The Project of Advanced Regionalisation in Morocco: Analysis of a Lampedusian Reform

This article examines the project of advanced regionalisation in Morocco, in which the King Mohammed VI plays a key role. Through a comparative analysis of the adjustments and resiliencies of the project, contrasted with previous regionalisation reforms, the article contends that contention dynamics in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt have had a relevant impact on the way in which the project made its way in the Moroccan institutional sphere. The article finds that the eruption of the Arab Uprisings in North Africa and protests in Morocco has been a key factor in paradoxically fostering the king's power, allowing him to consolidate himself as the unique driving force behind the reform of regional administration.     

The Impact of Political Factors on Local Government Decentralisation

ABSTRACT

The process of local decentralisation of public services delivery has attracted research attention because of the wide range of factors that induce governments to make this decision. Nonetheless, most such studies have focused on economic and financial aspects, ignoring the impact of political factors. The scarce previous research about political factors is the motivation for this study. We used panel data models based on 153 Spanish municipalities with populations over 50,000 for the period 1999–2007. The process of decentralisation is disaggregated according to the legal form of the entities: corporations and foundations. Our results show that more corporatisation processes are carried out in environments where political competition is lower and the party in power enjoyed greater support in the last elections. Additionally, decentralisation processes usually take place in the years immediately following elections, especially through foundations. Furthermore, both forms of decentralisation are more likely to be initiated by right-wing politicians.     

A New Predictor of Local Financial Distress

The development of predictive models for financial distress is a recurring topic in both private and public contexts, although currently its repercussions are greater in the public sphere, where efforts are being made to define new warning systems for fiscal crises. The present study thus aims first to show the similarities and differences between the absolute and relative models based on a 10-point scale, in order to subsequently combine the positive aspects of both proposals to find a system that can determine local fiscal distress in a more robust way.

The results obtained show that the optimum predictive system is a slight variant of the model proposed by Kloha et al. (2005) Kloha, P., Weissert, C. S. and Kleine, R. 2005. Developing and testing a composite model to predict local fiscal distress. Public Administration Review, 65(3): 313–323. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. This variant consists of the inclusion of two indicators of financial independence proposed by Zafra-Gómez et al. (2009a) Zafra-Gomez, J. S., López-Hernández, A. M. and Hernández-Bastida, A. 2009a. Developing an alert system for local governments in financial crisis. Public Money &; Management, 29(3): 175–82. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] for which an alert threshold has been empirically determined.     

A feminist challenge to the gendered politics of the public/private divide: on due diligence,domestic violence,and citizenship

This article examines the feminist appropriation of the legal principle of due diligence to politicize acts of violence at the hands of private actors within the private sphere. This move expanded traditional notions of state responsibility for violence against women under international human rights law. Using frame analysis, we focus on the institutionalization of this feminist understanding of due diligence through its discursive incorporation in international human rights policy documents and its mobilization in cases of domestic violence litigated within the UN and the Inter-American and European human rights systems. Through this discursive framing work and its institutionalization, feminists have challenged the gendered politics of the public/private divide to change the terms on which differently positioned women can engage with the state and global governance institutions. We argue that this change can potentially reconfigure women's state-bounded and transnational citizenship. The implications of due diligence as a political and sociological concept require more careful consideration by citizenship and human rights scholars.     

inhabiting or occupying the web?: virtual communities and feminist cyberactivism in online Spanish feminist theory and praxis

This article examines the relationships between gender and technology in Spanish feminist praxis online and argues that different perspectives on online feminist community-building offer distinct responses to cyberactivism, which is considered central to sustaining efforts for social change. To ascertain whether Spanish virtual communities and cyberactivism have the potential to address the challenges posed by the relations between gender and technology, we analyse feminist scholar Remedios Zafra's theoretical proposals, and the different ways in which this theory intersects with the cyberactivism put forth by two feminist web portals, Ciudad de Mujeres and Mujeres en Red. We will discuss to what degree particular Spanish feminist theory and practice online adapts to or challenges utopianism regarding the liberating potential of technology. We will also examine how, in the face of critical arguments about such liberatory possibilities, two options present themselves for women's effective use of technology: inhabiting or occupying the web through the construction of feminist communities online.