Did Jamie Oliver Really Put School Dinners on the Agenda? An Examination of the Role of the Media in Policy Making

Healthy eating is high on the government's agenda in current times and to all intents and purposes the media appears to have played a crucial role in putting it there. While media focus is no doubt intense and playing a vital role in public education (take Jamie Oliver's 2005 Channel 4 documentary, ‘School dinners’, for example), the question that lies at the heart of this article, is whether the media has led the government agenda on healthy eating and school dinners as appears to be the case. A close examination of the evidence suggests otherwise: government policy was already well set before the media began to show a concerted interest and hence its influence on policy‐making is more limited than might be expected. Rather than setting agendas per se, the media's role has been to refine and energise existing policy areas and to facilitate implementation.     

A Crowded Stage: Liabilities and Benefits of Multiparty Mediation

In today's environment, the international response to conflict often entails multiple mediators as well as other third-party actors such as peacekeeping forces, development agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and lone operators. Such a profusion of actors has often made peacemaking efforts messy, difficult, and at times chaotic. The vicious nature of internal conflicts, however, and the high costs for the international community of failing to prevent or end war make it critical to understand these multiple third-party interventions. The principal question is: do these multiparty mediations help or hurt the cause of peace? If the answer to that question is that a multiplicity of third parties can hurt a peace process, does the solution lie in stopping multiple third-party attempts at peacemaking? On the other hand, if the answer is that multiparty mediation can help, are there ways of increasing the chances that it will?     

The Attlee government and welfare state reforms in post-war Italian Socialism (1945–51): Between universalism and class policies

The purpose of this article is to analyse how the Italian socialist movement viewed the social reforms of the Attlee Labour government introduced just after the Second World War. The intention is to study the extent and limits of the labour influence on Italian socialism. The Labour Party made the re-founding of a new interclass social pact, a universal matter intending to meet the needs of both the working and middle classes. The Italian socialist movement monitored the Labour government’s changes with interest, assessing them from two different perspectives. The reformist wing had a better grasp of the political–ideological implications of Labour’s approach to the welfare state. Vice versa, the majority of the Italian socialists pursued a class socialism and a strong alliance with the Communist Party, rejecting the Labour social policy model. After the split of 1947, however, the two views of Italian socialism failed to develop and implement a political programme for a welfare state based on the British universalistic tendency model. The political weaknesses of Italian socialist organizations in the field of social policy contributed to the characterization of the Italian welfare state in the post-war period and fundamentally delayed its universalistic implementation, at least until the 1960s.     

Financial Health in Australian Local Government: The Application of a Funding Assessment Model to Brisbane and Sydney City Councils

Local government financial viability measurement in an accrual budgeting environment poses complex challenges. Financial measures frequently generate conflicting results. A rating scale to assess financial management, constructed originally for South African municipalities (Dollery & Graves, 2009), represents a useful tool to analyze financial health trends. Applying a “Likert-like” scale to financial performance measures to assess “funding compliance”, the model in this article assists municipalities to avoid financial difficulties. To demonstrate the applicability of this model, we apply the model to the Brisbane City Council and the Sydney City Councils. Results show that the model represents a valuable aid to financial management decision-making.     

The Influence of Resistance to Change on Public-Sector Reform Implementation: The Case of Italian Municipalities’ Internal Control System

The present research tries to contribute to the academic debate on public management reform adoption, focusing on the reasons for the discrepancies between actual and formal changes and using resistance to change as theoretical basis. The study hypothesizes that high levels of individual and organizational resistance to change may be associated to the formal implementation of public management reforms. The research results allow to confirm the hypothesis when large-size municipalities are considered, while when considering medium-size entities a definite evidence of a relation between resistance to change and the formal implementation of the reforms does not emerge.     

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.     

Did the Big Stick Work? An Empirical Assessment of Scale Economies and the Queensland Forced Amalgamation Program

In 2007, the Queensland Government imposed forced amalgamation with the number of local authorities falling from 157 to just 73 councils. Amalgamation was based inter alia on the assumption that increased economies of scale would generate savings. This paper empirically examines pre- and post-amalgamation (2006/07 and 2009/10) for scale economies. For the 2006/07 data, evidence of economies of scale was found for councils with populations up to 98,000, and thereafter diseconomies of scale. Eight percent of councils in 2006/07 (ten councils) – representing 64% of the state’s population – exhibited diseconomies of scale. For the 2009/10 data, the average cost curve remained almost stationary at 99,000 residents per council, but almost 25% of all councils (thirteen councils) were now found to exhibit diseconomies of scale. The compulsory merger program thus increased the proportion of Queensland residents in councils operating with diseconomies of scale to 84%.     

Municipal Mergers in New Zealand: An Empirical Analysis of the Proposed Amalgamation of Hawke’s Bay Councils

Local government policymakers across the developed world have frequently employed municipal amalgamation to improve the operation of local councils, and New Zealand is no exception. This paper empirically examines claims made in Potential Costs and Savings of Local Government Reform in Hawke’s Bay that the merger of the five local authorities in the Hawke’s Bay Region of New Zealand would generate significant cost-savings. We empirically test for the existence of scale economies in a single merged Hawke’s Bay council and find that no cost-savings can be expected. This removes a key argument for a forced Hawke’s Bay amalgamation.     

Does Size Still Matter? An Empirical Analysis of the Effectiveness of Victorian Local Authorities

Efficiency approaches to the question of whether population size matters to optimal local government have proved largely inconclusive. However, recent exploratory empirical work employing an effectiveness approach – as proxied by citizen satisfaction survey data – offers a promising way forward. The present paper seeks to build upon an earlier cross-sectional analysis of Victorian local government by employing longitudinal data over a three-year period – 2008 to 2010 – for Victorian local authorities. The greater depth of data confirmed the positive associations with population density but suggests that negative linear relationships dominate over parabolic associations for population size. This result underlines the need for the collection of more local government citizen satisfaction data by Australian local government systems, given its potentially fruitful application in tackling contentious questions in contemporary local government policy debates.     

司法解释场域的“央地矛盾”及其纾解——以“地方释法”为中心的分析

在以统一法制为目标的法律解释体制下,最高司法机关供给的司法解释资源无法满足地方司法机关的释法需求,构成了司法解释场域的“央地矛盾”.为了缓解供需矛盾,地方司法机关开始自发转向“地方释法”,试图以发布地方释法文件的方式实现司法治理效果.中央虽对“地方释法”持禁止态度,但制定的相关规制规范却过于宽松,未能起到应有的限制作用...