Local Government and Local Governance: 1944–2011

Abstract

Since the establishment of the tri-partite system of state education after the Second World War, the once simple relationships between central government and local government and the individual school have become increasingly complex. This article considers the key governance issues for schools and colleges in England and how they have been affected by the redistribution of power between central government and local government. The principal foci are the main legislative changes and the impact they have had on the respective powers and responsibilities of central government, local government and schools and colleges. The radical developments since the formation of the coalition government in May 2010 have accelerated the shift of power to central government from local government and by the end of the first term of the coalition the local authority will have little more than a vestigial role in the provision of secondary education and a diminishing role in primary and special education. As academy status becomes the norm (as it already is for secondary schools in some authorities) central government will be dealing directly with autonomous schools and academy chains. With more schools directly employing staff and with funding levels set nationally, the pattern and nature of public education will have been irrevocably changed.     

Transnational policy networks in the migration field: a challenge for the European Union

The migration policy field is a multilayered and fragmented area still lacking a strong global and European regime. Nonetheless, different initiatives and fora have been promoted in the last decade to increase the international dialogue on migration, with the active participation of non-state actors, and particularly civil society organisations (CSOs). The article reviews selected initiatives undertaken at the UN and European level, whereby institutional representatives engage with CSOs in furthering migration policies. These initiatives and platforms may constitute transnational policy networks (TPNs). It explores signals towards the consolidation of more structured and ‘hard’ forms of participatory policy-making on migration issues, as well as obstacles present in this engagement dynamic. The key question addressed in this study is whether and how European institutions have engaged with the TPNs in the field of migration. The article also explores how some of the TPNs influence institutional policy-making at the EU level.     

The emergence of regulatory regionalism: transnational networks and the diffusion of regulatory agencies within regions

The regulatory regionalism approach has increasingly claimed that a new mode of regional governance is emerging globally. Regional policy regimes, developed in broad social and economic territorial areas, affect the internal transformation of the state. The authors plan to provide comprehensive empirical evidence about the emergence of worldwide regulatory regionalism by identifying how regulatory agencies have diffused very successfully within the regional level in recent decades. The paper aims to identify, using an original methodological design, the ways in which such diffusion of agencies occurred, as this may have theoretical relevance for the study of regulatory regionalism. The authors' hypothesis suggests that transnational political interactions in each regional cluster triggered agency diffusion, contributing to the development of the regulatory state within the countries of each region. To test this hypothesis, the authors employed a data set of regulatory agencies including the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), and most Asian and Latin American countries (+59) from 1950 to 2007, for 15 sectors related to finance, risks, utility and competition. Bayesian data analysis was used to estimate the parameters of interest.     

“众创时代”共青团院校创业教育的发展

在大众创业、万众创新的时代,共青团院校应该通过发挥团青引领优势、创新优势、桥梁优势、覆盖优势等,大力发展创业教育。通过培养大学生、青年、团员的创新创业能力,为社会经济繁荣和社会治理发展做出贡献。当然,共青团院校创业教育要更好地发挥其独特作用,还应该在争取党和政府制定激励共青团院校创业教育的政策、探索"全员创业教育"的新型机制、师生树立多元化创业教育的新观念、将创新创业贯穿人才培养的全过程、与青年企业及机构建立"无缝对接"以及加大创业教育的国际交流与合作等方面做出努力。     

The geopolitical economy of social policy in the Philippines: securitisation,emerging powers and multilateral policies

Recent geopolitical and economic changes have altered global social policy formation. The Bretton Woods multilateral development agencies (MDAs) have selectively incorporated ideas emerging from developing country states and decision makers, with a recent increased acceptance of social transfers as part of renewed efforts at poverty alleviation based on social risk management. There has been an instance in the use and promotion of conditional cash transfer (CCT) policies by MDAs. CCTs were a product of the emergence of a neo-structuralist welfare regime (understood as an ideal type) in Latin America – an attempt to reconcile neoliberal strategies of development with aspirations for guaranteed minimum incomes. The Bretton Woods and regional development bank MDAs have facilitated the adoption of CCTs in other developing countries, including the Phillipines. Here, a combination of actions by national political actors and MDAs has resulted in the implementation of a securitised and compliance-focused version of CCTs derived from the Colombian security state. Although poor Philippine households welcome income assistance, CCTs have acted to enforce further state monitoring without altering the national-based political and economic processes that replicate poverty.     

