Balanced Scorecard Implementation in a Local Government Authority: Issues and Challenges

Over the last decade the balanced scorecard (BSC) has emerged as a popular strategic performance measurement and control system within various public sector organisations as it assists in effectively implementing strategy and in measuring performance. This article investigates whether the implementation of a BSC has been of value to a large Local Government Authority (LGA) within Australia. The research takes a thematic approach to identify the issues, challenges and lessons learnt in relation to the design and implementation of the BSC, which is accomplished through a review of annual reports, published relevant documents and semi‐structured interviews with 13 senior managers of various programs and divisions within the LGA. Future research opportunities are also identified in this area.     

Public Sector ‘Modernisation’: Examining the Impact of a Change Agenda on Local Government Employees in England

Can public sector reform change service performance for the better? This is a hotly contested debate that carries significant theoretical and practical importance. In England, as in many countries, modernisation was at the heart of local government reform and represented an interpretation of New Public Management into a policy framework. This paper examines the role of the modernisation change agenda in England and what this has subsequently meant for ‘service improvement’. Drawing on both document analyses and qualitative interviews with local government employees, we find that while modernisation sought to establish continuous improvement, unintended consequences of modernisation have led to Staff Reductions, Skill Deficiencies, and Loss of a Competent Middle Core in local government, as well as performance outcomes creating an environment for Commissioning, Service Reduction, and Self‐Policing. Implications for the lasting roles and behaviours of public managers affected by this national change agenda are discussed, and conclusions for theory and practice are drawn.     

Conflicts of preferences and domestic constraints: understanding reform failure in liberal state-building and democracy promotion

This paper challenges the common explanations that failures of external state-building and democracy promotion are the result of a lack of domestic capacity or a lack of domestic willingness against an externally set liberal agenda of state-building and democratisation. Studying political decision-making on a micro-level, we argue that both explanations fail to capture the multi-faceted motivations and interests of domestic actors that go beyond mere ‘resistance’ against externally induced liberal reforms. Rather, criticism of reforms might be rooted in ideas of social justice and claims to socio-economic security. Furthermore, these explanations tend to overlook the need for domestic elites to bargain with various domestic stakeholders. A case study of Croatian public administration reform illustrates that failure of externally promoted reforms remain an option when significant international resources are available for liberal state-building and the target of reform is a relatively mature bureaucracy.     

‘Faulty’ fiscal illusion: examining the relationship between revenue diversification and tax burden in major US cities across the economic cycle

We investigate how revenue diversification affects tax burden in major U.S cities as it interacts with fiscal balance reported in the general fund over the economic cycle. We find that more diversified cities have higher tax burdens, and that this effect is strengthened when cities maintain a large surplus in the general fund. We also test models of revenue diversification's impact on tax burden using data from 1995 to 2010, separated into good fiscal years (1995-2001, 2004-2007, 2010) and bad fiscal years (2002-2003, 2008-2009). Model estimates show that greater revenue diversification leads to higher tax burden in bad fiscal years but this outcome is not found in good fiscal years. Cities seek greater revenue diversification when they are experiencing economic recessions. This study contains important implications for local financial management and contributes to the literature on revenue diversification and tax burden.     

Auditing party democracy: the case of Canadian party constituency associations

Political parties are often assessed on the basis of participatory democratic theory, which emphasises the importance of openness, inclusiveness, and responsiveness as the markers by which we can measure their democratic quality. This approach can be contrasted with competitive democratic theory that emphasises the centrality of fairness, transparency, and accountability to the democratic assessment of parties and other democratic actors. We apply these contrasting frameworks to a democratic audit of one set of party institutions and actors: the grassroots constituency associations maintained by Canadian parties. We illustrate how the outcomes of such assessments are deeply informed by the frameworks employed.     

