How single-member districts are reinforcing local independents and strengthening mayors: on the electoral reform in Polish local government

In this article, we investigate whether the design of the electoral system used in the elections of local councils affects the position of national parties and their main competitors, local independent lists. We study the case of the electoral reform enacted recently in Poland which modified the rules of council elections by introducing the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system, quite rarely used in local elections. Using empirical evidence from the municipalities where FPTP replaced the open-list proportional representation (OLPR) system, we demonstrate that the introduction of single-member districts, and majoritarian rule in council elections, increased the number of single independents, unaffiliated to any party or committee, and limited the (already poor) presence of party candidates and councillors. The reform also strengthened the position of directly elected mayors, in Poland – usually independent, by assuring many of them safe majorities in councils. We found that the share of seats for the winning mayor’s list increased by 10 pp on average after the reform.     

Co-producing safety in the local community: A Q-methodology study on the incentives of Belgian and Dutch members of neighbourhood watch schemes

This study aims to explain citizens’ engagement in co-production activities in the domain of community safety. We use a multiple case study design by looking at neighbourhood watch schemes in Belgium and the Netherlands. We applied Q-methodology to map the opinions of citizens about their co-productive efforts, and to cluster these opinions into co-producers’ profiles. Discussing differences and similarities in profiles enables a more generalised understanding of the reasons why people co-produce. We conclude with some policy-relevant points about incentivation when local governments want to achieve an increase in citizen co-production.     

Misogyny in ‘post-war’ Afghanistan: the changing frames of sexual and gender-based violence

Abstract

Although the US and NATO invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was ideologically justified under the banner of democracy and women’s rights, the latter issue has been completely forgotten within the public sphere since then. As the war has officially ended in Afghanistan, new forms of misogyny and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) have arisen. The ‘post-war’ Afghan context presents an institutional normalization of violence, favouring a culture of rape and impunity. The changing frames of violence against women are widely related to the political situation of the country: while public attention is focused on peace agreements, women’s issues are relegated to banalities and depicted as ‘everyday’ news. Meanwhile, new frames of SGBV appear as body part mutilation within marriage, forced prostitution, and increasing domestic violence, partly due to the growing consumption of opium but also to the perpetuation of powerful warlords in state structures. This article draws on gender studies to analyse the current misogynist culture in ‘post-war’ Afghanistan, framing the new forms of violence induced by successive armed conflicts. It relies on interviews conducted in 2013 in Afghanistan; and on secondary sources, mostly taken from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan and Human Rights Watch reports.     

Challenges to decentralisation in Ghana: where do citizens seek assistance?

Decentralisation in Ghana, and across sub-Saharan Africa, faces a number of challenges to successful local governance provision because there are a number of formal and informal actors to choose from. Citizens may take problems they want a governance provider to solve to a member of parliament or a district assembly person, a traditional chief or a police officer, a neighbour or an NGO. In this article we report on a four-constituency survey administered to explore and understand how citizens choose between the options of local institutions available to them in order to solve a problem important to their community or themselves. We find that formal national (Parliamentarians) and informal traditional (Chiefs) institutions are where respondents turn for assistance most often instead of constitutionally described local modes of governance (District Assemblies). We consider the implications of this finding in terms of decentralisation in Ghana and the need to build institutions that are context-sensitive and reflect how citizens understand political options.     

地方高校学报建设的现状与发展趋势

期刊市场竟争日趋激烈,优胜劣汰形势严峻,人们越来越感受到了高校学报潜在的危机。而地方高校学报整体上的虚弱态势却日益凸显。如果说地方高校学报的出现有它历史背景的话,那么现在学报面临的困难也自有历史的原因,安于现状和一味埋怨都无济于事,我们需要的是对地方高校学报建设现状的反思,找出症结,开拓新的途径。     

地域文化课程在干部培训中的价值分析

地域文化在干部培训中具有独特的课程价值.地域文化课程不仅有助于干部形成自我意识和体验生命的意义,还能增进干部与群众之间的理解与沟通,有利于弘扬和培育民族精神.     

超大社会视角的中央与地方关系

超大社会是中国最大国情。以超大社会的视角研究中央与地方关系,具有重要的理论价值与现实意义。中国历朝各代的兴衰,当今世界其他主要大型社会的集权与分权的权衡,为构建适合超大社会发展要求的中央与地方关系提供了足以借鉴的智慧。随着各项改革的不断深入,中央与地方关系需要进行相应的调整,以实现中央与地方权限的集分平衡。     

Market-Oriented Urban Planning – Constraining Citizen Participation

Urban planning in Norway can be characterised as market oriented, with responsibilities for the formulation of planning largely delegated to private developers. Even though the principle of citizen participation has a strong and longstanding tradition in Norway, the market-oriented practices challenge the ability of citizens to influence their spatial surroundings. Based on broad surveys and qualitative case studies, this article maps the attitudes of developers, councillors and planners towards citizen participation and studies the strategies of local community associations. Our analysis shows that developers value citizen participation to a much lesser degree than councillors and planners, which can explain the lack of participatory channels in early phases. Official avenues for participation occur later, primarily through hearings. Local associations find this to be too late, characterising urban planning as a path dependent process; as a consequence, local associations attempt to influence planning processes in a more informal way by contacting councillors directly.     

论广西地方政府在发展低碳经济中的责任

低碳经济以其独特优势和巨大市场已逐步成为世界经济发展的趋势,广西作为中国对外开放与区域经济合作的新一极,正以崭新的姿态与积极的步伐迎接低碳时代的到来。广西地方政府在发展低碳经济中应做好战略规划,建立政策法规体系、企业监督体系、战略同盟体系、科技支持体系,发展高新低碳技术产业、低碳文化和教育事业,构建广西地方政府发展低碳经济的责任体系。     

Contracting out local public services in Slovakia

In our paper, we focus on how local self-governments perform in the delivery of local public services to citizen. The paper is based on concrete data, collected from 200l to 2008 by our research team, including following services--waste collection and disposal, street maintenance, public green, public lighting, cemeteries. Local self-governments are responsible for a large number of public services and their share in total public expenditures is almost 7%. However, our concrete data for evaluated services clearly show that large decentralization did not deliver immediate results and much remains to be done to improve the processes of local service delivery. The problems are not so much connected with existing legislation, but the core issue is the quality and effectiveness of functioning of all involved institutions. Outsourcing decisions are not well ex-ante reviewed, neither ex-post comprehensively evaluated for their outcomes and results. In many cases, competitive tendering is not used to get the best bid. The main purposes for such situation are lack of accountability and compliance control, the most important corrective measures are proposed in the last part of the paper.