Agenda and Public Policy: Evidence From Chile

Based on Kingdon’s model and the punctuated equilibrium theory, this article analyzes the process of four Chilean public policies from 1990 to 2013. Evidence was collected from 205 interviews, official documents, 3,905 press clippings, and academic literature. Grounded theory was employed to analyze interviews. The analysis shows a tacit alliance between power and expert knowledge, that presidential motivation seems to be a key factor for an idea to be included in government agenda, that Chile’s policy-making process is rather elitist, and that its characteristics coincide with the “inside access model of agenda building.”     

Urban Regeneration Policy from the Integrated Urban Development Model in the European Union: an Analytical Approach Based on the Study of Spanish Cities

For several years, local governments have been tackling new challenges related to the regeneration of their cities within the physical sphere, as well as in their economic and social aspects. This task is developed in accordance with what has been called the Integrated Urban Development Model, understanding the integrated nature of this approach not only in terms of the spheres of public policy involved, but also in relation to their management. In this paper, this management is analysed in terms of the development of mechanisms for New Local Governance and New Public Management (NPM). Using Spanish municipalities as a case study, this paper develops an analytical tool for the analysis of this model of urban intervention within the European context, paying close attention to the development of mechanisms for New Local Governance from a multilevel perspective, as well as the development of mechanisms for NPM.     

结构性变动对劳动生产率的影响：模型与实证

结构性改革的重点是通过经济结构变动、调整和优化,在市场配置的基础上充分促进劳动力流动,让低效率部门劳动力充分向高效率部门流动,从而激发劳动者的生产积极性,促进劳动生产率增长。因此,理论上两部门结构性效率差异模型分析了高效率部门和低效率部门之间劳动力流动对于激发劳动者积极性、提升劳动生产率的影响。在此基础上,使用1978-2017年城乡结构、产业结构、所有制结构、区域结构等年度时间序列数据,分析各自对于劳动生产率变动的影响。计量结果表明,在各种结构性变动因素影响劳动生产率的作用中,按照大小顺序依次是城市化、区域经济适度均衡并允许有条件区域加快发展、市场化和产业结构优化。因此,要通过有效促进城镇化、发达区域经济适度领先发展、市场化和产业结构高度化,来提高劳动生产率。     

Corporate policy entrepreneurship and cross-boundary strategies: How a private corporation champions mobile healthcare payment innovation in China?

The private nature of corporate actors does not necessarily preclude them from contributing to public interest. When business strategies and genuine public motivation are favorably aligned, corporate actors from the private sector can also drive public sector innovations. For a private corporation, policy entrepreneurship inherently entails crossing not only the public–private boundary but also various policy domains. This study formulates five propositions to characterize the cross-boundary strategies of corporate policy entrepreneurship, a distinct form of policy entrepreneurship in a developing authoritarian state. The case study of mobile healthcare payment innovation in China finds that the corporate entrepreneur used a series of cross-boundary strategies adeptly that eventually made the innovation not only adopted in one locality but also rapidly diffused nationwide. These strategies were not used in isolation or in a pure stepwise fashion but appeared to be recursive and interactive, suggesting the dynamic nature of corporate policy entrepreneurship in a multilevel governance system. More studies could be done to further examine strategies and processes of other forms of policy entrepreneurship in various national and sectoral settings.     

Diffusion models over the life cycle of an innovation: A bottom-up and top-down synthesis approach

The diffusion models tend to be tested individually in isolation and remain the same over time for the studied innovations in the literature. Moreover, there is growing interest to learn from other countries in our current age of globalization. Therefore, this paper chooses the innovation of public resources trading platforms in China to fulfill above literature gaps. We have examined key events and the issuances of related laws and regulations by Chinese governments. Our contributions are twofold: (a) Our analysis and results show that the diffusion models evolve over the different stages of a life cycle of an innovation, contrasting to the literature results that diffusion models remain the same for their studied innovations. Due to major diverse characteristics among different adopter categories over a life cycle of an innovation, we argue that it is appropriate and necessary to apply different diffusion models on different adopter categories, which is missing in the current literature. (b) We find a first bottom-up and then top-down synthesis approach as an effective, efficient diffusion process for both fitting local needs (i.e., effective) and adopting innovations rapidly nationwide (i.e., efficient).