Understanding Local Service Delivery Arrangements: Are the ICMA ASD Data Reliable?

The authors utilize the two latest ICMA Profile of Local Government Service Delivery Choices surveys to investigate whether the service provision and delivery arrangement information reported in the surveys accurately represents reality and, if not, what factors contribute to generating incorrect or unreliable survey responses. Interviews with practitioners are used to better understand both the accuracy of the survey responses and improvements that could be made to the survey instrument. Results suggest that the ICMA ASD survey data are highly erratic, with more than 70 percent of the cases (N = 70) investigated containing some inaccuracies. A qualitative analysis shows that the majority of the errors appear to be caused by the lack of a clear definition of service provision or by the service titles being too vague or too broad, both of which likely lead to discretion in interpreting survey questions and thus inconsistent answers by individual respondents over time.     

United States Responses to the Soviet Suppression of Rebellions in the German Democratic Republic,Hungary, and Czechoslovakia

Under Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson, the United States refrained from intervening during the three major Cold War crises in the Soviet bloc in 1953, 1956, and 1968. The uprisings in the German Democratic Republic and Hungary came at a contentious stage of the Cold War. In 1968 East–West relations were again groping towards détente and, the Czechoslovak Communist Party unleashed an ambitious reform agenda under Alexander Dub?ek. On 20 August, a massive military invasion by Warsaw Pact forces squashed the reform spirit. All three challenges to Soviet control on the periphery of its Cold War empire followed power struggles in the Kremlin and intimations of a slackening of the reigns of control in Moscow. Eastern Europe was terra incognita for most Americans, and the United States had never pursued an active policy in Eastern Europe. All three crisis scenarios were overshadowed by crises in other parts of the world—part of larger arcs of crises the superpowers were confronting simultaneously. The three crises also coincided, domestically, with intense presidential election politics. Washington ultimately respected the Yalta arrangements and tolerated the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Next to grudging respect for the Yalta outcomes, the ultimate spectre of mutual destruction in a nuclear war “compelled” the superpowers towards co-existence and, ultimately, in 1989, the satellite states had to liberate themselves.     

The reorientation of place legislation in England in the 1690s

Summary

Mediating Conflict in the Swiss Diets of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

The Helvetic Confederation developed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as a web of alliances between the most important urban and peasant republics (Orte) in the area of present‐day Switzerland. The only form of mediating conflicts laid down in the alliances was by tribunals of arbitration; but these were never recognised by all the Orte in the web of alliances and proved inadequate in the face of growing antagonisms and coalitions throughout the Confederacy. It became necessary to have recourse to political arrangements involving the interested parties. The forum for these arrangements was the Diets, meetings of deputies of all members of the Confederacy. These more or less represented the most important political forces. Difficulties arose only when there was no consensus in individual Orten and when the official deputies to the Diet represented only the magistrates (Obrigkeiten). In such cases it could happen, especially in matters of foreign policy, that individual groups went their own way and thwarted the decisions of the Diet. It usually took a long time to arrive at a consensus in the Diets because the deputies were bound by an ‘imperative mandate’ and the minority would mostly not accept the will of the majority. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries participation and the achievement of consensus were the conditions of joint action of the Helvetic Confederation.