Local News Media and Voter Turnout

A reasonably high turnout is a quality of a local democracy. In this article, we investigate whether media coverage of politics leads to increased or decreased voter turnout. Based on a unique data set, our analysis shows that local news media coverage has a positive effect on voter turnout, but only if the news media provide politically relevant information to the voters and only at local elections. Both findings are in accordance with the Information Model, which states that rising levels of political relevant information increases the probability of voting.     

Pulling the Strings: An Analysis of Informal Local Power Structures in Three Dutch Cities

Recent reform trends in local government ‘constitution’ have aimed at invigorating local democracy by strengthening local executive powers and making political leadership more visible through direct mayor elections. However, observers still tend to paint a gloomy picture of local democracy in contexts where reforms have been implemented. This article evaluates the notion of marginalised local democracy by adopting mandate theory. A data set on Norwegian mayors and deputy mayors provides evidence that mayors elected by the council are more confident in their own success regarding fulfilment of pre-election announcements than deputy mayors are. The mayoral advantage disappears if the mayor is directly elected. Regarding implementation of idiomatic party policy, political cohesion between the mayor and the deputy mayor (coalition or party conjunction) increases the confidence of both. Yet, cohesion does not increase confidence in fulfilling pre-election announcements, thus suggesting a rupture between issues emphasised in campaigns to local election and idiomatic party policy. While results are unfavourable to direct mayor elections, they do not otherwise support the gloomy picture of marginalised local democracy.     

An empirical analysis of municipal choice in Portugal

Processes of European integration and growing consumer scrutiny of public services have served to place the spotlight on the traditional French model of public/private interaction in the urban services domain. This article discusses recent debates within France of the institutionalised approach to local public/private partnership, and presents case study evidence from three urban agglomerations of a possible divergence from this approach. Drawing on the work of French academic, Dominique Lorrain, whose historical institutionalist accounts of the French model are perhaps the most comprehensive and best known, the article develops two hypotheses of institutional change, one from the historical institutionalist perspective of institutional stability and persistence, and the other from an explicitly sociological perspective, which emphasises the legitimating benefits of following appropriate rules of conduct. It argues that further studying the French model as an institution offers valuable empirical insight into processes of institutional change and persistence.     

Facilitative Mayors in Complex Environments: Why Political Will Matters

Under certain circumstances the style of leadership of mayors can be the result of their context perceptions and their sense of political autonomy and efficacy. This assessment indicates that the political action of the mayor discloses a particular style of leadership that derives from his/her political will. This article suggests an analysis of political will that intends to explain why local leaders adopt facilitative styles of leadership. In this formulation, the leadership facilitative style is a consequence of the political will to act accordingly, and this is explained by three main determinants: the leaders’ awareness of their complex and networked context, their independent sense of autonomy and their belief about their own political efficacy. Results from case studies, with extensive interviews with mayors, conducted in Portuguese municipalities, will be presented to reinforce and explore these hypotheses and to discuss the feasibility of this framework.     

Do Electoral Risks Moderate the Effect of Partisan and Electoral Cycles on Debt-Financed Local Spending?

Governments’ use of debt as a political instrument has been widely studied from the perspective of partisan and electoral cycles, mainly concerning central government. On the whole, previous studies have attempted to determine the effects of political ideology and the proximity of elections on the opportunistic use of public spending. The current study aims to broaden the scope of attention to the effect of partisan and electoral cycles on debt, by means of a broader consideration of the motives that lead politicians to take on a deficit and that are usually linked to the associated electoral risk. More particularly, we examine whether, during the electoral period, greater confidence in re-election can modify party behaviour concerning the use of public spending, and if so, whether the change is greater or smaller depending on the ruling party’s ideology. The results obtained show that local administrations need to incur debt, although politicians take on more liability than is appropriate to their demographic and economic characteristics, especially in an election year. It was also found that political stability favours a reduction in the public deficit, a pattern that is maintained in electoral periods. This effect was found to be independent of the partisan cycle.     

