Political accountability,fiscal conditions and local government performance—cross‐sectional evidence from Indonesia

Why are some local governments more successful than others in managing resources and delivering services? And even more vitally, how can malfunctioning governments be reformed so that they perform their responsibilities more effectively? This article contributes to our understanding of theses overarching questions by exploring the interactions between political institutions and public sector performance in the context of decentralisation and local governance. It shows–both theoretically and empirically–that performance outcomes are determined by the extent to which people can hold their governments accountable through political institutions. The basic hypothesis underlying this research is that political accountability, either by encouraging sanctions upon non‐compliant public agents or simply by reducing the informational gap regarding government activities, will create forceful incentives for elected officials and civil servants to reduce opportunistic behaviour and improve performance. Using a cross‐sectional regression the hypothesis is empirically tested against evidence from newly empowered local governments in Indonesia. The empirical findings broadly support our hypotheses. Improved public services on the ground, both in terms of quantity and quality, require informed and well functioning decision‐making processes that allocate resources to priority areas that meet the demand of the broader community. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Public Sector Participation and Compliance across National and Global Transparency Regimes

Transparency has recently become a widely supported norm of information regulation within and among states. Transparency may be a widely accepted element of good governance, but it has a number of dimensions and manifestations. This article is among the first to examine the relationship between public sector transparency at the domestic and global levels. While the extant literature suggests that we should expect a strong relationship between the degree of a jurisdiction’s domestic and global commitments to public sector transparency, our sample of the 33 jurisdictions for which data are available finds no such correlation. The article develops an explanation of this unexpected finding, which highlights the varied incentives to implement transparency-promoting reforms that different jurisdictions experience. This analysis suggests that many developing countries engage in marginal participation across regimes. More concerning are possible cases of mock compliance where states participate in transparency regimes without the intention of fully implementing their commitments. Mock compliance is of particular concern in the sphere of global governance in which sovereignty is contested and compliance mechanisms face unique challenges.     

Fact Checking and Information in the Age of Covid

The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed and accelerated an information crisis as well as a health one. What we discover about Covid 19, how it spreads, to whom and why and how best to mitigate it—all depend on information. The essays in this special section, which this article introduces, explore the importance of information and the fundamental role of fact checkers in understanding how information flows, why mistakes are made, and how to counteract them. Fact checking as an idea and a practice emerged in the early twenty-first century, developed as a positive beacon to counteract a growing sense that information could no longer be trusted. Now, more than a decade after its creation, fact checking sits within a far more complex and chaotic media context, and its expertise and understanding has never been so important. We need to understand what fact checkers do because they are grappling with how to tether us to reality.     

小微企业和谐劳动关系构建的财政扶持政策研究

小微企业存在着大量的体面劳动赤字,要构建和谐劳动关系面临着许多现实困境。除了促进劳动法在小微企业的有效实施外,还应该通过财政扶持政策促进小微企业和谐劳动关系的构建。这些具体的财政扶持政策包括就业岗位、工会会费、劳动安全卫生、企业培训、社会保险费的财政补贴政策以及劳动关系规范化管理的财政激励政策。     

Parliament on its Knees: MPs' Expenses and the Crisis of Transparency at Westminster

In May 2009, revelations made in The Daily Telegraph about the way that MPs had used and abused the House of Commons expenses and allowances regime threw the British political system into turmoil, forced the resignation of the Speaker of the Commons along with a number of implicated MPs, and ignited talk about a crisis in parliamentary democracy and a collapse of public trust in politics. This article explores the events that led to this situation, from the structure of MPs pay and allowance system, the Freedom of Information context that framed the disaster, and the crisis of transparency which the House of Commons has itself precipitated. It argues that, talk of parliamentary reform aside, MPs must radically rethink the way that they approach their representative role and the nature of their broader engagement with the public they claim to serve.     

关于中国财政分权制度的思考

财政分权是财税体制的关键.随着经济发展,我国分税制财政体制的问题逐渐凸现.这与我国非制度化的中央集权,"职责同构"的行政体制密切相关.财政体制改革应当从创新行政管理体制,实现中央和地方关系的法治化、制度化两方面着手.     

Fiscal Policy Learning from Crisis: Comparative Analysis of the Baltic Countries

The experience of a major crisis is often expected to lead to policy learning but the empirical evidence about this is limited. The goal of the paper is to explore comparatively whether the crisis of 2008–2010 has led to fiscal policy learning by civil servants in the three Baltic countries. Despite some differences in the crisis experience, the finance ministry officials in all three countries have identified the same lesson from the crisis: fiscal policy should be counter-cyclical and help to stabilize the economy. The paper also discusses how various factors have influenced policy learning, including the acknowledgment of failure, blame shifting, and analytical tractability.     

Does Gender Equality Affect Municipal Transparency: The Case of Spain

The influence of women in organizational transparency is an understudied vein of representative bureaucracy. Literature claims that the increase of women in formal political representation opened the opportunity to bring to public organizations gender diversity, experiences, and values different from those of men. It highlights the beneficial leadership styles and the legitimacy of public bureaucracies. Since gender equality in Spanish local government has increased in recent years, it was the trigger and the aim for this study: to understand the influence of women’s political representation on the level of Spanish municipalities’ transparency. The analysis draws on panel data econometric techniques. The results reinforce the discussion that the representation of women in local political life will increase information transparency and reduce information asymmetry in municipalities.     

Learning-Shaping Crises: A Longitudinal Comparison of Public Personnel Reforms in Italy, 1992‒2014

Abstract

This article analyses the attempts to reform public administration, notably personnel management, in Italy between 1992 and 2014, with a focus on implementation and the period following the multiple crises that have unfolded since 2008. By untangling the policy learning processes between multiple crises, past reform attempts and domestic and European “contexts in motion”, the article finds that efficiency-oriented reforms have floundered regardless of the political color of governments or indeed of the nature – political or technocratic – of the governments. Domestic factors, notably the frequency of government alternation, i.e. government instability, and European pressure have further reinforced the orientation towards single-loop lessons, i.e. the almost exclusive effecting of short-term cost-cutting measures.     

Restoring Fiscal Balances Post the Global Economic Crisis in Botswana

This article discusses the restoration of fiscal balances in Botswana after prolonged deficit financing. Botswana is a diamond-export-dependent country; resultantly, it suffered revenue losses due to depressed demand for diamonds during the global economic crisis. Reduced revenues necessitated deficit financing between 2008/09 and 2011/12. Debt was financed through dissaving and borrowing. However, the government restored budget balances in April 2012. While this case study is Botswana-specific, there are general lessons. These are: using a crisis to introduce public finance reforms; eschewing populism aimed at short-term gains; and the need for politicians to take very bold decisions to guide fiscal policy.