The Role of Citizen Participation and the Use of Social Media Platforms in the Participatory Budgeting Process

In the United States participatory budgeting (PB) is a relatively new and innovative approach to municipal budgeting that has implications for improving the role of citizen participation in the budgetary process. The research is based on personal interviews with local community leaders involved in the PB process in the 49th Ward of Chicago, Illinois; the 6th Ward of St. Louis, Missouri; and the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Highlights are provided of the specific experiences and perceptions of these community leaders with a particular emphasis on the use of social media platforms in engaging citizens in the PB process. This article concludes with recommendations for creating a PB infrastructure, for increasing citizen participation in the PB process, and for assessing and increasing the impact of PB in cities within the United States.     

Organizational Commitment,Job Satisfaction and Attitudes toward Organizational Change: A Study in the Local Government

The present study investigates the direct and indirect relationships among job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and attitudes toward organizational change and their dimensions. Results indicated that employees in the investigated departments are highly satisfied with supervision and coworkers, whereas they are slightly satisfied with work conditions and job security, but they have low satisfaction with pay and promotion facets of the job. Results further demonstrated that employees in the investigated departments are remaining with their current departments either because they want to do so, or because they have to do so, but not because they feel they ought to do so.     

The use of intergovernmental grants to municipalities for electoral purposes by subnational governments

Subnational governments devote a significant share of their financial resources to help municipalities provide local public services to their citizens. Compared to the large number of studies on national governments, little effort has been devoted to the influence of distributive politics on the use of intergovernmental grants by subnational governments. To fill this gap, this study uses a data set covering the period 2001–2011 to verify to what extent the Québec government used conditional grants to municipalities for electoral purposes. The results of this study show that the allocation of grants to municipalities is not exempt from electoral politics as municipalities located in districts held by governing parties or in high electoral competition districts receive more grants than other municipalities. However, the influence of electoral politics decreases substantially when the management of intergovernmental grants is under tight scrutiny by the opposition parties, mass media and the population. These findings suggest that distributive politics can be conceptualised as a political agency problem whose prevalence is seriously constrained by the improvement of the transparency of public policies management.     

Dealing with Austerity: a case of local resilience in Southern Europe

Southern countries are undergoing a severe economic crisis that has renewed debates about the available strategies to economise their public resources. Political leaders have launched a wide range of different strategies aimed at reducing spending. According to generally accepted political discourse, drastic actions should be taken to guarantee economic and financial sustainability in times of austerity. We explore the main measures adopted by Spanish municipalities in order to examine their impact in budgetary terms. First of all, we identify the most frequently implemented mechanisms including organisational structure, public services and operational economic restructuration. After their quantification, we monitor the presence and impact of each set of policies to analyse the relationship between concrete measures and effective economic impact. The effective reduction of budgets is being implemented but data show that local governments are resilient to non-compulsory changes. The ‘government at a distance’ policy pursued by the central state administration has effectively reduced budgets but has not affected the institutional core of Spanish local governments.     

Local elected administrators’ career characteristics and revenue diversification as a managerial strategy

Local governments have endeavoured to be fiscally better prepared against adverse economic downturns, and revenue diversification (RD) is considered one of such efforts. This study examines how Korean local governments have utilised diversification as a managerial strategy between 2007 and 2010. Focusing on local elected administrators’ (LEAs’) previous career, it reports that local governments with administrators with business experiences diversify revenues more than those with politics-turned administrators. It further finds that the effects of socio-economic and institutional factors are moderated by administrators’ career characteristics. Based on such evidence, theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The Resource Curse Reconsidered: Cash Crops and Local Violence in Kyrgyzstan

It is often noted in resource curse literature that agricultural economies are less conflict-prone than countries managing mobile, high-value resources. In the vast literature linking resource endowment and conflict, cash crop economies are often considered immune to civil violence, believed to stand apart from the many horrific episodes of violence and civil war centered on “lootable” wealth (such as alluvial diamonds, tin, tungsten, or other conflict minerals). But many incidents of violence—especially local violence—are in fact occurring in cash crop economies. Drawing on newspaper accounts, policy analyses, ethnographic interviews, and in-depth reports by international organizations, I examine an episode of local violence in 2010 in Kyrgyzstan. Through this case study, the article provides a better understanding of local violence in cash crop economies that can apply to other weak states.     

Direct democracy and subjective regime legitimacy in Europe

While much research focuses on the causes and consequences of direct democracy and regime legitimacy, little attention has been paid to the potential relationship between them. In an attempt to fill this void, this paper focuses on the legal provisions for direct democracy and its use. The key argument is that possibilities for the public’s direct involvement reflect high importance given to citizens, openness of the regime towards different modes of decision-making, and ways to avoid unpopular institutions. Consequently, citizens are likely to accept and support the regime, improving or maintaining its legitimacy. The cross-national analysis includes 38 European countries ranging from transition countries to established democracies. It uses bivariate statistical analysis and country-level data collected from legislation, secondary sources, and aggregate surveys.     

Light,dark and the powers that be: a hydroelectric project in Butembo

Despite its major importance in international trade, the city of Butembo in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo is deprived of such basic urban infrastructure as electricity. Private and public actors have attempted to bring power to the city, but their efforts have remained fruitless. Analysis of these failed projects to electrify the city offers a glimpse of local power relations. Why, rather than cooperating, do various local power holders counteract each other? Will gaining credit for bringing electric power to the city in turn yield political power over its future? With a special focus on a hydroelectric dam that was built but never functioned, this article sheds light on the way in which the citizens of Butembo relate to different bodies of authority. I argue that the hydroelectric dam gradually became a tool in a larger political strategy.     

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.     

How Public Officials Gain Policy Influence—Lessons from Local Government in Sweden

That public officials influence public policy is generally agreed upon, but the issue of how individual officials gain this influence is less developed in the literature. Here, the stories and experiences of 10 officials, active in local environmental governing in Sweden, are used to identify, describe, and discuss key strategies for gaining policy influence. The result shows the importance of accessing key politicians; avoiding isolation within the administration; developing long-term strategies; and being skilled in communication, networking, and generating external resources. The way these officials act and think challenges some well-established theoretical notions and adds empirical insights to the democratic dilemma of bureaucratic power.