The Mediating role of Job Satisfaction in the Relationship between Organizational Justice and Employee Outcomes

Grounded in Social Exchange Theory and Equity Theory, this study examined the mediating role of job satisfaction on the relationships between organizational justice and employee’s outcomes. The study applied PLS-SEM to analyze data obtained from 142 employees. The results show significant relationships exist between organizational justice dimensions and job satisfaction and between job satisfaction and employee’s outcomes. Furthermore, the study found the mediating effect of job satisfaction on the hypothesized relationships. This paper contributes to the existing human resources literature on employees’ outcomes and guides management on how to improved employees’ job satisfaction and employee outcomes.     

Community Council Cooperation: The Lake Macquarie City Council Co-Governance Delegation Model

In its Better, Stronger Local Government, the Independent Local Government Review Panel (2012a, 2012b) advanced several claims regarding the performance of New South Wales (NSW) local government, including the supposed need for additional “sub-council” governance structures. This article argues that there is no need to “reinvent the wheel” in NSW local government by introducing additional “sub-council” structures since existing regulation already enables local authorities to engage in local co-governance. Using the example of the Lake Macquarie City Council (“LakeMac”) “delegation model,” the article shows that LakeMac has been successful in its endeavors to engage widespread community participation in co-governance to manage council facilities.     

Terrorism as treated by the Christian science monitor, 1977–1987

Standing uniquely apart from journalistic sensationalism in its reportage of terrorism, the Christian Science Monitor (CSM/“The Monitor”) has taken a stance of trying to keep perspective on what individual events mean in terms of a wider framework.

It is perhaps critical to state at the outset that this researcher is not of the Christian Science faith, but has been a faithful reader of the Monitor for 15 years. When approached several years ago by The Terrorism and the News Media Research Project to contribute to that scholarship, an immediate response was that her primary newspaper would be inadequate to the task. A preliminary check into the Christian Science Monitor Index confirmed that fact: there were no entries under the heading of “terrorism” for 1975, 1976, 1977, and for 1978 it directed the researcher to see “violence”.

But then some dramatic changes took place in the mid‐1980s. The newspaper was undergoing major transitions internally, and terrorism was becoming an increasingly hot topic internationally.

This paper discusses terrorism as treated by the Christian Science Monitor, 1977–1987 both quantitatively and qualitatively. The approach is to delineate some of the underpinning philosophy of the newspaper, to discuss its chronological treatment of terrorism, and then to draw some implications from the study.     

Engendering local democracy: The impact of quotas for women in India's panchayats

In 1992, India's Parliament enacted two constitutional amendments that sought to democratize local governance and engender it through quota-based reservations for women. This article asks whether participation in these institutions has enabled women to articulate and advance their interests. To evaluate this, the article deploys the distinction in feminist literature between strategic and practical gender interests. Through a survey of a wide range of studies conducted in different parts of India it points to the constraints, both of institutional design as well as of social inequalities of gender and caste, that inhibit a fuller and more effective participation by women. There is nevertheless evidence to suggest that the quotas have enabled women to address their practical gender needs and interests, even if the articulation and realization of strategic interests is moving at a somewhat slower pace.     

A Feminist Approach to Hybridity: Understanding Local and International Interactions in Producing Post-Conflict Gender Security

Recently, the concept of hybridity has become popular within critical peacebuilding scholarship to explain the interplay of power between local and international actors in post-conflict contexts. However, a nuanced gender lens has often been missing from these analyses. This article develops a feminist critique and approach to hybridity in order to achieve a deeper sense of the effects that experiences and perspectives of international and local actors have upon peacebuilding initiatives. It begins to develop a feminist approach to hybridity via a case study of a gender security initiative concerned with challenging the prevalence of small arms and light weapons (SALW) abuse in domestic violence in Serbia. The article concludes by highlighting how this feminist perspective allows a richer understanding of the power relations shaping local and international interactions.