Local Government in Tasmania: Reform and Restructuring

Tasmania has a long history of failed attempts at restructuring local government boundaries yet managed a major reform process of 'modernisation' between 1990 and 1993 that incorporated major changes to council operations together with a restructuring of boundaries and a reduction from 46 to 29 councils. This process can be compared with a recent attempt to reduce further the number of local governments. In April 1997 the Liberal Premier announced reforms ('Directions for Tasmania') that led to a further reduction in the number of councils. This process collapsed following legal challenges and the proroguing of parliament prior to the 1998 state election. The defeat of the Liberal government saw the abandonment of the proposed amalgamations and establishment of 'partnerships' between the new ALP state government and councils. This paper compares the 1990–93 and 1997–98 reform processes and evaluates the outcomes of the amalgamations in 1990–93. It argues that the success of amalgamation and reform in local government has been strongly influenced by the degree of local government involvement and support in the reform process, lessons that have wider application.     

Efficiency Measurement in Spanish Local Government: The Case of Municipal Water Services

In this work, we established a procedure for evaluation of the efficiency of the water supply. This procedure has allowed us to find that the proposed indicators have a discriminating capability in the analysis of the service, and to reject criticisms traditionally assigned to the sensitivity of the data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique in relation to degrees of freedom. The results obtained show that the population density, as a factor that defines one of the particular characteristics of the surroundings of each municipality, has a statistically significant impact on the indexes of efficiency, this affirmation not being extended to the public or private ownership of the service. The scale inefficiency is higher than the technical inefficiency. These typologies of efficiency are, principally, motivated by the supply side of the service, which is specially linked with the necessary infrastructure. The demand of the citizens is satisfied with a behavior close to optimal.     

Local Government in Transformation: The Case of Constitutional Reform in Yugoslavia

The previous communal system in Yugoslavia (since 1955) did not prove viable. Owing to its great size (nearly 500 km² and more than 40,000 inhabitants), municipality in this period didn't affirm itself as a real community. Having many abilities in developmental planning, it was at the same time dependent on the state in the spheres of finance and normative regulations. The difference between the sphere of local government (LG) and state politics was substantially blurred.
Given the changing social conditions (introduction of market economy, political pluralism and the forms of parliamentarian democracy), the need for repeated establishment of the system of local government based on the altered position of citizens in the political system becomes evident. In this environment it is necessary to reestimate the experiences of LG in particular Yugoslav regions (republics) before World War II, and simultaneously, take selectively into account the experiences and development in other developed European countries.
This article compares the constitutional regulations of LG among particular Yugoslav republics, and between them and the characteristic orientations in other European countries, enlightening it with the aspect of actual processes and demands of centralization and decentralization, regionalism, moving the regulation of communal and other everyday needs closer to the people in LG, all in the sense of post-behavioristic trends of the "bottom-up" approach to the processes of decision-making.     

县级政府机构设置：问题与对策

我国县级政府机构存在着机构设置职责同构、部门本位主义突出、行政机构自我服务职能强化等问题,削弱了政府的公共性与社会回应性,降低了政府的综合治理能力。完善决策机构,实现决策的科学民主;加强综合机构,维护职权完整;整合部门机构,力避职能交叉;强化监督机构,完善监督体系是调整与优化县级政府机构的重要目标。强化法制的刚性约束,建立行政组织自我调节机制,倡导县级政府创新则是实现县级政府机构改革的保障措施。     

Debt and the Local Economy: Problems in Benchmarking Local Government Debt Affordability

Debt creation imposes an obligation to repay borrowed funds from a wealth base that for most local governments is capitalized in property values. Therefore, the ability to afford debt is tied to the local economy, a factor often overlooked by localities in the analyses of their own position. However, debt levels are also relative, as the many debt affordability studies among governments and by bond rating agencies suggest. We argue here that economic concentration and interjurisdictional coordination fundamentally provide a broader analytical approach to the question a locality asks: can we afford more debt?     

