Not again! Public perception,regulation, and nanotechnology

It is often argued that immediate government action regarding nanotechnology is needed to ensure that public opinion does not mistakenly view nanotechnology as dangerous, to restore public trust in government, and to increase the legitimacy of government action through increased public participation. This article questions whether governments can achieve these goals. As the world lurches toward regulation of nanotechnology, we should ask Why the rush? Can anticipatory action, perceived as the government doing something, fulfill the competing hopes to “restore trust,”“pave the way” for nanotechnology, “increase awareness,” and “satisfy democratic notions of accountability”? Or is government action more likely to increase existing divisions over nanotechnology's future?     

Can't Get No Satisfaction? The Association Between Community Satisfaction and Population Size for Victoria

Traditionally, the problem of determining the optimal size in local government has been empirically assessed by estimating the relationship between population size and the costs of services (usually measured in terms of per capita expenditure). These studies, however, have proved largely inconclusive. In comparison, an empirical analysis based on the relationship between the size of government and community satisfaction offers a potentially fruitful contribution to the debate regarding the optimal size of local government. However, to date, few studies have followed this approach. We therefore contribute to this literature by exploring the relationship between population size and community satisfaction for Victorian councils. Our findings provide evidence of an inverted ‘U‐shaped’ relationship, which predicts low community satisfaction at very large and very small population sizes.     

Assets and neighborhoods: The role of individual assets in neighborhood revitalization

Abstract

Asset‐building strategies—including individual development accounts, homeownership programs, and microenterprise development—became increasingly popular in the 1990s. Although research has demonstrated how assets produce individual benefits, less is known about the extent to which these benefits induce positive place‐based effects. We develop a model of the relationship between individual asset‐building strategies and neighborhood revitalization in order to inform future empirical work and help ensure that asset accumulation and neighborhood revitalization are mutually reinforcing. Our model emphasizes the conditions and programmatic factors that may encourage and discourage the transfer of benefits from individuals to neighborhoods.

Examples from case studies of four community‐based organizations suggest that the likelihood of neighborhood spillovers may be increased if policies and practices aim to “manage” the returns from the individual asset, retain asset holders, provide reinvestment conduits, track local purchasing power, and create additional opportunities for collective action.     

Government Has No “Religious Agency”: James Madison's Fundamental Principle of Religious Liberty

Religious liberty has reemerged as a problem in liberal democracy. For guidance we can turn to James Madison. Unfortunately, his fundamental principle of religious liberty has been misunderstood. Madison believed that power over religious conscience always remains with the individual, which means that government never has a power to attempt to cause or prohibit religious opinions or profession and only has the power to prohibit religious practices that are “adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Madison's fundamental principle of religious liberty is therefore that government has no “religious agency.” In matters of religious establishment, “no agency” means that government lacks even the power to cognize religious opinions or practices. But in matters of free exercise, “no agency” means that government can accommodate citizens’ religious consciences, even if that accommodation requires cognizing their religious opinions. An important but widely overlooked example of Madison's complex but principled approach to religious liberty is his 1790 proposal for a statutory exemption from federal militia service for religious objectors.     

Personnel Management Reform in the Philippines: The Strategy of Professionalization

The strategy of professionalization which is a multi-pronged system aimed at efficient, effective, and responsive delivery of government services is the current thrust of the Civil Service Commission (CSC). As such, a package of personnel reform measures is instituted by the Commission which includes the pursuit of merit, competence and performance; development and institutionalization of positive attitudes, ethical conduct and behavior; motivation through an integrated system of rewards and punishments; continuing human resource development; and the encouragement of public sector unionism. Relevant issues on the professionalization thrust have been raised: (1) since the strategy of professionalization rests more on administrative controls, will the effort bring about increased bureaucratization and routinization instead (or the issue of professionalization vs. bureaucratization)? (2) are the policies coming from diverse sources like the CSC, Department of Budget and Management, Office of the President, and Congress — to mention a few — fully coordinated so as to produce convergent rather than divergent results? (3) is the government really sincere on the issue of public sector unionism since it denies the unions their basic rights to strike and bargain collectively for better pay and working conditions? There is a need to assess further the current efforts toward professionalization to find out if the Commission is really moving toward its avowed goals of deregulation, decentralization and managerial and professional discretion rather than becoming more routinized or bureaucratic.     

Who Inherits the State? Colonial Rule and Postcolonial Conflict

Postulating grievance‐based mechanisms, several recent studies show that politically excluded ethnic groups are more likely to experience civil conflict. However, critics argue that endogeneity may undermine this finding since governments' decisions to include or exclude could be motivated by the anticipation of conflict. We counter this threat to inference by articulating a causal pathway that explains ethnic groups' access to power independently of conflict. Focusing on postcolonial states, we exploit differences in colonial empires' strategies of rule to model which ethnic groups were represented in government at the time of independence. This identification strategy allows estimating the exogenous effect of inclusiveness on conflict. We find that previous studies have tended to understate the conflict‐dampening impact of political inclusion. This finding suggests that grievances have been prematurely dismissed from conventional explanations of conflict, and that policy makers should consider conflict resolution methods based on power sharing and group rights.     

The impossibility of a desirable minimal state

The amount of control the general public exerts over government depends on accepted government procedures as determined by the political constitution and prevailing public opinion. It has not been the purpose of this paper to suggest ways of providing the public more control over government but to consider some implications of changes in that control. It is obvious that it would be desirable for the general public to have more control over political decisions; i.e., for the political process to be more responsive to the broad based benefits and costs that result from government action. The question is; what does more public control over government imply about the desirable size of government? For the natural rights advocate the answer is nothing. Government should be only large enough to protect citizens against force and fraud. The purpose of the present paper, however, has been to argue that the desirable size of government can be either positively or negatively related to the control exerted over it by the public. If this argument is accepted, it casts doubt on the possibility of a desirable minimum state.When there is little public control over government, organized special interest will have disproportionate political influence and will use this influence to expand government into activities that are detrimental to the public interest. Obviously, given this situation, it will be desirable to use additional public control over government to reduce the size of government by restricting its activities. But just as obvious is that this situation is one in which control over government is inadequate to the task of achieving a minimal state.     

Scotland's Progressive Dilemma

Since the 1980s the Scottish National Party has presented its political project in progressive terms, but this created a twin dilemma: in order to achieve independence, the SNP needed to win political power, and in order to achieve political power it had to win an election, and orthodoxy dictated that winning elections in Scotland involved a centre‐left platform. But the two have often been in conflict, as is clear as the SNP approaches its tenth anniversary in devolved government and agitates for another referendum.     

Coalition politics and accountability

The paper introduces the possibility of coalition government into the theoretical study of political accountability and analyzes the accountability of coalitions as a problem of team production. It is shown that coalition governments can be held accountable in the presence of an electoral alternative. Accountability becomes problematic if it is certain that at least one of the coalition parties stays in power after the elections. Such a coalition (sometimes called a ‘unity government’) can not be given appropriate collective incentives. To incentivate government performance, voters make one coalition party responsible for the outcome. This, however, makes the other coalition party interested in sabotage. The paper analyzes the resulting conflict and characterizes optimal voter strategy.