Assessing Public Participation Initiatives in Local Government Decision-Making in Malaysia

Increased public participation in government decisions contributes significantly to the enhancement of grass-roots democracy. This article assesses the level of involvement of local citizens in local government decisions in Malaysia. Public participation was assessed using questionnaires on the range and extent of initiatives used by local government. The questionnaires also probed citizens’ perceptions of these initiatives and expectations for greater citizen empowerment. Data were gathered from 206 local citizens randomly selected from six local authorities in the northern region of Malaysia. The findings reveal a desire on the part of local citizens to participate in their local government decision-making process.     

Participatory Budgeting in Germany – A Review of Empirical Findings

Participatory budgeting (PB) is one of the most popular democratic innovations worldwide. PB is connected with high stakes regarding mobilizing political inactive citizens, efficient and effective budgetary policy as well as positive effects on citizens (e.g., civic education, democratic attitudes). However, in many Western countries empirical evidence for such benefits is scarce. This also holds for Germany. Since the conduction of PB demands financial and personnel resources, a thorough evaluation is necessary. This article systematically summarizes the current state of research to make the literature on PB in Germany accessible to international scholars as well as political and administrative practitioners. It focusses on the context (which municipalities conduct PB and why), process (role of local administration and council, participation, deliberation), and outcome/impact dimension (outcomes and impact on policies and citizens). To conclude, further research venues are briefly outlined, followed by an outlook on PBs future and practical implications.     

Citizen Preference and Resource Allocation: The Case for Participatory Budgeting in Seoul

This article seeks to measure the extent to which the service priorities of citizens of Seoul, South Korea, are reflected in corresponding resource allocations in the city's budget, despite there being virtually no participation by citizens in the budget creation process. We find a less than perfect congruence between budget allocations and citizen preferences at both the city and district level. Given these results, we discuss the potential for participatory budgeting to address discrepancies in resource allocation by focusing on the unique demographic and cultural makeup of Seoul constituencies.     

Local Government Finance Office Orientation Revisited: Actually,It’s All About Control

In states with heavy oversight of local government finances, alternate levels of control orientation exist based on county government budget formulation and financing practices. However, previous research indicates a possible trend toward policy orientation. Using survey data from North Carolina counties, initial findings indicate high levels of finance officer budget formulation discretion as well as county manager agreement with budget decisions. Additional logit models suggest that while stakeholder influence is still present along with remnants of policy orientation, the state financial oversight mechanism along with the background, knowledge of departmental financial needs, and frequent departmental appropriation dissemination by the finance officer, continue to sustain control orientation.     

Revitalizing Local Government Performance Management: Further Dissecting the Role of Socioeconomic Status and Social Mobilization Policy

ABSTRACT

This article examines how socio-economic status and social mobilisation are linked to local government performance management in Nepal. As part of local government reform, Nepal adopted a social mobilisation policy in selected local governments to empower communities for their effective participation. Our results show that socio-economic status and social mobilisation have a significant relationship with performance management. Female literacy, for example, is strongly and significantly associated with performance management, while area has a significant positive relationship but population has only a weak positive relationship. In contrast, poverty has a significant negative correlation. More importantly, mobilisation has a significant, though modest, positive association with performance management particularly in participatory planning and budgeting, fiscal discipline, and administrative management. This indicates that improving the socio-economic status of citizens and their mobilisation for empowered collective action can be one important strategy to improve the performance capacity of local government.     

In participatory budgeting we trust? Fairness,tactics and (in)accessibility in participatory governance

ABSTRACT

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a significant innovation in democracy and local development. PB provides the opportunity for citizens to engage in processes of deliberation and decision-making upon the allocation of public funds. As new critical discourse emerges surrounding this model of local government spending, a significant area warranting investigation concerns how trust, and indeed mistrust, factor into PB. Through an analysis of interviews with residents and Council staff engaged in PB processes in a county in the north of England, we highlight the ways in which issues of trust can impact on participation in these initiatives, and also strengthen relationships between voting delegates, project teams and local government. This paper argues that increasing the perceived accessibility, and reconsidering the inclusion of mass membership groups in PB, might help to create progressive, effective and trustful participation.     

Citizens’ Initiatives: How Local Governments Fill their Facilitative Role

In the context of drastic cutbacks many Dutch municipalities consider citizens’ initiatives (CIs) as an attractive alternative for municipal policies aimed at improving the livability and safety in neighbourhoods, simultaneously building responsible citizenship. In this paper we combine different theoretical perspectives to analyse the institutional settings in which CIs are being realised, and how municipalities try to facilitate such initiatives. Municipalities can do this by either trying to structure the relevant networks or by various forms of process management. This analysis sheds light on how municipalities use a variety of instruments to mobilise citizens to participate in CIs. In using such instruments they can influence various factors (like motivations, personal resources, social capital and expected responsiveness; cf. Lowndes et al.’s CLEAR model) that increase the likelihood of civic engagement.     

Local Government Size and Political Efficacy: Do Citizen Panels Make a Difference?

Democratic theorists typically suggest that citizens served by small local governments have high levels of political efficacy. However, it is conceivable that large governments can overcome the burden of bigness by introducing structures that involve citizens more closely in decision-making. This paper analyses whether jurisdiction size influences political efficacy in Welsh local government, and whether the presence of a citizen panel makes a difference to the size-efficacy relationship. Multi-level analyses suggest that size is negatively associated with internal and external political efficacy, but that the use of citizen panels bolsters the external efficacy of citizens served by larger local government.     

Towards more digital cities? Change in technology use and perceptions across small and medium-sized US cities

ABSTRACT

There is continuous pressure on public managers to adopt information and communication technologies (ICTs) to transform the way cities work. E-government research provides insights on the institutional, organisational, and individual factors that shape technology adoption and use. Yet most studies on small and medium sized cities use cross-sectional data or rely on small samples. We lack a systematic understanding of how technology use in smaller cities has changed over time and where these cities are lagging. Drawing from a multi-year, multi-method national study of city government technology use, we describe advancements and gaps in the enactment of a range of technologies, from social media to open data portals, and explore variation across city population, department type, and manager age. Our findings show that smaller cities still lag in the adoption of key features while local government managers are more inclined to adopt and positively perceive social media than traditional ICTs.     

Social Media Use in Local Government: An Australian Perspective

Social media offers governments extensive opportunities to engage with citizens, particularly at the local level. This study investigates the issues that local governments face in implementing social media initiatives. It builds on existing literature by using an interpretive approach to examine the perceptions of public employees and elected officials of local councils in an Australian context. The article reports on the issues that inhibit a move to a more interactive use of social media and examines how these may be addressed. Implications for research and practice are given.     

Public Participation and Public Service Modernization: Learning from New Labor?

The public participation agenda is a significant element of public service reform in Europe and beyond. This article examines how citizen participation in local public services was conce ived and enacted under successive New Labor governments in the UK during the period 1997–2010. It is suggested that the emphasis on public participation was central to the ethos of New Labor. This accounts for the persistence of the participation agenda even in the face of scant empirical evidence that specific engagement and empowerment initiatives were successful. Significantly, there was no single New Labor participation narrative. There were instead several distinct strands, drawing variously from the Party's received traditions of State welfarism, corporatist central-local relations, municipal socialism, Blairite managerialism, and, lastly, mutual cooperativism. The article assesses the legacy of New Labor and public participation in the UK before drawing wider conclusions relating to international experience.