Reform Politics through the Creation of Inefficient Political Institutions: The Case of the 2007 Danish Administrative Reform

This article poses the question of whether reform politicians' pursuit of institutional goods may, under certain circumstances, lead to the creation of inefficient political institutions. The theory of weakening political actors through the creation of inefficient political institutions, as elaborated by Terry M. Moe, is applied in a comparative analysis of two main elements in the recent Danish administrative reform: the consolidation of 270 municipalities into 98 larger ones, and the creation of five new macro regions with special responsibilities. In contrast to the coherent institutional structure of the municipalities, the level of coherence in the regional reform elements is inappropriate and inefficient. The article shows that the different institutions in the municipalities and the regions can be interpreted as an attempt by the (national) reform parties to prevent other political actors from gaining access to future substantial, as well as institutional, goods.     

Efficiency Measurement in Australian Local Government: The Case of New South Wales Municipal Water Services

Australian local government has experienced a series of reforms directed at increasing economic efficiency. An important element in the reform program has been the development of a number of partial indicators of local government service delivery in the states and territories. This paper attempts to augment this literature on performance measurement in Australian local government by using data envelopment analysis (DEA) with holistic indices of allocative and technical efficiency in New South Wales (NSW) municipal water services. It also seeks to incorporate qualitative indicators into efficiency measures. “Best-practice” councils are identified and the underlying causes of municipal water service efficiency are analyzed.     

Party Politics and the Common Good in Swedish Local Government

Local government in Sweden is usually classified as the northwest European type of local government, together with the local government systems of the other Nordic countries and Britain. In the 1990s and the early years of the new millennium, Swedish local government has been especially susceptible to the ideas of 'new public management' (NPM). At the same time there has been a long-ongoing trend of increasing party-politicisation of local councils. In this paper a selection of five local authorities are examined in order to see how party politics and party-politicisation are confronted by the new organisational doctrines. It is concluded that in this respect the doctrines guiding local government organisation can be characterised by three common traits: the legitimacy of particular interests is denied in favour of the common good of the locality; it is denied that conflict and competition between political parties perform any democratic function; finally, when it comes to the relation between politics and administration there is a common confession of the management-by-objectives doctrine. Somewhat surprisingly, these three principles guide organisation and politics not only in those authorities most enthusiastically adopting NPM but also in the authorities implementing organisational reforms based on more communitarian principles and even organisationally conservative municipalities not even considering any organisational change. One interpretation of this contradictory observation may be that NPM concepts and ideas have also found their way into local doctrines that are based on quite different principles. Another interpretation is that there is a consensus tradition in Swedish political culture that can also account for similar results in municipalities not explicitly introducing an apolitical organisation doctrine.     

Budget Procedures and the Size of the Budget: Evidence from Danish Local Government

This paper analyzes procedural influences on budgetary outcomes in Danish local government. By analyzing local governments the study can remedy two shortcomings of most procedural budget studies. The first is that most studies analyze national budget procedures, which means that only a limited and quite heterogeneous number of cases can be analyzed. The second and more fundamental shortcoming in most studies is the lack of a distinction between political institutions and budget institutions. Although this distinction is difficult to establish for empirical analysis at the national level, it is immediately clear when dealing with local governments. The paper tests a number of hypotheses on procedural influences. It finds that budget institutions have no certain effects on budget outcomes in the preparatory phase. However, in the implementation phase budget institutions seem to matter.     

我国地方政府体制改革路径的反思

伴随着我国30年的改革进程,地方政府的积极功能被极大地释放,同时,部分地方政府的腐败也日益严重.这种令人迷惑不解的现象,在一定程度上与我国改革的路径有逻辑关系.第一,我国采取以利益调整为核心的改革形式,这种利益主体博弈的渐进过程,使改革基本平稳,却使地方政府权力约束趋于软化;第二,我国采取中央统合主义的改革策略,使改革避免了社会震荡,但是,地方政府创新能力受到一定抑制,并使"上有政策,下有对策"普遍存在;第三,我国实行以行政力量为推动力的改革手段,增强了改革的成功几率,却也使地方政府寻租现象严重;第四,我国改革实际呈现出"悬浮"于民众与社会需求的单向性特点,这种政府主导式的改革,使社会发育与公民参与都没有到位,无法保证改革动力的充分展示.今后,我国体制改革的继续推进,路径完善是一个重要的关键.     

