Local Expenditure Interaction in Italian Municipalities: Do Local Council Partnerships Make a Difference?

This paper investigates interdependence among local councils in Italy in their public spending and distinguishes between possible sources of this interdependence. We find significant positive interaction among neighbouring local councils in regard to both spending at the level of total expenditure and spending on different sub-categories. Attempts to identify the source of this horizontal interaction seem to reject the yardstick competition hypothesis. Addressing the role that local council partnerships may play in internalising fiscal externalities, we suggest that expenditure interaction may be driven by spill-over.     

Buying Local Votes: The Effect of Individual Campaign Spending Under a Semi-Open PR System in the Belgian Local Elections

This article analyses the effect of campaign spending on the individual result of party candidates in the Belgian local elections. An analysis of data concerning the 2012 local elections in the Flemish region shows that candidates who spend more in absolute terms or outspend their rivals (at the list and the municipality level) obtain a better result, even though the size of the effect is small. Contrary to what was found for national elections, there are indications that spending affects the odds of obtaining a seat in the local council. The spending effect tends to be weaker for candidates holding an executive office in the municipality.     

From the Executive Board to the Classroom. What Debt Relief Means for Education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

ABSTRACT

This analysis re-assesses the IMF’s decision to grant debt relief to the DRC in 2010 based on the country’s poverty reduction and growth performance: would the IMF come to the same conclusion given the current knowledge available about the impact of the debt relief process on public governance and service delivery? First, it shows that, whereas the direct resource effect of this aid modality was minimal, the indirect effect was more significant: the conditionalities attached to the process helped to stabilize the economy and increased the overall budget of the Congolese state. This increased resource availability also sustainably percolated to the education sector. Second, however, the impact on social development was minimal: school enrolment increased but was hardly accompanied by extra budget per pupil, whereas more complicated challenges like disparities in access or quality of schooling were left untouched. The government’s strategy was also partly short-circuited by the electoral process.     

SUB‐NATIONAL GOVERNMENT CAPITAL SPENDING IN INDONESIA: LEVEL,STRUCTURE, AND FINANCING

Sub‐national government capital spending is important for both public service delivery and economic development. Currently, Indonesian sub‐national public capital spending appears barely sufficient to cover the annual depreciation of its fixed assets. A substantial proportion of local government investment spending goes to create relatively unproductive assets, such as administrative office buildings. Sub‐national governments finance their capital acquisitions out of gross operating budgets and have thus far not used, to any great extent, either borrowed funds or their significant cash reserves for such purposes. Indonesian sub‐nationals need to spend more on capital than they do now and also need to focus that spending on more useful types of infrastructure. The major constraints to increasing capital spending at the sub‐national level are not related to a dearth of finance, but regulatory rigidities in budget preparation and implementation and, most importantly, a lack of capacity to plan, design and implement investment projects. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How do candidates spend their money? Objects of campaign spending and the effectiveness of diversification

We present a novel approach to the study of campaign effectiveness using disaggregated spending returns from the 2007 Irish general election. While previous studies have focused on overall levels of expenditure as a predictor of electoral success, we consider the types of activities on which candidates spent money and the overall diversification of candidates’ campaign expenditure as predictors of electoral success. We offer a replicable framework for the measurement of campaign diversification as well as for the evaluation of its effects on electoral performance. We examine how factors such as campaign expenditure and candidates’ incumbency status condition the effects of campaign diversification. It is shown that diversification is only related to electoral success when campaigns are well-financed.     

Regions of Hierarchy and Security: US Troop Deployments,Spatial Relations,and Defense Burdens

Recent work has begun exploring the effects of foreign military deployments on host-state foreign policies. However, research mostly focuses on dyadic relationships between major powers and host-states, ignoring the broader regional security environment of host-states. We develop a theory of spatial hierarchies to understand how security relationships throughout the region surrounding the host-state affect host-state foreign policy. Using data on US military deployments from 1950–2005, we show that regional security considerations condition how host-states respond to the deployment of military forces to their territory. Consequently, regional analyses are fundamental in understanding monadic and dyadic decisions about security, alliance behavior, and conflict.     

Reforming campaign finance in the nineties: a case study of Spain

This paper analyzes the reforms of the Spanish electoral finance regulatory system during the nineties. We present a number of indexes to measure the impact of the reforms on parties and campaign spending. We also suggest a game theoretical model to explain why the two main parties agreed to support the legal changes in the nineties. A principal outcome of the reforms was to establish an effective limit to campaign expenses. In our view this would have not been feasible in the late seventies or eighties. Then the parties were trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma in which each party had to spend more in order to prevent other parties from gaining electoral advantage. But in the nineties the main parties, ridden with problems of soaring electoral debts and disgruntled voters, used the reform of political finance as a coordination device to achieve a Pareto efficient equilibrium.     

How does government funding affect nonprofits' program spending? Evidence from international development organizations

Under the new governance models, the scope of government funding of nonprofit activities in service delivery and policy implementation is extensive. There is a long‐standing concern that government funding may compromise nonprofit operations and lead to unintended consequences. This research examines the concern by exploring the effect of government funding on nonprofits' spending on programs and services. Existing theories and empirical evidence propose competing arguments concerning the relationship between government funding and nonprofits' program spending. Using a 20‐year panel dataset of international development nonprofits registered with the United States Agency for International Development, we find that nonprofits receiving more government funding spend significantly higher proportions of their organizational resources on development programs. Government funding seems to increase nonprofits' program spending and to make them more focused on their mission‐related activities.     

Funding Local Government: Use (and Abuse) of Peru's Canon System

While decentralisation, properly understood, implies that sub‐national government involves devolution of authority over revenues, recent experience from Peru suggests that the canon system tends to create perverse incentives in encouraging open and democratic government at the local level. This is particularly the case in regions such as Cusco, which benefit disproportionately from this system. Examination of experiences in four provinces of Cusco shows how – in the absence of a robust civil society – excessive funding tends to encourage clientelism and corruption rather than accountable and transparent administration.     

Japan's security agenda in the post‐cold war era

The radically changed regional security environment in the post‐cold war Asia‐Pacific poses serious challenges to Japan's security policy. Tokyo must develop a new strategic view of the region to complement its tendency to emphasize security based on economic growth and interdependence. Japan's relations with the United States, Russia and China have far‐reaching, long‐term regional security implications, yet Tokyo is barely managing to respond to bilateral political and economic issues as they arise. While the waning of the cold war security threat and budgetary considerations are putting increasing constraints on Tokyo's spending for both defence and foreign economic assistance, there are conflicting international demands and fears concerning expanded Japanese international security roles. At the same time, Tokyo's desire to participate more actively in United Nations peacekeeping and to gain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council is hampered by the domestic constitutional debate and widespread pacifism, both legacies of the Second World War and the cold war. Tokyo must muster both domestic and international support for legitimate uses of the nation's enormous power potential.