Performance Measurement in Italian and Spanish Local Governments: Comparative Policy Analysis

NPM reforms have become a global trend and performance management systems are considered suitable to enhance the decision-making process and accountability. The aim of the paper is to carry out a comparative study on the adoption of performance measurement tools in Italian and Spanish (medium-sized and large) local governments. It seeks to find out how widespread these tools are and how their usefulness is perceived. The results show differences between the two countries and that the presence of professional managers – experienced with performance measurement tools – positively affects the adoption of these tools. Moreover, performance measurement tools are perceived as a support for accountability purposes.     

Analysing credit risk in large local governments: an empirical study in Spain

In governments throughout the world, bank lending excesses, solvency issues and worsening credit ratings have all contributed to raising risk premiums and impeding access to credit, thus provoking a major financial problem in the public sector. Accordingly, tax authorities and regulators need to analyse the causes of public sector bank debt, doing so through the joint study of idiosyncratic and systematic variables, an area that has been neglected in previous research. This paper examines idiosyncratic and systematic factors that may influence local government credit risk through an empirical study of the performance of 148 large Spanish municipalities during 2006–2011. We identify individual factors relevant to the probability of local government default (such as dependent population, per capita income and debt composition) and also determinants associated with macroeconomic developments, such as gross domestic product and the risk premium.     

British Understandings of the Sanussiyya Sufi Order’s Jihad against Egypt, 1915–17

Abstract

This article considers the Sanussiyya Sufi order’s 1915–16 jihad on Egypt from a fresh perspective, analysing British understandings about the attack that soldiers and officials fashioned as the conflict progressed. By incorporating aspects of imperial and Islamic history and a focus on British perceptions, the article presents new directions in the study of the war in the Middle East that move beyond the concerns of older military histories. It analyses three key areas of British thinking in relation to this jihad. First, the belief that local fighters joined the campaign as a result of economic factors, chiefly the famine that swept the Western Desert from November 1915 as a result of an Anglo-Italian blockade, and that the order had little support from the local population owing to their policy of requisitioning goods. Second, the important set of perceptions that the Sanussiyya were pressured by the Ottomans to attack the British as part of their overall call for jihad against the Allied powers. Third, the divided nature of British views around the broader threat posed by the order to Egypt and the wider war effort. Finally, it examines the broader religious and ideological context of the Sanussiyya as an organised reformist Sufi order, engaged in a struggle for resistance to and survival against European imperialism—a struggle that collided with the changed strategic landscape of a region rent by conflict between the Ottoman and British empires from November 1914.     

Risk Factors and Drivers of Financial Sustainability in Local Government: An Empirical Study

The current international crisis in public finances has made financial sustainability a key issue for governments. Although the European Union (EU) and other international organisations have recommended governments to monitor demographic and economic variables, few studies have considered the influence of these variables on financial sustainability. This paper seeks to identify and analyse the drivers and risk factors that influence the financial sustainability of local government. The findings identify both risk factors (unemployment and population aged under 16 years) and drivers (budgetary outcome) of financial sustainability, which may constitute a useful basis for decision-taking by managers and policy-makers.     

Financial Sustainability as a Driver for Transparency and E-Democracy: A Comparative Study in Italian and Spanish Local Governments

Today expectations of accountability and trustworthiness in governing entities is greater than ever before. The process of change has been given impetus by new information and communication technologies resulting in e-government and e-democracy. This research aims to analyze transparency and democratic participation in Italian and Spanish LGs. The web pages of Italian and Spanish LGs with more than 100,000 inhabitants are analyzed using twenty determinants of fiscal transparency and eight determinants of e-democracy. Results show considerable similarity between Italian and Spanish LGs with regards to the disclosure of financial information, while the adoption of e-democracy tools requires further development in both countries.     

西部大开发 达州大发展

为使达州在西部大开发中得到大发展 ,中共达州市委召开全委会 ,作出了全面规划 ,决定从以下几个方面开展经济建设 :一着力调整经济结构 ,提高经济效益 ;二以交通为重点的基础设施建设 ,构筑跨越式发展快车道 ;三加强生态环境保护与建设 ,坚持走可持续发展道路 ;四坚持科教兴市 ,加强人才培养 ;五坚定不移地深化改革 ,全方位扩大对内对外开放。     

Redefining development for national security: implications for civil society

The effects of counter-terrorism legislation on civil-society organisations (CSOs) based in the South have received little attention in the wider literature. This article reports on the findings of a series of international workshops to examine the effects of such legislation, held in Lebanon, the Kyrgyz Republic, India, the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA. The evidence presented at these workshops suggests that counter-terror legislation is undermining the work of civil society in complex and interrelated ways.     

Veto player theory and reform making in Western Europe

Veto player theory generates predictions about governments’ capacity for policy change. Due to the difficulty of identifying significant laws needed to change the policy status quo, evidence about governments’ ability to change policy has been mostly provided for a limited number of reforms and single‐country studies. To evaluate the predictive power of veto player theory for policy making across time, policy areas and countries, a dataset was gathered that incorporates about 5,600 important government reform measures in the areas of social, labour, economic and taxation policy undertaken in 13 Western European countries from the mid‐1980s until the mid‐2000s. Veto player theory is applied in a combined model with other central theoretical expectations on policy change derived from political economy (crisis‐driven policy change) and partisan theory (ideology‐driven policy change). Robust support is found that governments introduce more reform measures when economic conditions are poor and when the government is positioned further away from the policy status quo. No empirical support is found for predictions of veto player theory in its pure form, where no differentiation between government types is made. However, the findings provide support for the veto player theory in the special case of minimal winning cabinets, where the support of all government parties is sufficient (in contrast to minority cabinets) and necessary (in contrast to oversized cabinets) for policy change. In particular, it is found that in minimal winning cabinets the ideological distance between the extreme government parties significantly decreases the government's ability to introduce reforms. These findings improve our understanding of reform making in parliamentary democracies and highlight important issues and open questions for future applications and tests of the veto player theory.     

西部大开发中环境行政立法的现状及其优化

环境行政立法是搞好西部大开发环境行政执法工作以及实现西部地区环境资源可持续利用和发展的重要基础性、前提性条件。近年来,虽然西部开发环境行政立法有了较快的发展,并在环境保护方面发挥了重要的作用,但因各种因素的制约或影响,在环境行政立法方面,客观上还存在诸多不足。本文在对西部大开发环境行政立法现状及所存在的主要问题进行分析的基础上,提出了优化西部大开发环境行政立法的具体对策建议。     

西部民族地区城镇化建设中税收优惠的法律经济学研究

本文在分析现阶段西部民族地区的税收优惠政策及其局限性的基础上,从法律经济学效益最大化的思想出发,指出在西部民族地区城镇化建设的税收优惠中必须依法治税,应当赋予部分西部民族地区政府地方税收立法权,还要落实西部民族地区自治机关的税收管理自治权。