地方性法规设定行政处罚的空间

从地方治理的现实需要出发,无论地方创制性立法设定“其他行政处罚”,还是地方执行性立法补充、增设违法行为与行政处罚,皆有其必要性与合理性。行政处罚法第12条第3款,赋予了地方执行性立法以行政处罚补充设定权,为确保地方立法机关合理行使该项权力,有必要对其适用空间加以厘定。为避免行政处罚过.多过繁,地方立法机关补充设定行政处罚时,应当遵循“非必要不设定”的原则,并综合考虑义务内容的确定性、合理性和可履行性,以及违法行为的可认定性等多项因素。地方性法规补充设定的行政处罚,只能限于上位法规定的行政处罚种类,且不能突破_上位法规定的处罚幅度。     

论我国地方治理体系中的执政党权力实现方式创新

改革开放以来,随着经济市场化、政治民主化及社会多元化的不断深入,我国地方治理体系也已经初步形成。以市场化、法治化、民主化与权力多元化为特征的地方治理,在形塑地方治理环境的同时,也极大地冲击了执政党的传统权力实现方式。这种冲击具体表现为民众政治认同感弱化、权威决策系统运行受制、政府治理能力与策略短缺等多种形式。通过对执政党介入地方宪政结构、党政结构、司法结构、层级结构与网络结构的实然方式和实际作用的深入分析,我们可以发现,政府部门必须以理念创新达成治理共识为起点,以结构创新理顺治理权力关系为基点,以职能创新确定治理格局为支点,以机制创新提升治理动力为着力点,全方位推进地方治理体系中执政党权力实现方式的创新,才能应对好当前的治理冲击和挑战。     

全面深化改革中的地方团校建设探讨

改革开放中地方团校获得了跨越式发展,团校办学领域和培训范围逐步拓展,作为教育事业单位的性质和职能得到更充分体现,内部管理制度和办学机制等方面的改革不断深化.在全面深化改革中,团校发展面临着创新特色,实现团干部教育培训机制与全面深化改革中的共青团工作实践紧密结合;扬长补短,不断增强转制到学历教育后的发展实力;齐头并进,加强团干部教育培训与学历教育的整合等一系列课题.需要通过围绕全面深化改革中党的中心和青年工作的发展,不断巩固团干部教育培训的基础性地位;积极参与国家急需人才的培养,不断提高学历教育水平;坚持与时俱进,改善和营造发展的有利环境等等路径来解决,开创新的局面.     

Comfortably inhabiting reality: justifying and denouncing arguments in a development dispute in the post-industrial gentrified inner-city

This article seeks to understand the ‘critical capacities’ of actors involved in public disputes by focussing on one such case in Melbourne, Australia. The dispute centred on a non-government school's proposal to develop classrooms in a heritage listed building on public land sublet from a charitable foundation. Following local council's rejection of the original proposal, the school successfully appealed to the Victorian Planning Minister. After introducing a critical pragmatic analytic framework, five accounts of the dispute given by key actors are examined, uncovering similarities in the arguments used by each. Then, in the same accounts, analysis identifies differences in how the pro- and anti-development groups justified their own and denounced their opponents' positions. Both groups recognised formal rules as the best means for preserving equal citizens' access to public space, yet the pro-development group justified their argument by reference to local community benefit, in contrast with the anti-development group, who adopted an abstract argument concerning the privatisation of public space. Understood as mobilising different ‘models of justice’, the groups are regarded as appealing to a ‘real’ order, an implicit politicised hierarchy that situates winners in relation to losers. In effect, the pro-development group justified its position by representing it as congruent with, rather than disrupting, the real order encompassing the situation. In conclusion, the paper discusses the usefulness of the critical pragmatic analytic framework for understanding governmental power relations and assemblages, as actors demonstrate their critical capacities in contexts where erstwhile formal equality obscures the presence of hierarchical order.     

Creating other options: negotiating the meanings of citizenships

In this article, I explore the ways in which citizenship is reinvented and reinterpreted through local understandings and experiences. I show how Israeli citizens who had applied for another citizenship create a distinction between their Israeli citizenship, which they conceptualize in terms of identity and belonging, and their ‘European passport’, which they depict as a technical non-obliging document, thus neutralizing the challenge it poses on questions of national loyalty. However, the other sought after citizenship, which represents a legally binding attachment to a nation-state, paradoxically becomes a powerful symbol of freedom, embodying other life possibilities and allowing for an active negotiation of belonging.