Leadership in Local Government Reform: Strategic Direction v Administrative Compliance

This paper reports on a survey across 26 Victorian local councils which assessed the impact of local government reform – boundary restructuring – compulsory competitive tendering, across-the-board rate cuts and rate capping, on the management and organisation of local government organisations in that state. It highlights the fact that leadership, planning and performance management is essential in responding to these reforms. It also reveals thatsome councils have been able to assist employees to make the shift to an outcomes-oriented deliverer of local services while others have made much less progress and are still focused on the traditional, compliance-oriented culture of local government administration.     

比较视野下的中国地方政府改革及其挑战

20世纪以来,基于行政理论、经济理论和民主理论的西方政府改革,呈现统治职能的非人格化、管理职能的刚性化和服务职能的扩大化等特征。进入21世纪,中国政府发展为应对"现代化"和"后现代"两个历史阶段的高度叠加,在兼顾"管理补课"和"改善服务"的问题上,整合20世纪以来西方政府改革的三种价值取向,形塑了较为均衡的地方治理风格。当下,在构建国家治理体系进程中,地方政府改革和发展的"三合一"模式面临挑战。     

治理结构多元化：地方政府机构改革的新思路

通过对当代中国地方政府机构改革的一些典型个案进行分析,发现其陷入困境的深层次原因在于强调国家统一管理而导致的地方治理结构单一化。当代中国的地方治理结构单一化是历史遗传和传统体制的产物,与转轨时期纵向政府间关系中存在的压力型体制也有着内在的关联。随着改革的深入,地方治理结构单一化的弊端逐渐显现出来。但是,从美国和英国等西方发达国家的实践来看,地方治理结构多元化与国家的统一管理并不矛盾。因此,在已有的地方政府机构改革的思路基础上,实现地方治理结构多元化应该成为继续推进当代中国地方政府机构改革的新思路。     

国外地方政府合并改革的经验及启示

二十世纪五六十年代以来,一些发达国家进行了地方政府的合并改革,其改革大致可分为三类:激进型、中间道路型及相对缓和型;国外进行地方政府合并改革的经验主要包括:根据社会发展的需要进行改革,根据本国实际选择改革方略与进度,与其他改革相配套.国外地方政府合并改革对我们的启示是:推进乡镇合并改革,扩大县级政府的权力,选取适当的改革进度和方略.     

美国地方政府改革及其对中国的借鉴意义

美国地方政府是一个数量庞大、种类繁多、互不隶属、功能各异的“百衲被”式的多样化体系。20世纪 80年代以来,美国地方政府的改革趋势主要体现在组织形式上的多样化导向、政府间关系的合作化导向、公共产品和服务对象上的顾客导向、纵向权力关系上的分权导向、内部管理上的企业化导向。尽管两国在政治制度和文化传统等方面存在较大差异,但美国地方政府的改革经验仍然对中国行政体制改革特别是地方政府改革具有一定借鉴意义。     

Leading Change in Local Government: The Tension between Evolutionary and Frame–breaking Reform in NSW

As a result of changing legislation the role of general managers in Australian local government is being transformed from administrative compliance to proactive managerial direction. They are expected to possess leadership, visionary and other change management skills not previously exercised in local government. This paper analyses how the general managers of four councils in Sydney have attempted to lead their respective organisations through their reform agendas. The four councils represented two comparison groups at each extreme of a change continuum ranging from evolutionary to frame–breaking change. Data collected from the four councils since 1994 used personal interviews, participant observation and analysis of documentation. The paper tracks the evolutionary and framebreaking reform, paying particular attention to the role, personality and leadership styles of the general managers. Emergent themes are identified and analysed as they relate to the impact of the general manager on the type of reform processes adopted.     

Context and Mechanisms in Administrative Reform Processes: Performance Management Within Italian Local Government

ABSTRACT

This article aims to present new research on the politics of public management reform in Napoleonic countries. Drawing on the institutional processualist approach, the empirical analysis tracks and explains the trajectory and outcomes of episodes where performance management has been introduced at the local level in Italy. The comparative case analysis shows that plausible causal explanation of the outcomes of public management reform can occur only if researchers are attentive to the interaction between social mechanisms and contextual features together with their interconnections through time.